Dead Authors

Some of our favorite authors have met the Grim Reaper in unusual ways.

From a piece on Publisher's Weekly...

1. Tennessee Williams choked to death on a bottle cap. In 1983, Williams was found dead with an eyedrops bottle cap blocking his larynx. An empty bottle of wine and several kinds of medications were also found, and their consumption was thought to have restrained his gag reflex.

2. Sir Francis Bacon died of pneumonia after stuffing a chicken with snow. In 1626, Bacon wanted to do a meat preservation experiment so he went out in a blizzard with a piece of meat. He died a month later.

3. Molière was seized by a coughing fit while performing one of his plays and died hours later. While performing his play The Imaginary Invalid (off-the-radar irony) for King Louis the 14th, Molière started coughing and gasping and, after a brief delay, resumed and eventually finished the play. He had been suffering from tuberculosis for years and died hours later.

Retracing Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath"

Of Mice and Men - the Opera

The Economist takes a look at a staging of the Carlisle Floyd-created production.

From the piece...

For Mr Beresford, it was odd that no modern American opera had ever been performed in Australia, despite the strong cultural ties between the two countries. He persuaded Opera Australia, the country’s main company, to take on both productions. Audiences have enthusiastically endorsed his judgment. On the opening night of “Of Mice and Men”, a standing ovation greeted Mr Floyd when he came on stage. Now 85, the American composer expressed delight that his opera had finally found Australian audiences more than four decades after its premiere in Seattle.

The timing does seem right to revisit Steinbeck’s Depression-era story. It follows two migrant labourers, George and Lennie, who must rely on each other in the harsh environment of rural California. Mr Beresford first heard the opera when he was directing “Cold Sassy Tree”, a later work of Mr Floyd’s, for the Houston Grand Opera. He was struck by the strength and poignancy of a duet in the second act between Lennie and the story’s one (unnamed) female character as they relate their respective dreams: he to find his own farm with George, she to find fame in Hollywood. Both dreams are palpably doomed. “It knocked me out,” says Mr Beresford to The Economist. “I knew then that I must take this opera to Australia, even for that duet alone.”

With carefully judged moods, Mr Floyd’s music brings the story to life. His musical composition matches the tautness of the novel, and what he calls its “almost total lack of diffuseness”. The Sydney production is also distinguished by stage settings that give an unmistakable sense of time and place.

Kafka Drank Milk

Favorite snacks of famous writers are highlighted, here.

10 Incredibly Perfect Moments in the History of Editing

The list, care of Neatorama.

From the piece...

In 1938, Warner Brothers writer Ben Hardaway directed a short film featuring a very sneaky rabbit. The cartoon was called Porky’s Hare Hunt, but the bunny that starred in it didn’t have a name. So, the best creative minds in the business got together and dubbed the up-and-coming star “Happy Rabbit.”

Ben Hardaway, whose nickname was Bugs, also directed he next short starring Happy Rabbit. As the animators drew up early image for the film, one of them labeled a sketch of the rabbit “Bugs’ Bunny,” to make it clear that the drawing was part of Hardaway’s project. The label was mistaken for the name of the character, and soon enough, all the animators were calling Happy Rabbit “Bugs Bunny.” The tiny error created an icon, and, as they say at Warner Bros., that’s all, folks.

E-Books and Paperback Book Publishing

E-books continue to change the face of book publishing. Indeed, now book publishers are putting out paperbacks in no time flat.

From a piece in the New York Times...

Publishers say they have a new sense of urgency with the paperback, since the big, simultaneous release of hardcover and electronic editions now garners a book the bulk of the attention it is likely to receive, leaving the paperback relatively far behind. They may also be taking their cues from Hollywood, where movie studios have trimmed marketing costs by steadily closing the gap between the theatrical release of films and their arrival on DVD.

“I’m looking to do it more and more,” Jane von Mehren, the publisher of trade paperbacks at Random House, said of releasing paperbacks early. “We feel as though there is this trade paperback book buyer that we want to make sure is still getting served. The idea that someone would wait for a year is an assumption that we should no longer make. So we’re looking at shortening the window.”

The future of the trade paperback has been a frequently debated topic among publishers, who have long seen the paperback release as a moment of reinvention, in which they can take a book that was already out, redesign its cover and pitch it to a wider audience.

“We think our job as paperback publisher is to find the second life for the book, to bring an extra dimension to the audience for the paperback,” said Anne Messitte, the publisher of Vintage/Anchor, part of Random House. “We watch each book very carefully to determine the best moment for paperback publication.”

Great Summer Reading (and What To Drink While You Read)

Some ideas, care of the San Francisco Weekly.

The Incomprehensibility of William Shakespeare

Can we understand Shakespeare in real time? When we're watching "Titus Andronicus" on stage, can we really follow what the actors are saying?

From a piece in the New Republic...

I was interested in testing my convictions under what many consider the ideal conditions for experiencing Shakespeare: I am often told that the comprehension problem all but vanishes when the plays are performed with top-notch British actors. Even the acoustics were right, as the RSC has actually reconstructed their theater inside the Park Avenue Armory (ah, real government subsidies for the arts).

First, however, I should dispel two possible misimpressions. I am not arguing that Shakespeare’s language can be too “dense” or “poetic,” but that it can be simply incomprehensible because of the passage of time. Also, I am referring to taking in the language through the ear during a live performance, not reading and referring to footnotes. In any case, the question at As You Like It: When an excellent and highly trained British actor delivers Shakespearean language a few feet away from us, can we always understand the basic meaning of the sentences he or she utters?

I found that the company’s high level of skill, including the lucid staging and direction, indeed did much to get across the language’s meaning. It left me still uncomfortable that it takes these kinds of chops to pull it off: After all, there are only so many companies like this. But more to the point, in more than a few places, even in this production, it was quite impossible to follow the meaning. Not because the actors weren’t doing their job, but simply because time has passed.

Terry Gilliam Meets Paul Auster

Gilliam's coming movie? A take on the Paul Auster novel, Mr. Vertigo.

From a story in the Los Angeles Times...

Filmmaker Terry Gilliam is at work on a script based on Paul Auster's novel, "Mr. Vertigo." Auster's best-known film work has been written directly for the screen -- 1995's "Smoke" won him the Best First Screenplay prize at the Independent Spirit Awards.

For his part, Gilliam has adapted books to screen before, notably the 1988 film "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen," from a children's book series, and 1998's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" from the book by Hunter S. Thompson.

"You read books," Gilliam said at a recent film festival in Poland, "and at first think, oh, that would make a great film. And then you realize, no, it wouldn't make a great film." But then he remembered one that would.

Want to Read an Unpublished Yeats Play?

You're in luck.

Ready to Rumpus

Dave Eggers catches up with Maurice Sendak.

From a piece in Vanity Fair...

Sendak’s sense of humor is pitch-black and ribald, though this fact, and the baroque essence of his work, is often lost on readers now that his books have become canonical. “A woman came up to me the other day and said, ‘You’re the kiddie-book man!’ I wanted to kill her.” He hates to be thought of as safe or his work as classic, and he won’t tolerate overpraise. “My work is not great, but it’s respectable. I have no false illusions.”

He’s wrong, of course. Sendak is the best-known, and by most measures simply the best, living creator of picture books, and in the stretch of years since his most prolific period—when he made In the Night Kitchen, Where the Wild Things Are, Kenny’s Window, The Sign on Rosie’s Door, and the “Nutshell Library”—his work has only grown in stature. No one has been more uncompromising, more idiosyncratic, and more in touch with the unhinged and chiaroscuro subconscious of a child.

Books Featured on the Colbert Report

Happy reading!

Using the Word "Haboob" Pisses People Off

For reals. Don't use the word, haboob.

From a piece on the Encyclopedia Britannica blog...

It’s the Arabic part of the mix that is driving certain Arizona nativists batty. “How do they think our soldiers feel coming back to Arizona and hearing some Middle Eastern term?” one wrote in a letter to the Arizona Republic. “haboob? english please?” wrote another, while still another urged, “were not in india.” (Sic, sic, sic.) Added yet another, sagely, “Haboob comes from a foreign language!”

Making allowance for some of the writers’ seeming unfamiliarity with English in general, we might dust ourselves off and consider that one of the great strengths of our language is its long-standing habit of picking up useful words from wherever they might come. We already use thousands of (now-suspect) borrowings from Arabic, from algebra to zenith, that may not figure in the vocabulary of uneducated speakers, but that do necessary jobs all the same. Haboob has been in general use for generations, alongside another Arabic word, monsoon, and a Spanish one, chubasco.

Brand Changes: DCnU compared to SWG and the Allegorical Relationship This Has to D&D

There's a great series of articles here that I stumbled across discussing the DCnU, which is apparently the new way to describe the DC Comics Universe Reboot going on later this year. I've been interested in this reboot for a few reasons. I also feel there is a comparative situation going on here with regards to Wizards of the Coast and the 2008 reboot of the Dungeons & Dragons brand with 4th edition, and again in 2010 with D&D Essentials.

I'm going to start off with a TL;DR summary, and then I will provide my usual warning about rambling madness below:

TL;DR: I think there's a comparison to be drawn here between the way Wizards of the Coast handled the release of 4th edition D&D (and Essentials) and its attempt to sell the core fans on the idea that they wanted 4E (whether they knew it or not) and later that they (all the new and lapsed players) wanted Essentials (whether they knew it or not), but without any clear effort to actually engage the core in playtesting. Contrast with the increasingly successful and dominant Pathfinder by Paizo, which went through an extensive and very open beta test, solicited lots of feedback, and tried to produce a new iteration of 3.5 that only really changed key elements while trying to offer up a set of more all-encompasing flexible tools to the otherwise largely unmodified 3.5 game system. Contrast the marketing and approach of both 4E and PF to this situation with the DCnU and (in the article) the NGU....I think there's more than a few passing similarities, and possibly a lesson to be learned here.



And now for the Long-Winded Rant:

My wife and I started buyng more comics within the last year and a half, and I started to slowly pick up key DC titles that catered to my tastes (Secret Six, Doom Patrol, some Batman titles). When we discovered Jody was pregnant earlier this year, it was time to manage the budget to start saving money for baby goods and medical expenses. Naturally, a reduction of comic purchases was one of the first items of business, simply because comics as a medium are extremely ephemeral and provide a low volume of entertainment-to-cost ratio. When you're basically buying something that takes 15 minutes to read and costs $3-4 a pop, and rapidly devalues (most of the time, anyway) with almost no trade-in or resale value, then comics are always easy to put on the chopping block when it comes to saving money. By coincidence, DC made this announcement right around the time I was at the crux of "what do I keep and what do I buy?" They basically made the decision for me: axe all the books that belong to yet another soon-to-be-dead continuity.

So the DCnU, as discussed in the linked article above, appears to be an effort at monetizing DC's lineup to get more people back into the fold. It's interesting to read, as the analogy is drawn to the way Sony alienated its core fans for the Star Wars Galaxies games with their "New Game Experience" shakeup that happened about a year after WoW took the MMO world by storm. He also aludes to a similar issue with the old New Coke fiasco a couple decades ago. What I found interesting here was that it seems like some comparisons can be drawn with Wizards of the Coast as well, and the way that Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition was brought forth specifically to appeal to a wider potentially unrealized new fanbase, but clearly at the expense of its core.

Now, as many of you know, I actually like 4th Edition D&D. I am not a fanboy, as such, because I know D&D has it's issues, and 4th edition fixed many problems I had with 3rd edition at the expense of adding in a new set of problems; 4E made the DM's job easier and returned to an era where the DM's toolset was designed specifically for his needs, rather than a unifying mechanical approach that meant that while the players only had to worry about one character, the DM had to design virtually everything else with the same level of effort (or do it half-assed, which while possible always led to a substandard experience). 4E made the D20 mechanics more streamlined and (for me) fun. It got rid of many quirks from 3.5 that some found tedious, and it dramatically improved stacking rule issues. 4E made minis combat more practical, albeit at the expense of making it integral to the process. It cleaned up high level combat, making the experience a more unified and consistent process across all levels of play. It did this last bit at the expense of making low level play more complex than it used to be, and also making the legacy of short low level combats a thing of the past (but of course ridiculously long high level combats got shortened....a bit, anyway).

That said, 4th edition managed to introduce streamlined play elements that went against a grain of tradition among core players; change that was too much for many people. I personally still can't believe that I enjoy the game despite the fact that it offers no tools for narrative non-minis-based combat whatsoever, and while I like the streamlined rank mechanic for skills, the fact that there are only seventeen skills in the game and no built-in option for depth or customization in any meaningful way is just crazy, I feel. Sure, 3.5 had a major problem in that it assumed all characters would be optimized, but it still let you create a fairly nonstandard specialized character if you wanted to (for whom death or marginal effectiveness was usually imminent). Sure, 3.5 had a heavy focus on classic dungeon delves, but it still let you focus on combat-light political intrigue and social interaction if you so desired. 4th Edition can do this as well, but it provides fewer tools to do the job. Some people shrug and say it does nothing more or less than 1st edition AD&D did (which arguably provided even fewer non-combat options for just about everyone except spell casters) but that's a bit disingenuous, in my opinion; AD&D offered up only a handful of non-combat abilities for most characters, sure...but it really didn't offer up that many more specialized combat rules and features, either; there was a clear balance between the social and combat elements, basically. In 4E, there's a massive overweighted combat component, which dramatically favors combat encounters. This really does mean that combat in 4E is bar none the best of any edition (and yes, YMMV but that's my experience) and handles it more elegantly than 3rd edition by far...but it does so at the expense of not providing an equally compelling non-combat experience in any mechanical sense. And let me state right out the bat that I think the skill challenge mechanics are a horrendous way to do it, and they are a much bigger contributor to the problem 4E seems to have with teaching newer gamers the art of role playing than any of the combat powers could be.

Um, so anyway! To get back to the DCnU article and all that, it seems to me that D&D 4E may have been yet another victim of the same shift in marketing and focus for a product, one in which change was made to monetize the brand for a newer audience, but at the expense of the existing, content core....and in the end discovered that perhaps that was not the right way to go.

I think the situation with Pathfinder sheds even more light on this phenomenon: although no figures have yet been posted, its alleged that Pathfinder beat Dungeons & Dragons in second quarter sales on ICv2. This is no small feat, let me tell you; I'm not exactly the biggest fan of Pathfinder, as it changed too little for 3.5, but it demonstrates that the interest in a continuation of that edition of the D20 system had more than enough traction to keep going. I have a regular group that loves Pathfinder and heartily adopted it. It's still a messy game to run, but pathfinder did try to tweak the 3.5 rules to fix some of the issues people like me had, while not simultaneously isolating the fanbase. One big reason? They did an open beta, and made a big deal out of it. Despite some vocal minority assertions that apparently wen unheard in the beta (I can't point any fingers, but usually take it for granted that when someone is loudly asserting they knew what was best for the game and despise Paizo for not making it so, I must question the perceived self-relevance of that individual in terms of their assertion that their contributions were as significant to all as they claim), the fact was Paizo was very open in its efforts to make an iteration of 3.5 that was both a step forward and still something that the core fans of 3.5 D&D would be willing to go along with. It seems to have worked. One can only wonder what would have happened for D&D 4th Edition if they had attempted an open beta or solicited more feedback from the fans at large.

Writers and the New Happiness

Whereas previous generations of accomplished writers were awash in alcoholism and cigarettes, sexual-romantic openness, spiritual misery, and financial ruin, today’s young writers are more likely to faithfully drink 8-10 glasses of water daily, be married, get 7 to 8 hours of sleep each night, and have a decent credit score.

From a piece in the Millions...

I’ve been noticing for a while that health and happiness – a balanced, stable life – are “in.” The trend has been building for some time, and seems to coincide roughly with my generation, i.e., Gen X and younger, the college-educated children of baby boomers. What I find most interesting is that the trend seems to make no exception for writers and artists, historically the vanguard of counterculture.

There is a sense that we’ve been scared straight. Whereas previous generations of accomplished writers were awash in alcoholism and cigarettes, sexual-romantic openness (these days known as “promiscuity”), spiritual misery, and financial ruin, today’s young writers are more likely to faithfully drink 8-10 glasses of water daily, be married and/or monogamous (definitely married if there are children), get 7 to 8 hours of sleep each night (maybe even on a memory foam mattress), and have a decent credit score. Joan Acocella wrote in a 2004 New Yorker article about writers’ block:

In my observation, American writers today drink much less than their predecessors. I asked a psychoanalyst what they do instead, to take the edge off. ”Exercise,” he said.

So sharp is the cultural turn toward health, that in an artists’ mecca like New York City, you can no longer smoke outside in public spaces without incurring a fine of $50 (the law seemed to pass with barely a shrug from New Yorkers).

The Children's Lit Poster Art of Christian Jackson

Enjoy!

Who Said It? Taylor Swift, or Jane Austen?

Good luck!

The End of the White Outsider

Sixty years ago, Holden Caulfield defined what it meant to be outside the system. Demographic changes mean that a new generation is looking for a non-white hero. Author Ned Vizzini is on the hunt to make him relevant again.

From a piece in the Daily Beast...

The Catcher in the Rye turns 60 this month. That puts Holden Caulfield in his mid-70s, near the end of his natural lifespan, but in many ways he continues to dominate American culture as he did in the 20th century. He is the White Outsider—a Caucasian kid who despite his advantages feels misunderstood—and he has been everywhere from 1951 on, in Rebel Without a Cause, Spider-Man, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Nirvana, and Wes Anderson, to name a few. He is still the fountainhead of young-adult literature. He is still a handle for anyone wishing to comment on white privilege. He still pops up in press on everyone from Woody Allen to Osama bin Laden. Demographically, though, he has become an endangered species.
Click here to find out more!

The population shift to the South and West that dominated last year's U.S. Census coverage hid a profound truth: In 12 years, when today's bouncing babies are ready for Holden, more than half of American children will be non-white. The long-predicted shift of America from a majority-white nation to a majority-minority nation will not happen in the general populace for decades (because older whites are living so long), but among the youth it is already taking place. Teachers and writers who venerate Catcher have to ask themselves: How relevant is Holden in a world where he is an actual minority?

Answering this question requires a dip into “post-racial” America that gets uncomfortable.

Edgar Allan Poe - the Godfather of Goth

John Cusack was a Comic-Con to discuss the new movie he's in about the last days of Edgar Alan Poe.

From a story in the Los Angeles Times...

John Cusack really got into the role of Edgar Allan Poe for his part in James McTeigue’s upcoming thriller “The Raven,” due out next year and named for the landmark poem. The film, which is set in the last five days of Poe’s life and centers on a serial killer who’s using Poe’s writings as inspiration for his murders, was on display Friday during the Relativity panel in Hall H, and Cusack wowed the audience with his knowledge about the writer: “I saw some of Hunter S. Thompson in Poe — his unflinching ability to delve into the abyss and come back. He reminded me of Hunter in that way.”

27

Another Amy Winehouse piece -I've been listening to her albums again and now that's she's passed her songs are all the more haunting.

On a brighter note-if you haven't yet heard of Little Dragon you should give them a listen -Also their lead signer Yukimi Nagano is gorgeous. listen ->
Enjoy!
-GG

Zozobra - The Original Burning Man

I've been to see Zozobra, the burning of Old Man Gloom at least every other year since I moved to New Mexico, and definitely plan to attend this year. It's a great event, one with a long history for my family (recall first being taken to Zozobra as a young child by my mother, and the memory has always been with me). It's a fascinating show, an example of ritual and myth in the modern era, simultaneously anchoring itself between the modern mind while appealing to the archaic Jungian mythic resonance within all of us.





Anyway! I will be there this year....Jody may come along, too, depending on how comfortable she feels, because by that stage her parasitic hominid infestation should be close to bursting...


Alaina Gonzales

I kid! I kid. A little. Marcus is squiggling around a lot now, and it occasionally feels like he's doing a drum solo inside Jody's womb, but she is delighted. Me, I'm of course very excited, but I will concede that I am engaging in the only role I could play in this matter....she's a braver soul than I!

I am learning some important and unnerving things about myself though, including why I like Lovecraft and exactly what Body Horror means. Luckily there's a light at the end of this tunnel, a fully formed little dude who is neither Innsmouthian nor Shoggoth-like (though he may be superficially batrachian in appearance, at least initially....!)



(I would like to apologize in advance to Marcus for the fact that he's going to have two particularly eclectic and eccentric parents. We'll do our best not to scar him for life. Much.)

On other news: I have already received several purchases of the Ryan Family leukemia relief pack, and would like to thank those who have helped. Rpgnow does not give me individual sales data outside of the raw numbers, so I do not know who you are, but I thank you sincerely. Every little bit helps!

Some Graves of Famous Authors

Enjoy!

The Impact of The Lord of the Flies

It had one on Stephen King.

From an article in the Telegraph...

I had read adult novels before, or what passed for them (the room of water-dampened books in the Methodist parsonage was full of Hercule Poirots and Miss Marples as well as Tom Swifts), but nothing that had been written about children, for adults. I was thus unprepared for what I found between the covers of Lord of the Flies: a perfect understanding of the sort of beings my friends and I were at 12 or 13, untouched by the usual soft soap and deodorant. Could we be good? Yes. Could we be kind? Yes again. Could we, at the turn of a moment, become little monsters? Indeed we could. And did. At least twice a day and far more frequently on summer vacations, when we were often left to our own devices.

Golding harnessed his unsentimental view of boyhood to a story of adventure and swiftly mounting suspense. To the 12-year-old boy I was, the idea of roaming an uninhabited tropical island without parental supervision at first seemed liberating, almost heavenly. By the time the boy with the birthmark on his face (the first little ’un to raise the possibility of a beast on the island) disappeared, my sense of liberation had become tinged with unease. And by the time the badly ill — and perhaps visionary — Simon confronts the severed and fly-blown head of the sow, which has been stuck on a pole, I was in terror. “The half-shut eyes were dim with the infinite cynicism of adult life,” Golding writes. “They assured Simon that everything was a bad business.” That line resonated with me then, and continues to resonate all these years later. I used it as one of the epigrams to my book of interrelated novellas, Hearts in Atlantis.

It was, so far as I can remember, the first book with hands — strong ones that reached out of the pages and seized me by the throat. It said to me, “This is not just entertainment; it’s life or death.”

The Fight for Snow White

New York Magazine takes note of two competing Snow White movies that'll be showcased at a theater near you quite soon.

From the article...

Both films released concept art this week, but while Singh's project revealed only Collins as Snow White, the Huntsman panel showed off pictures of Stewart's warrior princess take on the maiden, Theron as the evil queen, and Hemsworth as the tough huntsman who becomes Snow White's ally. Huntsman director Rupert Sanders also promised that his Snow White film will be an action-adventure with a scope akin to that of Lord of the Rings, which would differentiate it somewhat from Singh's movie, intended to be a lighter, more comedic story.

"They're good people, and these are two different films," Singh admitted. "The problem that I always find is that it's not like two disaster movies or two different things: These are two movies with Snow White, and I don't think there's too much room in the market for it, though I could be proven wrong."

The Bones of Cervantes

There's a quest to find them.

From a piece in the Guardian...

Historians and archaeologists plan to reveal the true face of the author of Don Quixote of La Mancha, Miguel de Cervantes, as they embark on a quest to find the lost bones of one of western literature's key writers.

The project to seek Cervantes' bones, which lie buried somewhere in the walls or floors of a convent in central Madrid, would allow forensic archaeologists to reconstruct the face of a man only known from a picture painted by artist Juan de Jauregui some 20 years after his death.

The bones may also reveal whether Cervantes, who is believed to have died of cirrhosis and was accused by rivals of being a notorious tippler, drank himself into the grave. "They may not just help us to discover what he looked like, but also why he died," said historian Fernando Prado.

AYISHA

This is my little(12 year old) sister Ayisha Lineo Gariba and her 2 dogs Lilli(R) and Nala(L). Been spending a lot of time with her this summer she's too cool for her age and talks a lot. She's probably been more places and has twice as many interesting stories to tell from her 12 years of existence than I do lol.Love her to bits even though she can be a pain.I've heard 3 times this summer from people we've hung out with that we could be twins you be the judge :) .Enjoy
-GG

Dadadada...BATMAN!!!

Batman Sketches done while watching the various Batman movies with Ben... The penguin in the middle is his -too bad Blogger messes up your colors .More finished work soon.Enjoy.

-GG

Dungeon Delve #1: The Lair of Gug and the Lost Shrine of Degalthor

I haven't put any useful or fun game stuff in the blog lately, so here I offer a recent dungeon delve I designed using "Engineering Dungeons" for Castles & Crusades. ED is a great toolkit book, and useful for any dungeon-delve style game, not just C&C; I recently ordered the sequel, "Engineering Castles" from the Trolls and eagerly await my copy.

The adventure below is written for C&C, and uses a map provided online by Tim Hartlins under a creative commons license here (check it out if you haven't already, he does great maps!) It would be very easy to adapt this dungeon to Swords & Wizardry or any other OSR game. Characters of levels 2-4 will find the greatest challenge within, although if they aren't sufficiently equipped to deal with the hydra or the roper they may find those two monsters deadly (in my one-shot run of this the hydra was easily defeated but the roper got the jump on the party and it almost turned into a TPK!)

The Lair of Gug and the Lost Shrine of Degalthor

Location: Western Golmadras (set in the Warlords era of Lingusia, ca. 3500 a.w.; but easily inserted anywhere else desired)

Purpose of the Dungeon: serves as a shelter to local denizens

Builders: this is a natural cavern

Location: deep in a range of low hills in the swampy jungle-lands of the Flooded western Goblin Marshes

Depth: 1 level

Entrance: The entrance is both unknown and hidden; locals know of the cave, but not of its entrance or how to find it.
History/Age: the cavern has been used or known of for at least three thousand years. The first occupants of the cavern were troglodytes, but long ago they were driven from the cave when a cult of Degalthor, the deviant goblin god inserted themselves within. The cult was active for centuries until a contingent of elvish knight-adventurers in the old days of lost Sylvias arrived and destroyed the cult. Since then the cavern has lain fallow, used by rogue gangs of humanoids as a base and errant monsters as a den.

Start: About thirty miles south in the port town of Kharamish Sheriff Jaravas is aware that the bandit gang of the ogre Gug has been operating in the north hills of the swamplands, but he is at a loss as to their location. He has a reward out for Gug's head (250 gold pieces). Sheriff Jaravas does know that a local hermit named Khromas, who lives in the swamps, may actually know of Gug's lair, as he recently caught the hermit trying to fence goods in the town market; he suspects that the hermit has a deal going with the ogre.

   Finding Khromas's hut is easy enough, but the hermit initially won't talk. Khromas is 83 years old, but long ago was a disgraced knight of the Golmadran army, and this is where he has ended up. Appealing to his lost honor (Wis check CL +2 to notice this weakness in his personality) may open him up to revealing the trail to the lost cavern. Failing that, ransacking his hut will reveal an old map that marks the entrance location.

1. Entrance

   This sloping chamber induces a sense of vertigo as the natural formations of the cave are skewed unnaturally. Three skeletons lie near an ancient, heavy chest that appears to have been dragged here by the trio, who then mysteriously died. The best is heavy, and a thick iron key sits rusted in the lock (Strength check to force it to turn and open; CC+2 to break the chest open). The chest contains 1300 GP, 11 random gems, 10 extraordinary items, and a ring of telekinesis.

  Amazingly, no one has tried to loot this chest; a Tracking check (CL +3) reveals that there are a variety of humanoid and animal prints that go well around the chest. Unknown to the adventurers, unless they diplomatically talk to some of the denizens of this cavern, the local inhabitants are all quite supersititious and convinced that the chest is laden with deadly traps. This is in fact true, but it was a one-time trap tripped three decades ago, and it has lain dormant ever since.

2. Split in Passage

   Trundling through the dark cavern is a nesting hydra (10 HD)! It will be attracted by the noise of the adventurers entering the cavern, although if they were sufficiently stealthy (CC +10) then they may surprise the beast:

10 headed Hydra (HP 40; 10 HD; +10 attacks and Saves; AC 20; Individual Head HP: 6,1,6,2,3,6,4,2,4,6; Attacks: Bite 1D10; XP Value 3250)

Artwork by Santiago Iborra

3. Hydra Lair

   Seven orcs are here, trying to loot the Hydra lair while they know it is preoccupied with the adventurers! The hydra’s nest is made up of garbage and debris, like it was nesting, and the treasure is scattered haphazardly among the bones of victims.

Orcs 1 HD;  HP 6, 7, 4, 3, 8, 2, 2    (67 XP total) armed with axes (1d8) and short bows (1D6)

Treasure: 220 gold pieces, Delay Poison Potion, several rusty swords, arrows and rotted bows.

4. Old Shrine

   The entrance to this chamber is protected by a naturally concealed pit trap. This is not accessible (can’t be defused) and is not visible (Traps check to spot at CL +3), as the orcs in this area have covered it with a canvas tarp, and then sprinkled dirt on the tarp to conceal the pit; it is lethal and 40 feet deep (10D6 falling damage) CC +3 vs. Dexterity to grab the edge and avoid falling in! 

   Within the chamber is a squat, vile idol to an unknown demon god of old, probably Degalthor, a foul object of goblin worship. The idol resembles a cross between a mutated goblin and a deformed imp with frog-like qualities. It has long since been stripped of valuables, and there are numerous empty sockets on the statue where precious stones have been pried loose. Evidence of orcs having camped here is found on the ground.

Area A: The altar.

Area B: Thick visible spider webs, immobilizing, CL +2 to avoid or break free from. These can be ignited. If the webs are cleared, a cocooned victim can be found in the back, mummified and dead. This man was wrapped with armor and weapons; he wore a chain shirt and had an expert-quality broadsword. A pouch is rotted away but 8 copper pieces can be found on the ground, and remnants of what was possibly an old treasure map.

5. Narrow Passage

   This narrow passage connects two different areas of the cavern; there is a slight chance that one of the orcs in area 11 may be wandering down the passage either on guard duty or to relieve himself.

6. Abandoned cavern

   The entrance is blocked by an old heavy oaken door with a thick lock that has been oiled by local denizens (CL +2 to pick). The natural cavern beyond is filled with old litter and debris from previous orc or goblin encampments, but is abandoned.

7. 8. And 9. Empty

   These chambers are not normally in use, but there is always a 25% chance of a wandering monster or denizen squatters being present.

10. Lair of the Roper

   This wide, dark chamber initially looks safe, although crowded with stalagmites and stalactites producing various beautiful natural formations. One of these stalactites is not quite what it seems, however! The roper hangs from the ceiling, stealthed (CL +7 to spot Wis check), and readies for an attack.

Roper 7HD (47 HP) AC 24 SR 4     (1409 XP)

Treasure: strewn about in the back, where the remains of digested victims can be found. 1400 gold pieces, 10 pearls (15 gp each) in its gullet, and various mostly rusted and useless items.

   The orcs have been well aware of the threat of the roper, and have used periodically to get rid of the rare prisoner or rival monster that they must deal with.

11. Orcish Encampment

   Here are more orcs, using this safe area of the cavern as a refuge. They are dominated by one ogre of local repute named Gug. (217 XP)

Gug the Ogre: HD 4; HP 25 (2H Sword 2D6+3); Eight Orcs: HD 1; HP 8,7 3, 3, 7, 6, 1, 2 (battle axes 1D8)

Treasure: The orcs have a grand total of 40 gold pieces, 4 bloodstones worth 50 gp each and a fine belt with a wooden buckle worth 50 GP. One orc has a scroll with one 1^st level spell on it (invisibility to undead). The Ogre has 180 gold pieces, an expert 2H sword, an expert battle axe on his belt, and a wooden urn full of one dozen expert arrows.

   Gug is a known criminal and bandit in the region, and his gang is known as Gug’s Raiders. There is a 250 gold piece bounty on his head in the nearby town of Kharamish.

Artwork by Val Semeiks

12. Cavern of Echoes

   Nothing resides in the western stretch of cavern save bats and eerie echoes of those passing through.

13. Abandoned Wing

   This chamber is empty. Strange smells and debris suggest it long ago served as a den of an unknown monster that likely moved or was slain when the orcs arrived.

14. Collapsing Cavern

   This unstable cavern is crisscrossed by a collapsed floor chasm, and the ceiling is unstable (Int, stone cunning or Traps check CL -2 to notice the danger). Noise sets it off, but darting out before an avalanche of stone crushes anyone is easy (CL-2 vs. Dex to get away; 4D6 damage to those caught under the crushing stones).

15. Treasure Chamber

   This chamber was established as the reserve for Gug’s loot. He is aware of the prior chamber’s structural instability, and so moves very carefully through the chamber. Here he has placed the following loot gathered from raids on caravans in the region:

8 bolts of fine Takkain silk

10 crates of Etrurian fine port wine (12 bottles to a crate)

356 gold pieces in loose change

4 expert quality long swords and 1 expert quality suit of platemail…slightly dented, with a skeleton inside from the prior owner

A Wand of Magic Missles (none of the orcs or Gug could figure out how to activate it)

A single crate of healing potions (Gug knows what these are; there are 7 left)

One in Ten Counts? Social consensus through the influence of committed minorities

Some really interesting reading here over on the Science Blog, and the original paper here (the summary of the original paper is more concise and coherent than the blog I reference; not sure why but I found the blog itself to be a bit confusing).

Here's an excerpt of the article abstract:

We show how the prevailing majority opinion in a population can be rapidly reversed by a small fraction p of randomly distributed committed agents who consistently proselytize the opposing opinion and are immune to influence. Specifically, we show that when the committed fraction grows beyond a critical value p_c≈10%, there is a dramatic decrease in the time T_c taken for the entire population to adopt the committed opinion. In particular, for complete graphs we show that when p<p_c, T_c~exp[α(p)N], whereas for p>p_c, T_c~lnN. We conclude with simulation results for Erdős-Rényi random graphs and scale-free networks which show qualitatively similar behavior.


(Update: found the paper here, and not behind a paywall)

 

The effective finding is that it only takes 10% of a given population dedicated unwaveringly to a specific belief set to tip the majority over in their favor. It indicates that smaller percentages have no meaningful influence, although I haven't yet ascertained if their model can account for the "tipping point" when the golden 1 in 10 value is effectively hit (nor what size population we must be dealing with, since it seems to me that the smallest relative group size--10 people--would seem to suggest that all you need is one unwaveringly determined member of that group to get the other ten to go along). Is this an indication of behavioral mechanisms engrained in our psychology as a component of evolutionary adaptation, I wonder? Are we hardwired to look to a leader in small populations averaging ten individuals, perhaps a characteristic of our ancient heritage, a throwback to a time when the average social unit of our hominid ancestors was a group of approximately ten individuals?

Anyway, interesting reading....

Literally is Literally the Most Misused Word in the English Language. Literally!

So says the Boston Globe.

From an article there...

Schur isn’t the only one peeved by “literally’’ gaining popularity as both a throwaway intensifier and a replacement for “figuratively.’’ It’s a word that has been misused by everyone from fashion stylist Rachel Zoe to President Obama, and linguists predict that it will continue to be led astray from its meaning. There is a good chance the incorrect use of the word eventually will eclipse its original definition.

What the word means is “in a literal or strict sense.’’ Such as: “The novel was translated literally from the Russian.’’

“It should not be used as a synonym for actually or really,’’ writes Paul Brians in “Common Errors in English Usage.’’ “Don’t say of someone that he ‘liter ally blew up’ unless he swallows a stick of dynamite.’’

The Fighting American and Speedboy

Captain America was not the only superhero fighting the good fight under the star-spangled banner. Oh no!

From a piece in the Los Angeles Times about the long-forgotten Fighting American...

Where Cap and his sidekick Bucky battled Nazi goons, the Fighting American and his sidekick Speedboy (who looks like Bucky with peroxide-blond hair) faced off against nefarious Communists during the Cold War 1950s. Along with the Simon autobiography, Titan has published a collection of Fighting American's battles against crazed Commies that's perfect for perusing after you see the movie "Captain America: The First Avenger."

Imagine two brothers who are opposites: Johnny, who's strong and handsome; and Nelson, who's sensitive and small. When crusading newscaster Johnny uncovers a Communist plot, the villains mortally wound him. As he's dying, Nelson swears to avenge him -- and agrees to take part in "Project Fighting American."

PBS NewsHour on the Closing of Borders

Watch the full episode. See more PBS NewsHour.

How a Novel Could Turn Around Tiger

Time Magazine discusses the current career of Tiger Woods and a new novel that's out called The Swinger.

From the piece...

In their roman à clef about Tiger Woods, Shipnuck and Bamberger thinly disguise as fiction plenty of gossip they've heard over their four combined decades covering the PGA Tour (SI, like TIME, is published by Time Inc.) But, Shipnuck assures me, Bamberger and he pulled that 342 number out of thin air, just to have a little fun.

What's more relevant to the story and to the reader — including, possibly, Woods — is the way Tree approaches his postscandal life. The authors' idealized version of Woods comes totally clean about his past mistakes. There are no staged interviews, no clipped or dodgy answers. Tree lets his guard down, even cracks a few jokes about the absurdity of his situation. He starts enjoying the company of his fellow players and — gasp — the fans. He wins that Masters, his game even gets better, and yes, fans fall for him all over again.

Real life, of course, is much more complicated. But reading The Swinger, you can't help wonder, What if Tiger were more like Tree?



And, talking about Tiger, is his caddy, the one he just let go of, planning on writing a tell-all book? The Huffington Post has more about that possibility, here.

News on the Ryan Family

This weekend I found out more about my sister’s husband and his battle with leukemia from a news story in Michigan, and I also found this picture below. The picture is of Taara, Frank and their four year old son Miles. (Yes, that does make me an uncle).

The news article on their situation is here: Mining Gazette

And Taara keeps a family blog here: tmfscraps 

I’ve set up a special sale on my ebooks to donate any and all proceeds to help them out. It's likely not going to be much, but I think any little bit will help.

How Not to Write a Book Review

Robert Pinsky, on Slate, gives us three golden rules.

From the piece...

Every book review, said the anonymous document, must follow three rules:

1. The review must tell what the book is about.
2. The review must tell what the book's author says about that thing the book is about.
3. The review must tell what the reviewer thinks about what the book's author says about that thing the book is about.

If this template is not actually Aristotelian, it has that philosopher's breathtaking plainness and penetration. To sneer at it as obvious would be a mistake. Even the clunky or stammering expression of the three rules ("what the reviewer thinks about what the author says about that thing the book is about") works as a hammer, driving home the essential principles and their distinctly separate, yet profoundly interrelated nature.

Applying the three-part standard to every book review I read, I find that many—or most?—fill only one or two of the requirements. Sometimes a reviewer dutifully paraphrases a book, fulfilling Rule One with a stab at Two, but seems too shy or fearful for Three. Another kind of writer, eager to show off, proceeds directly to Rule Three with a perfunctory glance at One and nothing about Two. Only a few reviewers do their work well enough to provide all three kinds of information, and a certain number—disciples of John Wilson Croker—avoid all three.

Bakku-Shan, And Other Words That Have No English Equivalant

The list, care of Mental Floss.

Ten Unrealized Film Adaptations from Classic Books

Would you liked to have seen Heart of Darkness filmed by Orson Welles? A Confederacy of Dunces by Harold Ramis? Flavorwire discusses movies that never came to be, here.

Bone - The Movie?

It's afoot.

From a story in the Los Angeles Times...

Various film versions of “Bone” have been in the works for almost 10 years, Smith said, but translating the elaborate tale of the Bone cousins being kicked out of their town and landing in a valley they never knew existed “has been a real puzzler,” even though the cartoon portion is already drawn.

Paramount and Nickelodeon were involved in early film attempts. In the last couple of years, Warner Bros. has taken up the charge: Two scripts have already been written and rejected — a third is currently in the works and will most likely yield three separate, computer-animated, 3-D films, Smith said.

“I’m a comic book guy, I’m not a movie guy,” he explained, adding that he’s “actually excited about the movie for the first time in a long time” after having seen a four-minute “Bone” short recently put together by Warner Bros.

“Fone Bone was falling in the water and going through cliffs and canyons. The dragon moved in from off camera in the shadows with smoke around him, all in 3-D. It was pretty mind-blowing,” said Smith, who estimates that the earliest a “Bone” film would be done is two years from now.