Austin has a little questionnaire.

WHAT WAS YOUR:

2. Last Phone Call = Rachel Powell

3. Last Text Message = (To Courtney Snyder:) Terrace

5. Last Time You Cried = Don't remember (within the last month, though).

　

HAVE YOU EVER:

6. Dated Someone Twice = I have dated two people twice.

7. Been Cheated On = Yes, but I was okay with it when I found out.

9. Lost Someone Special = One of my friends from study abroad killed himself, as did the father of a friend, but those are the only dead people I had known directly.

10. Been Depressed = Heh. Yes.

11. Been Drunk & Threw Up = Nope!

12. Have you ever wanted a tattoo? What of? = Wanted? No. Considered, yes: A clean, neat tattoo of my sigil on my shoulder.

　

LAST YEAR HAVE YOU:

16. Fallen Out Of Love = Indeed. It happens.

21. Fallen IN Love? = Oh yes. ^.^

22. How Many People On Your FB Friends List Do You Know In Real Life = About 400 of them. With few exceptions, I won't friend someone I haven't met IRL. Which is to say only a few folks from the Seraph-Inn webforum are FB friends I haven't met.

25. Do You Want To Change Your Name = I want to change my last name. It is long and clunky right now. I'll probably take my future wife's name.

28. What Were You Doing At Midnight Last Night = Realizing that the Gamecube was on, and that I had left it on in the middle of a battle of Gladius. I finished the battle, saved, and turned it off. Midnight was somewhere in that all.

37. Nickname(s) = My grandfather was named Wilford, and when my grandmother found out that I was being named Wilford, she asked that it not be warped into nicknames. So no. But some people do call me things, but that's just specific people.

47. Do You Have A Crush On Someone ? = Yes. Certain people out there. But I tend not to obsess.

　

YOUR FUTURE:

64. Want Kids ? = Probably not. I might adopt though.

65. Get Married ? = Probably yes. I'd like to find a wonderful someone and settle down and live together forever (or at least a couple of centuries).

66. Career = Dunno!

WHICH IS BETTER:

67. Lips Or Eyes = Eyes. Lips are a bit weird.

68. Hugs Or Kisses = Hugs. Hugs are wonderful. Probably a sensory integration disorder thing. But they're something about them.

70. Older Or Younger = Younger seems to work out better, but my sample size is small. Don't think it matters that much.

72. Nice Stomach Or Nice Arms = Are waist-curves part of the stomach? If so, then those. I mean, the stomach.

74. Hook-up Or Relationship = Whatever is nice and fun and happy. Both hook-ups and relationships can go either way, you know. Of course, that said, relationships are so much... More.

75. Which do you prefer: Taller or Shorter? = Shorter? I dunno - never dated anyone taller than my lofty 5'9"

　

HAVE YOU EVER :

76. Kissed A Stranger = No?

77. Drank Hard Liquor = Nothing harder than Wine or Guinness. I don't think those are Liquors.

79. Sex On First Date = I was going to type "up to them" and "depends on what happens" but I think the answer is probably know. I mostly date from friends, though, so "first date" is a bit of an odd definition.

80. Broke Someone's Heart = I'm afraid so...

81. Had Your Own Heart Broken = To a considerable degree, yes.

82. Been Arrested = No. I am law-abiding to a fault. People have complained.

83. Turned Someone Down = I suppose so. It was more picking one person over another.

84. Cried When Someone Died = No. Just a sort of horrible grasping feeling in my chest and a sort of numb hollowness.

85. Fallen For A Friend = Yes. All of my relationships have stemmed from this. It's worked out fairly well. I mean, there were horribly break-ups, and at least two friendships destroyed, but I don't think I would have done much better if I dated people I didn't know. The relationships were good most of the time, and bad near the end. Bit of a sting from one broken promise to always remain friends no matter what.

　

DO YOU BELIEVE IN:

86. Yourself = Probably.

87. Miracles = Nothing that can't be explained, but plenty of things that haven't been explained, if you caught my drift.

88. Love At First Sight = Of course not. Lust at first sight? Sure. Kinship at first sight? Sure. But love is... different, and takes time.

89. Heaven= Not in a conventional sense.

90. Santa Claus = No. I'm a jaded little kid.

91. God and Jesus Christ= Nope. Haven't been presented with sufficient evidence yet. Besides - some things seem really weird.

92. Angels = Not conventional religious Christian or Muslim ones. Some people are really swell, but I think most things I have encountered or expect to encounter have more accurate terms for them.

93. Life after Death = No - I'm pretty sure that after death comes being dead. A state of unconsciousness with permanent, irreversible, and eventually total brain damage. Which apparently sounds bad to some people, but seems pretty normal to me.

52 bonus questions by Austin (Since he removed a good deal):

1. What is one lie you have told someone? = I think I have mislead people concerning my appreciation of their writing. I mean, I want to encourage them, but I don't actually like everything I read. "It's interesting and I like some parts of it in particular - you should keep it up, and keep writing." Yeah. Jedi truths, buddy. They are pretty much lies.

2. On a scale of 1 to 10, what would you rate yourself as? = 6. I am above average. Just like all the children from Lake Wobegong.

3. What's the meanest punishment your parents ever gave you, and what was it for? = Probably some time when I didn't get done stuff they wanted me to get done, and they denied me transportation, breaking my commitments with my friends.

4. What's the biggest turn off a person can have? = The slightest hit of being judgmental. I have fears about people judging me, and fear does not help my libido much.

5. What is one bad habit of yours? = I go to bed too late.

6. What do you usually sleep in? = A T-shirt and my underwear. Unless it's really hot, then just my underwear. This is part of why I prefer beds with curtains?

7. What is your favorite possession? = Mesaba, probably. But I have a long history of laptop love.

8. What is your favorite party game? = Apples to Apples, probably. Or Super Smash Brothers: Melee, but most parties don't have a whole lot of that.

9. When did you last laugh? = Earlier today, at certain occurrences during the video-chat with a dear friend.

10. What did you want to be when you grew up? = Nothing in particular, but a writer in my free time. Then a game designer in my free time. But nothing for the main career.

11. Which is better: To tell someone something that is kind, or to tell them something true? = I always go for truth. Sometimes a bit of Jedi truth, as mentioned over in Bonus question #1.

12. Describe a time you fell in love? = Love is something that happens over time, as you get to know someone. I spend months getting to know my lovely lady counterparts better, as I fall into love with them. I'm not going to describe months in a question.

13. When you're in trouble, who do you call for help? = Rachel Powell, probably. Unless something absolutely must be done, regardless of ethical concerns. Then I call my mother.

14. How did you get your name? = I was named after my grandfather and my great-grandfather. "Nil" is the name of an RP character back when I was 11 or so, and Aelaris is a character from The Liridan Rebellion.

More to come!

Relenor

Relenor Umbri… where to start with him…

Relenor was my second online RP character, and was a good deal more complex than Jezrin, my character from OSD. He started as a dark presence in the back of the tavern the FFRPG started in, and I designed his character throughout the first chapter. I was a rather prominent architect of the original adventure, and Rel’s story plays into that quite a bit.

Let’s start explaining his background:

There are Gods and Goddesses in this world – and their servants, the angels. Have you ever wondered why the gods almost never intervene directly? Why they use champions or hurl bolts from afar? …Or use angels? It is because the gods are too pure for this world. Even just to interact with mortals at all, they must assume identities and create personalities to wear – this is how they exist at all: a divinity is formless until an identity is assumed. There is much speculation on why gods and goddesses have the identities they do, and it is widely accepted that it is the belief of mortals that shapes divinity into gods and goddesses. Further speculation exists on what happens if those who believe in a god have their views start to vary… it could cause the god to become formless again, or to some degree of such, furthering it from interaction in the world. So what of the angels? Angels are the servants of the gods on and off this world – they exist to a much more direct extent than the Gods, yet can interact directly with them.

Angels are divine. To create an angel, a god or goddess pulls from the formless energy of divinity some power and shapes it into a being. But it is well known that angels have little or no personality: how then do they stay in existence, much less in the material world? It is because angels have flaws. Every angel has a flaw that keeps it from slipping off the world – the gods use this instead of personality to avoid the dangers of egotism. Thus are angels made, lesser divine beings under the will of the gods.

Relenor was created an angel, eons before this story began. He was created of the Umbris line of angels, designed for a particular purpose – combat. It is the Umbris that protect the gods from those who would rival their power. It is the Umbris that combat the enemies of the gods. And Umbris are angels. In addition to the powers that stem from their divinity, Umbris have the power to drain foes of energy and strength – they are natural conduits for power, magical or otherwise. But unlike most angels, the slight flaws that most angels have are not enough for the Umbris. Umbris have major flaws, or numerous ones: this gives them a firm anchoring in reality. Rel’s flaw was an abhorrence, verging on complete antipathy, to the act and practice of reading minds. Down to his core, the mind is sacrosanct to him and he will not touch it.

Relenor is the fourth angel of the Umbris line, created when the powers of the mortals first began to threaten the gods. Mighty were his powers, and all foes fell before him for hundreds of thousands of years. Then he was sent against a wizard that held power over time itself. The wizard was not the most powerful foe that Relenor had faced, but the man evaded Rel time and time again – despite the face that Rel traveled through time to combat this foe, he never knew when his foe had disappeared to. He could have read the wizard’s mind to know the destination, but that was against his very nature.

Rel slunk home in defeat. He was faced with a task that was beyond his ability, and for the first time had to question why he had failed. Those were the first conscious thoughts of Relenor. He realized that the only way to defeat the wizard was to read the wizard’s mind – and that was unacceptable. The solution to his inability was to have another Umbris take his place, but Rel had already thought once… so he thought again, and found that the only way that the other angel could win was by reading the wizard’s mind – and that was unacceptable. He searched and searched for a solution, but everything came back to the wizard’s mind being violated.

Rel asked of the gods what he should do, and they had no answer. Instead, the cast him down upon the world and sent another angel to defeat the wizard. Cast down on to the world, Relenor tasted the bitterness of mortality, and the betrayal of the gods having stripped him of his powers. Why, he wondered, and he found the god’s motive. Rel knew in his heart that casting him down had been the right action, for he would have revolted against the gods if another angel was sent to read the wizard’s mind and to thereby defeat him.

But Rel turned from the light, and banished his heart. He forgot who he was then, and wandered into the nearest town starving and cold – unused to the sting of mortality, he almost died. When he awoke the next day, Relenor the man was born.

Rel was now a mortal, but the imprint of his former powers still lay upon him. He was a natural conduit for energy, magical or otherwise, though he could not cast magic himself. He was more innocent that those naturally of the world, though that trait soon vanished. His body did not age, though over the years he became wiser in the ways of the world.

And he had known power, and he craved for it again.

After setting himself up, he became a student at a school of warriors. More motivated then the rest, he rose to the top of his class - eventually becoming greater than the teacher himself. Rel’s body rose to the challenge, and a preternatural strength and speed soon became apparent.

Soon he left, seeking more power than the school had managed to provide. As he explored the world for whatever would give him power, he began to remember his past. His self-induced amnesia started to fade, and he began to wonder what his past was. What had he been? The answers were not clear.

Soon he chanced upon a rumor that would change his life. A sickly dragon was said to live in a mountain nearby, and Rel jumped at the chance of what the horde must contain. He searched out the entrance of the dragon’s lair, and entered it.

The dragon was waiting.

It turned out that the rumors had been false – the dragon was not weak in the least, and rather was more powerful than the greatest of its kind. Rel knew he was unable to win, but charged anyway, hoping his legacy would be to scratch one iridescent crimson scale.

The dragon off-handedly swatted him into a wall before he could sprint far enough to reach the dragon’s body. Surprised that he had survived the impact, the dragon waited for Rel to awaken… perhaps there was a use for him…

The pain of defeat brought back more memories, and Rel realized that he had once been an angel, leveler of the mighty.

“Thou art a mighty man,” the Dragon spoke “I deem you worthy of some lesser duties.”

“I am no man,” spoke Relenor “I am a fallen angel.”

“My pardon, former guardian of the light.” The Dragon spoke again, “Perhaps a high station and bestowed power should be yours…”

Rel, hungry for the power that the mighty Wrym could bestow, pledged his loyalty to the Dragon. They mixed blood, and the Dragon proclaimed Rel its champion, gifting him with extreme amounts of power. The dragon knew of the Umbris, and rightly assumed she would be a target if she used her power directly. There was also a prophecy that proclaimed that an elven champion would slay her – she suspected that Rel, not being born of this world—and not being accounted for in the act of prophecy—was a factor of randomness that could disrupt the prophecy. Rel, in return for the power she gave him, used his knowledge to hide the Dragon from the angels’ watchful eyes, and created a plan to make her a goddess. Unfortunately, this involved having people openly worship her to give her divinity. Throughout, there was a growing sense that he had drifted farther and farther from his origins, betraying his former masters by plotting for the dragon to succeed in what he had been created to stop. He also because disillusioned with what the dragon asked him to do.

A mere 63 years after making the blood pact with the Dragon, Relenor betrayed her. He never returned from a mission. Instead, he wandered the lands far from the dragon’s lair. A few days after he was supposed to return, he decided to see what he still retained from the infused power of the dragon. Finding a boulder in a forest, he punched it with all his strength, testing how much he had. His punch shattered the boulder into a thousand pieces and sent the shards ripping through the forest, devastating a hillside.

Rel was amazed – he had assumed that the Dragon wouldn’t leave him such power. Then the dragon’s intent became apparent.

Rel watched in horror and pain as the Dragon withdrew her support. The flesh of his arm turned to a bloody pulp and the bones underneath shattered – the muscles that had powered the mighty punch ripped and tore. Rel screamed then, for though he had suffered worse as an angel, this pain was beyond his bounds as a mortal.

Rel hobbled back to the town he was staying at, and found a healer for his mutilated arm. Despite their magics, and his natural sensitivity to such forces, his arm still took a week to become usable again. Rel swore never to do something as foolish again.

Once his body had healed, he continued practicing his art as a swordman. He adopted a runaway orphan as an apprentice, and trained her in swordplay. But it was increasingly obvious that the Dragon was sapping his body of strength, empowering him when he exercised, so he could not built natural muscle, but sapping him the rest of the time. He continued teaching his apprentice, showing how to weave blades and magic like he had once done, and imparting wisdom upon her. But he found that she was impossible to guide, for she believed in vengeance. He told her that it was not right, and later that she should go and find wisdom before he would train her more. Neither worked, for she did not believe him, nor wished to leave.

So Relenor left.

He decided that it was time to free himself from the dragon’s curse. He left the girl, and traveled to an old friend - the guild master of the thieves’ guild. There he conversed over how to kill the Dragon.

A plan was made.

Relenor would return to the Dragon and work in its service, procuring a weapon from the dragon’s hoard that could kill the Dragon. Relenor remembered stealing several weapons for the Dragon – She could not wield them, and they were not given Relenor to use; between that and their highly magical nature, Rel guessed that the dragon viewed them as a risk. But Rel couldn’t fight the Dragon directly, weakened as he was. Neither could any of the guild master’s underlings, for the Dragon was ever aware of anything of magical nature nearby. It would have to be an attack that the dragon saw coming.

The guild master recommended an elven mercenary who was greatly skilled in the blade. Yet Rel doubted in her, for he was once skilled as well, and had never managed to touch the beast – what good was a weapon if you died before using it? And so he plotted a deeper plot…

That takes you up to the beginning of the FFRPG. I might write up some of Relenor’s schemes later.

The Demise of Dikeorgan (Dwarf Fortress)

It started with a water problem, ironically. I was experimenting with a pump and a waterwheel where my fortress met the stream. This would have been fine, except when nobody seemed to do anything about the mechanisms I had ordered, I turned the area into a walled and roofed fishing area.

However, after I had walled it shut to the outside and opened it up to the interior of my fortress, someone finally got around to building the pump.

Turns out that pumps don't come with off switches. They just pump water. A lot of it.

I tell folks to go take appart the pump, but it's pumping water like crazy, and nobody can push up against the flow - I keep seeing dwarves run towards it, then go back and forth with the flow. One guy drowns.

I then take a different route - I order miners to mine away the wall on the outside, so that the pump empties water to the outside, not to the inside. Well, empties both ways, but it cut down on pressure.

So miners dig a bunch of holes, and water starts coming out. Finally some mason struggles through the water and takes appart the water wheel. The water ceases, not much damage.

...and then the dragon Akera Thasacaci Rano Inira shows up. Gets anounced on the map and everything.

Oh dear.

I suddenly realize that there is a massive hole in my defenses - my store rooms are open on the lower hillside, completely defenseless. I quickly order dwarves to seal it up.

Those dwarves get cooked. Akera kills a few other dwarves running around the map, and I try to close the breach again. If I can just seal off the interior, I can be safe-ish. For a time, anyway.

Big gouts of fire. Masons get cooked. Akera enters into my storeroom, sets things on fire. Smoke is everywhere, and I have a non-stop stream of messages saying that tasks have been cancelled due to "dragon" and that dwarves are dying.

Everyone is running around in a panic, and they are dying. Before I know it, my population is down to 30-something. 30-something is less than 77. A lot less.

I order everyone to stand outside, to lure Akera past the entrance-way traps, going the other way. Maybe she will get caught in a cage trap, or maybe she's at least get injured by my many weapon traps.

Meanwhile, Akera roasts dwarves, workshops, food, stockpiles, farms, and anything that is flammable or inflammable. Smoke is everywhere, I cannot see where Akera is rampaging.

Eventually, I see her in the big room that was supposed to be the new textile industry center. The one that has two doors and a stairway out. I delete the burrow so my dwarves can move freely, and get someone to close the door. Said person dies horribly to smoke inhalation, heat, or something. Other folks go to wall in the upstairs farm.

Akera kills the rest of the masons, and goes from the upstairs farm to the pasture, and down some stairs into the main fort again. Slaughters everyone there.

I order everyone back to outside the door, huddling behind the traps. There are now 17 dwarves left. They start a fist-fight. Specifically, half of them go into tantrum mode.

Akera sits out the eastern staircase, just around the corner from the fist-fight. She is not moving. Corpse are starting to decay, and everyone is alternating between calming down, and tantruming over their favorite friend starting to rot. Some guy dies.

Akera rounds the corner and obliterates the dwarf who had stopped halfway with broken legs. She then wanders back around the corner.

One of the dwarves is killed by another.

Akera notices one of the dwarves down below go by the eastern staircase. She pops down below and incinerates most of the room with a fire-blast. She then returns to her roost.

Somehow three of my dwarves are still estatic. They are being beaten up by the miserable ones. Somehow an insane dwarf gets past Akera's roost and joins the others. Joining them with her fists. I see items go flying around the area they all are hiding.

Ber Berdegel, Dwarven Child goes berserk.

I set a new burrow to the other side or the river, hoping to make a home there away from the death and destruction. Some of the dwarves head over there, and Akera stays put. However, I get the unfortunate message: "Domas Dedukestun, Miner cancels Dig: Interrupted by Dwarven Child."

Eventually I find Domas. He is being chased around the wilderness by a berserk child. He has the only pickaxe, and the rest of the survivors wander around the new burrow.

Eventually he gets away from the child, but then throws a tantrum himself. He calms down, and starts digging the tunnel to... relative safety.

Then the fisherdwarf goes berserk...

Eventually things calm down. I also forbid every item in the old fortress. Don't have an axe for wood, but at least I have a pick?

Turns out Dragons can smash doors. And walls. Can't even wall myself in.

Construction on the new home goes... with lots of tantrums and upset dwarves. I still have a fisherdwarf, so he catches lots of fish. I have food and I have water. Next step is sanity. Still need an axe for beds, though

Human Caravan arrives. Heads to the depo. Somehow they get past Akera, who is one room away. Maybe there is hope. Stupid, stupid hope.

Rimtar the Bone Carver goes insane and is struck down by the miner. I unforbid a few beds and a table and a chair. Perhaps I can sneak in the same way Akera go in - she's on a different level, after all.

...and then goblins show up. They finish what Akera did not - they go to the new hole and kill everyone there.

There is one dwarf left. He was trapped in the dwarven catacombs when the dragon first arrived. He is dying of starvation and thirst.

Remember! Losing is fun!

Thoughts on MTG Deckbuilding, and What I Like

For me a beautiful deck is a deck that interacts with others, protects itself as it needs to, has the offense that it needs to, etc. all in perfect balance and harmony. Thus a deck that has great offense, but is fragile isn't my ideal; a deck that is solid, but can't do anything isn't my ideal; a deck that does one thing and then uses some completely different method to be good at something else is disharmonious and isn't my ideal.

But it's never the deck itself that is beautiful. It's the play of the deck. I measure and value decks in terms of what they will do, and the art is in the doing. The most beautiful game for me is one where both decks are preforming plays and counterplays, each one just barely having the answer to the problems posed by the other until someone slips. But I strive for what happens in the mean time.

I play a red deck against a big, nice midrange deck. I attack with my creatures, and they encounter spot removal, a counter to my creatures that keeps them weaker while the opponent builds up his mana. That, and my decks responses to sacrifice creatures to deny him lifegain or burn him one little bit more (all the mini-plays) are beautiful to me. My deck says, "look what I can do! I'm getting killed, but still getting stuff through!" and his deck is saying "Look what I can do, I'm lessening his creatures so I can buy time, just what my master needs!" ... and later there is another play between the decks - the midrange deck drops its fat, and my creatures stare down a 4/4. Strategy on the players' parts is employed - for me, should I attack into it so some guys get by for damage, or should I wait until I find some removal, and combine the two.... But on the deck end of things, they get to show off their stuff. I fight through for a little more damage while my creatures die against that 4/4, it is my plan. He beats with the 4/4 as soon as he can, trying to take me out before I draw enough burn to finish him - the final act is in motion. Will my deck show off it's goodness and provide me with the burn I need to win before the five hits take me to 0? Will his deck counter with some life-gain kill-spell aimed at one of my creatures, now that I don't have a mechanism to sacrifice them? The optimal would be for me to draw enough burn, but for him to counter with, say, Faith's Fetters to buy him just enough time to win. Because then both decks would have shown off their stuff.

But all decks do things, right? They all make their plays. But for me, if one deck does something that the other deck has no counter to--and that's defined vaguely--then that's not a beautiful game. Because all the playskill in the world won't help you if your deck doesn't have the right cards, and the deck will be sad, not having any way to provide me with the tools I need to use to fight. And the other deck is sad, because it can't really show off it's stuff, winning in the face of adversity, it's just follows it's rote form and wins.

I guess that's the main thing, perhaps - adapting to win in the face of adversity. My blue-white Mastermind deck can't do it's game plan against your land destruction, and so it turns to using the masterminds to protect lands and keep people busy while little guys run across and win. That adaptation is my joy as a player, and my pride in my decks come from their ability to provide me with the tools I need to adapt when the deck loses the plot. Which is to say that I am a bit funny as a johnny player - I want my plans to be ruined, and my fall-back plans (and ideally new ones I came up with on the spot) to be the ones that get to show their quality.

Any deck can build a plan, and execute a plan... in a vacuum. Even WLGYLSTYESFD could do its thing, given the chance. But the ability to execute a plan through adversity, or to be able to deal with adversity, that's excellence in a deck. And I don't mean adversity as in the challenges the deck was built to resist - I mean ones different or much stronger than expected. A deck fails when it can't adapt, and that makes me sad, and a deck doesn't succeed if it just does what it's supposed to do - that's just meeting expectations.

So play a game with me, and kill my key creatures, destroy the enchantment the deck revolves around. Your deck has the answers, doesn't it? Well, so does mine - watch as my deck brings back the piece from the graveyard, or converts itself into a beating machine during the lull as you found your removal, and tries to capitalize on the position it already got. Or watch it pull together a much weaker synergy, and try to win with that. Your deck answered my threat, but can it beat down to finish me off faster than I can finish you off? What do you do if I play the key piece again? Watch my deck as it tries to stall you before you beat me down - it's a race of sorts, and maybe I'll lose. Or maybe not.

Don't let me win against you by pulling off my plan. That's just boring. Don't beat me by doing something to which I cannot respond. That's just sad. But if you struggle to do something, and I struggle to resist, then each deck gets to show off all the things it was made to do, and maybe a little more.

The Robot Apocalypse: Pie Style

The robot apocalypse happens like this:

Someone creates a smart robot to serve him. Either fails to put in First Law protection, or for selfish reasons makes a zero-law of obeying him.

That someone asks the robot to make him a tasty pie.

The robot does.

The man finishes the pie, and tells the robot, "Make me more pie!" He fatefully leaves out specification of how much pie.

The robot attempts to fulfill the command as best possible: If the robot makes as much pie as possible, then the undefined "More Pie!" has the optimal chance of being fulfilled (or a 100% chance, if the request was reasonable).

The robot figures out the limits of optimal pie creation: Pie is limited by matter/energy to form it, and by entropy to organize it into a pie. Thus the robot is on a clock against entropy to make pie. The robot is also in a competition against everything else that is creating entropy.

The robot makes a plan: To create pie fast enough to race reasonably with entropy, some entropy must be spent to increase the speed of pie-making. This involves other robots to make efficiently produced matter-to-pie devices. Also robots to gather the resources. Also robots to protect those gatherers from hostile phenomena.

The robot's first step is to quickly mobilize the entirety of the resources of the earth* to quickly mobilize the resources of the solar system to continue onwards and ultimately convert the universe into as much pie as possible.

See that * there? Already, the robot apocalypse has occurred, as we are converted into organizations of matter more useful for the creation of pie.

That is how the robot apocalypse happens.

Also how the universe gets turned into pie.

Graduation

By the way, I graduated from ASU and "Barrett, the Honors College at ASU" magna cum laude on the 13th of May, 2010.

Maehadros

Maehadros was the first DnD character I created, and I built him with what I thought was a relatively interesting backstory. He was a human fighter, probably the most generic option I could have built mechanically.

Backstory: Maehadros was the son of a nobleman in one of the city-states of a particular unnamed continent. His father wanted him to apprentice to become a cleric, but Maehadros rebelled and ran off to a different city-state, and enlisted in the city guard there. Eventually the city he was working for came into conflict with his hometown, and Maehadros deserted the town guard. He found work as a mercenary, and was hired by what turned out to be a pro-human organization. While he didn't agree with their pro-human sentiments, he considered it a job, and helped them anyway. Eventually he became aware that they were a fairly radical cult, but continued to work for them until they gave him orders to kill the children of some local dwarves they had lynched. He then abandoned his job and fled on a ship away from the continent to avoid repercussions with the cult. This is how he wound up on the ship with the other Player Characters.

Character traits: The essence of Maehadros, or Mae, as he is generally known, is that he is a good person at heart, but lacks the courage to follow his heart. Instead he follows orders over his own judgement. By this point in his life, he is fully aware of the painful repercussions of not standing up for what he believes in, but has not implemented that in his life. Instead, he still follows the moral judgement of his new commanding officer (Tucker's warlord). His opinions mostly go in his journal, as always.

Other traits of the character include a town-guard sense of ethics, rather than the sense of an adventurer. He would rather bring his defeated foes to justice than to kill them, even if (as pointed out by other characters) bringing them to justice would doubtlessly lead to their execution. Again, he looks to authority other than his own, rather than making judgments on the lives of the defeated.

Character growth: Maehadros never had much opportunity to act upon his beliefs, partly due to me, the player, being pressured into not... complicating things. The party goes places, it kills things, it gets experience and loot, and I apparently wasn't supposed to call into question the ethics of all the things we were doing, let alone rebel against the judgement of the other players. Maehadros himself suffered a good deal of bullying by other players, mostly in terms of who was leading the party in the absence of Tucker and his character. (I was also somewhat disappointed to find that most of the party was neutral, and the paladin was of the "I'm a paladin, this gives me justification to kill things," style.) This was all cut short by Mae's untimely death.

Analysis: Maehadros deals with a lot of questions I have concerning righteous action, authority, and the subjectivity of morality, I suppose? And of social pressures? Dunno.