Family and Black Friday

Outside of my mother, my family lives outside of Chicago. Every now and again, sometimes for no reason, my mom and I visit her brother and wife in semi-nearby Teagarden. It's under a two hour drive and we usually stop at one of the various rest stops and pick up some coffee and baked goods or something of that nature.

Yesterday's trip was no different. We made it out there in great time. The traffic was minimal on the way out. We did have a slight problem in that there are new roads that make the trip a little different. At one point as we pulled off of I think it was 31, we saw a mound of ravens. As the car drew closer, that ravens scattered to the skies and under them lay a dead deer. It had seen better days.

While that might have been a grim reminder of mortality and the dangers of animal crossings and interaction with humans, it was very visually impressive. Sorry if that sounds morbid but I'd never seen something of that nature so up close before with the crows and it was striking.

The traffic was even better on the return trip although there were no macabre sights.. While there was a slight amount of snow on the way out, it was clear sailing on the way in.

It was good to visit with my uncle.

I jokingly call him the Great Bear Hunter.

Like many people his age, in this case 78, he's done a lot. He is still at this moment doing things. This includes doing charity work as well as farming.  This includes pruning trees, making his own maple syrup from trees, growing potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, and pepper in addition to a variety of fruit.

I don't know where he gets the energy. He is a boundless machine always on the move and always onto something. For example, he has bird feeders and I managed to snag a picture of a woodpecker. We have them in Chicago but it's rare that one is essentially an outstretched arm away.

His wife Barbara, doesn't tell as many good stories but she is a great cook. The food we enjoyed was simple well prepared and in huge portions. It included all of the 'standard' fare such as turkey, ham, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, rolls, green bean casserole, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce (home made)

 and other goods that I've probably not given a proper nod to like the deviled eggs, which I don't eat.

All in all, it was a very pleasant time. My mom enjoyed herself greatly and that makes my own life much easier.

My own contributions were even more simple. I brought over a variety pack of Red Hook. My uncle was very pleased with it. Apparently he is a fan of ales which despite knowing him my whole life, I've never realized. Here he is "This is a hell of a beer." If only everyone was so easy to please.

My mom joked that she had spent all morning on baking this cake. It's a Sam's Club Cake. While Wal-Mart and the Waltons may be terrible people in what they do to the economy and people's lives, they make a damn fine cake.

I could feel my blood crystallizing to sugar as I ate it. It also reminded me to bring my own coffee for Barb's coffee machine. I don't know what brand or type they use but it is some of the worst coffee I've ever had. I keep pouring milk into it to give it some saving grace and by the time I was done, was drinking milk instead of coffee.

When I got home last night, I saw that Microsoft was doing a fantastic giveaway of music on their X-Box Music app. To get the deals though, you had to download the Music Deal App. Which when you clicked on the music, took you back to the Music App. Every time.

You suck Microsoft. Seriously ,that's just terrible design.

But thanks for the free music. You're okay in that venue at least. Some great stuff there and some stuff that I already owned, but remastered and expanded and deluxe versions. Good stuff and the price was awesome. Some stuff I also would never buy, like numerous country albums, but my mom is a huge fan and so burned onto CD for her!

I did burn through my blank's though/ Between my mom and me, while I appreciate the cloud and keeping everything there, I like to have physical media as a backup. So I ordered some blanks from Amazon. Officemax had them cheaper but then you had to pay tax and a good chunk for shipping and handling.

I then saw Amazon had a coupon for 30% off any book (code HOLIDAY30).  Since I'm a prime member, I had to decide if I was going to get anything. I narrowed it down between two books. One for 'fun' the other for gaming. The one for gaming is Inner Sea Gods for Pathfinder. I'm more interested in the background stuff. Some of the gods are fun and have analogs in traditional fantasy roles like Gorum for Tempus from Forgotten Realms. 

The other one I'm looking at is The Italian Wars 1494-1559: War, State and Society in Early Modern Europe. The KINDLE book is over $25 so with the 30% off, the physical book is probably a better deal. I freely admit that this is due to watching the two different Borgia series.

I went with Inner Sea Gods. Bad gamer! Then again, I'm running some Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition using the Pathfinder setting. I wanted a different set from Forgotten Realms. If you love what Wizards of the Coast has done with the setting, great. I hate it. If I ever ran Forgotten Realms again, it'd probably be with the setting pre-4th edition.

I also saw an author note that a compendium of five books, The Nameless Dwarf, was on sale for 99 cents in kindle format. How can you beat 99 cents for five books? They would have to be almost comedically bad to not get value out of that.

I'm probably going to check out Half Priced Books later on today and hit up the Microsoft Music store again. Usually Amazon with their various deals on Black Friday, has some great sales but this year both Google and Microsoft soundly beat them in pricing. 

Anyone else pick up anything great? Anyone take advantage of any of the various sales going on for the specialty items and things gamers love that usually don't hit the mainstream? 

Regardless of what else happens, have a great day!

Black Friday Gaming Sales

In America, Black Friday is when retailers pop up massive discounts to get bodies into the stores. It was added by Cyber Monday when online shops decided to get into the action. Now? Now it's pretty much all week, if not all month.

But that's also good new for gamers as there tend to be a lot of sales around this holiday season now anyway.

Miniature Market has a ton of stuff on sale. I placed an order there for some various Warmachine stuff and if funds were no problem, would have ordered a lot more. They have numerous board games for great prices too. The service is usually very good, and if you order more than $99 worth of stuff, the shipping is free.

Fantization does numerous sales throughout the year. In this instance, they're 15% off everything, and 20% off if you spend more than $250. I've used them many times before and they have a wide selection of materials. It's one of the few places for example, you can get Scale75 paint.

Michigan Toy Soldier is a true hobby store with paints from companies I just don't see at other vendors including Life Color. Their doing 20% off if you're a preferred vendor. Shipping is relatively fast and the selection can't be beat, especially if you're trying to get hold of say, Andrea paints or figures.

CoolMinorNot is having a 15% off. Perhaps not the highest discount but they have a wide range of miniatures that you're not going to find in a lot of places.

The War Store, another place I've done business with on several occasions that delivers fairly fast and doesn't have crazy shipping prices, is also doing their sale. Some heavy discounts on a lot of different things.

There are numerous others out there. Goodman Games is doing a sale for example, where you can get the PDF at a discount or even some physical copies of the variant covers. Catalyst games is having some. Litko if you're ooking for dice towers. Military books more your think, Osprey has a ton of stuff in their online shop for 25% off.

I hit my $$$ limit pretty eary between Miniature Market and the War Store picking up a bunch of Convergance stuff for Warmachine that I don't even play, but at those prices figures I could start too.

Anyone have any particular deals they found too good to pass up?

Easter Versus Istar

Neat little picture.

This article says nonsense.

Religion is a funny thing. It has to adopt to the times to survive.

I remember when I was in a particular religious study, they were discussing that Jesus was not accepted by the Jewish at the time because they were waiting for two kings; one a religious figure, which Jesus fit, and the other, a warrior king to throw the imperial rule of the Romans off them. It wasn't something I had heard before then, but they had a wide body of literature and theories to back their belief.

Since then I've seen a lot of studies that discuss how saints and angels are actually the incorporated gods and goddesses of the various countries that the Christian Church has occupied.

Time has a way of changing things in order to be more appealing to the people that practice it. Slavery for example, isn't something we have as a legal entity. Sure, we could argue the semantics of it back and forth in terms of having to have a job, and having to have enough money to survive and not work 80 hours a week, but hopefully no one has to worry about being whipped or beaten to death at work. Although boxers and people who work in the S&M may have something else to say about that.

Anyway, in terms of slavery, unless I"m really misremembering my bible, it's in there. There's even a whole section in there about how to treat your slaves.

Not something that comes up in every day conversation about the bible I'm sure.

It is one of the reasons why those who don't necessarily follow the bible, often want more than just "the bible says so" in terms of convincing arguments. The bible says a LOT of things. It's a very old book. It tried to cover a lot of ground for its time and still has a lot of relevance to many millions of people.

But as you can see above, in the whole Ishtar and Easter bit, we've still got a lot of theories on how things all work out.

In role playing games, it can be more difficult to do this. Many games have modern sensibilities despite their technological backward settings.  Any race or religion or culture that endorses slavery? Probably not going to be on the good guys side. Drow, orcs, and hobgoblins aren't traditionally the good guys and this is reflected in the evil things they do like have slaves.

But in terms of having symbolism and deities have all of these different culture elements incorporated into them, it can be more difficult in a setting like the Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk say, where the deities are actual entities. Would you put up with the dilution of your church in terms of someone changing your portfolios, symbols, and other elements? It's pretty much an bypass in terms of games that do this. It's not dungeon crawl enough.

When setting up your own campaigns, think about the impact that the deities and the social norms have on the setting not only in terms of adventure, but how they interact with the rules. Dungeons and Dragons, despite being the backbone of the industry (or Pathfinder), has its simplicity knobs in alignment and when acts are evil, like slavery, despite their widespread use in the ancient world, and parts of the world today, the two do not mix unless you have a lot of buy in from the players.

Someone playing a paladin for example in a culture where slavery is normal? Is that really a lawful good person? It's best to discuss what the appropriate roles and opinions of such elements are and how they can impact the players enjoyment of the setting and how they interact with it.

For those who celebrate the holiday, enjoy it! For those who don't, enjoy, what is turning out in Chicago at least, to be a beautiful day.

Happy Thanksgiving

I work in a factory with a wide diversity of people. One of them is from parts of the 'former U.S.S.R.'.

I asked him, "Hey, what do you guys do in stead of Thanksgiving."

He smiled and explained to me that it is the time to slaughter the pigs and make the sausage and have the festivals. That is it the time for family gatherings and to fry the fat from the slaughter animals. That is is a celebration of all things meaty and tasty and that its done in preperation of the winter.

Sounds like something that would be right at home in a fantasy setting from the old time. Mind you, I can never tell when the guy is messing with me, but he's passionate about his food and his descriptions of the various foodstuffs to be found sounded authentic to me.

So as you celebrate the carving of the Turkey, remember that others are having their own celebrations with their own backgrounds and their own traditions and think; how can I steal that for my game.

Halloween

So outside of working today, I managed to drive home, finish off some miniatures and ponder what, if anything, I could speak of on my blog.

For example, today is Halloween. I'm not expert on the roots of the holiday or where its origins are or even some of the more interesting things that series like Ghostbusters with Samhain.

And that in and of itself was my idea.

Today's populace isn't versed in the origins and roots of the holidays. In a fantasy setting or in a setting that's old and incredibly ancient, this can be a dangerous hubris. It may be during these holidays that the dances and celebrations and rituals are designed to keep things our or to keep things the way they've always been. They may be times when things from outside push against the boundries of reality in terms of being ready willing and able to serve.

For example, in Warhammer, demons are pure magic. The reason they don't dominate the world is that the world is magic poor. During certain holidays, perhaps that's no longer true and on those times, the demons are out.

There could be visitations by ancient entities from those origin points. If something dark and horrible and cyclopean staggered through time into our era, in America, would it be pleased to see how commercialized it's all become? Would it ponder why another holiday is already in mid celebration even though another holiday is before that? Or would it simply shrug it's shoulders and go looking for some candy?

Anyway, when thinking about the holidays in your campaign, don't forget their real origins for your campaign and what the current people think those holidays mean. The two aren't necessarily one and the same.

Happy Thanksgiving!

So its turkey day here in Chicago. Well, in America I suppose would be better said.

When thinking about it, the holiday is quite ritualized no?

A series of thanks given based on some old events.

A feast of a specific animal and veggies.

A post holiday series of shopping events.

In a fantasy campaign setting, things like that can be pretty standard.

Things that also should be looked at, are magical events. Every year, something happens at a specific time with specific results.

More unique opportunities though, are when you can have a creation of a holiday while the players are playing. Perhaps the death of a dragon? Perhaps the destruction of an orc horde? Every year after that, orc paper mache entities are crafted, destroyed, and set alfame to rerpesent the destruction of the orc horde.

Every year the city imports spieces and herbs to flavor meat and give it a certain taste, almost a dragonic taste...

There are enough ideas in a fantasy setting that it should be fairly easy to make something not only a holiday, but to make the players part of it.