Spring at last! Spring at last! Thank God Almighty it’s spring at last!

The “Great White North” is still white — but there are patches of green (well… brown) peeking through here and there. It’s still dark at 7:00 pm, and the temperature still dips below freezing at night… but the sun is up at 6, and the temps get into the upper 30s or low 40s during the day. The 5-foot snowbank at the end of the driveway is gradually shrinking, and there is a river of thawing ice on the sidewalk.

Another sure sign it’s spring? The streets here in Bangor are absolutely riddled with potholes, dips, and divots. Our poor car has been shaken and rattled as it rolls along.

Another week and a half, we get the time change, and we’ll really be feeling the springly vibes.

I’ve been working hard on another (and hopefully final) round of editing on Earthdawn Classic. We’re into the home stretch for real now. It’s only a matter of time. James is doing layout, and it looks like we’ll actually have a book out this spring.

In another bit of news, James and I will be at Origins this June. We won’t have a booth, but we will be running some events, pimping the book, and meeting a whole bunch of people that until recently we’ve only spoken with online. If you can make it, we’d love to meet you. Origins is in Columbus, Ohio, June 29-July 3. You can find out more at http://www.originsgames.com.

Two storms in one week?
Global warming is starting
To sound really keen.

White curtains outside.
A plow truck buries my car.
Winter, kiss my butt.

Here’s another thread item developed for my Earthdawn campaign.

Hunter’s Companion
Maximum Threads: 1
Spell Defense: 12

Hunter’s Companion is a large blue-green collar that appears to be made of some type of lizard hide. A silver clasp on the collar has a large incisor hanging from it. The clasp can be opened to remove the tooth from the collar.

The collar was made by the Beastmaster Zael, who lived before the Scourge. He was a member of the group known as the Spears of Tolor, which helped defend the city of Raj Tolor. The hide and the tooth came from the first Horror the group destroyed.

A storm wolf came to the group’s aid in the battle, and Zael formed a bond with the animal. The wolf, who became known as Frost, continued to travel with the group, and Zael crafted the collar to commemorate the event and The bond between Zael and Frost grew, and Zael eventually took Frost as his familiar.

The pair fell to a Horror attacking Raj Tolor, and were laid to rest in the vaults of the city fortress.

As the thread ranks of the collar increase, the animal wearing the collar develops physical characteristics reminiscent of a Horror. Its hide grows tougher, its muscular structure grow heavier, and its teeth and claws grow sharper and more feral in appearance.

Rank 1
Cost: 200
Key Knowledge: The user must learn the Name of the collar. In order to activate its powers, the character must wear the tooth as a pendant or brooch, and have an animal companion wear the collar.
Effect: The collar grants the animal wearing the collar the Durability talent at rank 1, raising its death and unconsciousness ratings by 6 and 5, respectively. The rank of the talent increases as the woven thread rank of the collar increases.

Rank 2
Cost: 300
Key Knowledge: The user must learn the name of the collar’s maker.
Effect: The animal’s hide toughens somewhat, granting the animal one additional point of physical armor.

Rank 3
Cost: 500
Key Knowledge: The user must learn the Name and species of Zael’s animal companion.
Effect: The animal becomes more flexible and fluid, granting a +1 step bonus to its attack tests.

Rank 4
Cost: 800
Key Knowledge: The owner must learn the Name of the group Zael belonged to.
Effect: The animal’s teeth and/or claws become sharper, granting it a +1 step bonus to damage tests.

Rank 5
Cost: 1300
Key Knowledge: The owner must learn the names of the other members of Zael’s group, the dwarf Elementalist Dunsin Aree and the troll Warrior Korin.
Effect: The changes to the animal become more pronounced, and the animal grows scaly plates on its body, granting a total of three points of physical armor.

Rank 6
Cost: 2100
Key Knowledge: The character must learn the final resting place of Zael and Frost.
Deed: The character travels to their resting place and swears a familiar oath with the animal wearing the collar. If they already share a familiar bond, they reaffirm that bond (at no additional damage cost). This legend award for this deed is 2,100 legend points.
Effect: The transformation is even more extreme. The bonuses to attack and damage each increase to +3 as result of the physical changes.

Rank 7
Cost: 3400
Key Knowledge: The owner must learn where Zael found the materials for the collar.
Effect: The collar grants the animal a karma pool. The pool has a maximum of 10 points, with a step 6 karma die. Points may be spent on any test the animal makes. Spent points normally refresh at the rate of one per week.

So… the weather has been strange around here lately.

We started off the month with a week of warm, spring-like, thaw weather. The snow was melting, and life was looking good (consider, here in the wilds of the North, we often don’t see spring until summertime).

Then, last Thursday and Friday we got hammered with a Nor’easter that blew in and dumped (at last tally) about a foot and a half of snow — in about 36 hours.

Global warming was sounding like a damn fine idea the fourth time I was out clearing the driveway.

And now, the last couple days… back to temps in the mid-upper 40s, snow melting… and this evening it was raining!

Strange weather indeed.

In my continuing efforts as an Earthdawn fan and booster, I have started up a play-by-post game of Earthdawn over at RPGnet, entitled “Scavenger Hunt” it is an introductory scenario of sorts, revolving around the election of a new magistrate in the city of Travar.

What is unusual about “elections” in Travar is that a group of wizards devises a series of challenges, and the candidates hire champions to take part in the tournament. Whichever candidate’s champions win the tournament, that candidate wins the magisterial seat.

It looks like it is going to be a good game. Here are links to the relevant forums if you’re interested:

The In-Character thread.

The Out-of-Character thread.

One of the players has also put together a Wiki for the game. You can visit it here.

I have posted a new entry in the Riders on the Storm saga. It is another brief entry, but transcribing it over from the original was somewhat… problematic due to the eccentricity of the player who wrote it.

You don’t want to miss this one — it needs to be seen to be believed.

Rensil: 13-18 Raquas, 1509 TH

I don’t know if any of you have seen the trailers for the latest “comic-book” movie to come out of Hollywood — Constantine — but I have to say that not since I learned Winona Ryder was playing opposite Richard #@$%-ing Gere in the woeful Autumn in New York has the casting of a film gotten me so riled up.

When I first learned that Constantine (based on DC’s Vertigo title Hellblazer) was being made, I was pleased… John Constantine is a great character, and while I haven’t followed the series closely, I have enjoyed the parts of it I have read — and his appearances in other DC books (like Sandman or The Books of Magic) have been fun.

Then I learned that Keanu Reeves is playing the titular role…

Keanu @#%$-ing Reeves!

Never mind that Keanu is a generally sucky, one-dimensional actor…

John Constantine is British! And based on what I’ve seen in the trailers, Keanu doesn’t even try a British accent…

(For which, I suppose I should be glad… we were probably looking at a degree of bad accent not seen since Kevin Kostner’s fabled attempts in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.)

What was that Shakesperean film Keanu was in with Kenneth Branagh? As You Like It? No… it was Much Ado About Nothing. (*shudder*)

Don’t get me wrong, there are some roles Keanu has done well in. Johnny Mnemonic has one of the greatest monolgues in the history of film — the “slag heap” speech, as my buddy called it. Priceless stuff. Besides, Johnny has had part of his brain removed — that would explain why his personality is so flat, and plays into one of Keanu’s strengths.

I mean sure, Constantine is a generally cool cucumber… but I’m sure there are any number of British actors who could do it better.

It’s a shame, really. It could have been so cool… and yet, Keanu makes me fear it will suck.

There is some potential for redemption in the person of Rachel Weisz… rowr.

We woke up this morning to find that a snowstorm snuck up on us last night. Here in Bangor we got about a foot of light, powdery white stuff. It wasn’t too difficult to clear away — the biggest problem was where to put it all.

Hopefully in the next day or two some pictures will be made available so you can see what we suffer up here… and why I refer to it as the “great white north.”

A couple of quick notes in reference to the Staff of the Aerie. The Legend Award for the deed at Rank 7 is 1300 Legend Points, and the oath sworn between the Elementalist and the spirit is a standard Blood Promise Oath. The sprit’s end of the bargain is to recharge the gemstone. The Elementalist’s end of the deal is left fot the Gamemaster to devise.

As I have been working on the site-wide adjustments to The Lore Merchant, I have also added some additional features. I have now added the option to syndicate the updates with ATOM. If you have a blog reader, or something along those lines, you can now get easy updates of the material. The link is in the menu bar to the right.