A to Zed - the rest of 'em

For those keeping track, I ended off with the Elder Scrolls in this challenge. I've been absent for quite some time. Between just not being around and a curiously dodgy internet connection, there's been little time for the web, or Blogger for that matter. Now, instead of spamming everyone's blog watch I'll condense the rest of my list into one post, that you may at least know where I was going to go.

Frank Herbert - the mastermind behind Dune and various other works of science fiction. Besides my long-standing love for Dune, his Destination: Void (The Jesus Incident being my favorite) series and The Dragon in the Sea are some of my favorites of his works.

Gyrojet - Gyrojet were a unique family of weapons back in the 60's that utilized gyroscopically stabilized microjet bullets for projectiles. Poor manufacturing and design dashed their chances of becoming any more than a curiosity. I first encountered these weapons in the role-playing game, Star Frontiers. Curious as to the nature, I did some research and was very pleased with what I had stumbled upon. The designs of the real world Gyrojets even had the visual aesthetics of fire-arms in Traveller.

Hivers - Given my fixation with non-human sapients, the hivers of Traveller fame were a welcome discovery. Their bodies are fine examples of symmetry, with a distinct society and culture.

Illithid - The Mind Flayer, the brain lasher, cutter, devourer, alhoon, and et cetera ad infinum. They're freaking aliens that eat fantasy adventurer brains; what's not to like? These practically build adventures on their own.

Jason and the Argonauts - Any person considering inspirational flicks to watch prior to running a game should see this beauty. The combat isn't retardedly choreographed, the monsters are mean, and the stop-motion animation still looks fluid.

Knights -I would have prefered to have done a bit on armsmen, or "men-at-arms," though knights are these things. Though there has been, I believe, two paladins throughout our group's entire history together, not one knight has ever truly graced its collective chronicles. Whether it be an errant knight, or merely nobility.

Lüscher -My family name; a Swiss name. I like pole-arms, but no, I'm not some autist with a thing for tables and charts. There is history behind this name, though I know so little of it. My grandfather came to North America after his stint as a missionary and eventually married, then later moved to Canada where when he retired, he took up farming. I've seen pictures of the Lüscher homestead in Aargau, somewhere near Muhen in Switzerland. It was a thatch-roof structure that I believe has since been torn down decades ago. Should I ever get a chance to see Europe I would much like to meet his family, and also give Mr. Giger a good handshake, and buy a pint. My name means roughly "he who lives near reeds."

Marathon Series - One of Bungie Software's flagship series. Originally for the personal Macintosh computer, the games were later ported to Windows. Totaling three games, each starts right where the previous left off; going from first contact with a hostile (aren't they all?) collective of races, the generation ship, Marathon, and its colony on Tau Ceti, is assaulted, to later adventures near the galactic core in a stolen vessel with a rampant AI, (and a good supply of expendable human meat-bags). The first game was instrumental in story-telling within first-perspective video games. For those even remotely interested, I heartily recommend going to Bungie.org and downloading Aleph One (all Operating Systems), and the three accompanying games. Marathons RED, Evil and Morgana's Revenge are also available there, and while fan projects, each are built to a high standard, almost befitting professional standards.

Non-Humanity - This is a recurring interest of mine. Sapient life of any matter, form, or environment, that is by definition alien. It could think completely different and apply obscene logics that make sense only to themselves, and it could be bizarre anatomy and senses that stand apart from ours. Basically, while I do enjoy 'men in rubber suits' aliens, I get a figurative hard-on, (pardon my vulgarity), just guessing at and musing how life not like our own would function.

OD&D - When I first encountered Dungeons & Dragons, it was as AD&D 2nd Edition, and that was just before 3rd started doing the rounds. I've never had a real copy of the three Little Brown Books, but once their realm was known to me, and I made my first step past the threshold, I knew what Arneson and Gygax had done, was lost with time, and edition. There is no purist here; I play anything set before me (except 4th Ed., once was enough!), but I am lessened for knowing too few do or want to play the game as it was. As a result, I also became quite interested in the history and development of the game, and later found things like a copy of the First Fantasy Campaign, and the lovely sites Hidden in Shadows, and Philotomy's OD&D Musings.

Pathways into Darkness - Before there was Marathon, there were pathways into darkness, and they  were full of things that go bump in the night. Though most certainly not fantasy, this was a dungeon crawl; with guns, the dead, Nazis, aliens, and skinny Buddha monks. Popular oppinion says Marathon shares more than just a few easter eggs with this gem of a crawler. As of yet though, still no Windows port or source game.

Querulous - And I don't mean the adjective. Arne of Querulous, his blog, has been to some manner of degree an inspiration to me when it comes to visual design, and just video games in general. Through his web log, there is often re-imaginings of various old game series, and other media icons. He is also responsible for Android Arts and Prometheus Spawning Grounds 7. For anyone simply interested in just looking at pretty pictures, or interested in something to ruminate over if video games are an interest of theirs, I heartily suggest taking a gander. His material on Exile is some of my favorite, given how he somehow makes an awesome game better!

Robert A. Heinlein - If you couldn't already guess, I dig science fiction, and the older stuff moreso. Mr. Heinlein is no exception. And I don't care what claim Games Workshop supposedly has to 'space marines', given that this guy (and a coupla' others) all beat those toads to it, (and can make more interesting space marines to boot!)

Syd Mead - A futurist artist of great repute and resume. A good chunk of his early days were doing futuristic paintings for Ford. If I were to look at a non-dystopic future, I would see it in his worlds. The stylings have 50's leanings, but with the right counter of post-modernism to balance it out. The new world look may not be to everyone's tastes, but there's hope, and a bright future to be had in each of his works, and it is things like his paintings that keep my hopes for the future high. That sounded pretty corny, no? All the same, this man is my favorite visual artist ever.

Tales from Earthsea - Or Gedo Senki, is an animated film by Studio Ghibli roughly(?) based on a collection of stories under the same name, as I recall tell. I've only ever watched it a few times, but the setting, along with various other objects and designs that persist about the world made it special. And definitely a setting I would enjoy running or playing a campaign to.

Unobtainium - Phlebotinum, handwavium, et cetera. This is the magical sauce, the stuff, and the E-99 that makes the latest gadgets, gizmos and reactors run on all cylinders. Often a plot point or enabler in any piece of fiction, without Unobtainium we would instead have to rely on real world materials that wouldn't work as well, either stretching plausibility, or completely throwing adventure out the window.

Vallejo, Boris - If Syd Mead is my fondness for the future, Boris is my fondness for monsters and babes in the company of monsters. A maker of very fantastical illustrations, but I'm sure we already know who he is.

Wipple Shields - Science has told me that wipple shields are a very important asset to spacecraft. So what made them get this spot? Simple: it's one of the first realizations of space armour, and is almost as important as radiation shielding. How wipple works, is that it is a very thin layer of ablative material designed to take hits from micro-meteorites, using their own kinetic energy against them, disintegrating the particles with little more than superficial damage to the surfaces below the shield.

X-Files - One thing I've  humored myself with repeatedly is how much this show is an inverse to Scooby-Doo. They kept thinking it wasn't so, yet always found the supernatural. Scoob and Crew are always on the hunt for a monster, but it's always that old man Jenkins. Incidentally, this post is moreso aimed at my general paranormal interests, and the title music still invokes an emotional response from me.

Yazirians - These anthropomorphic, gliding apes are positively my favorite of the main races in Star Frontiers. I couldn't really tell you why, and it definitely is not the battle rage ability, but the idea of power gliding across some moon with bubble goggles might have some say in the matter.

ZOrk - You wouldn't believe how hard I had to think of, and remember, the only interest of mine that starts with a zed. So, Zork. The text adventure role-playing game. Where being eaten by a grue was punishment for trying to not find a lamp. Originally, as I recall, the eponymous grue was added to replace the fallible logic of stumbling into a bottomless pit in the dark, given that this pit could happen in nonsensical locations. I had the gameboy version, not the original.

On Convincing Life Design

Whether decking out an alien world with life in a game session, or story, it is important to know how best to suspend disbelief when dealing with non-Earth organisms.

Life can come in literally any imaginable, and unimaginable, shape, size and disposition. Whether it's how we know it or don't, life is an adaptable beast where change is what allows it to survive. Yet, life isn't entirely random and prone to inconsistencies. Because while the evolution of beasts brings about random mutation, only certain elements survive and continue.

Nature keeps many patterns, and follows them to the letter. And we shouldn't forget this when designing alien life on distant planets. It might have worked in old pulp comics from yester-decade where the male sentient was a ghastly beast of many limbs and hazardous body, while the female member was attractive, if not lacking in non-humanity.

There is consistency, design and purpose behind life and how it comes about. Let us look at our own organisms of Earth. Here we would find that vertebrate life, while often very different from each other, all possess four limbs, a head with eyes and mouth, tails or remnants, similar bone structures, genetalia positioned at the rear, and etc. So unless we're designing a very pulpy sort of alien ecosystem, we can expect to see various examples of divergence that also feature convergent form and utility, but this shouldn't discourage one from making everything too "samey". Rather, we should see worlds with a lot of invertebrate creatures, each filling their niche in life, or on the other hand, perhaps various vertebrate things where each runs on four to six legs, with some species instead using the fifth and sixth limbs for manipulation.

Whether it's spines, body structures, psionic powers, wings, or what-have-you, consistency in form and pattern makes for standardized and believable life, while divergence and biodiversity makes for realistic life. Stay creative, friends!

Alternatively, you can just give me the finger and continue on with ant-men and their sensuous babe-queen. 'Cause fun is what counts in the end, and not necessarily dedicating too many resources to one facet of an adventure your railroad-hating players might not even run into.

And Here's an Update. (Finally)

Here they are, as originally promised, though late certainly and in no way fashionably so. Ended up being fairly busy with this and that yesterday, so couldn't take some piccies until just recently. Behold: the inconsistent trial runs of my borrowed camera!

First up is a scavenger/scout sort of fellow from Grenadier's now defunct Future Skirmish line (though still available from em-4, but I'm sure you all know that). Another fine figure from Copplestone's illustrious past. Actually painted him a little while back but never got around to photographing him, and I think you can see some of the dust he's accumulated, oh, balls. Hopefully I've rendered the dark, smoothed leather look I was going for with his hood. I've still forgotten to put some tufts of grass on his base, it seems. Though I've not been able to find any of my flock, nor any of my static grass since I've moved into this house. I've still got lots of wood chip grass from my first days of terrain making (more on that later), but really, it doesn't look that pretty.

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Next we've got a smallish group shot featuring the scav to the center, the first of many raiders to the left, and one of my Stalker-eresque conversions brandishing base colours. I like the purple scarf; it's manly. All Copplestone sculpts.

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And here's another picture of that loveable sadist. I really enjoyed painting his skin, as I've never had so much space to paint it with before, though through my flailing and failing with photography, I don't know if I've done him justice enough. I've noticed a lot of my blending often doesn't carry over with my pictures, with many of the shots being too over-exposed and whatnot. Do note: this fellow and his base both aren't done; I'm very sporadic in my painting. The last time I was working on this guy was almost last Christmas ago, so a long, long time. How does his hip-pouch look? I was aiming for that sun bleached look all post-apocalyptica textiles should feature.

Now for some 15mm goodness, though I will apologize right now in advance. My deepest sincerity for accidentally saving the following image in .JPG format. I'd not known the mistake myself until just now as I went to upload the image.

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Three Traveller adventurers clad in survival gear, the obligatory barbarian adventurer, and an assassin. I imagined these three adventurers were, rather, clad in survival garments and gear, which would also give me a good excuse for their red, yellow and blue colour schemes. This fits with the overall theme I wanted to present of company-supplied agents or surveyors, armed with military equipment, as I wanted to look into playing Star Frontiers with 15mm scale figures, if only because model vehicles and fliers are more affordable. Only the barbarian and the female adventurer have been completely painted, with the blue-suited adventurer only needing his alice pack and visor finished up. The assassin and the tactical vest-wearing fellow are only in base colours so far. The bases of all are unfinished (needs some foliage). I like the barbarian's reversible shirt and the blue adventurer's grey skeinsuit.

Run! It's got Tentacles!

Actually just today I finally got my hands on one of those damn Volturnian monstrosities that are, the Queequeg. I've been wanting one for some time now, and blam, there it is, and oh boy, oh boy! No spots of rot!

Unlike most monster-type figures out there, I was surprised to find that the damn thing was actually scaled to 25mm figures properly. I've been underwhelmed many times by such 'great' beasts. GW's Red Terror figure, for example, though don't get me wrong, I love it. It just doesn't look like it could show any space marine a gape of the serpent.

And last, but by all means not even remotely least, a small preview of some 'greens' of some armatures I'm bulking up. They're actually not green. I'm using that ProCreate stuff, and because of the aesthetic charm of greyscaled sculpting previews, I've made the image thusly so. I've got some sketches somewhere, but for the most part I'm just practicing forming tiny characters.

They might eventually be Heavy EVA salvaging-types

That's it for today, folks! I'll try to be more regular and improve my camera skills, maybe share some Star Frontiers and D&D home-brew and/or thoughts, or at least find something entertaining or interesting to talk about.

That backdrop is the inside of my second shirt.

Now the fun begins.

   After a long, perilous and later fruitless and redundant trip to lands abroad, have I finally returned home to a couple of nice little parcels full of potential. First things for home though? Some decent food and a proper shave to get rid of that O'Bannon beard.

   I won't lie, my main interest in making this web log was for an outlet for starting my foray into 15mm scale science fiction miniatures. And what better way for a kick-start with none other than some good ol' Traveller figures from RAFM? I also purchased some other things from Khurasan Miniatures for some other factions and tridlins.

An elegant clash of Hard Sci-Fi & Fantasy.

   Maybe I should have made it more clear on the picture for those interested, but various mini-projects and factions are present in that pile of stuff.

   In the top-left is a currently-incomplete platoon of Milstarsbanki (Planetary Garrison Militia) (2 fire teams, 1 assault team, and platoon command), below that is Khurasan lamprey-men and some belligerent modifications. Ishtaran reptilia-hominids control the bottom-left next to Khurasan militia. There's two 5-person HE-EVA-suited squads each with an engineer, starship crew, colonists/citizens, thugs/armed colonists, a few miscellaneous bestial aliens, Khurasan mantid-men, a primed steward android and some primed adventurers along with that pesky assassin.

   I've started painting the steward and have already got an idea of what I want to do with the others.

  Also, it seems Khurasan just recently put out a new Modern/Sci-Fi Stowage set. Cool stuff!

   I am changing the font. It's not too much a worry to me, but I feel it might be hard for some of you lot to read.

Speaking of Aliens...

Aliens: Colonial Marines has recently resurfaced.

Originally slated to arrive on the Playstation 2 back in 2001, being developed by Check Six Games then, production was cut short some time prior to release and hadn't been heard from since. Currently the game is in the hands of Gearbox Studios and we're looking to see a release sometime next year. Hopefully in the early months of next year. Here's a glimpse from E3.

I salivate in anticipation.

Mixing Music & Miniatures: an under-rated asset.

Not many people (at least to my experience) seem very interested in using various music tracks as flare to their games, or simply are at a loss for correctly applying it to their activities. If appropriately applied, almost any soundtrack has its place and can greatly enhance the ambiance and atmosphere of any play session.

Empowered military organizations drum and boom across the field as one nation's young, brave soldiers press forward into enemy territory. There is purpose, pride and patriotism behind these mortal stalwart men.

Such music could extend beyond any set period of war. Ranging easily across early 20th-century and beyond, whether it is for a world war or for those steeled soldiers in a distant hard-science fiction setting.

What inspired me to write this happened yesterday when I stumbled upon the soundtrack from the console strategy game, 'Aliens versus Predator: Extinction'. This game, in my opinion had some fairly solid music behind each of its three campaigns, of which each of the myriad of tracks are all around ten minutes long. Perhaps it is just nostalgia on my part, but when combined with various music tracks from the great game, 'Aliens versus Predator: Gold Edition', and certainly without forgetting the amazing military score from the original source, 'Aliens', had I easily created a large enough selection of thematically-similar while still diversified collection of music that could apply to almost any military-based game session.

Add a dash of percussion, a pinch of loneliness, and some creeping terror.

Perhaps, it is my experience with playing video games that leads me to favor the use of music during tabletop game sessions. In any decent game, there was decent music, and it tied the end result together well, or otherwise. Perhaps it is just me.

I don't game Vietnam, but if I did, I would suggest using a lot of the great music from that period that we all know (and maybe love), for that good old American jungle picnic feeling many seem to associate with that conflict, instead of this sort of music. Just because the USCMC was inspired by the Vietnam war, doesn't mean it was, but in space.

Here are some picks of that music I was referring to above:


'AvP Extinction Soundtrack - Marine theme 3'
'AvP Gold Soundtrack - Orbital'
'Aliens Soundtrack - Combat Drop'
'Aliens Soundtrack - Combat Drop (Percussion Only)'
'Aliens Soundtrack - The Complex'
'Aliens Soundtrack - Newt'
'Aliens Soundtrack - Ripley's Rescue'
'Aliens Soundtrack - Ripley's Rescue (Percussion Only)'