Nightmares in an Electric City

This was a submission for the Sword and Laser short story anthology...I don't remember when it was, but it was quite a while ago.  I did not get into the anthology, but I thought I actually did a pretty decent job on this story.  Let me know what you think!

I've returned!

Hey there, I've returned.  I'm probably going to be doing some renovation and cleaning up around here.  I want to start actually having a viable blog here to use as a portfolio.  I also want to get back into putting up reviews and top 10 lists again.  Cause, holy crap while I've been gone...Pathfinder stuff!  Dungeons and Dragons came out with a fifth edition!  And it doesn't suck.  Mostly.  Unless you're a spell-caster...then it's...rough.

Anyway I'll be posting up some work I've done in the meantime, so enjoy!

It is here!

Well, we have come to an interesting point in my adventure.  I have finally taken that first step in putting up a collection of short stories for you all to purchase.  Right now I only have it available here at Amazon for the Kindle.

In a couple of months, I'll be putting making it available on other formats for people.  For now though, it is on Amazon.  Please support my dream and purchase a copy.  For just $2.99, you can help me get one step closer to my goal of becoming a "real" boy...I mean, writer.

Yes, for the meager sum of $2.99, you can be transported to a magical realm of wizards and kings, inventors and treasure hunters!  So please, check it out, leave a rating and a review (if you feel so inclined, and I thank you ahead of time for purchasing a copy.

New day, new post!

I sit here as my Monday begins and I think of things that I find enjoyable.  Like video games...and reading...and dungeons and dragons.  I'm not hard to make happy.  This morning however...eesh.

Alternative for Gaming Mats

So recently I came across a company named Banners on the Cheap.  Basically, they make those giant, vinyl, sale banners that people put out in front of their stores for you to see.  I saw here that someone had used them though to print out a battle mat.  Being the resourceful sort, especially since their prices are much lower then Chessex, I figured I would give it a try and see if I could acquire a battle mat for cheap.

Vinyl Banners
See the results after the jump!

Class Look: Fighter

Okay...so I'm lame. Took me a while, but I finally got the fighter class look finished. It mostly took this long because I was having a hard time coming up with some good archtypes to use for the fighter. Mostly it had to do with...well, let's just get into the review, shall we?

I'm back!

Alright, so finals are over and I passed all my classes! That means we will be getting back on track here and getting you more updates and articles on a regular schedule again.

I did want to talk quickly about the Dungeons and Dragons Next Playtest. I signed up for it a while ago, thinking it might be fun and enjoyable to see how much worse Wizards of the Coast is being forced to make the game I love. I mean, I really didn't enjoy 4th edition at all. I don't really blame Wizards of the Coast for that though, I personally think it has more to do with Hasbro then anything else.

Update Slow Down

Sorry for the no post this week guys, I'm finishing up school for the semester and trying to make sure I get everything done in time.  Next week I'll be sure to give you guys my thoughts on the fighter class!

Class Look: Druid

Welcome back, good gamers! This time we will look at another class from the game that I love to play, Dungeons and Dragons. Continuing our look at the base classes, we will be moving on to the Druid. I've played the druid a total of once before, and she died really fast (stupid Tojanida). However, the time that I spent playing her was a lot of fun and I wouldn't mind another chance to do so again.

Without further preamble, the Druid!

Class Look: Cleric

The cleric is one of those classes that seems to have a love/hate relationship with players. Everyone wants to have one in the party, but no one typically ever wants to play one. I personally enjoy clerics, though I do dislike how many people think of them as mere heal bots and nothing else. Clerics have a wide range of spells and abilities that can be utilized, well beyond mere healing.

Class Look: Bard

Bards...ah Bards. The second Dungeons and Dragons class that I ever played (my first was a paladin). I've always enjoyed them because I just always thought they were the most bad ass of adventurers. Think about it. Look at what the rest of the party is entering the dungeon with: fighters with sword, armor and shield, clerics with the power of their gods, rogues with skill and cunning, wizards with a wealth of magical knowledge and spells to protect them from danger. What does a bard go in with? A song and a lute.

Hey, the bard wants his money pouch back. It's the one with BMF on it.

Class Look: Barbarian

Greetings! Today I am starting a new series I've been working on for a while now. Part of loving Dungeons and Dragons is being able to play the various classes. Being a part of a team and delving into the depths of a dungeon is absolutely the best part of the game for me.

Some of you may be new to the game and may be asking, “What class should I start with?”. Or you may be a veteran who is feeling tired of playing the core classes and wanting something different. You don't need to reach for that supplemental book quite yet, good sir! The core classes in my opinion will always be the best and most enjoyable to play and I rarely ever stray from them when picking a class for a campaign.

Today, we are going to look at the Barbarian. Over the next several entries, I'll go over the other core classes. I plan to lay out not just why the class is fun to play, but will also list the difficulty of playing a certain class, good race combinations, and various arch-types that you can use while playing the class. One other note, I will be using the Pathfinder versions of the various classes, since that is the rule set that that my group is currently using.

Today is a good day

Hey, so just a quick message for now that Geek and Sundry went up today and looks to be a fantastic new website.  I am a big fan of The Guild personally, so I'm pretty excited to see it continuing there.

Also, there looks to be a new show from Wil Wheaton called Tabletop that pits celebrities against each other with board games.  I love board games and Wil Wheaton, so what could be bad about it?

It all starts today, so I'm looking forward to seeing some quality content from the site in the days to come.  If you haven't already, go check it out!

Seeing the Hunger Games, Panem Style

So, there is this movie that came out recently called 'The Hunger Games'.  I read the books right around the time the movie was announced.  A friend of mine told me that they worth a read and let me borrow her copy.  And like a zombie plague, once I finished reading it I swiftly started infecting all my friends, telling them to read it as well as it was a good book.

As you've seen before on my blog, I am sort of interested in strong, independent female characters who aren't defined by their gender or relationships.  And this series certainly fit that with Katniss.  She is absolutely a great role model for young women everywhere (unlike a certain vampire/were-wolf obsessed cultural phenomenon that is quite possibly the worst role-model for the women of the world).  So I was excited about seeing the book made into a movie, with of course the usual reservation that us book reading types have for movie adaptations.

But went my girlfriend and I did.  But not to just the local theater.  Oh no.  My girlfriend had purchased a Groupon recently for a ticket and dinner at the Muvico Theater down in Thousand Oaks.  I had never heard of the place, but once I saw what it was, I geeked out.  In my opinion, we were basically seeing the Hunger Games in true Panem fashion.  After the jump, I'll describe our experience and my thoughts on why almost every theater in the world needs to refurbish and reopen with the same features as Muvico.

Emperor Mage

 Today I thought I'd give you guys a little glimpse at the backstory of the first major villain of my world, Emperor Castor Broodan.  I hope you all enjoy it and feel free to leave a comment if you'd like.

The Kobold Expedition

Alright folks.  I have a Monday morning treat for you!  I have taken the first part of my campaign arc "Rise of the Dragon Kings" and turned it into a PDF for your downloading enjoyment.

Now, this is only the first part of the first adventure.  It just serves as a jumping point for the rest of the campaign and I hope you will all find it enjoyable.  Again, not that I get much, any and all constructive criticism is welcome and appreciated.

Now, as with most things pertaining to my world and game, please keep in mind that everything is in Alpha right now.  This adventure was play tested by my table-top group and it seemed to go over well.  The adventure is intended for a level 2 party and uses the Pathfinder rule-set, so keep that in mind as well.

Enjoy!

The Kobold Expedition - Level 2

Baldur's Gate, Getting Hit by a Car and My Childhood

Yesterday, some interesting things happened.  The main one being the announcement of a Enhanced edition of Baldur's Gate I and II by a company called Overhaul Games.  I'm not going to go too much into what my thoughts are about the enhanced version today because today I just want to wax nostalgic about Baldur's Gate and how important it was to me in my formative years.  Oh yeah, and I got hit by a car while I was taking a walk.

Don't worry, it'll all tie together after the jump.

And now for something completely different

Today I'm going to give you guys a glimpse into a story I started.  This was written years ago, and it was mostly to serve as a background for Mantarok as a character in my table-top DnD game.   Then I kind of shelved it and created other characters I wanted to expand on.  The problem now is that almost all of those people are NPC's in my home-brew world and all current stories that I write take place in that world.  The next couple of entries you should consider as stand alone little tales.  I may incorporate them into actual canonical stories eventually, but for now just enjoy the story as-is.

Shiny New Toys!

So I created a couple of items for my game.  Some are generic magic items with just a lot of various abilities, but a couple are world specific artifacts or just powerful items that I figured I would share with you all today.

Soooooo...this happened.

So, I tend to try to keep this blog fairly focused on Dungeons and Dragons, or at least loosely related to DnD.  I also try to keep my personal life a bit separated from it, mostly because I know you guys don't want to read about my problems.  And also because I also don't want to focus on negative things on here, mostly positive stuff.

However, an event took place today that is personal in nature, but also will effect the direction and focus of the blog.  Essentially, I am going to have a lot more free time to work on the blog and my writing because I got fired from my job today.  I've never been fired before, so it is kind of a weird feeling.  I'm not particularly happy about it...but I'm also not particularly sad about it.  I hadn't been enjoying the job lately, and honestly I was more excited about coming home and working on writing or blog entries.  So it is kind of a blessing in disguise, I suppose.

I'm hoping to get a new job soon, but in the meantime, expect a lot more updates during the week for a little bit because I'm going to be trying to dedicate any and all free time to working on various stories or scripts for the blog.  Hopefully, I'll be able to get my web-cam soon and still be able to start recording some video blog entries for you guys.

So keep reading and enjoy my extra free time!