MIXED BAG. TABLETOP TALES. #3 FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC: THE BUDDY COP CAMPAIGN PT. 2 Unicorns and Zombies

TABLETOP TALES PRESENTS

FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC: THE BUDDY COP CAMPAIGN PT. 2 Unicorns and Zombies

Special Thanks to Terry Pratchett

 Make sure to read PT. 1 First.

#3 FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC: THE BUDDY COP CAMPAIGN PT. 1 Introduction

Our story begins with the two characters, Carrot (played by Chris Baker) and Vik (played by Nick Mawby) sitting at their desks at Central, the main police station of the Watch. Carrot is in the bull pen and is carefully working on his reports, ever diligent and thorough. Meanwhile, Vik's boots are propped up on his deck, and he sits in his private office, taking a long nap, a dog-end of cigar hanging from his lip. They have the station to themselves as  the other two guards on duty are busy walking the streets. Suddenly, a goblin clerk runs into the station, alerting Carrot to an emergency in the Garden District.

Carrot drags Vik up and out from behind his desk to go to the Garden District. Vik is a little ragged from a day of boozing it up in his office. Carrot has to keep stopping so Vik can piss or vomit out the alcohol drunking him up. Vik assured Carrot that it wouldn't be a big deal. Probably just a break-in. After all, the Garden District is the home of the Eladrin aristocrats that made their home in the city for a life of urban leisure. When they arrived to the scene of the crime, Vik wishes he had just stayed in his office.

As they rounded the corner into the Garden District they discovered a massive sink hole had opened up in the street, the front of one house caved in, and wreckage all about. At the crime scene, the other two guards were trying to keep the piece, putting up police tape and trying to get information from the witnesses. Carrot makes a quick deduction when he sees a large foot print.

"Giants in the city?"

Just as the Chief Samson arrives, they learn from witnesses that Fomorians, giant dwellers of the underground, had burst from the street and kidnapped several Eladrin. The Chief looks like he is about to have another heart attack over the concept of giant's bursting from under the city and kidnapping wealthy elves, so Carrot immediately volunteers to go down and retrieve the eladrin before they come to harm. Vik doesn't want to go but, with a little persuasion AKA a threatening look from the Chief, he follows Carrot down the hole.

It didn't take long for the two cops to run into a pair of Fomorian beasties, but with their skill and tough guile they made quick work of the beasts. Finding a pair of unconscious Eladrin, the elven maidens thank the cops, and tell the cops that they saw more Eladrin getting driven down into the caves. Carrot and Vik soon find a large cavern where an Eladrin, Samaria, riding a summoned unicorn are defending themselves against a pair of Fomorians. They help her fight off the big, ugly, purple giants and the Eladrin explains that she believes that the Fomorians have dark plans and that, being a retired knight, she leaped out of bed at the first sound of the explosive entrance of the giants and chased them down the hole. Now, with an eladrin knight and a talking unicorn at hand, they make their way down the caves until they find a dank bog in a large cavern and a grisly discovery.

The water runs red with slaughtered Eladrin and standing at the far end of the cave is a figure in a blue and gold hooded robe. Turning to meet them, the figure's hood slides down, and reveals the familiar face of a rather prominent Eladrin by the name of Alazar (can't remember his name so there's one for the purpose of this retelling). He tells them its too late for them and that they won't be leaving. Casting some dark magic, he raises the Eladrin corpses as undead, and they raise to attack our heroes. The Eladrin knight dashes forward on her steed to charge the magic user, while the cops fight the zombies. The magic user stabs Samaria through the heart but, seeing the cops making short work of the undead, makes his escape. The talking unicorn, wounded, tells them that they should immediately go to the Court of the Stars.

They follow the unicorn down to a group of caves populated by Eladrin. He asks them to stay the night as witnesses so they can accuses Alazar of his dark deeds.

To be continued...

To read my other Tabletop Tales, click the links below.

#1 YAMA HACHIYAMA

#2 THE STORY BOOK CAMPAIGN: THE LIZARD OF LOLZ Pt. 1

#2 THE STORY BOOK CAMPAIGN: THE LIZARD OF LOZ Pt. 2

WORD OF THE DAY! 3/3/12

sham [sham]

noun

1. something that is not what it purports to be; a spurious imitation; fraud or hoax.

2. a person who shames.

3.  a cover or the like for giving a thing a different outward appearance: a pillow sham.

adjective

4.  pretended; counterfeit; feigned.

5.  designed, made, or used as a sham.

verb [used with object]

6.  to produce an imitation of.

7. to assume the appearance of; pretend to have.

verb [used without object]

8. to make a false show of something; pretend.

EX. I suppose the clever bouncer saw through the weak sham of the Charmander's foil Charizard card.

 

WORD OF THE DAY! 3/2/12

bushido [boo-shee-doh]

noun

1. Feudal Japan. the code of the samurai, stressing unquestioning loyalty and obedience and valuing honor above life.

EX. The bushido of the Storm Trooper surely includes firing your blasters inaccurately, mumbling into your helmet, and being easily fooled by Jedi in the hot Tatooine sun.

WORD OF THE DAY! 3/1/12.

EV [ee-vee] / effort values [ef-ert-val-yooz]
noun
1. Pokémon. Previously called Stat Exp, they are attributes which give bonuses to a Pokémon's stats and improve differently depending on which Pokémon they defeat. These bonuses, in the form of effort points, are gained in addition to bonuses gained by increasing level. A Pokémon which increases in level using a Rare Candy instead of battling does not gain any EVs, making it weaker than a Pokémon who increases in level normally.

 Roughly speaking, defeating fast Pokémon increases Speed better than fighting slow Pokémon, defeating Pokémon with high hit points improves HP more than defeating Pokémon with low HP, and so on.

Unlike experience points, which are reduced when multiple Pokémon are receiving experience, effort points are awarded equally to all Pokémon who participated in defeating a Pokémon. Though they are shared, each of the Pokémon will receive the standard amount of effort points. 

There are several ways to manipulate EVs and they have changed over time.

Source: Bulbapedia

2. Opinion. Something that only the most hard core of hard core Pokémon players worry about and even know about; a huge time suck.


IV [ahy-vee] / individual values [in-duh-vij-oo-uhl]
noun
1. Pokémon. Sometimes called Determination Values (DVs for short), are the Pokémon equivalent of genes. They are instrumental in determining the stats of a Pokémon, being responsible for the large variation in stats among untrained Pokémon of the same species.

2. Opinion.  Pokémon's meta-game drives me to drink Miltank Milk and Vodka.

Source: Bulbapedia

EX. Basically, someone sat down at Game Freak and said, "How can we create something that most children could hardly understand or care about, but would drive many older players to madness with the monotony of grinding for the perfect Pokémon?"

Someone put up their hand and with a demonic chuckle answered, "EVs and IVs. Like all Pokémon give off special bonuses and all Pokémon have unique DNA."

MIXED BAG. TABLETOP TALES: THE HAUNTED WURMWOOD DECK

TABLETOP TALES PRESENTS:

THE HAUNTED WURMWOOD DECK

To check out my other decks, hit the links below:

MY FIRST DECK

 AURAMONGER DECK

HAKUNA MATATA DECK

WURMWOOD DECK V. 1 

This article serves two purposes: To share the nerd entertainment around with anyone who might find it interesting and, in this case, to prove how taking the theme of an intro pack, especially a more recent intro pack, can not only make a passable deck, but also a powerful and fun deck.

Today's deck is a brand-spanking-new construction made from an intro pack and about twenty cards either bought, traded, or pulled from older purchases. As an early draft of a concept, you can expect to see a better achieved form of my themes in the future. Here is the main component:

Intro Pack: Dark Ascension, Grave Power, Cost: $13

Note: You can see the full decklist of the original to compare by clicking HERE.

You can find Magic Cards in super stores (Ex. Walmart, Target) but the best place you can buy your cards, meet other players, and play in events is at your local comic book store or hobby shop. I buy most of my cards at The Comic Cellar. Here is a link to its Google Maps location at 3620 Austin Peay Highway #2 Memphis, TN 38128.

Without further ado, with these purchases, I built...

THE HAUNTED WURMWOOD DECK

The deck follows several themes including, but not limited to, : Treefolk, Wurms, Flight, and stealing power from beyond the grave. As I only try to build and present decks that I can afford, this deck is still in a prototype phase, and I hope you will be able to enjoy it. This deck includes cards from others set but I think Avacyn Restored might have some nifty blue and greens that I can add in to make it a completely Innistrad limited deck.

NOTE: This is the second iteration of this deck. Please leave comments and suggestions on how to improve my deck. Enjoy.

Please leave comments.

To check out the contents of the deck, click "READ MORE" below.

WTF WEDNESDAY! WORD OF THE DAY! 2/29/12. POISON EDITION!

Street Fighter X Tekken Comic Con 2011 Cinematic Trailer

nyu hafu/ nyu-hafu [nyoo-hafoo]
noun
1. Japanese slang. A Japanization of "new half". It is a slang term for a transsexual or transgendered individual.

EX. Since the announcement of Final Fight's Poison being a fighter in the upcoming Street Fighter X Tekken title (Coming March 6), an old debate among fighting game fans has reemerged. The debate is over the gender of Poison. Some claim she is a nyu-hafu or "new half". This debate has been going on for while and bringing up cultural feelings on the issue of transsexualism. As a progressive individual, I prefer that we have these discussions than not.

A quote that encapsulates the curious and some times wtf-fery of the issue is, "Let's set the record straight: In North America, Poison is officially a post-op transsexual but in Japan she simply tucks her business away to look female." -Yoshinori Ono, Capcom

The following video I'm about to link below is actually a fairly concise and short documentary that covers the history of the character and, in my opinion, settles the debate.

POISON DOCUMENTARY

WORD OF THE DAY! 2/28/12

Rule 63 [rool-siks-tee-three]
1. Internet.

Rule 63 is a rule of the internet that reads as follows: "For any given male character, there is a female version of that character." This rule's exceptions are only in the instance that A: the male character is already so androgynous that a female version would be basically the same, or B: the female version hasn't been drawn yet.

EX. Rule 63 isn't just a rule of the internet. It is a constant in all matters of science fiction and fantasy dating back as long as their has been possible fiction. This definitely deserves some further examination with lines drawn to why our society is obsessed with gender identity. Expect a full article at another time, after some additional research.

RULE 63- KNOW YOUR MEME!

MUSICAL MONDAY PRESENTS FMV HELL-MAKE MY VIDEO!0.0

MUSICAL MONDAY PRESENTS:

THE SPOONY EXPERIMENT'S FMV HELL:

MAKE MY MUSIC VIDEO!

THE SPOONY EXPERIMENT WEBSITE!

 Few entertainment industries are more infamous for their dangerous turn into a constructed plastic machine from the production of teen idols (The Beiber) to the bands shoved down our throats against all practicality (I'm looking at Nickelback and LMFAO). Yet, I declare today's fake crap is no where near as putrid and lazy as the pop music of the 1990's.

Today I'm back and I wanna start things off by shouting out to someone I truly admire as both a critic of generally nerdery and as an entertainer. Noah Antwiler aka "The Spoony One" aka "Spoony" aka "Spoony-Wan Kenobi" has been on the internet review scene for years. He produces hilarious retrospectives and reviews from his introspective reviews of the Ultima Series to his rant-tastic rants on the Final Fantasy series to hilarious dedications to all that is Reb Brown. He also plays a plethora of characters from Dr. Insano (Pictured Above) to Black Latnern Spoony. He is one of my favorite internet personalities.

For Musical Monday I would like to introduce you all to his reviews of the FMV HELL series. For those of you who that don't know what the heck an FMV is let me explain; an FMV or Full Motion Video is, essentially, a film that has been turned into an interactive experience. Such games are mostly filled with the equivalent of Quick-Time Events (button or cue appears on screen, hit button), but the more complex one's included elements of several genres from FPS to RPG. The most famous and beloved FMV games would be the games in Don Bluth's Dragon's Lair and Space Ace Series.

Yet, for every good FMV title, and there were not a lot really, there are probably about ten dreadful, confusing, and/or insane titles out there. The subject of the review linked below is a three part video reviewing four FMV games in the "Make My Video" series. Basically, each game involves watching three music videos, editing them, and then submitting them for a final score. The games are pretty awful but only accentuated more by the craptastic bands they cover. What makes them most entertaining is the bizarre cameos from actors like Seth Green, Lawrence Fishburn and Phil Lamar.

FMV HELL- MAKE MY VIDEO (Part 1: Marky Mark and INXS)

FMV HELL- MAKE MY VIDEO (Part 2: Kriss Kross)

FMV HELL- MAKE MY VIDEO (Part 3: C + C Music Factory)

Enjoy.

WORD OF THE DAY! 2/27/12

omission [oh-mish-uhn]
noun
1. the act of omitting.
2. the state of being omitted.
3. something left out, not done, or neglected.

plutoid [ploo-toid]

noun

1. a celestial body which orbits the Sun but is further from it than Neptune; designated by the International Astronomical Union to refer to Pluto and similar space objects.

EX. The recent omission of Pluto from the designation of planet has stirred up a lot of debate. I care more about the emotional denigration that Pluto is going from by being downgraded to a dwarf planet or plutoid.

TOMORROW...

.....THE STATUS QUO STRIKES BACK!