Tag: Richard G

TIL that in the 16th century Moldavia was an autonomous vassal state under the broad Ottoman umbrella, and briefly…

TIL that in the 16th century Moldavia was an autonomous vassal state under the broad Ottoman umbrella, and briefly independent from the turn of the 17th century through the 30 Years War.

A period of profound crisis followed. Moldavia stopped issuing its own coinage circa 1520, under Prince Ștefăniță, when it was confronted with rapid depletion of funds and rising demands from the Porte. …during the 1650s and 1660s, princes began relying on counterfeit coinage – usually copies of Swedish riksdalers

This is a lovely, legible map of Europe AFTER the 30 Years’ War.

This is a lovely, legible map of Europe AFTER the 30 Years’ War. It’s a century late and not perfectly reliable for the trade pbem and it’s not hexified, so I guess wait for the official version, but it does at least explain:

1. why you can’t go to Germany

2. why everyone hates Spain

3. why you don’t trifle with either the Austrians or the Poland-Lithuania Commonwealth.

OK guys, the trade game is totally starting in the next 2 weeks:

OK guys, the trade game is totally starting in the next 2 weeks:

Hey all

I am shortly (like within the next 2 weeks) going to be starting a pbem game of trading in 17th century Europe.

It’s like the Han Solo game in Traveller but just before The 30 Years War.

It is a test of rules I’ve been writing. They’re for LotFP but also work as a stand-alone trading and traveling game – by horse, cart, ship and letter of credit.

The year is 1599. You play a junior member of a rich European family. You have been loaned 1000sp with which to make your fortune in the next 2 years – whoever comes back with the most profit gets to be part of the East India Company and sail to the Spice Islands where money literally grows on trees.

Play will start in 1-week turns, (one week of game time = 1 week of real time) but hopefully speed up to 1 month per week. It will be conducted over email and/or discord, so it survives the demise of G+. There’s a map and info available about ports, wars etc. You decide what you’re going to do, how you’re using your money, where you’re going, and I DM it all, using bespoke rules for trade and sea fights. There is potential to get into trouble with pirates, capture each other, spread rumours, run blockades etc along the way.

Comment here if you’re interested – you’ll need to give me an email address. Maps, details forthcoming. Everyone is welcome.

(and CCH players: I will be restarting both games in the next 2-3 weeks too!)

(pictured: a Japanese image of the Portuguese carracks that used to show up regularly in the 1600-1630 period. This is how people imagine the prize on offer)

since I’m still receiving some notifications from community posts, I figured I’d put this here.

since I’m still receiving some notifications from community posts, I figured I’d put this here.

My forwarding address:

where to find me post G+:

mewe: mewe.com/i/richardg

pluspora: richardg@pluspora.com

blog: lurkerablog.wordpress.com

It looks like any future games I run – of Tartary, CCH or anything else – will probably happen over discord, once I figure out how.

discord: richardgrenville#1863

– server: countercolonialheistcrawl

– (that shows up for me as

https://discordapp.com/channels/522481264293576740/522481264293576757

dunno if that’s useful to you. The possibly out-of-date invite is

https://discord.gg/EhSVNj )

I’ve got an archive of this group (if it worked) and I’ll try to put it up on lurkerablog at some stage. Guys, it’s been amazing.

Originally shared by Richard G

Adam Thornton when you ran Eusyram’s Epic Adventure and Paolo Greco and I were borderline incoherent at the end, we were in Bois le Roi, outside Fontainebleau, France.

I just learned that William “Sparrow” Robinson, sports writer and barfly, purported inventor of the Old Pal, spent the final years of his life and died in Bois le Roi.

https://cold-glass.com/2013/03/05/the-mystery-of-the-old-pal-cocktail/

Harry McElhone’s origin story for the Old Pal is, I suppose, written in a pastiche of Robinson’s style.

I have not been able to establish in which house in particular, but I like the idea of him occupying one of the “Affolantes.”

http://www.leparisien.fr/bois-le-roi-77590/en-images-les-affolantes-des-maisons-de-villegiature-pittoresques-en-bord-de-seine-29-08-2017-7221582.php

https://www.baseball-fever.com/forum/general-baseball/history-of-the-game/21726-meet-the-sports-writers/page14?57538-Meet-The-Sports-Writers&s=8d542c6a56fda33b897bc118074fe517//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

Sometimes you find out that there were other people working on your project simultaneously all along.

Sometimes you find out that there were other people working on your project simultaneously all along.

Elia is a sculpture designed by Ingvar Cronhammar in Herning, Denmark. It is a large, spherical dome with four columns reaching 32 meters (105 ft). The dome, itself, has a diameter of 60 meters (200 ft). A large tube located in the center of the sculpture randomly blasts flames 8 meters (26 ft) into the air for about 25 seconds. These random bursts can occur anytime in periods of about two months and will not occur if it is too windy or if people are too close. * The work was inaugurated in September 2001

* concession because Denmark

Originally shared by Tore Nielsen

Elia,

Hands of production raised in approbation.

Heart of industry,

Spark of progress borne in Her iron womb.

Can ever the hands of man, reverently scarred by gear and furnace be worthy of

Elia?

yeah so, with hangouts going away at some point I’ve joined discord.

Originally shared by Richard G

yeah so, with hangouts going away at some point I’ve joined discord. I cannot promise to be there at any particular time, though, nor to be active on chat. But I guess it’s the best option now for videochat gaming?

The invite for countercolonialheistcrawl is

https://discord.gg/EhSVNj

apparently it will expire in 24 hours, so… whenever you see this and you’re ready to join, hit me up again.

https://discord.gg/EhSVNj//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

it’s nice to see Rufus Sewell getting more parts, if only because then more people might understand who the Dragon…

it’s nice to see Rufus Sewell getting more parts, if only because then more people might understand who the Dragon King is meant to be.

I will be picking this up on Mewe or pluspora unless someone has a better idea. I hear hangouts will also die sooner or later: maybe skype will provide the answer, if anyone has insight on that, too, that would be marvelous.

This is pretty much perfect Tartary, of a kind I could never have envisioned when the project started.

This is pretty much perfect Tartary, of a kind I could never have envisioned when the project started. Humans imitating bots to create bulk content, chasing ad revenue at the bottom end of investment and return, and the unwanted products traumatizing ignored children. Thanks Anne Hunter:

The architecture [Google has] built to extract the maximum revenue from online video is being hacked by persons unknown to abuse children, perhaps not even deliberately…. a small studio of people (half a dozen, maybe more) making high volumes of low quality content to reap ad revenue by tripping certain requirements of the system (length in particular seems to be a factor).

…online kids’ content is one of the few alternative ways of making money from 3D animation because the aesthetic standards are lower and independent production can profit through scale.

…In the official timeline, Peppa is appropriately reassured by a kindly dentist. In the version above, she is basically tortured, before turning into a series of Iron Man robots and performing the Learn Colours dance.

I don’t really want to use the term “human-led” any more about these videos, although they contain all the same tropes and actual people acting them out. I no longer have any idea what’s going on…

https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-internet-c39c471271d2//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

Declare LARPing.

Declare LARPing.

But it should go to Mt. Ararat, that’s nearer the Black Sea.

Originally shared by Rhys Taylor

A life-size replica of Noah’s Ark, built and moored in the Netherlands, could soon be making its way to Israel. The boat’s Dutch builder, Johan Huibers, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) last week that he hopes to take the vessel to Israel. “This is a copy of God’s ship. It only makes sense to take it to God’s land,” he said.

Yes. That makes perfect sense. I can find no faults with the logic whatsoever.

There’s a small hitch though. Although it is sea-worthy, the wooden vessel has no motor so it will need to be pulled by tugboats. The cost is estimated at more than €1 million. His second boat, finished in 2013, is 124 metres long, 22 metres high and weighs 2,500 tons. Built with €4 million-worth of donations, the Ark can carry more than 5,000 people on its five decks.

Which unfortunately is probably too small to house the entire population of Creationists.

https://www.euronews.com/2018/11/29/builder-of-life-size-noah-s-ark-plans-to-sail-boat-to-israel//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

I almost feel this is too easy but really, no Tartary collection could be complete without him.

I almost feel this is too easy but really, no Tartary collection could be complete without him.

Originally shared by Rhys Taylor

Completely bizarre and woefully misguided. Worth reading its entirety but here’s the condensed version.

Blair spent more than two decades as a construction worker, a trade that took a toll on his body. In the late 2000s, when the Great Recession hit and his industry slumped, he started looking for another source of income in liberal political blogging. But although it was fun and a few people started reading, blogging didn’t pay. And so he tried another tactic. He began to write fabricated tales that looked like real news headlines. Streams of consciousness flowed from his head to the keyboard.

When he saw the results online, the hundreds and thousands of likes and shares his posts were getting, he felt validated. Far more people were interested in fake news than Blair’s opinions or true stories.

He took on the personas of patriotic Americans outraged at President Obama, liberals, feminists, the Black Lives Matter movement and more. He delighted in people who took the lies for the truth and shared the stories as if they had come from real news websites. The success of the fakes led Blair to create a Facebook page called America’s Last Line of Defense. It was dedicated to fake news stories aimed at staunch Republicans and supporters of President Donald Drumpf.

The headlines were sensational and sometimes even offensive. They had one aim – to provoke an emotional response that would get people to share them. Blair himself describes the headlines he wrote as “racist and bigoted”. But they went viral – and those shares turned into clicks, which turned into cash.

Satire – not news, not opinion, and not propaganda – is how Blair [a committed liberal Democrat] describes his work. His aim is to trick conservative Americans into sharing false news, in the hope of showing what he calls their “stupidity”.

“We’ve gone out of our way to market it as satire, to make sure that everybody knows that this isn’t real,” he says, pointing out that some of his pages have more prominent disclaimers than the world-famous satire site The Onion.

Once his stories go viral, the Facebook comments burst forth. And that’s when Christopher Blair the fake news writer becomes Christopher Blair the crusading left-wing troll. The faker becomes the exposer, weeding out and reporting the most extreme users among his fans.

“I can show you hundreds of profiles we’ve had taken down,” he says. He claims that he’s exposed Ku Klux Klan members and hardcore racists. “We’ve had people fired from their jobs,” he says. “We’ve exposed them to their families. Say what you want about me being a monster. I’m pretty proud.”

Yeah, sure, expose and shame the chronic lunatics, but could you please do that without feeding the fires of hyperpartisan politics ? If you have to fake news – and you don’t – couldn’t you write fake stories that would work in favour of your (professed) own liberal policies rather than against them ?

Mad as clams.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/the_godfather_of_fake_news//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

Two trips down memory lane for the price of one:

Two trips down memory lane for the price of one:

a) maybe it’s because I’m English but I feel like we have a better visual understanding of London before the fire than pretty much any other definitively vanished 17th century place. Not sure about all those open braziers.

b) I remember doing these helicopter fly-throughs! Ah 1996, a more innocent time. These guys have better lighting and surface detail than we did in the 90s, though… wait. 2013??

…..I spent much of the noughties dreaming of finally making decent computer graphic historical reconstructions. I thought if you just did it well enough – and made it interactive – people would come. Turns out the Assassin’s Creed series of games is the closest analogue to actually get made so far and it achieves higher graphical quality than any non-commercial enterprise.

These guys are impressive for a 6-person team with limited funding but if you really want to realize their dream it’s probably best to pitch Ubisoft a pre-fire plot. Warning: they don’t pay any better than your hardscrabble academic project that nobody wants to fund.

http://www.openculture.com/2013/11/fly-through-17th-century-london.html//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

Beautiful.

Beautiful.

The emissaries of the Chinese and Cham empires use finely carved wooden tigers as passports: the tigers fit together perfectly with carvings held by ambassadors or viziers in tributary kingdoms, forming a kind of key/lock system of identifiers that it’s famously difficult to forge. They are also used to pass encrypted messages.

Originally shared by Brandes Stoddard

Grabbed from Twitter, and relevant to the interests of many of my friends.

So you’re writing a set of rules for handling trade in Europe in 1600-1650.

So you’re writing a set of rules for handling trade in Europe in 1600-1650. And one thing that is traded is distilled grain alcohol, often flavoured with some herbs, often barrel aged for at least a few months. What would you call it in the rules?

Complicating factors:

In the Netherlands this would be called jenever (no need to specify that it’s “oude” style in the 1600s, that’s all there is) or more likely korenwyn (literally “grain wine”). Or even more likely, brandewyn (“burning wine), which is where we get the word “brandy” from. But that’ll be either unfamiliar or outright confusing, since in English today “brandy” generally means French barrel-aged grape distillate, more narrowly termed “cognac.” Dutch Gin, standardized as we know it with juniper only started in about 1660.

In Scotland it might be called uisge (Whisky – short for uisge-beatha, lit. “water of life”), which neatly captures the barrel aging bit… except that they wouldn’t start barrel-aging whisky until about 1800 or so – before that it was a white spirit.

In the USA today people use the term “schnapps” for any sort of under-specified, flavoured distillate, although it’s more properly white spirits distilled from orchard fruits (like French eaux de vie). Depending on the audience, people will probably imagine either something radioactive-pink and sugary or ultra-high-end like a top shelf grappa.

So… choose one or tell me in comments, please!

Tartary is littered with pipelines and flyovers.

Tartary is littered with pipelines and flyovers. Most are broken or abandoned – conduits to far away places where the supply and demand have long since dried up. But a few are still running, pumping and dropping trash “unintentionally” on the people who inhabit the uninteresting places between.

Originally shared by Andres Soolo

If you liked how Russia built a pipeline through the Baltic Sea, bypassing Poland and everything to the east of it, so that its fossil fuel sales to West Europe wouldn’t be disturbed by political disturbances it’s been planning to cause in East Europe, you might also appreciate how China built a railroad through Iran so it could sell its manufactured goods to EMEA without a risk from any of the disturbances Russia might have been planning to cause on the New Silk Road.

The reality is that cutting a path across Russia is a long rail route that is only going to be attractive to high-value small objects which are still fairly limited in production volume in Xinjiang – and can now instead go along the route to Ukraine. Mass-produced, high-volume goods for which China is famous are much better placed going by sea to Europe. Unless, that is, the ultimate market is in the heart of the Eurasian continent. And this is where the route across Iran is interesting – connecting China’s markets directly to the bustling bazaars of the Middle East.

https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1913441/chinas-new-silk-road-designed-cut-russia-out-eurasian-trade//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

And we’re back.

And we’re back. The thing about the Goiania Accident is, it requires constant vigilance to keep it from happening again and again. And constant vigilance is hard to arrange even when you have a single responsible agency.

To quote Paolo Greco from the first post: radioactive scrap does way more damage than dirty bombs. Thing is, in one case, there’s a toxic and carcinogenic item that feels absolutely normal so it can keep ok killing for a long while. On the other, a bomb explodes, so the bomb squad arrives, and while it has already done victims at least there’s the option of someone bringing a radiometer.

Originally shared by Zedeck Siew

This Is What Malaysia Is Like:

Two dudes casually lose some Iridium-192 from off the back of their pick-up truck. Apparently it can be used to make dirty bombs — but barring terrorism our Atomic Energy Licensing Board mainly worries that:

” … the person who finds the device and has no knowledge of its content, may dismantle it to be sold as scrap metal, thus causing mass exposure to radioactive materials. “

https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2018/08/403235/exclusive-radioactive-device-missing

https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2018/08/403235/exclusive-radioactive-device-missing//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

it’s still happening.

it’s still happening.

Haven’t checked yet to see if these are from Gustavus Adolphus’s time, so not totally sure if counter-colonial.

Still, #nephilimheists

Originally shared by Chris L Sheppard

A very Conan-esque heist. Except maybe the motorboat part. So what do you think; enough XP to level up?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/swedish-royal-crown-jewels-thieves-motorboat-1.4769483//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

1905

1905

Japan: “Check it out, we’re white and successful like you, let’s rule the world together! We already beat up Russia and China!”

Europe: “Hell no, you are exotic and erotic but you’re not white and you’re not welcome.”

1980

Japan: “We’re successful like you, let’s manage the…”

Europe: “Sorry dudes but we’re glued to America, the guys who stopped you last time. Ninjas are cool and exotic but your multinationals are scary and you still smell of Yellow Peril to us.”

2018

Japan: “Guys…”

Europe: “Oh hell yes come on over here. Have you seen those dastandly Americans, Chinese and Russians?”

Originally shared by Jürgen Hubert

The best deals!

All made possible by Donald Trump.

https://news.sky.com/story/european-union-signs-its-biggest-ever-trade-deal-after-striking-agreement-with-japan-11439525//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

things nobody but me will care about:

things nobody but me will care about:

I finally found out how much it cost to ship grain from Poland to Amsterdam in CCH’s time frame.

This is important for writing trade rules because it’s the Olympic Gold of cheap freight carriage in the early 17th century – the run for which you need to play every trick, cut every corner, wheedle out of every bribe and drive your crew into penury, because it’s the most competitive shipping market in the world. Free, open market, safe seas (in peacetime), mostly clockwork weather, reliable supply and demand, low margin on the product. If anyone can shave a penny off the cost, they get the contract.

The record-holder is in 1621: fl 6.5 per kornlast for the round-trip, Amsterdam to Danzig and back. It would cost another fl 1.6 to get the damn stuff off the ship, weighed, and into a warehouse on arrival. After that, fl 2-3/month was common for storage costs, plus maybe another fl 0.3 for someone to come and turn it over every couple of days to stop it going moldy.

holy shit Howie Mandel is one of those glow in the dark scorpions that you can blast with insane amounts of…

holy shit Howie Mandel is one of those glow in the dark scorpions that you can blast with insane amounts of weirdness and they just shrug it off. You can see Mel B melting under the strain andHeidi’s gonna just break one day and let rip with an assault rifle but Howie will just keep smilin’ thru.

Around 1700 most of the insurance industry suddenly moved from Amsterdam to London.

Around 1700 most of the insurance industry suddenly moved from Amsterdam to London.

The Dutch East India Company’s most profitable period had been the 30 years immediately prior. During the 18th century, the Dutch empire fell and the British one rose.

Originally shared by Ade Oshineye

I remember when this would have been unthinkable

http://www.cityam.com/288691/going-dutch-london-stock-exchange-applies-amsterdam-trading//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

also, sharp little bits of plastic packaging

also, sharp little bits of plastic packaging

Originally shared by Roger Giner-Sorolla

I don’t know if you’ve read Ligotti’s story “Nethescurial”, but its revelation that the material of the universe is fundamentally horrid and repulsive just got realer (and with no help from any politician)

upside: SF will now have to include space car washes

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jun/27/space-is-full-of-dirty-toxic-grease-scientists-reveal//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

wednesday actual play report

wednesday actual play report

Originally shared by Andres Soolo

Baptising can be dangerful to your health.

Docho Eshete was conducting the ceremony for about 80 people on Sunday morning at Lake Abaya in Arba Minch town’s Merkeb Tabya district.

Residents and police told BBC Amharic a crocodile leapt from the water during the baptism and attacked him.

Pastor Docho died after being bitten on his legs, back and hands.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-44366360//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

odd byways CCH sends me down: this map of colonial/national interests in 1914 really brings home to me just how much…

odd byways CCH sends me down: this map of colonial/national interests in 1914 really brings home to me just how much of a land-grab there was in SE Asia during the high tide of colonialism. It’s easy to see why Japan suddenly figured it could hoover it all up after WW1 – especially if it simultaneously colonized China.

People think European Christians killed off the old traditions, but this young American man is about to get schooled…

People think European Christians killed off the old traditions, but this young American man is about to get schooled hard by a Toltec guardian spirit, which is using a cheap ladies’ face mask as a lure.

Originally shared by Mitch Wagner

J. C. Leyendecker https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/post/173200874382/dirtyturps-blog-j-c-leyendecker

Last week the Wednesday CCH group got into a gale just off Flores, and I got to test out my severe weather rules.

Last week the Wednesday CCH group got into a gale just off Flores, and I got to test out my severe weather rules. They are unforgiving:

– the korakora was lost at sea. Apart from 1 crocodile and 2 PCs, no survivors are expected;

– the prahu is badly damaged but still seaworthy, anchored just upwind of a reef (it’s the pinkish dot right in the middle of the map), hoping it can pass over the shoals in the event of its anchor cable getting cut by coral.

– the junk (orange dot to the right of the prahu) was badly damaged in the storm and then again when it lost an anchor. It has several broached compartments. It is currently resting on the reef, being buffeted by strong winds. As long as those winds die down rather than increasing again, it should be possible to ketch or winch it off the reef eventually without further losses. If the gale blows up again they may have to abandon it.

– the jacht is undamaged and anchored between reefs (the middle brown dot).

Once the weather calms down, the plan is to seek help from the Catholic mission on the east end of Flores or failing that, on Solor, the next island over.

The crocs say they’ve reached the “first place,” where they initially came into the world. Either here or just a bit farther south. Padre Antonio believes they must mean Eden. Spirit vision shows the PCs spirits of volcanoes and dragons on the big island off to the left. And they’ve discovered a curious island up in the top right there, which seems to be a giant shellfish of some kind, the mouth of its shell forming a flat sandy enclosure around a lagoon, shaded by palm trees. The crocs say it’s the Father of Sea Snails or maybe of The Sea. Tianzi is tempted to try to eat it, since that’s what he does with powerful entities. The crocs don’t think it would make a good body for their own Father, whose skull they have aboard the prahu. What they really want for that is either (a) a croc or (b) a fish or similar in the 60-80′ range.

…Padre Antonio wonders how the people at the mission could not realize that they’re living in Eden. But then, maybe they don’t have any helpful croc guides. Or maybe they’ve been eating rice and therefore haven’t been able to hear the spirit chatter all around them.

So obviously the Bajau (or “sea gypsies” as they’re sometimes known) are pretty central to CCH as an ethnicity that…

So obviously the Bajau (or “sea gypsies” as they’re sometimes known) are pretty central to CCH as an ethnicity that resists national pigeonholing. This article might have something to it – they’ve reportedly been a group apart for a long time. I would be super cautious about making any claims that a particular ethnic group is especially suited to any particular job, though (eg. Maori harpooners, Mohawk ironworkers) – that’s been a popular colonial trope ever since one group of people decided it was unusually well-suited to being the rulers of another.

In game, though, people believe all this stuff. Did you know Bajau interbred with mermaids and that’s why they can’t live a whole year on land? Balinese, on the other hand, will die if they spend a full month at sea. Some of this is just fold wisdom, some is printed in Chinese encyclopedias. In 1610 the farangs are still trying to figure out if Vitruvius was right, when he said that Africans have high voices because the sky is shorter down south.

Originally shared by Wil Hutton

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/04/bajau-sea-nomads-free-diving-spleen-science///cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

Extracts from a document on remote electro-magnetic mind control, purportedly in possession of the Dept.

Extracts from a document on remote electro-magnetic mind control, purportedly in possession of the Dept. of Homeland Security.

I totally get why some of these might be pursued as goals, not sure about others.

Most of all I suspect either someone misfiled papers or there’s a total nutter working in the archive department. Which should surprise nobody who has any archive experience.

Tonio Andrade, on the mix of military technologies in colonial warfare:

Tonio Andrade, on the mix of military technologies in colonial warfare:

“the Sultanate of Makassar [was] a powerful sea empire whose people were even then preparing for war against the Dutch, digging trenches, drilling with muskets and shooting Dutch sailors with poison blow darts.”

“To avoid the devastating Dutch broadsides, they approached the Dutch ships from behind, trying to climb up the steep backsides and storm aboard. When one junk managed to attach itself to the back of a Dutch ship, other junks attached themselves to that first junk, and soon the Dutch ships bore long tails of Chinese junks. Chinese soldiers stormed along these tails, yelling war cries and trying to clamber aboard.

The Dutch moved cannons into the officers’ cabins in the rear and pointed them out the portholes, blasting away at the boarders. As the ship’s log noted, we “greeted them in such a way that the blood flooded out from the gutters.””

Tonio Andrade: “Was the European Sailing Ship a Key Technology of Expansion?” IJMH

I never imagined this was how Cthulhu Ragnarok would go down.

I never imagined this was how Cthulhu Ragnarok would go down.

Originally shared by Isaac Kuo

Octopuses are literally shelling each other – using shells as underwater projectiles.

Mz Maau

https://www.npr.org/2015/08/30/436085657/watch-octopuses-appear-to-take-up-arms-as-submarine-warfare-escalates

https://www.npr.org/2015/08/30/436085657/watch-octopuses-appear-to-take-up-arms-as-submarine-warfare-escalates//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

First shot fired for the Monday gang.

First shot fired for the Monday gang. Swivel gun against the attack platform of a pirate canoe. Harpooneer removed, rowers discouraged.

Second shot: a battery of 20 rockets, at close range against a charging canoe full of desperadoes. All rockets hit. No survivors.

There… may be some truth in Paolo Greco’s observation that all my campaigns are essentially the same campaign.

I’ve said before that The Grandmaster is (a) Goldblum’s best part ever and (b) totally a character from Tartary.

I’ve said before that The Grandmaster is (a) Goldblum’s best part ever and (b) totally a character from Tartary. This just makes me want to resurrect Tartary if only to play the Khan of Khiva again!

Originally shared by Khairul Hisham

Team Darryl short.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl3VkYkMa6Q//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

Is anyone up for a “session zero” campaign planning session of Counter-colonial Heistcrawl Group 2, either tomorrow…

Is anyone up for a “session zero” campaign planning session of Counter-colonial Heistcrawl Group 2, either tomorrow 11am EST / 4pm GMT?

This is the group that would meet during daytime hours US time – weekly on Monday, Wednesday or Thursday, optimally around the time proposed or an hour later.

The plan I have in mind for this group involves less spirit magic and more trad piracy type shipboard action that the current, evening group. Beyond that, I’d like to meet with the players and plan out together a few parameters for the game.

So for the meeting… tomorrow/Friday? Monday? Wednesday?

it occurred to me that I hadn’t really described the relative sizes of ships that the players have run across yet.

it occurred to me that I hadn’t really described the relative sizes of ships that the players have run across yet. Left column: the PCs’ flotilla. Right column: the Portuguese carrack and Dutch jachts that they’re currently tussling with. Placed against a 10′ grid.

Not pictured: the relative heights above the water. The gunwale of the PCs’ tallest craft – the junk – projects 5′ above the water. The Korakora’s central platform is just 2.5′ over the water. The “pit” of the Dutch jacht (the lowest, central section between fore- and stern-castles) is 7.5′ above the water and the castles are about 5′ taller than that. The pit of the carrack is 9′ above the water and the castles are 2 stories high, so 11′ taller, reached by steep ladder.

Once again, the session goes to places I did not anticipate.

Once again, the session goes to places I did not anticipate.

Confronted by a big Portuguese carrack being pursued by two big Dutch jachts, the players contrive to drive all 3 ships onto shoals, the better to have them blast each other with cannon fire. They lift some muskets, food and water off the carrack and shoot up the Dutch ships sufficiently that their croc allies can do damage to the crew of one, while the other offers a white flag. As we end the session, the PCs are contemplating rowing out to the unharmed Dutch ship to accept its surrender, with the further plan of turning the surrendered ship’s guns on its already damaged companion. The complicating factor is that all this would have to be effected before the rising tide lifts all affected ships off their predicaments.

Loot so far:

18 musket-carbines

a ship’s boat (capable of carrying 24 people or being rowed by 16)

a half tun of water, 2 ankers of wine, olives, paiu (salted sausage), dry biscuit, a tun of beans and a tun of salted cod, cheese, and some blue square blocks stamped with the Ming Imperial seal.

Potentially a repaired Portuguese carrack.

Resoures expended: 3 penis pearls.

after-action report

after-action report

Action was thin on the ground this week. In efforts to prevent all the NPCs from starving to death, they were packed off on a fishing expedition, while the PCs mounted a raid on a Chinese pirate junk.

…turns out the junk had moved, but a trip up a tree trunk revealed (a) where it had moved to, (b) a mountainous massing of sails on the horizon, as of some great big galleon heading this way.

When night falls:

(a) the big sailing ship should be nearby

(b) the junk can be raided

(c) there should be at least 6 big breadfruit type things on the Barby: enough to feed the crew for one more day.

Meaningless complications:

1. somebody drowned aboard the prahu. Like, yes, drowned on the boat. Player are puzzled, threaten the sorcerer worms. Sorcerer worms are like “how much do you trust your henchmen?”

2. the junk they liberated from Chinese pirates has no cannon but it does have 1 ton of cannon ammo in the form of stout wooden harpoons with barbs top and bottom.

After-action report: full o worms

After-action report: full o worms

Our heroes are approached by a helpful bunch of sailors on an outrigger prahu. “Come aboard,” they say, “if you want to live. That hillside behind you is burning, come quickly we will take you to your friends.”

Several PCs struggle aboard, together with the 6 foot skull of King Croc and two brass cucurbits possibly containing djinn.

But it is a trap! Some are paralysed, some stabbed, some pushed into the water, some left on the mangrove shore.

It’s not a very good trap.

Tenzi kills the new burly and beturbanned body of Jun, the fire sorcerer, and declares himself the rightful emperor of all China, which is good enough for 2 of the sailors: they prostrate themselves and cease fighting. Tenzi hides the body away for eating later. Juen the paralyzer is in the body of a cabin boy – when that body is cut open it turns out to be full of black worms with red eyes. The sailors either surrender or are killed and eaten by crocs.

Night-black figures arrive from the sky – the recently-freed spirit-wrangler Pakpao learns from them that there is some scary presence approaching from the north.

The PCs decide to assemble their fleet of ships and rendez-vous at the south cliffs of the island.

The prahu is searched. Below decks they find a kris knife and a sooty bone spirit boat. Inside the spirit boat is a clove boat. The clove boat has little clove oarsmen. Lu Bu buries/plants the clove boat in a rough earthenware jar of dirt from the island. He then brings the jar back aboard the prahu.

The worms are talkative and insinuating. They are put in the poorly-stitched up skin of an arm, where they chitter and snicker and wriggle disturbingly.

One character is sure they saw a skinny black figure flit across to the hull of the prahu from the far outrigger, but searching in the dark of night reveals nothing.

The link is only tenuous – I just noticed belatedly that it’s winter Olympics time again.

The link is only tenuous – I just noticed belatedly that it’s winter Olympics time again. The last one acted as a smokescreen for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which was executed right over the Paralympics because (I bet you can fill the rest of that sentence in using your best Putin impersonation). So are we continuing the tradition this time? And if so, who’s getting invaded?

http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/2127744/north-korean-cheerleaders-army-beauties-set-invade-south-winter//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

Campaign Report

Campaign Report

The PCs braved the ring of burning frankincense trees and pulled out the Skull of King Croc! It’s 6 feet long, covered in warty bone spurs and has all its teeth intact. Now it wants a body. Something in the 60-80 foot range. Just as soon as it’s cooled down to the extent that it can go in the water without shattering.

They also hauled out 6 more normally-sized croc skulls and 2 of the many lead-sealed, brass containers that had been thrown into the crater, covered with cursed rocks, and surrounded with salt and copper and incense. The final one, that Prince Tenzi went back for, blew up as he got to it. He would have been killed right then if he hadn’t been incorporating a demon. His nice new golden hands are a souvenir of his brief divinity – when he wakes up he suffers severe nausea brought on by the fact that he can now see through eyes in his palms.

These bunkers, have you noticed how much like sewer pipes they look?

These bunkers, have you noticed how much like sewer pipes they look?

Is… is there a big stopcock somewhere around here? Are we in danger of being flushed?

Originally shared by Jennifer Linsky

I have very mixed feelings about this particular microhouse.

On the one hand, it’s about the size of Ran’s apartment in Lunagrad, which Ran is certainly happy to have. On the other hand, in Ran’s own words, “[Luna] is not like Earth, where you can just throw some sticks and mud together and call it a house. Here on the Moon, we have to excavate all our living spaces.”

The price quoted (U$15k, not including the land it sits on) is… well, frankly, it’s exorbitant. But it’s also designed for Hong Kong, and real estate in Hong Kong is worse than real estate in NYC. And, just as frankly, when I was living in NYC, I probably would have been happy to find something like this at that price.

Most importantly, though, it seems like it’s part of the package being sold to post-Baby Boomers. Accept less. Aspire to less. Be less. And oh, by the way, we’re going to guilt trip you for being greedy while you’re accepting that you have to live in your car, or in a drain pipe.

Sigh.

https://newatlas.com/opod-tube-housing/52835///cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

In 20 minutes the context for this will be lost, so I’m going to preserve it here.

In 20 minutes the context for this will be lost, so I’m going to preserve it here.

Donald Trump ttweeted that he had a bigger red button than Kim Jong Un, threatening North Korea and all of us with nuclear war as/via a dick-waving social media flourish.

And then this. Reportedly Don also eats a lot of McDonalds because he’s afraid anyone who knows him will poison him, so fast food rivalry might not even be the point.

http://www.businessinsider.de/trump-loves-mcdonalds-afraid-of-being-poisoned-2018-1?r=US&IR=T

Originally shared by Kee Hinckley

“what stage of capitalism is it where brands imitate threats of nuclear war to sell fried chicken”

https://twitter.com/athertonkd/status/948601591841439744?ref_src=twcamp%5Eshare%7Ctwsrc%5Eios%7Ctwgr%5Ecom.google.GooglePlus.ShareExtension//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

This is genius. Why did I not see it coming?

This is genius. Why did I not see it coming?

….strictly it’s just another version of the God Machine: the thunder spoke and it told me we must make these changes in our society

– fine. But what exactly is the status of this utterance? Is it the thunder spoke or the thunder farted? Is (she) robot Fatima or robot Maria? Does (she) speak with the voice of the conscience of the community, or the voice of a deceiving demoness?

This is some wild trial ballooning, is what I’m saying.

Originally shared by John Hagel

Sophia, the AI-powered robot that became a Saudi citizen, is now fighting for the rights of women in that country. Maybe robots will be needed to fight for the rights that all humans deserve

http://bit.ly/2kKNswY//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

All this time I’ve been worrying about how outer space can possibly be underwater in Tartary and here, the answer…

All this time I’ve been worrying about how outer space can possibly be underwater in Tartary and here, the answer has been staring me in the face. I need to be a bit stupider about it.

Originally shared by Jouni Pohjola

Continuing on the theme of the Flat Earth Conference.

Not sure how smoking improves one’s ability to hide a conspiracy but apparently it does.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/11/13/this-is-what-the-qa-session-at-a-flat-earth-conference-looks-like///cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

last night in cch:

last night in cch:

– it turned out that one of the npcs was Jeremy Duncan’s disreputable Japanese warrior monk all along!

– 2 Chinese guards nearly TPK’d the group. More and more PCs of absent players were called in to the fight. Miraculously, no PCs died (although some feel like they did).

– the PCs set fire to, then investigated The Hut Containing All The Starting Equipment! Rejoice b/c you actually have the stuff it says on your character sheet!

And they made a big beacon fire out of the frankincense grove around King Croc’s pit. There is now a giant fragrant smoke tornado, which will be rising for a couple of days at least.

“The USSR offered to pay Pepsi with a fleet of diesel ships.

Originally shared by Bob Bain

“The USSR offered to pay Pepsi with a fleet of diesel ships. Pepsi accepted the deal because they knew that it was the only way to continue to sell Pepsi in the USSR. The agreement included 17 submarines, a cruiser, a frigate and a destroyer, which were sold to a Swedish company for scrap recycling. Those 17 submarines made Pepsi become, for a few days, the 6th largest military power in the world by number of diesel submarines. The president of Pepsi, Donald Kendall, told the National Security Adviser of USA: “We are disarming the USSR faster than you”.”

You didn’t REALLY believe they scrapped all those submarines, did you?

http://www.redkalinka.com/Russian-Blog/78/_The-day-Pepsi-became-a-great-military-power///cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

I’m going to see if I can buy this. Which will mean trying to reactivate my facebook account, I guess…?

I’m going to see if I can buy this. Which will mean trying to reactivate my facebook account, I guess…?

Here’s an interview with the team, contains facebook link that my phone won’t copypaste:

http://tagsessions.blogspot.ca/2017/10/review-tadhana.html

Originally shared by Alex “Dungeon Daddy” Mayo

This is pretty rad.

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/scitech/technology/632378/tadhana-is-a-filipino-tabletop-rpg-that-beautifully-encapsulates-local-myths/story///cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

TIL:

TIL:

historians Robert Friedel and Paul Israel list 22 inventors of incandescent lamps prior to Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison. They conclude that Edison’s version was able to outstrip the others because of a combination of three factors: an effective incandescent material, a higher vacuum than others were able to achieve (by use of the Sprengel pump) and a high resistance that made power distribution from a centralized source economically viable.

My man Humphry Davy heads the list, but this is beginning to sound like one of those cases where it was actually the Dutch Arabs Chinese in 2000 BC.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js