tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87067763523164703022024-03-14T14:11:13.102-04:00Panglott's GardenPanglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.comBlogger205125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8706776352316470302.post-36567520406999031692014-02-18T22:16:00.000-05:002014-02-18T22:16:18.606-05:00LibreOffice APA/MLA crib sheetAs someone accustomed to Microsoft Word, getting accustomed to formatting term papers in LibreOffice was a little counterintuitive. This is a little crib sheet I put together a couple of semesters ago; LibreOffice is both wonderful and terrible. <br />
<br />
<b>1. Consult the OWL.</b><br />
APA <a href="http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/10/">http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/10/</a><br />
MLA <a href="http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/">http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/</a><br />
<br />
<b>2. Normal 12-point font.</b><br />
It's easy to select all text and change the type face and size in the pulldown menu on the main editing window. Also click the 'Format' menu item, select 'Paragraph…', then under 'Spacing' set 'Above paragraph' and 'Below paragraph' to '0'. <br />
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A more permanent solution is to change the styles, which will make this the default for every new document. Click the 'Format' menu item and select 'Styles and Formatting' (T). In the popup menu, make sure the highlight the 'Paragraph Styles' icon is highlighted, then right-click 'Default' and select 'Modify…'. Click the 'Indents & Spacing' and 'Font' tabs at the top, then change the settings and click 'OK'. <br />
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<b>2. One-inch margin.</b><br />
The easiest way is to select all text, click the 'Format' menu item, and select 'Page…". In the pop-up menu, set all the margins to '1"'. <br />
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Editing the 'Page Styles' doesn't change the default. Apparently you have to open the template "Default.ott" to edit, make the change above, and save the file, but I haven't managed to do this yet. <br />
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<b>3. Half-inch tab stops. </b><br />
Click the 'LibreOffice' menu item and select 'Preferences…' (,). In the menu, select 'LibreOffice Writer', then 'General', which opens the panel that allows you to set the tab stops to 0.50". <br />
<br />
<b>3. Running header. </b><br />
Click the 'Insert' menu item and select 'Header >' then 'All'. Put the cursor in the header, hit Tab twice, and type your last name. Click the 'Insert' menu item and select 'Fields >' then 'Page Number'. This puts the header on every page. <br />
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To then remove the header from the first page, put the cursor in the first page. On the status bar, click "Default" and select "More…" This brings up the "Styles and Formatting" window. Select the "Page Styles" tab and select "First Page". This applies a new page style to the first page, removing the header from that page. Close the "Styles and Formatting" window. IIRC, this re-sets the margins to the default, so you'll have to change those again too. <br />
<br />Panglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8706776352316470302.post-56848369070719056842013-12-21T11:17:00.001-05:002013-12-21T11:17:33.041-05:00If all the ice meltedNational Geographic's recent infographic <a href="http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/09/rising-seas/if-ice-melted-map">If All the Ice Melted</a> visualizes a 216-foot sea level rise. It's like catnip for our <a href="http://panglott.blogspot.com/search/label/geology">geology series</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBWVjBudM5reDYSuiBPEYJ76PbAJg2HeRFSXMTr7hLs549Ggtqq4PX_iyFWgkEB-V4QG1iWGjzYa7u0nXJEjiDTY1lo6TF_kfsozqJFFzLVIib8BHa-qLbOICJgO8u5mtH6FSNfrJQl4s/s1600/If+All+the+Ice+Melted.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBWVjBudM5reDYSuiBPEYJ76PbAJg2HeRFSXMTr7hLs549Ggtqq4PX_iyFWgkEB-V4QG1iWGjzYa7u0nXJEjiDTY1lo6TF_kfsozqJFFzLVIib8BHa-qLbOICJgO8u5mtH6FSNfrJQl4s/s320/If+All+the+Ice+Melted.png" width="400" /></a></div>
Panglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8706776352316470302.post-78184702637433793332013-08-29T10:24:00.000-04:002013-08-29T10:25:26.561-04:00WakaWandering through new-to-me fields can sometimes yield such interesting and unexpected things. The world of Nara and Heian Japanese poetry is both familiar and alien, so different from medieval Japan and yet speaking to such perennial human yearnings.<br />
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Partly this is because of the very different social norms for romance, which occasioned poetic chronicling of so-familiar suffering and desire. Relationships between men and women were invariably intermediated by a series of poetic letters. Women lived in their father's house before and after marriage, and the conventions leading to marriage began with a matchmaker, who informed the man (or his family) of suitable prospects. He then wrote the woman a poetic letter (a tanka), to which she answered with a reply tanka letter. If her calligraphy and poetics were sufficiently adroit, he might continue the exchange of poems. The marriage itself began with the man sneaking into the woman's room at night (probably an open secret). After their first night together, the man sent his lover a morning-after letter (後朝の文 <i>kinuginu no fumi</i>), conventionally expressing such things as dismay at the rooster's crowing. The woman's family celebrates this letter, and she composes another reply. He "sneaks" into her room again on the second night, but upon sneaking in on the third night, the family presents sacred rice cakes to the couple. Following the acceptance of the rice cakes, the couple is married, and the man can go openly to visit the woman. Afterwards, there is a feast to celebrate the event, featuring purification rituals such as the threefold drinking of sake (which itself later became the focus of the marriage ritual, rather than the presentation of rice cakes).<br />
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Nara- and Heian-period sexual mores were a very different balance of restriction and openness from contemporary society. One poem in the <i>Man'yōshū</i> by the Emperor Jomei possibly references a spring ritual in which people would gather fresh greens before an orgy. Takahashi no Mushimaro similarly memorialized ascending Mount Tsukuba (now a major scientific research center and near where I used to live in Japan) on the day of a <i>kagai</i>, in which men and women exchange amorous poems before sex:<blockquote>
<i><br />washi no sumu<br />Tsukuba no yama no<br />Mohakitsu no<br />sono tsu no ue ni<br />adomoite<br />odome otoko no<br />yukitsudoi<br />kagau kagai ni<br />hitozuma ni<br />wa mo majirawan<br />wa ga tsuma ni<br />hito mo kototoe</i><br />
<br />
On Mount Tsukuba<br />
where eagles dwell,<br />
By the founts<br />
of Mohakitsu,<br />
Maidens and men,<br />
in troops assembling,<br />
Hold a kagai, vying in poetry;<br />
I will seek company<br />
With others' wives,<br />
Let others woo my own... (97)</blockquote>
It was an interesting period in which the synthesis of Chinese and indigenous Japanese elements of literary culture was still fresh. Plum blossoms, representing the scholar in Chinese literary tradition, had not yet been supplanted by the cherry blossom in the Man'yōshū poems of Ōtomo no Tabito:
<blockquote>
<i><br />nokoritaru<br />yuki ni majieru<br />ume no hana<br />hayaku na chiri so<br />yuki wa kenu tomo</i><br />
<br />
Plum blossoms<br />
Lingering in the boughs<br />
Amidst the snow—<br />
Do not fall too quickly.<br />
Even if the snow melts away. (135)</blockquote>
One of my favorites from the late Heian era, however, is Izumi Shikibu (970-1030 CE). Women writers were central in the early development of a distinctively Japanese literary tradition, because the social context required literary writing as a a basic means of courtly and romantic interaction. Aristocratic women may have been cloistered in tedium at home, restricted by courtly marriage politics, or made insecure by polygamy, but they were not yet so constrained by patriarchal norms: women could inherit and keep property and conceivably live independently. Shikibu's poetry, written at age 16 or 17, appeared first in the <i>Shuuishuu</i> (compiled about 1005 CE).<blockquote>
<i>kuraki yori<br />kuraki michi no zo<br />irinubeki<br />haruka ni terase<br />yama no ha no tsuki</i><br />
<br />
Coming from darkness<br />
I shall enter on a path<br />
Of greater darkness<br />
Shine on me from the distance,<br />
Moon at the edge of the mount. (288)</blockquote>
The moon is a common Buddhist metaphor for enlightenment. Japanese esoteric Buddhist monk Kūkai, for example, (quoting the Aspiration to Enlightenment attributed to Nāgārjuna) instructed “...each devotee [to] visualize in his inner mind the bright moon. By means of this practice each devotee will perceive his original Mind, which is serene and pure like the full moon whose rays pervade space without any discrimination” (Kūkai, 218-219). <br />
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Shikibu's poems often feature such Buddhist themes. For example, after she was forsaken by her lover Prince Atsumichi, she composed this "...about the same time, when I was thinking of becoming a nun" (collected in the <i>Goshuuishuu</i> of 1086 CE):<blockquote>
<i>sutehaten to <br />omou sae koso <br />kanashikere <br />kimi ni narenishi<br />wa ga mi to omoeba</i><br />
<br />
I feel so wretched<br />
I am ready even to<br />
Abandon the world—<br />
When I think that I was once<br />
Intimate with such a man! (297)</blockquote>
Perhaps most evocative is Shikibu's reflection on the transience of life and passion.<blockquote>
<i>hito no mi mo<br />koi ni wa kaetsu<br />natsu mushi no<br />arawa ni moyu to<br />mienu bakari zo</i><br />
<br />
For love I am ready<br />
To change even my human shape;<br />
All that distinguishes<br />
Me from the summer insects<br />
Is that my flame is hidden. (296-297)</blockquote>
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<hr />
<br />
<i>All selections are from Keene unless otherwise noted.</i><br /><br />
Keene, Donald. <i>Seeds in the Heart: Japanese Literature from Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth Century</i>. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1993.<br />
<br />
Kūkai. <i>Kūkai: Major Works</i>. Trans. Yoshito S. Hakeda. New York: Columbia University Press, 1971.<br />
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Morris, Ivan. <i>The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan</i>. 1964. Middlesex, England: Peregine Books, 1985. 199-227.Panglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8706776352316470302.post-61760661550544114952013-08-29T10:10:00.000-04:002013-08-29T10:10:07.143-04:00Nara period politics<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />The Asuka and Nara periods form one of the most dynamic and interesting eras of Japanese history, even if it is far more obscure than medieval Japan. Unlike the cloistered and largely ceremonial office of later eras, the Asuka- and Nara-period imperial court was the center of turbulent and violent royal politics.<br /><br />The Nara period, for example, is when Japanese began to develop a written language, impelled by the imperial court's project of rapid modernization to counteract continental threats (following the rise of the Tang dynasty in China in 618 and especially following the Tang conquest of Paekche in 660). This effort culminated in the Taika Reform of 645 to 646, which implemented systems of land tenure, provincial government, and taxation along Chinese models. Waves of immigrants from Paekche also probably contributed to Japanese efforts to make their literary culture “civilized” in Chinese eyes (Keene, 86).<br /><br />During this era, Japan had a significant tradition of female rulers, and gender politics that were rather different from the later Confucian-influenced patriarchal aristocratic norms of samurai-era Japan.<br /><br />One of the most interesting stories from this period is the case of the sixth and last female emperor of early Japan, known as Empress Kōken when she reigned from 749 to 758 and Empress Shōtoku when she reigned from 765 until her death in 770. Kōken survived a conspiracy to depose her in 757, then abdicated in 758 in favor of Emperor Junnin. In 761, she encountered the Buddhist monk Dōkyō, who gained her affection. Following a conflict in which she deposed Junnin's prime minister, Fujiawara no Nakamaro, she re-assumed the throne in 765. Following the suppression of his rebellion, she sponsored the Hyakumantō Darani, an enormous production of woodblock-printed Buddhist texts and the first known use of the printing technique in Japan.<br /><br />Over the next five years of her reign, Dōkyō, rumored to be the Empress's lover, became the leading figure in the court bureaucracy and became controversially involved in the imperial succession. In 769, an oracle from the shrine of the kami Hachiman in Kyūshū reportedly prophesied peace would come if Dōkyō were proclaimed emperor. An official sent to confirm this prophecy returned with an oracle instead reaffirming succession via the imperial lineage and advocating sweeping away "wicked persons". The Empress died the next year, and Dōkyō was banished from court, dying three years later while serving a humble post at a temple in Shimotsuke. Although early Japan had had a number of female emperors, Shōtoku would be the last female emperor for nearly a thousand years, until the ascension of the child Empress Meishō in 1629. Only 14 years after her death, Emperor Kammu moved the imperial palace away from Nara (a move which has been attributed at least partially to a desire to lessen the influence of the Buddhist institutions at the Nara capital) and initiated the Heian era with the move of the palace to Kyōto in 794.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<hr />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />Bender, Ross. "The Hachiman Cult and the Dokyo Incident." Monumenta Nipponica. 34.2 (1979): 125-153. Print. <http: stable="" www.jstor.org="">.<br /><br />Keene, Donald. <i>Seeds in the Heart: Japanese Literature from Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth Century. </i>New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1993.<br /><br />Seeley, Christopher. <i>A History of Writing in Japan. </i>Leiden, The Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1991.</http:></span></span>Panglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8706776352316470302.post-45331090560020627982013-06-07T00:23:00.000-04:002013-06-07T00:44:47.759-04:002012 Book Recommendations<a href="http://panglott.blogspot.com/2012/03/2011-book-of-year.html">In 2011</a>, I recommended an anthology of stories by Manly Wade Wellman. In 2012, though, graduate school has put an especially big damper on my leisure reading: fewer books (only 31 and 11 audiobooks), but lots and lots of scholarly papers and half-read volumes. There’s a half-dozen or so I’d recommend:
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<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Sleep-There-Are-Snakes/dp/0375425020/">"Don't Sleep, There are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle"</a>, by Daniel C. Everett (2009)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Man-Gold-M-Barker/dp/0879979402/">"The Man of Gold"</a>, by M.A.R. Barker (1984)</li>
<li>"Old Peter's Russian Tales," by Arthur Ransome (<a href="http://librivox.org/old-peters-russian-tales-by-arthur-ransome/">LibriVox</a>)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Imagined-Communities-Reflections-Nationalism-Edition/dp/1844670864/">"Imagined Communities"</a>, by Benedict Anderson (1983, 2006)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Through-Language-Glass-Different-Languages/dp/080508195X/">"Through the Language Glass"</a>, by Guy Deutscher (2010)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Klingon-Dictionary-Star-Trek/dp/067174559X/">"The Klingon Dictionary"</a>, by Marc Okrand (1985, 1992)</li>
</ul>
The nonfiction book I'd recommend, I think, was Guy Deutscher's "Through the Language Glass", a modest apology for the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. This hypothesis is poorly regarded by linguists, perhaps not least because overreaching and fanciful versions of it have long been vivid in the popular imagination (although I'm still intrigued by the idea of <a href="http://daneverettbooks.com/docs/FEFG-cognition%20in%20press.pdf">language as a cognitive tool</a>). Deutscher's leads his discussion from 19th-century debates over the limited color vocabulary of Classical Greek literature, through the scientific racism of an early Darwinism (that had not yet rejected Lamarckism, for example), through anthropology's emphasis on culture as a means of repudiating that scientific racism. He ends up talking about the cognitive influence of color terminology and geographic vs. relative direction vocabulary, among other things. It's pretty interesting. A selection of this book was presented as <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html?_r=0&pagewanted=all">"Does Your Language Shape How You Think?"</a> at the New York Times in 2010, and Radiolab interviewed Deutscher in 2012 for their "Colors" episode and <a href="http://www.radiolab.org/2012/may/21/sky-isnt-blue/">"Why Isn't the Sky Blue?"</a>.<br />
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My fiction reading was pretty thin last year, but <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/12/pulp-fantasy-library-man-of-gold.html">M.A.R. Barker's "The Man of Gold"</a> was a decent yarn—if you're open to science fantasy adventure novels based on worlds used as settings for 1970s role-playing games. The fiction is ok, but the point is to show off Barker's world of Tékumel (which otherwise perhaps <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/11/christopher-lee-explains-tekumel-to-me.html">"doesn't photograph well"</a>). It is a fascinating world. And as far as conlangs made to support a fictional world go, <a href="http://www.rpgnow.com/product/2231/The-Tsoly%C3%83%C2%A1ni-Language?it=1">Tsolyáni</a> is really nice, aesthetically a mashup of Urdu and Mesoamerican languages, which works much better than it sounds.Panglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8706776352316470302.post-76683972822181747122013-06-07T00:15:00.000-04:002013-06-07T00:15:54.660-04:00Timekeeping in "Embassytown"Non-Terre-centric measurement in science fiction is surprisingly uncommon, but China Miéville's "Embassytown" does an interesting job of it. Rather than seconds or local days or years, time is measured with hours according to the metric system prefixes. The base SI unit is not the hour but the second, of course, but this is similar to using the kilogram as basic rather than the gram.<br />
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We should assume an hour is 3,600 contemporary Terre seconds.Thus, a kilohour is just more than 41 days (comparable to a month), a megahour is about 114 Julian years, and a gigahour is about 114,077 Julian years.<br />
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This is relatively human-scale, perhaps even compared to the <a href="http://panglott.blogspot.com/2009/06/kiloseconds-brevels.html">kilosecond</a>, but again there's the difficulty of nothing in between the kilo- and the mega- and the giga-. Here there's no basic unit in between the near-month and the near-century. I suspect that humans need to measure human-scale time with a unit that has more factors than 1, 2, 5, and 10.Panglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8706776352316470302.post-35382161835024888712013-06-07T00:09:00.001-04:002013-06-07T00:09:54.491-04:00Print & Play: AtaxxThe best of the print-and-play boardgames (games like <a href="http://panglott.blogspot.com/2013/05/print-play-hex.html">Hex</a> and <a href="http://panglott.blogspot.com/2013/05/print-play-splut.html">Splut!</a>) are worth building not merely because they're awesome and fun, but also because they're not (or barely) commercially available. That's especially true of the 1980s softboard arcade game Ataxx (<a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/91313/ataxx">BGG</a>). It's fun to play in emulation, but abstract strategy board games are always better to play against other people. Sadly, it seems like the original copyright holder was acquired and liquidated in bankruptcy, so the IP is perhaps abandoned; Most contemporary software versions of the game are released under other names (like Infection), and this gem is not so well-known as it should be. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2zaGZHwhmBNAT12dZ_CIzfHjKsB6CbgJcXBTuh5DYwo6kdFZilxVyvDLnwg_KP1tDvGqcLgOP3OYi26XFk1mc_2A1ocrQ5bs0kiPah5PXPcKHkpdj1HegZ8HmqSueaIzkdbrvHmemBMk/s1600/ataxx+game+1.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2zaGZHwhmBNAT12dZ_CIzfHjKsB6CbgJcXBTuh5DYwo6kdFZilxVyvDLnwg_KP1tDvGqcLgOP3OYi26XFk1mc_2A1ocrQ5bs0kiPah5PXPcKHkpdj1HegZ8HmqSueaIzkdbrvHmemBMk/s320/ataxx+game+1.JPG" width="400/" /></a>
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The board is foamcore with linen hinging tape and low-fi homemade bookcloth (made with black broadcloth, copier paper, and glue sticks), with the printed board glued on. The pieces are simply small biscuits of salt dough, painted. The instruction manual is set in a simple mockup of the original game's bitfont, created with <a href="http://www.pentacom.jp/pentacom/bitfontmaker2/">Bitfont Maker 2</a>. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLlzIjpMDfcqoh15L-YJL6snIdwUTREoSDfB7i7S7oby07es88Haj1PzEqzmhY2EabpTbGlUb7AfSTnLYvxWzXmBvYTqqVhFot-0nL46UWubQQvobcZkGPpLBYy4qDZdhGzB8UXYt78zc/s1600/ataxx+box.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLlzIjpMDfcqoh15L-YJL6snIdwUTREoSDfB7i7S7oby07es88Haj1PzEqzmhY2EabpTbGlUb7AfSTnLYvxWzXmBvYTqqVhFot-0nL46UWubQQvobcZkGPpLBYy4qDZdhGzB8UXYt78zc/s320/ataxx+box.JPG" width="400/" /></a><br />
<br />
I was concerned that manually flipping the pieces over would be more troublesome in a hardboard version than they are in a softboard version, but it's no real bother. It's a quick, light, fun strategy game, that is tricky with constant reversals of fortune.Panglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8706776352316470302.post-24726334708760807962013-05-25T23:56:00.000-04:002013-05-25T23:59:56.255-04:00Print & Play: MicropulOne of my first attempts at a print and play project last year, before <a href="http://panglott.blogspot.com/2013/05/print-play-hex.html">Hex</a> and <a href="http://panglott.blogspot.com/2013/05/print-play-splut.html">Splut!</a>, was micropul (<a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10660/micropul">BGG</a>). I really enjoy the tile-laying mechanic of games like Carcassone, and micropul is a more lightweight and abstract implementation of a similar mechanic.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGm0Hpi8oB-f347ftXal5quxMnC7-0C90oSsvaQbGafGkw6N1CMLgCFnFrZtgSNwLoPgEuIPcVa723-ZSPXUDODr4TJqKbBoPhH6BQYZY7GEnp424j2AnVITuBncMhiGgEEt9XYmRVWOY/s1600/micropul.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGm0Hpi8oB-f347ftXal5quxMnC7-0C90oSsvaQbGafGkw6N1CMLgCFnFrZtgSNwLoPgEuIPcVa723-ZSPXUDODr4TJqKbBoPhH6BQYZY7GEnp424j2AnVITuBncMhiGgEEt9XYmRVWOY/s320/micropul.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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This is printed on cardstock, glued to foamcore, and cut with a craft knife. Foamcore was really too light and cut with rough edges, although it looks OK flipped over. Still, printed cardstock mounted on a vinyl floor tile and cut would be simpler and better in some ways. Panglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8706776352316470302.post-13157186805281970802013-05-04T18:15:00.001-04:002013-05-04T18:15:35.763-04:002013 Kentucky Derby DisclosureJava's War, Normandy Invasion, Orb, and Overanalyze. Panglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8706776352316470302.post-69505141820164814212013-05-03T17:48:00.000-04:002013-05-03T17:48:19.998-04:002013 Kentucky Oaks DisclosureMidnight Lucky, Dreaming of JuliaPanglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8706776352316470302.post-67344400840407605092013-05-02T22:34:00.001-04:002013-05-02T22:50:37.525-04:00What is this? A game?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ7bR3oCbIEPJjrgePn638V8omk-Uipw673MfgBk46j0108SSjb7Q-5F-1pXAFf2oFXu0zlzv_-TcD_AYb1REwRN9EyvU9G49dOG8eO8NXzvOetckygkpWOzSqPbfsDR9W0MtalrxkPrU/s1600/unknown+game.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ7bR3oCbIEPJjrgePn638V8omk-Uipw673MfgBk46j0108SSjb7Q-5F-1pXAFf2oFXu0zlzv_-TcD_AYb1REwRN9EyvU9G49dOG8eO8NXzvOetckygkpWOzSqPbfsDR9W0MtalrxkPrU/s320/unknown+game.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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My son discovered this device at the Louisville Waterfront Park playground. It appears to be some type of game, but I have no idea what. The pieces are held in place with a metal baffle underneath the gameboard, which allows them to slide, but not jump (or leave the board). There are three orange pieces and four black pieces. Panglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8706776352316470302.post-15717744936655434802013-05-02T22:26:00.002-04:002013-05-02T22:26:38.774-04:00Print & Play: Hex<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqOOiKAYsRuvNcO0VbviZff55ycebrLMZXPmuziwfQibWZhuCWj1f279RBsrRaVDRay-1b485RTIpRAq-WoRuhiM8ccyH-41WJt44Ul7lHj7fCyAwmVI0sz1ri9O6-6IfxUAg6mpNP1Jw/s1600/Hex.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqOOiKAYsRuvNcO0VbviZff55ycebrLMZXPmuziwfQibWZhuCWj1f279RBsrRaVDRay-1b485RTIpRAq-WoRuhiM8ccyH-41WJt44Ul7lHj7fCyAwmVI0sz1ri9O6-6IfxUAg6mpNP1Jw/s320/Hex.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4112/hex">Hex</a> is a fantastic game: possibly the simplest rules of any board game, but strategically tricky and rich. Most of the boards available for print and play are based on actual hexagons, so I made these with a slightly different (if mechanically identical design). The circles are my favorite of the two: the triangles are a little confusing. I sized both to play with the stones from my Go set; the Hex boards were printed onto cardstock, mounted onto the back of a vinyl floor tile, and trimmed with a craft knife.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBxlmvUqqKoSdSqLvlA-GD9KAWQv_1UvsmSyOrJgW0dnpS-KlZnXHVRmgTp_JR5JYkp8mYDGuvJd6XhZg3YcX5zZUCkhdtwNSsVH1OQVpHOnffpOiWakAiqWsxSHyNgDIGx5ahamhKSOk/s1600/Hex+14x14+copy.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBxlmvUqqKoSdSqLvlA-GD9KAWQv_1UvsmSyOrJgW0dnpS-KlZnXHVRmgTp_JR5JYkp8mYDGuvJd6XhZg3YcX5zZUCkhdtwNSsVH1OQVpHOnffpOiWakAiqWsxSHyNgDIGx5ahamhKSOk/s320/Hex+14x14+copy.png" /></a>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2bc-CiCjhskBrDXXwMs4rIVBar6jPZge5Io57NYhBgHQ0H_tytoigyAdVMUa80wSRI1Ps1ZgwtvDgIIQmwF4h0mIV5ZdSNCqpPOVesOi_ZGVxYtMgL48jox6aUZJrmgTk1zF3yxkyaFY/s1600/Ring+Hex+Board+copy.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2bc-CiCjhskBrDXXwMs4rIVBar6jPZge5Io57NYhBgHQ0H_tytoigyAdVMUa80wSRI1Ps1ZgwtvDgIIQmwF4h0mIV5ZdSNCqpPOVesOi_ZGVxYtMgL48jox6aUZJrmgTk1zF3yxkyaFY/s320/Ring+Hex+Board+copy.png" /></a></div>
<br />Panglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8706776352316470302.post-30609369772679479982013-05-02T22:08:00.002-04:002013-05-02T22:10:01.210-04:00Print & Play: Splut!Late last year I got into board games again, and free print & play board games are a great way to scratch the game-acquisition and crafty itches at the same time. Here's <a href="http://www.toco.be/splut/">Splut!</a> (<a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/64735/splut">BGG</a>), made from a set of <a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/64735/splut">Looney pyramids</a>, some glass gems for boulders, and a printed downloaded image glued to a black foamcore board with some improvised bookcloth (black broadcloth gluesticked to copier paper). It was an initial foray and a learning experience—but a great, fun game!<br />
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<br />Panglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8706776352316470302.post-24632995728740407992013-02-25T10:08:00.001-05:002013-02-25T10:12:46.012-05:00Ursula LeGuin's novel pronounsIt's interesting, in re-reading Ursula LeGuin last year, how my understanding of the relationship between language and thought has changed since I read these books as an adolescent. LeGuin is a notably language-obsessed author. And I'm sure the first time around, I interpreted the quirks of language in her novels through some kind of simplistic Sapir-Whorf frame, whereby the language people use determines how they think about things. But re-reading them, the novels themselves easily allow another more plausible relationship, whereby people reflect in their language use their meta-linguistic values and understandings.
Here's from <i>The Left Hand of Darkness</i>, which explores the world of a species of androgynous near-humans: <br />
<blockquote>
When you meet a Gethenian you cannot and must not do what a bisexual naturally does, which is to cast him in the role of Man or Woman, while adopting towards him a corresponding role dependent on your expectations of the patterned or possible interactions between persons of the same or the opposite sex. Our entire pattern of socio-sexual interaction is nonexistent here. They cannot play the game. They do not see one another as men or women. This is almost impossible for our imagination to accept. What is the first question we ask about a newborn baby? </blockquote>
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Yet you cannot think of a Gethenian as "it." They are not neuters. They are potentials, or integrals. Lacking the Karhidish "human pronoun" used for persons in somer, I must say "he," for the same reasons as we used the masculine pronoun in referring to a transcendent god: it is less defined, less specific, than the neuter or the feminine. But the very use of the pronoun in my thoughts leads me continually to forget that the Karhider I am with is not a man, but a manwoman. (65-66)</blockquote>
Not only do their pronouns reflect their gender and sex, but also other elements of basic vocabulary.<br />
<blockquote>
"Some are blacker," I said; "we come in all colors," and I opened the case (politely examined by the guards of the Palace at four stages of my approach to the Red Hall) that held my ansible and some pictures. The pictures—films, photos, paintings, actives, and some cubes—were a little gallery of Man: people of Hain, Chiffewar, and the Cetians, of S and Terra and Alterra, of the Uttermosts, Kapteyn, Ollul, Four-Taurus, Rokanan, Ensbo, Cime, Gde and Sheashel Haven... The king glanced at a couple without interest. </blockquote>
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"What's this?" </blockquote>
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"A person from Cime, a female." I had to use the word that Gethenians would apply only to a person in the culminant phase of kemmer, the alternative being their word for a female animal. </blockquote>
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"Permanently?" </blockquote>
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"Yes." </blockquote>
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..."So all of them, out on these other planets, are in permanent kemmer? A society of perverts? So Lord Tibe put it; I thought he was joking. Well, it may be the fact, but it's a disgusting idea, Mr. Ai, and I don't see why human beings here on earth should want or tolerate dealings with creatures so monstrously different." (25)</blockquote>
In the ambiguous utopia on Anarres, on the other hand, as depicted in <i>The Dispossessed</i>, the Odonians speak Pravic. According to their ideology, personal possession is forbidden or avoided; this is reflected in their language, most obviously in their avoidance of personal pronouns: <br />
<blockquote>
The singular forms of the possessive pronoun in Pravic were used mostly for emphasis; idiom avoided them. Little children might say "my mother," but very soon they learned to say "the mother." Instead of "my hand hurts," it was "the hand hurts me," and so on; to say "this one is mine and that's yours" in Pravic, one said, "I use this one and you use that." Mitis's statement "You will be his man," had a strange sound to it. Shevek looked at her blankly. (58)</blockquote>
As when a person chooses to use singular "they" as a gender-neutral third-person pronoun, which reflects and not determines their ideas about gender equity and non-sexist usage, these children learn a way of linguistic behavior that is reflective of their broader social values of nonpropertarianism. Their extralinguistic norms and values are reflected in their norms of language use, rather than their received language determining their patterns of thought, and it's those social norms that the children are learning as they gather up language.Panglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8706776352316470302.post-68725330666482693262013-01-26T10:10:00.001-05:002013-01-26T10:10:49.910-05:00Mluvíte česky?My sister went to Czech in October 2011 (around the time of the euro crisis), and at the time I gathered together some links on learning Czech. Who knows what value it has now, but I enjoy putting together a linkblogpost from time to time.
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<br />Czech was really fun the first time around that I studied it a decade and a half ago. It has such a great, transparent Latin-alphabet writing system, for one thing. A case system was kind of strange for an English speaker, but it's pretty usual for an Indo-European language. More recently I have <a href="http://panglott.blogspot.com/2009/11/spaced-repetition-systems.html">advocated</a> for spaced repetition systems (electronic flashcards) like <a href="http://ankisrs.net/">Anki</a> for memorizing vocabulary lists.<br />
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First you have to find a good dictionary, like <a href="http://www.slovnik.cz/">Slovnik</a> (tho I suspect too many people will just rely on <a href="http://translate.google.com/#cs|en|">Google Translate</a>). I always point to some regular sources, like the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_language">Wikipedia entry</a> and <a href="http://www.omniglot.com/writing/czech.htm">Omniglot</a>, although Omniglot has significantly embiggened its catalogue of <a href="http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/czech.php">Czech phrases recordings</a>. BBC Languages QuickFix has a few nice MP3s if you just want some basic <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other/quickfix/czech.shtml">essential Czech phrases</a>. The FSI language courses like <a href="http://www.fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php?page=Czech">Czech FAST</a> are often a great free resource, and a country's national broadcaster also often puts out free courses. Radio Praha, the Czech public international radio broadcaster, has the long-running MP3 segment <a href="http://www.radio.cz/en/section-archive/SoundCzech">SoundCzech</a>, on Czech phrases through song lyrics. I also love this precious little Web site, the <a href="http://www.czechprimer.org/">Little Czech Primer</a>.<br />
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There are plenty of other Web sites that have spottier information, mostly phrases and commentary: <a href="http://www.digitaldialects.com/Czech.htm">Digital Dialects</a>, <a href="http://www.czech-language.cz/">czech-language.ca</a>, <a href="http://bohemica.com/czechonline">bohemica.com</a>, <a href="http://www.catvusa.com/index.php?page=new_czech_class">Czech-American television lessons</a> (which worked on Internet Explorer on Windows), <a href="http://www.myczechrepublic.com/czech_language/czech_phrases.html">phrases</a> and <a href="http://www.myczechrepublic.com/czech_language/czech_idioms.html">idioms</a>. Czech has an interesting system of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_days_in_the_Czech_Republic">name</a> <a href="http://www.myczechrepublic.com/czech_culture/czech_name_days/">days</a>.<br />
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And maybe one day I'll get enough Czech to play <a href="http://www.pagat.com/tarot/taroky.html">tarocky</a>. Hodně štěstí!
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<i>Šlapeto performs some "Staropražské písničky" (old Prague songs and pub songs). Tady je to...</i>Panglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8706776352316470302.post-22133873229445166272012-11-06T17:09:00.000-05:002012-11-06T17:09:29.328-05:00Votes are worth somethingSo, contra the argument that voting is meaningless, it's pretty easy to tell that an individual vote is worth something. And that's because corrupt candidates are willing to pay for them: electoral fraud is very rare these days, but vote buying is one of the most common kinds. The market price of a vote is something like $10-20 (<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/selling-votes-is-common-type-of-election-fraud/2012/10/01/f8f5045a-071d-11e2-81ba-ffe35a7b6542_story.html"> WaPo</a>). "Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it". Twenty bucks is like a typical individual campaign donation, or a couple hours of work. It's not the influence of Sheldon Adelson, but it's not nothing. <br /><br />For comparison, just over 125 million Americans voted in 2008, which at $20/vote would be $2.5 billion, which sounds about right to me. There was about $2.6 billion spent on political advertising in 2008 all told (<a href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/02/about-26-billion-spent-on-political-ads-in-2008/">NYT</a>)—near on half a billion dollars directly by the Obama and McCain campaigns. <br /><br />TL/DR: if individual votes didn't matter, nobody would ever pay cash money to get them. <br />Panglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8706776352316470302.post-32948285667052276932012-08-03T14:19:00.000-04:002012-08-03T14:21:31.478-04:00My new project to learn the kanjiSo, I've been using <a href="http://panglott.blogspot.com/2009/11/spaced-repetition-systems.html">SRS</a> with Anki to study languages <a href="http://panglott.blogspot.com/2009/12/srs-after-three-weeks.html">since late 2009</a>, almost three years. Mostly with Japanese, but French and other languages as well. It's been interesting.<br />
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I got suckered into the sentence-mining AJATT championed then, but apparently that site has abandoned that method in favor of something called "MCDs" or whatever. Sentence mining is interesting, but it's fairly labor-intensive to make new cards, which tends to lead to wide variation in study times. I think it's helped some with my particle use, but it's too hard for the reward I get.<br />
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I suspect that the best way to use Anki is to focus exclusively on reading comprehension, whether it's comprehension of the kanji or vocab more generally. Furthermore, I think it's best to use Anki to build on existing body of knowledge, rather than begin by introducing a whole new body of knowledge. And to introduce things slowly, rather than blasting through dozens of new flashcards a day.<br />
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So August 1, I started a new project to simply recognize individual kanji with basic definitions and meanings (in Japanese, not Heisig's method). I'll work up a deck and simply introduce 3 new kanji every day, including the 300-400 I already know. If I do three a day for a year, I'd be able to recognize 1000 or so by the end of next summer.<br />
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Rather than using the order of the kyōiku kanji, in which Japanese children learn them, or by levels on the JLPT, I'm crafting a more idiosyncratic order: first, all kanji by stroke count, up to six strokes; then, the rest of the kanji used as radicals (which can have up to 13 strokes). After that, it's either more kanji by stroke count or instead kanji by frequency of use. The <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AuzSRjg-3K_vck9HZmp5YmVkMXJHMDRpMmU2UzFWVkE#gid=0">Japanese Wikipedia Kanji Frequency List</a>, discussed further in <a href="http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?pid=57528">this thread</a>, is a fascinating resource: 173 kanji make up 50% all kanji in Wikipedia, 454 kanji cover 75% of all kanji, and 874 kanji cover 90%. <a href="http://www.hellodamage.com/tdr/archive/7diary/byfreq.html">Here</a>'s a list of the 2,500 most common kanji in Japanese newspapers, used by <a href="http://jisho.org/">jisho.org</a>.<br />
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I've wanted to put together a learner's semantic dictionary of kanji compounds, which gives examples of kanji compound words in each entry that contain only kanji prviously introduced. But that's a huge amount of work, a years-long project, and I'd never get started if I waited to do that. =/Panglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8706776352316470302.post-84089747148169403892012-07-19T16:19:00.002-04:002012-07-19T16:19:18.676-04:00Typesetting Klingon in blackletterKlingon has a famously terrible-looking Romanization. The language has sounds that are very difficult to represent in the Latin script, developed at a time before Unicode became ubiquitous. It uses the <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMLbvvaHsRfiprFR3YvgnWn58GCE9L3Faiww9zTiVQICniJUWxtjbBbVuXexQAia2bqiaMiE3RJcA7qsYf4kNaSdPkoUgc__qNGSQYL7BS8v9xVmyFsnnK2IJm7pw9BhFeZcjJ7bbAoJg/s1600/tlhIngan+ArialU.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="138" width="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMLbvvaHsRfiprFR3YvgnWn58GCE9L3Faiww9zTiVQICniJUWxtjbBbVuXexQAia2bqiaMiE3RJcA7qsYf4kNaSdPkoUgc__qNGSQYL7BS8v9xVmyFsnnK2IJm7pw9BhFeZcjJ7bbAoJg/s320/tlhIngan+ArialU.png" /></a></div> Latin alphabet idiosyncratically, using capital letters to help remind readers that the sound the letter represents is probably not what they expect from the conventional English reading. So we get this, here set in Arial Unicode MS.<br />
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I'm also very suspicious of the <i><a href="http://klingonska.org/piqadpic.html">pIqad</a></i> scripts, which look like something created by a graphic designer who never had to actually write the language down. The graphemes for <q> and <Q> in particular look awfully similar.<br />
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However, the banner for <a href="http://klingonska.org/qq/">Qo'noS QonoS</a>, looks really good in a blackletter face. Perhaps Klingon <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It may be as affected as the heavy-metal umlaut, but I think there's more to it. Klingon uses both capital and lower-case H, although the latter is only used in the digraphs <gh> and <ch>. In many blackletter typefaces, the lower-case and capital H have the same basic shape, so the capital letter is less aberrant and jarring at the end or middle of a word. Blackletter faces often have a high x-height relative to the cap height, so the odd capital letters stand out a little less. Lastly, this typeface makes a very clear distinction between lower-case L and capital I, making more legible the last phrase, <i>lIghoH</i> "He disputes y'all". It can be a subtle distinction in many sans-serif or even serif faces. Besides, it certainly seems like Klingons would make free use of heavy-metal umlauts.<br />
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Libre blackletter fonts are not in great supply; <a href="http://moorstation.org/typoasis/designers/steffmann/">Dieter Steffman</a> made some gratis ones, but for Web typography the likeliest choice is the <a href="http://unifraktur.sourceforge.net/">Unifraktur</a> faces, available in <a href="http://www.google.com/webfonts/">Google</a> <a href="http://www.google.com/webfonts/specimen/UnifrakturCook">Web</a> <a href="http://www.google.com/webfonts/specimen/UnifrakturMaguntia">Fonts</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM_kF1OyRYRtXRZ8C9ei5MB12RDDdAHGiYAggC0_qzyarohKUv2e0xjozE8hH0wmS089tSNpKU0fqRJyV5V2RS3w1rq48V1xzFoQzNKfNDMuHxDthGajq-XdsXMxEdupZuwhKBEYh5l_8/s1600/Alphabets.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM_kF1OyRYRtXRZ8C9ei5MB12RDDdAHGiYAggC0_qzyarohKUv2e0xjozE8hH0wmS089tSNpKU0fqRJyV5V2RS3w1rq48V1xzFoQzNKfNDMuHxDthGajq-XdsXMxEdupZuwhKBEYh5l_8/s320/Alphabets.png" /></a></div>Panglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8706776352316470302.post-50277123752890021372012-07-12T16:43:00.000-04:002012-07-12T16:44:10.801-04:00How hard is learning Klingon?...by which I mean not "how hard it is to pronounce" (challenging) or "how hard/complex the grammar is" (varies, for a conlang), but something more on the order of "how much language there is to learn"?<br />
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So I did a quick analysis of <i>The Klingon Dictionary</i>. The heart of the Klingon language is in the morphology, the system of affixes that derive and inflect the root words of the language. As for the affixes, there are 21 noun suffixes that fit into five slots, 32-35 pronominal verb prefixes, and 31 verb suffixes that fit into nine slots. Almost half of the total suffixes mark person in some way. Additionally, the grammatical sketch introduces seven dozen or so roots, almost a dozen stand-alone pronouns, a dozen or so numbers (as well as two suffixes for numbers), almost a dozen conjunctions, a half-dozen question words, and three dozen or so adverbials and exclamations. So you could probably fit a very solid working knowledge of Klingon onto about 230 flash cards. That's large but manageable.<br />
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As for the dictionary, I estimate that there are about 1,460 words in the Klingon-English section. With the morphology, that's a lot of expressive power, although the vocabulary intentionally doesn't cover a lot of semantic space.Panglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8706776352316470302.post-89164986418334148172012-06-19T14:16:00.000-04:002012-06-19T14:17:34.506-04:00Retrospective: Dungeon #64 (Sept/Oct 1997)Spoiler alert! Of course, 15 years is well past the <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012/03/15/445600/the-spoilers-code">spoiler statute of limitations</a>.<br />
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These were some pretty memorable adventures; after all these years I remembered a little about all of them, although perhaps more about the scene at Lathtarl's Lantern than the actual adventure it's in.<br />
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<b>"Grotto of the Queen"</b>, by Paul and Shari Culotta (AD&D Forgotten Realms, Levels 6-9): The ambush of a rival adventuring party offers the PCs an opening to raid the submerged temple of the evil sea goddess Umberlee. The hook into this adventure is fairly contrived, requiring a fair amount of DM engineering: the adventurers are approached by a Lantanese emissary, to recover a magical boat taken by the cult of Umberlee. The party's nemesis (a 14th-level wizard with nothing better to do than follow the party and engineer some scrapes for them) warns the cult of their attack, and the cult prepares an ambush, which is instead triggered by a rival adventuring party. Alternatively, the author suggests that the cult of Umberlee has an effective spy network, which seems like a much simpler backstory.<br />
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Either way, the adventurers travel in an advanced Lantanese ship to a pirate enclave of Lathtarl's Lantern, on the Sword Coast between Baldur's Gate and Waterdeep. This is a neat little evil pirate town: it has a huge tavern full of dozens of pirates and outlaws, along with a couple of gnolls, ogres, and half-orcs, all drinking and carousing. There's a high likelihood that adventurers will get into a barroom brawl, ending in a boxing match before a shouting, leering crowd. Most of the residents are followers of Umberlee, so the adventurers should use some sublety in town. The grotto itself is a well-conceived dungeon, built by terrestrial worshippers of an evil sea goddess. The moderately-sized complex opens with some traps, some of which have been triggered, and can catch the temple unawares. Which is good: the final encounter should be very challenging, with a sea priestess who uses the environment of the confined, flooded temple to good advantage.<br />
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I don't like the plot of this adventure, but the actual setting and dungeon are pretty great. With some modest re-skinning, it would be an excellent addition to a campaign involving grim pirates who follow evil sea gods or demons.<br />
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<b>"Bzallin's Blacksphere"</b>, by Christopher Perkins (AD&D, Levels 12-15): In the town of Horizon, a <i>sphere of annihilation</i> is growing and threatening to destroy the community. The town's wizard-protector Amazzer (Wiz17) believes that his predecessor Bzallin is responsible for this. So the adventurers travel to Bzallin's ruined keep and destroy its guardians (a hibernating necromancer and some powerful undead), then travel from there to the lich Bzallin's lair: a pocket demiplane suspended within the quasielemental plane of Vacuum. It's not a tesseract, but the geometry of Bzallin's Cube is interesting enough to temporarily confound mappers. This demiplane is full of Bzallin's apprentices (themselves fairly powerful wizards), his demonic and daemonic servitors, and a number of magical traps and wards. There's many of the delicious trimmings you would expect of a high-level lich's lair, making use of a wide range of evocative higher-level spells. This is a high-level, high-magic romp, and the author is probably right in suggesting that the DM refer extensively to all volumes of the <i>Encyclopedia Magica</i>. There's probably about two to three dozen encounters, ranging from Bzallin's apprentices (who are mostly around 10th-level wizards) to the lich himself, a near-epic-level enounter.<br />
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One thing that's apparent about the suggested level of these adventures, generally speaking, is that an average-sized party needs to be near the high end of the level spread, not the low end. A 6th-level party in "Grotto of the Queen" will probably get killed, while a 12th-level party in "Bzallin's Blacksphere" is very badly outclassed by the big bad. Anyway, I love wizards and liches, and "Bzallin's Blacksphere" is definitely my favorite from this issue.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixHD1XWmN3E37rehd6unZclqhTIYAH6E9Gy357qt26c4EQNbMM79DtSSna7ukWkVksEt0ZIdBIyKH6C0-NoueVvmBa__sS_DqwvB_rLR5zhOGKhEAsE-pzhVsk6AaVueVMLaIWLxDN5tw/s1600/P_Dungeon_64.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixHD1XWmN3E37rehd6unZclqhTIYAH6E9Gy357qt26c4EQNbMM79DtSSna7ukWkVksEt0ZIdBIyKH6C0-NoueVvmBa__sS_DqwvB_rLR5zhOGKhEAsE-pzhVsk6AaVueVMLaIWLxDN5tw/s320/P_Dungeon_64.jpg" /></a><b>"Last Dance"</b>, by Jeff Crook (AD&D Ravenloft, Levels 4-6): In the city of Pont-à-Museau in the domain of Richemulot, the adventurers are hired by Madame Araby Tuvache, a psychopath, to clear out her basement of rats. In fact, she plans to trap them inside and kill them with her clockwork house of marionette horrors. The plot is simple and the dungeon doesn't seem all that dangerous, but this adventure is certainly gruesome. The PCs are not really expected to defeat the villain—if they kill her, the Dark Powers of Ravenloft transform her into an even worse creature, a Greater Animator running a haunted house—but merely to explore the environment and make it out alive. I'm not sure why the heroes don't just burn the place down from the get-go. This may be short enough to finish in a single session.<br />
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<b>"The Mad Chefs of Lac Anchois"</b>, by Jennifer Tittle Stack (AD&D, Levels 6-9): So, Pol and Prue Dhomme, a pair of Francophone cloud giant restauranteurs have captured some grippli young (instead of giant frogs) to butcher and serve for some giantish food critics that will visit their establishment, Chez Grands Frères, in three days. The grippli tribe mother asks some adventurers to intervene and rescue the children, and why not? How PCs approach this problem is fairly open-ended: they can try stealth, role-playing, deceit, negotiation, or even a direct frontal assault. The restaurant has several kobold waitresses (Francine, Chapponage, and Amortisseuse) to serve human-sized customers, although getting past the half-ogre mage wine steward Brummel and into the kitchen will be a challenge. If the adventurers attack the chefs, they may battle a dough golem or suffer the effects of their <i>dreaded spoon of transmuting flesh to roquefort</i>. The cloud giants are not actually <i>evil</i> evil, they just don't realize that the grippli young are sentient creatures.<br />
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This could be an interesting variant on a rescue-the-princess scenario, but the adventure plays it for laughs, and humor in D&D can be quite difficult to pull off. I don't think that the author quite succeeds; it seems pretty goofy. Of course, there is a time and a place for all things. Perhaps this adventure could be lighter interlude and welcome relief from a gruelling hack-and-slash campaign against giantish foes, such as <i>G1-3: Against the Giants</i>, where there is little or no opportunities for role-playing with the giants. "The Mad Chefs of Lac Anchois" certainly has more opportunity for role-playing, although I think the cloud giant brothers and their minions could be portrayed in a more sinister light; the comedy of this adventure will come through in any case. It's short enough to play through in a single session, I reckon.<br />
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Humor is used in a lot of my favorite adventures later on: the kobold Meepo in Bruce Cordell's <i>The Sunless Citadel</i>, the kobolds in Richard Pett's "The Devil Box" in <i>Dungeon</i> #109, or some of the goblins in <i>Pathfinder #1—Rise of the Runelords: Burnt Offerings</i>, by James Jacobs. "The Devil Box" is in fact one of my favorite <i>Dungeon</i> adventures, and it is hilarious. The key difference, I think, is that those adventures play for laughs creatures known to be small, weak, and relatively nonthreatening when encountered individually, so that humor adds some interest to overplayed monsters. Kobolds and goblins are supposed to be reckless, troublesome, and mischievous; the contrast between their evil ambitions and their individual weakness can be naturally funny. But the real villains in those adventures are not only sinister and threatening, but also powerful and deadly. In "The Mad Chefs of Lac Anchois", however, it is powerful monsters like giants and ogre magi that are played for laughs, and this corrodes the premise of the game: heroes are needed to combat the sinister threats of a dangerous world. Turning the dangerous monsters into jokes weakens the suspension of disbelief, rather than bolstering it.Panglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8706776352316470302.post-84346402346388277352012-06-12T16:04:00.000-04:002012-06-12T16:10:52.219-04:00Retrospective: Dungeon #63 (July-August 1997)I started buying issues of <i>Dungeon</i> magazines from about 1997, subscribing (with a few intermittent gaps) until the end of the print run in 2007. I sorted them the other day, and found that I have 75 issues all together: half of the magazines published, amounting to some hundreds of adventures. It's been between five and fifteen years since I read these, but there were some great adventurers with vivid scenes memorable even after years. However, I rarely use them, because it's hard to usefully find good adventures. Although <i>Dungeon</i> #150 has an index that lists only the system, title, author, and issue of each adventure, and there are a few public <a href="http://intwischa.com/dungeon/">indices</a> <a href="http://www.purpleworm.org/tools/DungeonMagazineIndex.htm">online</a> that add a short blurb, it's usually still not easy enough to find an appropriate adventure for a certain style, setting, or situation. So I'm going to start a regular feature, reading through and reviewing some my old <i>Dungeon</i> magazines, starting with the first one I ever bought in a store, #63. What do I remember from this issue, before re-reading it? The goblin-o-war, invisible stalker, and "Blood & Fire".<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjREO1HPzw0UW9mcv73_NwNEAp8DRudhbPtvS3MlO4flVOqRH7OUtavS3DxYvNJpse0EZRVE_yKCAmowJze_3GF-wdUxMoLy5WQ01wtZbhOsBUviE2-tdlfhSWJTSWS2iQ-VCWXmh50wlw/s1600/cover_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjREO1HPzw0UW9mcv73_NwNEAp8DRudhbPtvS3MlO4flVOqRH7OUtavS3DxYvNJpse0EZRVE_yKCAmowJze_3GF-wdUxMoLy5WQ01wtZbhOsBUviE2-tdlfhSWJTSWS2iQ-VCWXmh50wlw/s320/cover_500.jpg" /></a><b>"Hunt for a Hierophant"</b>, by Chris Doyle (AD&D, Levels 6-8): The evil wizard Zerrick has rallied a horde of bullywugs from the Cragmoor swamp to invade the communities beyond the Drakewood Forest, so adventurers are needed to rouse the slumbering hierophant druid Leander. They get some clues from an assortment of fey, treants, and giants, then negotiate the druid's dungeon resting place. The dungeon combines some combat tests with puzzles and riddles, most of which look relatively simple enough for an average group to handle easily.<br />
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<b>"Gnome Droppings"</b>, by Christopher Perkins (Spelljammer, Levels 2-4): Tinker gnomes drop their autognome cargo from a spelljamming ship, then come back and recover it. The adventurers hear a strange noise in the forest, and if they're curious, they might investigate, slaughter some evil-if-innocent bystanders (grimlocks and spriggans), and interact with a harmless-but-malfunctioning robot. There's a hook into Spelljammer (especially the goofier parts, like giant hamsters), but nobody gets hurt if the adventurers just snooze. The right group would have fun, but is this actually an adventure?<br />
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<b>"Huzza's Goblin-O-War"</b>, by Paul F. Culotta (AD&D Forgotten Realms, Levels 4-6): A monstrous pirate ship, crewed by goblins, margoyles, and a wizard, attack the PCs' ship at sea. When I first read it, the idea of a hill giant pirate captain struck me as a little too high-fantasy for my tastes. It may seem a little gonzo, but it sure does look like an entertaining encounter, even if Huzza is probably not bright enough to be a corsair. It's set in the Sea of Fallen Stars in the Forgotten Realms, but could be worked into any sea area with monstrous pirates.<br />
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<b>"Invisible Stalker"</b>, by Johnathan M. Richards (AD&D SideTrek, Levels 1-2): It's exactly what you'd guess from the pun: a creepy sleazeball of a villain with the power to not be seen, here accomplished via a level-inappropriate magic item. The villain's plan would be an interesting encounter, if you want to see how 1st-level characters plan to use a powerful magic ring later on. If so, it can be set in any city environment.<br />
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<b>"Blood & Fire"</b>, by John Baichtal (Al-Qadim, Levels 5-7): The adventurers travel from Qaybar, an emirate somewhere in Zakhara, to find its missing heir (the McGuffin). They travel across the desert to the oasis of Khaldun where they discover he's been taken by the Brotherhood of the True Flame, a powerful cabal of sinister flame mages, and taken to their Ivory Tower in the Valley of Mist. The plot of this adventure is fairly straightforward, and the final dungeon is not complex; there's about a half-dozen wilderness encounters and ten or so at the Tower. But there's a great deal of attention to detail in creating an evocative Arabian-themed desert setting. There's some excellent images and encounters: leucrottas haunting the dunes at night, an enchanted young couple mystically frozen in amber, a wizard mummy who doesn't realize he's dead in his cairn, the Apparatus of Kwalish clattering in a poisonous fog. Tony DiTerlizzi did some great illustrations here; I love the portrait of the coiling dragonne Zu'l Janah. This looks like a great adventure, my favorite in this issue.<br />
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<b>"Beauty Corrupt"</b>, by Kent Ertman (AD&D 2E, Levels 4-5): After "The Phantom Menace", I'll never blindly trust a plot that revolves around the disruption of trade negotiations (here, between the coastal towns of Orchid Bay and WyrWatch). The hook is a simple request to heal the key negotiator, who has a mystical afflication. But this adventure has a fairly creative McGuffin: a sirene's song, captured by a covey of hags as a spell component. They dwell in a fairly simple lair typical of a sea hag, guarded by scrags and merrow, with a few false entrances; the encounters look very tough, but the goal is to disrupt a spell, not kill everything in sight. There's the opportunity to adventure underwater, since a plant called quipper kelp allows characters to breathe water.Panglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8706776352316470302.post-9651963013445679262012-06-09T22:40:00.001-04:002012-06-09T22:45:27.953-04:00A brief tour of the Sheldomar ValleyI earlier noted that <a href="http://panglott.blogspot.com/2012/05/slight-index-to-some-classic-d-modules.html">many of the classic D&D modules were located in and around the Sheldomar Valley</a>. The Temple of Elemental Evil, for one, is located just over the Lortmil Mountains near Verbobonc. Others could be relocated nearby with some slight modifications: for example, a large swamp in the western Seahold could contain modules S1 and S2, while the Lendore Isles (and UK1, L1, and L2) could be moved offshore of the Seahold. So I've been putting together this pocket guide to the Sheldomar Valley based of various wikis and the <i>Living Greyhawk Gazetteer</i>; there is plenty of official information about the Greyhawk campaign setting, but it can be easy to get lost in it all. Here's a <a href="http://media.indiedb.com/images/groups/1/6/5328/Greyhawk_Yggsburgh_map.gif">map</a>. I'm more interested in the situation circa 579 CY, when adventurers begin arriving at Hommlet. <br />
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The Flanaess is inhabited by three main types of humans: the pale, blond Suloise, the olive-skinned Oerdians, and the aboriginal bronze-skinned Flan, for whom the region is named. Their ancient languages (Ancient Suloise, Old Oerdian, and Flan, respectively) are the ancestors of most contemporary human tongues. Across the mountains to the west live the Baklunish, and the Olman inhabit the jungle islands of the Densac Gulf, but relatively few of these peoples dwell in the Sheldomar Valley.<br />
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The <i>Common Tongue</i> is descended from a dialect of Old Oerdian developed by Baklunish scribes, with some Suloise influence, that developed into a language of trade and administration. Modern spoken descendents of Old Oerdian include Keoish and Velondi. <i>Keoish</i> is the dominant human language of the Sheldomar Valley, while <i>Velondi</i> is spoken by the peasants of Furyondy and Veluna. <i>Suloise</i> is essentially dead, but of interest to sages and scholars. It has a few modern descendants: <i>Amedi</i> is spoken by the barbarians of the Amedio Jungles, <i>Lendorian</i> is spoken in the Lendore Isles, and languages of the tundra barbarians of the north are descended from Suloise.<br />
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The Kingdom of <b><a href="http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Keoland">Keoland</a></b> is one of the oldest states in the Flanaess. It is a feudal monarchy, governed largely by Suel aristocracy; the king is chosen by the Noble Council of Nicole Dra, the capital. Although founded centuries ago, it reached its peak during "imperial" expansion in the 350s; several of its daughter states govern northern parts of the Sheldomar Valley. Most people are of mixed Suel and Oerdian descent and speak Keoish and Common, and few Flan remain.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Gran_March">Gran March</a></b> is a heavily militarized state north of Keoland; the elected Commandant governs from Hookhill. Although Gran March owes fealty to Keoland, it is self-governing and dominated by the Knights of the Watch; all adult males are required to provide military service. Most people speak Keoish and Common.<br />
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The Grand Duchy of <b><a href="http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Geoff">Geoff</a></b> is a feudal monarchy owing fealty to Keoland; the Grand Duke governs from Gorna. It is further divided into six cantrevs, each ruled by a Llwyr (a baron). Flan culture and people are more prominent in Geoff than the rest of the Sheldomar Valley; most people speak Flan and Common, as well as Keoish to a lesser extent.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Sterich">Sterich</a></b> is a feudal monarchy that is formally a vassal to Keoland, but self-governing in practice; the earl governs from Istivin. Sterich was established by settlers from Geoff, and has long been a mining colony where peasants do well since labor is in short supply.<br />
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The <b><a href="http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Sea_Princes">Seahold</a></b>, formerly a province of Keoland, is a sovereign state ruled by Prince Jeon II, who has taken up a campaigns against slavery and slave-raiding from the Amedio Jungle and Olman Islands. Most people speak Keoish and Common, a few speak Amedi, Olman, or other languages. (There are dark whispers that the Scarlet Brotherhood has some future designs upon the Hold of the Sea Princes ca. 589).<br />
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The <b><a href="http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Yeomanry">Yeomanry League</a></b> is a democratic republic to the southwest of Keoland; the Spokesman governs from Loftwick. It was allied with Keoland until the 360s, when it objected to Keoland's conquests. Most people in the Yeomanry are freeholders of mixed Suel and Flan descent who speak mostly Keoish and Common.<br />
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<b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanaess#Bissel">Bissel</a></b> is a border state at the northern end of the region, at the crossroads of the Sheldomar Valley, the Baklunish states, and the rest of the Flanaess. Bissel was conquered by Keoland in the 350s, governed as the Littlemark, then later conquered by the kingdom of Furyondy. Furyondy's influence gradually waned, until the Margrave established Bissel's independence in a battle in 477 CY. Most people are of mixed Baklunish, Suel, and Oerdian descent, and speak Common or Baklunish dialects.<br />
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The <b><a href="http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Ulek_States">Ulek States</a></b> are a trio of three sovereign kingdoms east of Keoland. The northernmost is an elven kingdom, the southernmost is a dwarven kingdom, and a druidic human kingdom lies between.<br />
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The <b><a href="http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Valley_of_the_Mage">Valley of the Mage</a></b> is an isolated and xenophobic elven kingdom hidden in the Barrier Peaks. It is ruled by a powerful arcane spellcaster known as the Black One. The valley elves are scorned by all other elves (possibly due to an ancient bargain for extraplanar lore) and reject the elven pantheon, preferring Ehlonna and the druidic Old Faith. A plurality of the Valley's residents are various humans under the rule of a human earl, a vassal of the elven king, and many gnomes live there as well, but the valley is thinly populated and has very little traffic with the outside world, even preferring raiding to trade.<br />
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The most popular and widespread gods in the Sheldomar Valley include such important deities like <a href="http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Heironeous">Heironeous</a>, <a href="http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Fharlanghn">Fharlanghn</a>, <a href="http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Ehlonna">Ehlonna</a>, and <a href="http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Saint_Cuthbert">St. Cuthbert</a>, as well as <a href="http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Phaulkon">Phaulkon</a>, <a href="http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Zilchus">Zilchus</a>, and <a href="http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Norebo">Norebo</a>. Sea gods like <a href="http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Osprem">Osprem</a> and <a href="http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Procan">Procan</a> are popular along the coast, while Flan gods like <a href="http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pelor">Pelor</a>, <a href="http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Allitur">Allitur</a>, and <a href="http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Obad-hai">Obad-Hai</a> are popular in the western half of the region. <a href="http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Istus">Istus</a> and <a href="http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Rao">Rao</a> are worshipped in Bissel, while <a href="http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Kelanen">Kelanen</a> has a headquarters in Istivin and adherents in the Seahold.Panglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8706776352316470302.post-81649642410244764862012-06-02T13:32:00.000-04:002012-07-12T16:44:03.775-04:00On KlingonI'm no Klingonist, but I've been reading more about it the past few days (a used copy of the <i>Klingon Dictionary</i> and an instructional audiobook doesn't break $10). I really like Mark Okrand has a subtle sense of humor. And Klingon has a strangely appealling phonoaesthetic for such a choppy language: it's like a tour of the points of articulation that are difficult for an Anglophone.<br />
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Klingon intentionally has a weird phonology. Not in the actual sounds that are used, which are normal human language sounds, but rather the pattern of sounds: it has several prominent holes in its phonology.<br />
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For example, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klingon_language#Consonants">Klingon has</a> the velar nasal /ŋ/ and velar fricatives /x/ and /ɣ/ (which sound like sounds from French and German), but it does not have the velar stop /k/. Meanwhile, it has the uvular stop /qʰ/ and uvular affricate /qχ/, but no other uvular sounds. It would be very likely, in a natural language, if this kind of weird gap arose, for either the two series to converge on one point of articulation (for example, shifting /q/ to /k/ and /qχ/ to /kx/), or alternatively for new consonants to spring up to fill out the phonology at each point of articulation (for example adding /k/ and /χ/ as phonemes).<br />
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And while Klingon has the affricate /tɬ/ and the affricate /tʃ/, but the only alveolar or postalveolar fricative is the retroflex /ʂ/, which seems like it would merge with either /ɬ/ or /ʃ/.<br />
<br />
Similarly, while Klingon contrast the voiceless stop /p/ with the voiced stop /b/, it contrasts the voiceless stop /t/ not with the voiced stop /d/, but rather with the voiced retroflex stop /ɖ/. It's pretty weird, to articulate it as retroflex rather than plain voiced, and it seems likely that Klingon would undergo a sound change: first the retroflex consonant would be in variation with the plain stop /d/, and then it would be dropped in favor of /d/. Of course, any description of a language is just a snapshot of it in time, with changes behind it and changes to come. <br />
<br />
Now in practice, these uvular consonants are very difficult consonants for native English speakers to produce, and I think that a great deal of spoken Klingon has speakers using /k/ instead of /q/, or /d/ instead of the retroflex /ɖ/. Marc Okrand seemingly addressed this somewhat in <i>The Klingon Dictionary</i>: <br />
<br />
<blockquote>
There are a number of dialects of Klingon. Only one of the dialects, that of the current Klingon emperor, is represented in this dictionary. When a Klingon emperor is replaced, for whatever reason, it has historically been the case that the next emperor speaks a different dialect. As a result, the new emperor's dialect becomes the official dialect. Those Klingons who do not speak the official dialect are considered either stupid or subversive, and are usually forced to undertake tasks that speakers of the official standard find distasteful. Most Klingons try to be fluent in several dialects. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Some dialects differ only slightly from the dialect of this dictionary. Differences tend to be in vocabulary (the word for <i>forehead</i>, for example, is different in almost every dialect) and in the pronunciation of a few sounds. On the other hand, some dialects differ significantly from the current official dialect, so much so that speakers of these dialects have a great deal of difficulty communicating with current Klingon officialdom. The student of Klingon is warned to check into the political situation in the Klingon Empire before trying to talk.</blockquote>
There does seem to be a great deal of continuity in spoken Klingon between different eras (as much as in the English of these periods), although some of this might result from the prominence of Colonel Worf (an official of the Klingon Empire who defended Captain Kirk in court) and Lieutenant Worf (a later officer of the USS Enterprise). Interestingly, according to Okrand, English has a position of high prestige in the Klingon Empire, serving as a signal of elite status and a private means of communication among starship officers. If Klingons use English as a signal of social prestige, it doesn't seem implausible that, in Klingon, they would use a somewhat artificial, archaic, and difficult-to-pronounce sociolect as a prestige dialect as well.<br />
<br />
Dialect can explain some of the problems with voice acting in Klingon. But it's just too difficult for Anglophones to pronounce. Christopher Plummer's General Chang in "Star Trek VI" is a great character, quoting Shakespeare even more than Kirk does in some of the earlier movies. Except when he's speaking Klingon: the only time he does it, at Kirk's trial, it is a bunch of disconnected syllables that don't display the interesting morphology of the language.<br />
<br />
Mark Okrand talks about the creation of the Klingon language in <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph77eTMZIhs">this series</a> of videos (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph77eTMZIhs">1</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boOi7rkGZhE">2</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiiqwVivIsc">3</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2AZW1vplFA">4</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yUWnhw0WeA">5</a>). Since the Klingon language was created on the set of "Star Trek III", Okrand was able to incorporate the actors' performance errors into the canonical version of the Klingon language. "My sort of 'role model' of what Klingon sounds like is Christopher Lloyd saying it, because he was my first big speaker," Okrand <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2AZW1vplFA">says</a>.<br />
<br />
However, Michael Dorn, who played Worf on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine", as well as three of the movies, has probably spoken more lines of Klingon than any other actor. He's also done a lot of voice work narrating audiobooks on the languageand videogames (such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Klingon">Star Trek: Klingon</a>), although in the audiobook of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Conversational-Klingon/dp/B0000547GI/">Conversational Klingon</a>, Okrand pronounces all the Klingon words and phrases. Dorn is also kind of awesome.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='400' height='332' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/-dKeMPo5LSI?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Panglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8706776352316470302.post-68126967772239577822012-05-31T15:50:00.000-04:002012-05-31T15:50:03.397-04:00The HHH system of measurementThe <em>hathmic</em> system, also known as the <em>hathom-hecand-hemoth</em>
system, is a hexadecimal anthropocentric system of measurement, created
as an exercise in recreational arithmetic, as an intellectual folly,
and possibly for purposes of fiction. The names aren't serious, mostly
just bad puns on various historical units (<em>fathom, plethron, li, league, fist, watch, behemoth</em>, and <em>quadrans</em>). <br /><br />Anthropocentric
units are often more useful to humans than geocentric ones, but they
should be based on some consistent scale rather than using different
ratios between units. The metric system is inconvenient in
anthropocentric terms, but is very convenient in being based
consistently on a decimal system. But the decimal system is kind of
boring, so this system based upon hexadecimal comes from a made-up
culture that reveres squares. Different systems of measurement are good
at measuring different things; this system is focused on representing
human-scale walking travel times. For example, in one haach (of time), a
person can walk about one hleeg (of distance). <br /><br />The base unit is the <em>hathom</em>,
which by astonishing coincidence is precisely 1.8 meters. This is six
feet in metric (25-mm) inches, or about 5 feet 10 inches, roughly the
average height of a human male. Sixteen hathoms are a <em>lethron</em>, which is 28.8 meters or about 94.5 feet. Sixteen lethrons are a <em>hli</em>, which is 460.8 meters or about 0.29 miles. Sixteen hlis are a <em>hleeg</em>, which is 7.372 kilometers, or about 4.58 miles. <br /><br />Going smaller, one-sixteenth of a hathom is a <em>lister</em>,
which is 112.5 millimeters or about 4.43 inches. A lister is further
divided into sixteen units, each of which is each to about 7 millimeters
or 0.28 inches. <br /><br />The most practical unit of time is the day, one-sixteenth of which is a <em>haach</em>. This is an hour and a half long. The base unit of time, however, is the <em>hecand</em>, which is about 1.3 seconds. There are 65,536 hecands in a day. <br /><br />There has to be a base unit of mass, to fill out the system; I'm just ripping off SI on this. The base unit of mass is the <em>hemoth</em>, equivalent to 5,832 kilograms. More commonly, people would use a <em>huad</em>, which weighs about 89 grams. Sixteen huads weigh about 1.42 kilograms.Panglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8706776352316470302.post-44331860706788409142012-05-31T15:39:00.000-04:002012-06-09T22:49:47.023-04:00A slight index to some classic D&D modules<p>Back in 2004 (in issue #116), /Dungeon/ magazine offered a list of the top 30 D&D adventures of all time. They're listed with some comment at <a href="http://rpggeek.com/geeklist/47223/the-30-greatest-dd-adventures-of-all-time">RPG Geek</a> and <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/09/30-greatest-d-adventures-of-all-time.html">Grognardia</a>. RPG Geek also has a <a href="http://rpggeek.com/geeklist/49682/greatest-dd-adventure-modules-of-all-time-composit">composite ranking of the highest-rated adventures</a> which may be more useful, as well as a list of <a href="http://rpggeek.com/geeklist/47370/recommended-dungeon-magazine-adventures">highly-rated <i>Dungeon</i> adventures</a>. Many such <a href="http://lorenrosson.blogspot.com/2011/09/best-dungeons-dragons-modules.html">lists</a> have <a href="http://www.amazon.com/top-classic-dungeons-dragons-modules/lm/1G9AK53Q8KQUH">similar</a> items (<a href="http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/01/top-10-dd-modules">1</a>, <a href="http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/01/top-10-dd-modules-2/">2</a>, <a href="http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/01/top-10-dd-modules-3/">3</a>, <a href="http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/01/top-10-dd-modules-4/">4</a>, <a href="http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/01/top-10-dd-modules-5/">5</a>, <a href="http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/01/top-10-dd-modules-i-found-in-storage-this-weekend-6-geekdad-wayback-machine-2/">6</a>, <a href="http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/01/top-10-dd-modules-7/">7</a>). For a long time, I've wondered how these old modules fit into their campaign worlds, where these dungeons are supposed to be, and how they fit together. So I've put together this little index to some classic modules, focusing on canonical geography, and jumping off from the 2004 <i>Dungeon</i> list.</p>
<p>This list is restricted to actual modules from TSR from about 1975-1985. So it doesn't include Judge's Guild modules like <i>Dark Tower</i> (1980), <i>Caverns of Thracia</i> (1980), or <i>Tegel Manor</i> (1977); later Gygaxian material like <i>Necropolis</i> (1992); <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dungeons_%26_Dragons_modules">other TSR modules</a> like <i>The Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga</i>; or <i>Dungeon</i> adventures like "The Mud Sorcerer's Tomb" (#37). Wolfgang Baur's "Kingdom of the Ghouls" (<i>Dungeon</i> #70, September 1998) is set in Greyhawk, starting from the town of Loftwick in the Yeomanry in Sheldomar Valley and traveling under the Crystalmist and Hellfurnace Mountains. Similarly, I'll skip a couple of later adventures from the <i>Dungeon</i> list: <i>The Gates of Firestorm Peak</i> (1996), <i>The Forge of Fury</i> (2000), <i>Dead Gods</i> (1997), <i>Ruins of Undermountain</i> (1991), <i>City of the Spider Queen</i> (2002), <i>Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil</i> by Monte Cook (2001), <i>Return to the Tomb of Horrors</i> by Bruce Cordell (1998), and <i>WGR6: City of Skulls</i> (1993).</p>
<p>Clearly, a campaign focusing on these adventures set in a canonical campaign world should be set in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheldomar_Valley#Sheldomar_Valley">Sheldomar Valley</a> in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyhawk">Greyhawk</a>: about three-quarters of these adventures have a canonical location in Greyhawk. Of these, about 38% are in or around the Sheldomar Valley, while about 24% are somewhere between the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_City_of_Greyhawk">Free City of Greyhawk</a> and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomarj">Pomarj</a>. Nearly all of them could be put in and around the Sheldomar Valley with some slight geographical modifications. Paizo published a <a href="http://paizo.com/download/dungeon/desktops/Greyhawk_1600x1024.jpg">giant poster map</a> of Greyhawk, although <a href="http://media.indiedb.com/images/groups/1/6/5328/Greyhawk_Yggsburgh_map.gif">this map</a> is more legible online, and <a href="http://images.wikia.com/greyhawkpoland/images/e/eb/Greyhawk_Map.jpg">this one</a> has hexes for <a href="http://www.rpgjunction.com/greyhawk-module-locations-884335.html">specific module locations</a>. The <a href="http://ghmaps.net/info.html">Atlas of Greyhawk</a> has some very detailed terrain maps. OTOH, most of the Mystara adventures are set (or retconned) to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karameikos">Karameikos</a>.</p>
<p><i><b>Temple of the Frog</b></i> (1975), by Dave Arneson, was the first module published for D&D, in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackmoor_%28supplement%29">Blackmoor supplement</a>. It was revised and expanded as <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_the_Frog">DA2</a>: Temple of the Frog</i> in 1986, for characters of levels 10-14. Located in a deep swamp, it includes some science-fiction crossover elements. Blackmoor was included in northern regions of both Mystara and Greyhawk settings. </p>
<p><i><b>B1: In Search of the Unknown</b></i> (1978), by Mike Carr, is a beginner's scenario intended to show how to create dungeons, for characters of levels 1-3. The <b>B</b>asic series modules were initially setting neutral. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of_the_Unknown">W</a>, <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/09/restrospective-in-search-of-unknown.html">Grognardia</a> <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/07/characters-of-b1.html">&c.</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>B2: The Keep on the Borderlands</b></i> (1979), by Gary Gygax, is a dungeon crawl for characters of levels 1-3. Originally setting-neutral, <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Duchy_of_Karameikos">GAZ1</a>: The Grand Duchy of Karameikos</i> located the Keep in Karameikos in Mystara; the 1999 sequel <i>Return to the Keep on the Borderlands</i> placed the Keep in Greyhawk, in the Yeomanry in Sheldomar Valley, although it made reference to non-Greyhawk deities and some Mystara background information. Ranked #7 by <i>Dungeon</i> in 2004. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Keep_on_the_Borderlands">W</a>, <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/03/retrospective-keep-on-borderlands.html">Grognardia</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>B3: Palace of the Silver Princess</b></i> (1981), by Jean Wells, is a low-level dungeon crawl for characters of levels 1-3, intended for a single game session. It features a country frozen in time except for the royal palace, a white dragon, three-headed ubues, and a giant ruby. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_the_Silver_Princess">W</a>, <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/11/retrospective-palace-of-silver-princess.html">Grognardia</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>B4: The Lost City</b></i> (1982), by Tom Moldvay, is a beginning adventure for characters of levels 1-3. It is set in the ruined city of Cynidicea, buried in a desert, mostly within a sunken step pyramid infested with cultists of Zargon at war with Cynidiceans who follow the city's ancient gods. The compilation <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of_Adventure">B1-9</a>: In Search of Adventure</i> locates the dungeon in Mystara. Ranked #28 by <i>Dungeon</i> in 2004. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_City_%28Dungeons_%26_Dragons%29">W</a>, <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/06/retrospective-lost-city.html">Grognardia</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>X1: Isle of Dread</b></i> (1980), by David Cook and Tom Moldvay, is a wilderness exploration adventure for characters of levels 3-7. Adventurers sail to and explore the jungle island, inhabited by dinosaurs, kopru, aranea, rakasta, and phanaton. This module introduced the Known World that would become the Mystara setting. In <i>Dungeon #114</i>, it was relocated to Greyhawk, to the Densac Gulf west of Hepmonaland and east of the Amedio Jungle and the Hellfurnaces. <i>Dungeon</i>'s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savage_Tide">Savage Tide</a> adventure path had PCs sail from Sasserine and visit the Isle of Dread via Tamoachan. Ranked #16 by <i>Dungeon</i> in 2004. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_Dread">W</a>, <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/02/retrospective-isle-of-dread.html">Grognardia</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>X2: Castle Amber</b></i> (1981), by Tom Moldvay, is a weird adventure for characters of levels 3-7. The PCs are traveling to the magocracy of Glantri in Mystara, but are drawn into the castle and must travel through a portal to Averoigne to reach an interdimensional tomb. Ranked #15 by <i>Dungeon</i> in 2004. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Amber_%28module%29">W</a>, <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/10/retrospective-castle-amber.html">Grognardia</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>S1: Tomb of Horrors</b></i> (1978), by Gary Gygax, is a fiendish dungeon for characters of levels 10-14, the tomb of the demilich Acererak. The dungeon itself is located on some lost and lonely hill in Greyhawk, in the Vast Swamp south of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunndi">Sunndi</a>. Ranked #3 by <i>Dungeon</i> in 2004. <i>Return to the Tomb of Horrors</i> introduces Skull City built over the tomb. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_Horrors">W</a>, <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/09/retrospective-tomb-of-horrors.html">Grognardia</a>, <a href="http://ghmaps.net/sq89.html">Atlas</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>S2: White Plume Mountain</b></i> (1979), by Lawrence Schick, is a puzzle dungeon crawl for characters of levels 5-10, which revolves around a quest to retrieve an intelligent trident, warhammer, and sword from the eponymous volcano in Greyhawk. White Plume Mountain is located south of the Great Swamp, in the Shield Lands just south of the Rift Canyon and north of the great lake Nyr Dyv. There's a <a href="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20051207a">revision</a> for 3.5e for 7th-level characters. Ranked #9 by <i>Dungeon</i> in 2004. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Plume_Mountain">W</a>, <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2011/05/retrospective-white-plume-mountain.html">Grognardia</a>, <a href="http://ghmaps.net/sq47.html">Atlas</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks</b></i> (1980), by Gary Gygax, is a dungeon crawl for characters of levels 8-12, in which adventurers explore a crashed space ship. It is located in Greyhawk, unsurprisingly in the Barrier Peaks north of Geoff and east of the Crystalmist Mountains. Ranked #5 by <i>Dungeon</i> in 2004. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expedition_to_the_Barrier_Peaks">W</a>, <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/11/retrospective-expedition-to-barrier.html">Grognardia</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>S4: The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth</b></i> (1982), by Gary Gygax, is a monster-filled labyrinth for characters of levels 6-10, in which adventurers delve for the treasure of Iggwilv. Set in Greyhawk, the dungeon is located in the Yatil Mountains south of Perrenland. <i>WG4: The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun</i> is a loosely connected sequel to this. Ranked #22 by <i>Dungeon</i> in 2004. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Caverns_of_Tsojcanth">W</a>, <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/01/retrospective-lost-caverns-of-tsojcanth.html">Grognardia</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>WG4: The Forgotten Temple of Tharzidun</b></i> (1982), by Gary Gygax, is a Lovecraftian wilderness and dungeon adventure for characters of levels 5-10. Set in Greyhawk, it is a loosely connected sequel to <i>S4: The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth</i>, and has the PCs follow rampaging norkers from the Caverns to the Temple. Ranked #23 by <i>Dungeon</i> in 2004. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forgotten_Temple_of_Tharizdun">W</a>, <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/11/retrospective-forgotten-temple-of.html">Grognardia</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>WG5: Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure</b></i> (1984), by Rob Kuntz and Gary Gygax, is a dungeon crawl for characters of levels 9-12. Set in Greyhawk, it is located at Maure Castle, just east of Greyhawk city. This adventure was revised and expanded as "Maure Castle" in <i>Dungeon</i> #112, #124, and #139. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordenkainen%27s_Fantastic_Adventure">W</a>, <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/02/retrospective-mordenkainens-fantastic.html">Grognardia</a>, <a href="http://ghmaps.net/sq60.html">Atlas</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>C1: The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan</b></i> (1980), by Harold Johnson and Jeff R. Leason, is a tournament module for characters of levels 5-7. The adventure was set in Greyhawk at a ruined Olman city in the Amedio Jungle. Ranked #18 by <i>Dungeon</i> in 2004. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hidden_Shrine_of_Tamoachan">W</a>, <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/06/retrospective-hidden-shrine-of.html">Grognardia</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>C2: The Ghost Tower of Inverness</b></i> (1979), by Allen Hammack, is a competition module for characters of levels 5-7. Set in Greyhawk, the tower is located in the southern Abbor-Alz Hills north of the Bright Desert. Ranked #30 by <i>Dungeon</i> in 2004. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghost_Tower_of_Inverness">W</a>, <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/11/retrospective-ghost-tower-of-inverness.html">Grognardia</a>, <a href="http://ghmaps.net/sq59.html">Atlas</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God</b></i> (1982), by Douglas Niles, is a town, wilderness, and dungeon adventure for characters of levels 1-3. Set in Greyhawk, it is located between the Gran March and the Kingdom of Keoland in the Sheldomar Valley. Ranked #19 by <i>Dungeon</i> in 2004. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_the_Cult_of_the_Reptile_God">W</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>DL1: Dragons of Despair</b></i> (1984), by Tracy Hickman, is an introductory adventure for characters of levels 4-6. Set in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dragonlance_locations">Krynn</a>, it begins in the elven town of Solace and travels to the jungle-covered ruins of the city of Xak Tsaroth. Ranked #25 by <i>Dungeon</i> in 2004. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragons_of_Despair">W</a>, <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/12/retrospective-dragons-of-despair.html">Grognardia</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>U1: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh</b></i> (1981), by Dave J. Browne with Don Turnbull, is for characters of levels 1-3, with a ghostly ship and a spooky mansion in the eponymous town. Located in Greyhawk, Saltmarsh is in the Hold of the Sea Princes in the southern Sheldomar Valley. Ranked #27 by <i>Dungeon</i> in 2004. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sinister_Secret_of_Saltmarsh">W</a>, <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/02/retrospective-sinister-secret-of.html">Grognardia</a>)</p>
<p><i><b> UK1: Beyond the Crystal Cave</b></i> (1983), by Dave Browne, Tom Kirby, and Graeme Morris, is an adventure for characters of levels 4-7, in which the adventurers travel to a enchanted garden of eternal summer in a pocket dimension. Set in Greyhawk, it's on Sybarate Isle in the Hold of the Sea Princes in the southern Sheldomar Valley. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_the_Crystal_Cave">W</a>, <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2011/10/retrospective-beyond-crystal-cave.html">Grognardia</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>L1: The Secret of Bone Hill</b></i> (1981), by Len Lakofka, is a mini-setting for characters of levels 2-4. Set in Greyhawk, it is located in a fishing port in the Lendore Isles. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_of_Bone_Hill">W</a>, <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/11/retrospective-secret-of-bone-hill.html">Grognardia</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>L2: The Assassin’s Knot</b></i> (1983), by Len Lakofka, is a murder mystery for characters of levels 2-4. A sequel to <i>L1: The Secret of Bone Hill</i>, it is set in the same community. Ranked #29 by <i>Dungeon</i> in 2004. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Assassin%27s_Knot">W</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>I1: Dwellers of the Forbidden City</b></i> (1981), by David Cook, is an adventure for characters of levels 4-7, in which PCs travel to a jungle city overrun by yuan-ti and tasloi. Characters can intrigue with the bugbears, bullywugs, or mongrelmen of the city, and the module also introduced aboleths and yellow musk creepers. Set in Greyhawk, it is located in Hepmonaland. Ranked #13 by <i>Dungeon</i> in 2004. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwellers_of_the_Forbidden_City">W</a>, <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/08/locale-and-plot.html">Grognardia</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>I3-5: The Desert of Desolation</b></i> (1983), by Tracy and Laura Hickman, is a compilation of three Egyptian-themed modules, for characters of levels 5-7: <i>I3: Pharaoh</i>, <i>I4: Oasis of the White Palm</i>, and <i>I5: Lost Tomb of Martek</i>. Set in a desert, the compilation was retconned into <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raurin">Raurin</a> in the Forgotten Realms. Ranked #6 by <i>Dungeon</i> in 2004. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_of_Desolation">W</a>, <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/01/retrospective-pharaoh.html">Grognardia</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>I6: Ravenloft</b></i> (1983), by Tracy and Laura Hickman, is a horror adventure for characters of levels 5-7, in which adventurers oppose the famous vampire. It is set at Castle Ravenloft in Barovia, which later evolved into the Ravenloft setting. Ranked #2 by <i>Dungeon</i> in 2004. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravenloft_%28module%29">W</a>, <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/12/retrospective-ravenloft.html">Grognardia</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>T1-4: The Temple of Elemental Evil</b></i> (1985), by Gary Gygax and Frank Mentzer, includes <i>T1: The Village of Hommlet</i> within the <i>T1-4</i> module, for characters of levels 1-8. Set in Greyhawk, the adventure starts at the village of Hommlet near the city-state of Verbobonc, then travels to the nearby village of Nulb and the Temple. Ranked #4 by <i>Dungeon</i> in 2004. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Temple_of_Elemental_Evil">W</a>, <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/10/retrospective-village-of-hommlet.html">Grognardia</a> <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/10/retrospective-temple-of-elemental-evil.html">&c.</a>, <a href="http://ghmaps.net/sq59.html">Atlas</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>A1-4: Scourge of the Slave Lords</b></i> (1986), by David Cook, Allen Hammack, Harold Johnson, Tom Moldvay, Lawrence Schick, and Edward Carmien, is a compilation of modules for characters of levels 7-11, which includes <i>A1: Slave Pits of the Undercity</i>, <i>A2: Secret of the Slavers Stockade</i>, <i>A3: Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords</i>, and <i>A4: In the Dungeon of the Slave Lords</i>. Set in Greyhawk, the adventure begins in the city of Highport in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomarj">Pomarj</a>, then travels for a hundred miles or more through the Drachensgrab Hills to the hidden city of Suderham, on an island in a volcanic crater. Ranked #20 by <i>Dungeon</i> in 2004. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scourge_of_the_Slave_Lords">W</a>, <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/11/retrospective-slave-pits-of-undercity.html">Grognardia</a>, <a href="http://ghmaps.net/sq72.html">Atlas</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>G1-3: Against the Giants</b></i> (1981), by Gary Gygax, is a compilation of three dungeon crawls, for characters of levels 8-12: <i>G1: Steading of the Hill Giant Chief</i>, <i>G2: Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl</i>, and <i>G3: Hall of the Fire Giant King</i>. Set in Greyhawk, <i>G1</i> begins in Istivin in the Sheldomar Valley; the PCs travel overland to the hill giants' steading, from where they are magically transported to the frost giants' glacier in the Crystalmists, from where they are magically transported to the fire giants' hall in the Hellfurnaces. As part of <i>GDQ1-7: Queen of the Spiders</i> (1986), this was ranked #1 by <i>Dungeon</i> in 2004. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_the_Giants">W</a>, <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2012/04/retrospective-against-giants.html">Grognardia</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>D1-3: Descent into the Depths of the Earth</b></i> (1978), by Gary Gygax, is a compilation of three dungeon crawls, for characters of levels 9-14: <i>D1: Descent into the Depths of the Earth</i>, <i>D2: Shrine of the Kuo-Toa</i>, and <i>D3: Vault of the Drow</i>. Set in Greyhawk, the PCs follow a tunnel down from the fire giants' hall in <i>G3</i> through the Underdark to the drow city of Erelhei-Cinlu. As part of <i>GDQ1-7: Queen of the Spiders</i> (1986), this was ranked #1 by <i>Dungeon</i> in 2004. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_into_the_Depths_of_the_Earth">W</a>, Grognardia <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2011/08/retrospective-descent-into-depths-of.html">1</a> <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2011/08/retrospective-shrine-of-kuo-toa.html">2</a> <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/10/retrospective-vault-of-drow.html">3</a>)</p>
<p><i><b>Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits</b></i> (1980), by David Sutherland with Gary Gygax, is an adventure for characters of levels 10-14. Set in Greyhawk, the adventurers travel through a planar gate in the drow city of Erelhei-Cinlu to the 66th layer of the Abyss to confront the demon goddess Lolth. As part of <i>GDQ1-7: Queen of the Spiders</i> (1986), this was ranked #1 by <i>Dungeon</i> in 2004. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_into_the_Depths_of_the_Earth">W</a>, <a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/02/retrospective-queen-of-demonweb-pits.html">Grognardia</a>)</p>Panglotthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811340779409286134noreply@blogger.com1