Dungeons and Resources: Elements of power

Every good DM knows that it can be hard to come up with half decent loot all the time. Especially when your crew decides to raid every single dead body after decimating an army. Some DM's myself include love to keep their players and themselves on their toes with complete and utter randomness.
Some people turn to random Internet based random generators, or random loot tables to put a bit of chaos into a run. Myself being a more visual person I like to see a picture of an item, as a player an a DM when I pick up an item I like to describe the hell out of it. The more intricate the weapon the more I feel it flushes out a character.
So when I was browsing through my local gaming shop, Sentry Box, I cam across this very helpful little item. Upon finding it I thought I had natural 20ed my search check and discovered a hidden treasure trove. What I had discovered was deck of cards, but not just any deck of cards this was a magical deck filled with images of powerful weapons and items. The deck so rightfully boasted it's name to be, The Elements of Power

It turns out that a company called Paizo most famous in the table top community for its RPG called Pathfinder. This company may not be affiliated with the actual Dungeons and Dragons RPG but they are a very similar fantasy game so a lot of the resources can be used with any fantasy style campaign.
Now the cards themselves are pretty basic with just an image and a simple weapon name, with a space for notes on the back. This is very helpful because it allows for the DM to be in charge of the stats and effects of the item on the card. The images that are on the cards are very detailed which help if players are imagination impaired and also can help a DM to spice up his campaign, we all know that everyone's imaginations sometimes can get stuck in a rut.


I highly recommend that every group has a set of cards like this just to keep the game spicy and fresh. And who knows maybe the items on the cards have shady backgrounds. So order them here: http://paizo.com/products/btpy7yi6?GameMastery-Item-Cards-Elements-of-Power-Deck

How to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse: Blunt Weapons

Melee weapons come in two shapes Blunt and Edged and every survivor should carry at least one of each type. so lets start by getting to know the basics. The reason that melee weapons beat out fire arms is that a melee weapon doesn't need to be reloaded.First thing first there are three major rules when it comes to using melee weapons.

1. Train Yourself.
become proficient in your weapon of choice, weather you choose a machete or a katana, if you don't know how to use it properly then it is next to useless. so make a target, go out to your backyard and practice with your future survival tool.

2. Take Care of your tools.
If you don't make sure that your weapons are well maintained they will break down on you at an important moment. which could mean life or death this applies to anything that is necessary to your survival.

3. Always have a backup.
like the old saying goes two heads are better then one, so can be applied to your arsenal. granted that carting around extra weapons could become tiresome but in a pinch and extra can really save your life.

caution needs to be headed however when buying weapons like swords, make sure they are not just display or decorative swords. Remember that almost anything can be improvised as a blunt melee but if it is improvised then it wont last longer then one encounter. like a two by four is good for a while but you would be better off with some thing that is meant to deal a beating.


on to the subject at hand what to do when picking out a blunt weapon.

One of my top choices for a blunt weapon would be a sturdy piece of sporting equipment such as an aluminum baseball bat or a wooden cricket paddle. These types of equipment were designed to take quite a bit of abuse so they wont break to easy. With these types of gear try to avoid anything made out of composite materials they tend to weigh less but they have a much weaker breaking point.

Something that is multipurpose is usually what would do better in a situation where you are going to need to do a lot of things while carrying as little as possible. So my recommendation if you want to travel light then pull a half life and bust out the trusty old crowbar.


If you are strong enough and want to use a blunt weapon as your primary weapon you could probably do a lot of damage while wielding a fifteen pound sledge hammer. Cracking zombie skulls would be a breeze toting one of these things around with you. The only down side is that lugging that around could be very tiring after an extended period of time,

Cooking Concoctions: Veggi Quesadillas

this week for my cooking on Friday night i was craving Mexican food but i wanted to keep it as healthy as possible. I pondered upon how to make Mexican food be very healthy for quite some time. Finally the I decided that the best way to make Mexican as healthy as possible is to cut the meat out and make them vegetarian. As per my usual cooking nights I had company, and I soon discovered that one of my guests, Blondie, wasn't very experienced in the kitchen. So I asked her if she would like the opportunity to learn and she agreed.

so Now for my awesome Vegetarian Quesadillas

first thing first the Ingredients

Tortilla Shells
1 lb peeper Jack Cheese Shredded
1 lb Cheddar Cheese Shredded
1 Large Zucchini Cut
2 Cups of Frozen Corn
1 half a Red Onion Diced
1 Red Pepper Diced
1 Jalapeno Diced
1/2 cup of Cilantro Chopped Up
Lime Juice
Lemon Juice
Salt
Pepper


To start combined all of the veggies, the Zucchini,Corn, onion, red pepper, and the cilantro into a large bowel. Then with your hands mix it all together and spray on the lime juice, lemon Juice, salt and pepper and continue to mix thoroughly until it is a bright and colourful mixture.


heat up a skillet with some oil. while the skillet is coming to temperature prepare a tortilla shell. On one half of the tortilla cover with the corn salsa and both kinds of the cheese.


Once the skillet is up to temperature place Tortilla with contents on the skillet and cook evenly. Flip occasionally.


Serve with Sour Cream and Guacamole and enjoy

What did I just watch?: Age of the Dragons

As of a short while ago a very close friend of mine informed me that there was a functioning Rogers video store. This made me so excited I nearly wet my self, it has been a couple months since the blockbuster and Rogers video closed down in my neck of the woods. Unfortunately Netflix was not able to support my avid movie watching habit, because of the restrictive copyright laws here in Canada Netflix has a very small selection. So to discover a fully operational video rental is big news an I will spread this news to any and all who will listen to me rabble.
After work on monday Mr. Devo joined me and brought a movie he had rented with him. Now Mr. Devo is on a mission to find and watch every film with Vinnie Jones in it, I can understand this because Vinnie is just awesome and because most people think Mr. Devo is a lot like the roles that Vinnie Jones plays. The movie in question sounded awesome a retelling of the classic Herman Melville novel Moby Dick but instead of whales there are Dragons.
When Mr. Devo told me this I was like this sounds like an epic adventure but what I found to be weird is that he said it came out in 2010. This is strange toe for the reason that I have heard nothing of the film ever and upon shooting a text to a friend of mine, who worked at a theater for the last five years, she informed me that she had never heard of a film called Age Of The Dragons. We popped into the play station and pushed the X button and started the movie.

Now aside from Vinnie Jones the other name to add a degree of star power to this film is Danny Glover best known for his role in 1987's lethal weapon. After watching this film I think that Danny needs to look in the mirror every morning and repeat his most famous line from the Lethal Weapon franchise "I am too old for this shit!".

This movie was boring it was pretty much a direct translation filled with long lulls of nothing of importance. It was hard to watch an I found myself getting extremely bored with it. During the beginning Vinnie Jones as alway was awesome but you could tell he realized how bad of a film it was and wanted out cause next thing you know he is burned by a discovery channel graphics dragon. With that half of the star power and the one of the only interesting characters died.
bah it was beyond terrible and I would not wish it upon anyone. Upon the rolling of the credits I felt pure frustration. I should have damaged the disc to prevent anyone else from ever viewing this atrocity.
The only redeeming feature of this film is that they had a sweet land ship. It was like a medieval tank rolling across the frozen country side. An epic steampunk vehicle that in a lot of ways I wished was in my possession.

What if Wednesday: horror movies

And the roulette wheel lands on... Horror, oh what the horror. For this weeks installment of What If Wednesday I am asked the what if question of " If you could be any horror movie monster who would you be?
So here we go top 5 movie monsters I would like to be

1. Godzilla

Just imagine some one pissed you off by coming to your home and polluting in it or just trying to sell you shit you don't need, so what do you do as payback, destroy a fucking city. When you are 20 stories tall the world is your bloody oyster, you can do what you want because if anyone tries to stop you, well just step on them. On top of that blue oyster cult wrote a fearing song about just how awesome you are.

2. Dracula

Or any vampire the doesn't sparkle realistically. Living for eternity after eternity enjoying the finer points of life like sex with crazy vampire chicks what's not to enjoy. People will say but what about the sun, to which I reply bah to the sun it hurts my eyes burns my skin and gives me a headache. Pasty skin and no reflection, endless time to peruse my hobbies being a vampire is the life for me.

3. Predator

The thrill of hunting down crazed and powerful beasts from across a vast amount of galaxies. It would be awesome to have the active camouflage like they do and walk around being entirely invisible and just wreak mayhem everywhere I go. Now to think of the crazy as sin tech at my disposal nets, guns and spaceships man it would be awesome

4. Freddy Krueger

Life would be a dream... literally I would be living in dreams. It would be like the ultimate game of grand theft auto where you could kill, maim and slaughter to your hearts content. The amount of fun you could have with that is endless. Now let's have a look at his hand, it is like wolverine on steroids.

5. Creature from the Black lagoon

Being amphibious would be pretty cool and terrorizing the locals by jumping out of the water would be fun. I would honestly spend my days just playing pranks on fishermen an unsuspecting swimmers.

If I were a monster I would be just a little shit all the time.

Dungeons and Resources: the twilight horizon

For those of you who game might I recommend you try your hand at shadowrun. This is one of the bigger role playing games and is my personal favorite, I have been GMing this one for quite some time on and off. I had originally started it with one group and transferred it to my new group. This game holds so close to my heart cause it was the first RPG I ever ran. I had to spend many an hour to amerce myself into this world.
So I recently, as in on Sunday, I bought and downloaded off of my favorite source site drive thru RPG one of the new shadowrun source books, The Twilight Horizon. Now this is a fourth edition book and I run a 3.5 campaign but a new source book is always a welcome sight, because any book can be helpful to a run. I always find I have to alter the stories to fit my campaign but they sometimes give me interesting ideas to make a challenge for my players.

If you are looking for a good set of different runs for any modern or futuristic style campaigns

How to survive a zombie apocalypse: CDC

This morning while reading my google news something very interesting popped up under the category of zombies. Yes I have set one of my google gadget news settings to keep me updated about zombies a man can not be to prepared. I use this to find interesting articles about zombie things like games or walks, survival tips or tools and such other things, I one day hope to find one of my own posts on there.
I never thought I would find something like this however, an American government site offering tips on how to survive a zombie apocalypse. The CDC has released this very tongue in cheek style blog post about the basics of surviving such a catastrophe. It is smart for them to do this because let's face the facts those who are prepared for a zombie outbreak are prepared for all kinds of disasters.
For those who need to start their worst case survival kits this is a great tool for those who have not been preparing for the better part of their lives. So check this out to start learning or to brush up on some basics on what to do when the proverbial shit hits the proverbial fan.

http://www.bt.cdc.gov/socialmedia/zombies_blog.asp