Why the Blog is Dry: State of the Blog 1.5.1

[This is some more blog cleanup for regular readers. I've addressed a little bit of this in the 1-and-a-halfth anniversary post of the blog, but I've decided you all deserve something less vague. As an apology, please enjoy J. M. W. Turner's Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbor's Mouth]

So, most of the way through the month of July, and only four blog posts so far (including this one). Not my finest moment. I don't expect to publish more than seven this month. Two of those will likely be Castle Xyntillan session reports, one of last week's session and the other of the upcoming session which is approaching much faster than expected. The third is a gameable post detailing Earthsea-inspired True Names and incorporating them into your campaign. Count that one as my monthly 'please notice me Ben!' post.

As to why my blogging rate has dropped so precipitously, it's for two reasons.

First, it's because for the last several weeks I've been knee-deep in an investigation of Vajrayana Buddhism, psychedelics, artificial intelligence, the history of classical North Africa, post-structuralist philosophy, meta-rationality and classic guitar. I've been ping-ponging unreliably from one subject to another, which results in an intellectually exhausting and not wholly productive practice which leaves little room for RPG blogging. My main source for much of this investigation is the former MIT AI reseracher/former pagan warlock/tantric Buddhist/metaphysics blogger/satirical vampire romance writer David Chapman. I recommend most everything he writes, it's a trip.

The second reason is that my plans for the next year have been up in the air for a little while, albeit in a good way all things considered. A few weeks ago it seemed certain, then it was uncertain, and now it seems somewhat certain again with some bureaucratic nonsense yet to be dealt with. 

As a result of that latter reason, this dry spell is likely to last through the month of August. Thankfully, my time zone won't be changing.

All this is a belated apology to my regular readers. I won't be advertising this post elsewhere, partly due to the odd aversion to self-promotion I described in my last SOTB post, but also as a lead up to some de-anonymization on my part, which I feel overdue, inspired in large part by this post by Jacob Falkovich. My blogger handle as 'The Byzantine' stems from my start on the platform, when I wasn't at all sure if it would stick or how much I wanted to reveal about myself. I already go under a compression of my real name on the Discord and other platforms, and have contributed to some group projects under my real name, so coy anonymity doesn't cut it anymore, and ought to be replaced by slightly vague pseudonymity.

My name is Nicolas Roman. I am a European-American of rather cyclopean heritage, currently residing in Europe. I am a student in a top-ten ranked US university, where I just completed my freshman year and expect to take a leave of absence over the next year for rather obvious reasons. I am an atheist, and am distinctly not spiritual, though I hold a considerable interest in world mystic traditions, including tantric Buddhism and Kabbalah. I hold some radical political views, probably not the ones you're imagining at the moment, and am fnord strongly committed to the virtues of open conversation, tolerance and mutual understanding. My major intellectual influences are Yudkowsky-style rationality and Taleb-style rationality, which often come into fruitful contradiction. I am a metalhead, and especially enjoy the work of Dio, Judas Priest and Accept. My marketable skills include above-average skill in technical writing and mathematics, experience wresting with lateral thinking and meta-rationality, the ability to appear highly cultured and/or bohemian at the drop of a hat, a decent intuitive sense of contemporary macreconomics, fluency in English and Spanish, passable knowledge of Hebrew, pretensions to speaking Italian and Swedish, ready recall of a wide range of facts and anecdotes of dubious import, and the ability to write self-aggrandizing resumés. 

This has all been wonderful to get off my chest. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Joesky Tax

I was going to include this one on the next session report, but since my players already faced this down, there's hardly any harm in moving it up. Enjoy.

Gristle Knight: Fighter 4+4; AC 2 [17]; Sav 11; Atk, sword 1d8+1; Spec distribute attacks among 4HD of opponents, immune to fire, attacks at +9; ML 11; AL C; The Wishbone 

Hp 26 

Blind, but can sense heat in 10’, hotter objects hide cooler ones. 

The Wishbone: Bone-hilted damascened longsword +1, capable of touching ghosts. 

An exiled animated armor, cursed to wander Xyntillan’s halls. Recently released from containment by the Groomsmen, whose hirelings it decimated. It has repaired itself using bone and gristle from the dead hirelings, including making a pauldron from the skull of Fideaux the hunting dog.

(Note: This was originally just the damaged animated armor from room J12 in the book, which the party encountered and fought almost by accident. I completely misinterpreted Fighter 4+4 to indicate it fought at a +8 to hit. Oops. If not for that, the party might have beaten it instead of running away screaming. So I reworked it, and made it into something a bit more special. The heat vision came out of its unusual behavior in their first encounter. I sent it against the party in the last session, hoping to give them a good challenge, but judicious spell use and tactics cut it to shreds. Time to up my game.)