While the 18-piece armored shell offers limited protection from blaster fire,

You know all the stormtroopers are thinking, "Sure, they'll spend money to build a planet sized space station, but they won't buy us decent armor"

just got this email:

Oh yes, for those of you who haven't played it, they made a game out of the first book in the Game of Thrones series. It's a little magic-ish but the turns take much longer and you spend 5 minutes trying to remember where the characters were when you first met them (Winterfell) and where they are now (dead). Then you try and talk about them to the other players who haven't read the books yet. A friend of mine picked it up at GenCon where he also got a card game entitiled "We didn't play test this at all" where no single game we've played yet has lasted more than 2 minutes, and about half of them were over before I got a chance to play. Great fun. These two games combined created the idea for another game where you are a house, a telepathic house that has the ability to influence the actions of the city in direct proportion to your market value. After a certain point yuo can choose to continue on as a house, or diversify into an condo or into a neighborhood of houses. We developed attack systems (crack dealers, termites) and defense systems (gated community, maintainence staff) but I can't seem to come up with a victory condition.

where they are now (dead)

AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

placed here so that Raq will see it because I've sent her enough emails today. [link]

Finally, finally, finally it looks like I'm going to get a game of 4E. My home campaign (which is on tonight, won't they be surprised when they discover the entire city has started talking like a pirate) will take a break next session for a session of Living Forgotten Realms.

My character will be a dragonborn fighter. Write-up:

Malus got his name for eating one of his siblings while still in the nest. He lives to eat. He got hold of a bestiary of all sorts of strange and wonderful creatures in the world – no details, just basic name and description – and has determined that his life goal is to sample each living creature on the list – except plants, because “do these teeth look like they were made for rabbit food to you?”

Honour means less to him than a full stomach, a fact which caused him some friction with other dragonborn growing up. Not that he’s contemptuous of the notion or of the foes he faces, but he doesn’t hide that his primary interest in them is how they’ll go with a red wine sauce after he’s killed them. Not surprisingly, he’s developed a fair degree of culinary skill. He dreams of opening a restaurant – The Meat ‘n’ Greet – once he’s eaten his way through the entire bestiary (thus, as he sees it, developing the wide experience in food preparation to make his establishment truly great).

He grew up in Tymanther, but moved to the Dragon Coast as soon as he was able, largely on the strength of the name. He was rather pissed off to discover it put him no closer to eating an actual dragon. Still, it looks like a promising place for his restaurant – meat is most definitely on the menu for the people of the Dragon Coast.

Malus favours hammers in combat, as he finds it tenderizes the meat and improves the flavour. As gods go, he likes Kelemvor, who he believes understands that the lesser races were meant to be eaten.

won't they be surprised when they discover the entire city has started talking like a pirate

holy cripes that's tomorrow!

determined that his life goal is to sample each living creature on the list

that is such a wonderful character trait. I may have to steal it.

that is such a wonderful character trait. I may have to steal it.

You know, the new races (dragonborn and tiefling) really didn't appeal to me much initially. So I flipped through the books looking for some kind of inspiration on how I'd play one, and it turned out to be their teeth. "Ok, what sort of diet would a creature be on with teeth like that?" Grew from there. Could make for fun PC conversations. "Oh, don't look like so worried. I've already tried elf."

If ever I create a tiefling, he's going to be Victor Meldrew in a Halloween mask. Apparently my flavour of emo is geriatric and pissy.

That is a great character description.

It inspires me to quote from "Avatar": That's pretty much all I got...meat and sarcasm guy.

Except dragonborn probably don't do sarcasm.

It also reminds me of a conversation I had third-hand about 10 years ago: my friend's brother was a scientist in Antarctica, and a couple new scientists arrived from [country deleted for the protection of all involved]. The first thing they did was go out and kill two penguins (emperor I believe). When the other scientists found out and reacted with "WTF?!?!?" the two newcomers said, "But...we've never eaten penguin before."

Bwahaha!