Stuff From Yahoo Group

Jim Wellington

Jul 27, 2001

Okay,

I gotta be outta my mind to start another eGroup / eList, right?

This one’s special.

I’ve been working on a Role Playing Universe for ten years.

((Ansir Evokateur Working Style?))

“Gamers” can go off and kill things. Role players can hang out and
interact in-character. Private Chat with one or many friends will be
more than available. Instead of emoticons you’ll be able to type “flirt
Keri” and have everyone in the room see you bat your eyes at Keri.

If I’m in as “Rocky” (TaleRocker) and you’re in the room with me
and “Parsley” you’ll read, “Rocky bats his eyes at Parsley.”

The game system (SlashMUD) has been under development by Koryn
Grant (“Doctor” Koryn Grant) and runs on a Mac OS. I May be able to run
it by getting myself a cable modem connection and keeping as spiffy and
fast a Mac (PPC / G3 or better / cheap fast iMac will work) dedicated
to sitting there, acting as a server.

Might have to hook with a Mac Friendly web provider… (he shrugs).

But anyway.

I woke up with a friendly feeling spirit hovering over me (a ball
of white smokey ‘substance’? Asked if it was a lost soul, would it
please leave. and when I was wondering if it was more like an
inspiration looking for somebody to inspire I couldn’t get back to
sleep and look where I am now?)

Heaven Help Us. It’s almost a Reality,

Jim

My first really original “Armour”:

{Background:}

***Tiger Spiders are intelligent spiders who can’t speak to us, but
many of them are telepathic and can use common sign language. They
stand up to five feet ‘tall’ and may have a diameter of about six to
eight feet. (I’ll work out the metrics shortly) They have rudimentary
‘hands’ and use their other six ‘legs’ to walk around. They have ‘feet’
that are more like hooves than feet. They will be able to produce one
suit of Tiger Suit Armour per game week (and be able to spit or shoot
webbing at ‘targets’ once or twice a day, so they’ll be valuable
friends, and an enormously rich possibility for Role Play. They will
have stingers and will develop the ability to paralyze NPCs with
increasing accuracy and will thusly enable ‘younger’ characters an
opportunity to gain a lot of experience very quickly. They will be
watched closely, anybody who abuses their powers will discover his or
her character had developed a debilitating illness and lost half his or
her HP and webbing and stinging levels will reset to one any time they
try to train for higher levels.

They have been hunted to near extinction by Sectoids.

(***Sectoids are Insect-Human Hybrids that were developed, in
pre-written-history, by “The Brotherhood”. The Brotherhood (sometimes
called the Brotherhood of Power or the Brotherhood of Knowledge) was a
will-to-power ‘alliance’ of very powerful beings [ members of “The
First Race”]. The Brotherhood tried several experiments to breed a
perfect slave race and Sectoids were one of their nearly successful
‘products’. Most Sectoids have a hive mentality and, while they find
most sentient species inedible, they really really hate Mammals,
Reptiles, and especially Flying species with every fiber in their
beings.
A small but significant minority of Sectoids are born with
near-human faces that are usually hideously malformed. These ‘ugly
ones’ were either eaten or driven off by ‘True Sectoids’. Most of the
Sectoids you will see in Aerendel are from this group. L’Haeren (the
Nearly Immortal Prince of Aerendel) has promised sanctuary to any
member of any species as long as they abide by the laws and customs of
the Principality. Some Sectoids are truely grateful for this
acceptance, some are spies for their species.)

***Tiger Spiders “had an epiphany” when they realized they would
have to form an alliance with the ‘Two Legs’ or face total annihilation
as a species. Many Tiger Spiders are gifted “Psidahrians” (Extra-
Sensory Types who can communicate with ESP and sometimes spend
lifetimes learning to control “Other Psycho-kinetic ‘Talents'”. The
first Tiger Spiders (Nicknamed as such because of the yellow and black
stripes on their legs) who contacted the ‘Two Legs’, brought them gifts
of Spider-Silk Armour (light weight, extremely protective, and better
than average in resiliency/longevity). The armour is so light, one
Druid commented, “it feels more like an aura than any armour.” and that
nickname stuck.

Spider Silk Auras will be available to all races as part of a
“Newbie Kit” that everyone will find in their possession when they
wander into Aerendel. It is basically invisible, and so protective that
it might make gaming boring for hard-core gamers. {Throw it away or
sell it (when shops start buying things) and equip yourself rather
nicely. Then go fight the monsters by following the trail away from the
“peaceniks and assorted weirdoes” who don’t want to play with swords
and kill each other for a living.}
{{ We are also looking into an amulet that will turn off ‘hunger
and thirst’ so pure Role Players won’t have to dehydrate and starve to
death and find themselves automatically evicted from the world / game
in the middle of a meeting of the ‘Council of Sentient Species’ or
whatever. }}

=====
This actually came to me in a dream I was standing in a field and a
huge spider sent me the message, “Don’t look if you’re afraid of
spiders.” and a stream of knowledge that translates to: “We’re not
crazy about helping your kind, but if you’ll sign a treaty with us we
can teach you spells your kind has forgotten and aid some of you in
developing your psychic talents.”
Then wandered into a novel I was writing very shortly after that
dream. (I finished writing that novel in rough form in like three
months.) Tiger Spiders appeared ‘out of nowhere’, took over a Palace/
Fortress that had been a prison used by the ‘Krim alliance’ (Sectoids,
Trolls, Drax and a horde of (weak and stupid) Ghardra, led by a
Ghardran Arch-Mage (a very dangerous creature. One or two can send a
whole planet back into the dark ages.)
The Castle is now “Spiders Palace” and guards “The Rift” (only
decent pass through the Aeren Mountains.)

=====

Enjoy?

Jim

Races Available:

“Elvish” (Non-Faer)
Highe-Elf Forest-Elf Mer Half-Elf Dark-Elf Dehlvarian Human

“Faer Races”
Sprite Dryad Faer-Elf Dhalgger

“Furry” (With Claws)
Faaxen Khatzen Ursan Ottahrian

“Qaeglan” (“Elvish ((Humanoids)) with Wings and Talons)
Qaeglan-Dove Qaeglan-Ravenna *Qaeglan-Hawk

“Reptilian”
Drax Gremlin Ghardran

“Exo-Skeletal” (May be able to use stingers and ‘Webbing’)
Sectoid *Tiger-Spider

“Trollish”
Rock-Troll

“Impossible To Classify” 🙂
Ymmp

+=+=+=+=++=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=++=

“Rumoured Races”:

*Metamorphs *Watchers

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=++=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

[* Qaeglan-Hawks, Tiger-Spiders, Metamorphs and Watchers, will only
be available as “Avatar Races”.
This means players will have to earn the privilege of playing one of
these characters by proving themselves to be Conscientious and
Compassionate/Intelligent enough not to want to ruin the game part of
it for others.] Vampires might also be a possibility.]

**Dryads came with the software that is being developed. They’re part
of our mythology. I got infected with a few ideas concerning them,
and kept them viable as a player race.

Tune in later for details or go to
<http://www.crosswinds.net/~qaeglan/AerInfoGame.html> for better, but
still sketchy, details.

Start dreaming,

Jim

=====

The reason Aerendel has so many diverse natives and visitors:

Mythology:

During the final years of “The First Wars of Magick” animosities
between ‘The Children of Light” and “The Brotherhood” became so
deadly (whole planetary systems were vaporized) that a young but
highly evolved member of the First Race, *Shanti, and several of her
most compassionate friends, feared that the whole material universe
could come to an abrupt and premature end. They created a ‘Pocket
Dimension’ and molded it into a corridor through which they would be
able to help as many living creatures escape what they feared was the
ultimate Armageddon as possible. (more than a million years ago).
They refined the dimension to the point where it could actually sense
the compassionate aspirations of loving beings and open ‘wild
portals’ to times and places where those compassionate beings were in
the most danger and ‘auto morph’ its interior to appear ‘friendly’
and search for safer, more idyllic times and places where those ‘good
people’ would be let go.

The First wars ended in a stalemate and many members of the
First Race took a look at their devastation and abandoned the
material universes altogether. Others stayed around to aid or tamper
with the emerging Elvish races. It became extremely important to many
of them that a balance be maintained so the worlds would never again
come that close to extinguishing themselves.

Shanti and her friends became so involved with nurturing their
favourite young races that they all but forgot about their Emergency
escape plan.

That ‘Pocket Dimension’ or Anomaly developed sentience itself.
It also developed a longing for company and created what we now call,
‘The Faer Realms’ where it tampered with physiology, biology and
physics to give some creatures that it really liked, the ability to
fly and live for very long stretches of time. The Anomaly discovered
how to rejuvenate many of its favourites, helped them develop extreme
longevity at the dna level, formed areas within itself that if felt
would most entice its favourites to remain within its boundaries and
keep it entertained and ‘busy’. But then it felt the re-emergence of
dangers outside and focused its attention outward into the
‘elsewhere’, where it felt the need or desire to educate and speed up
the evolution of younger, pre-sentient races. (it could always ‘tap
into the wisdom’ of members of the ‘First Race’ and communicated,
transferred information through dreams and visions. Often it was
unable to communicate perfectly in these ways. But it liked some of
the combinations of ideas and misconceptions its ‘citizens’ came up
with and developed a fondness for absurdity as well as compassion.)

The ‘Last Wars of Magick’ (so named in the same spirit that many
called World War I on Earth, ‘The War To End all Wars’) Emerged on
the planet where Shanti had built and molded the Anomaly. (Theories
include the possibility that members of the Brotherhood still in the
Material Universes felt the power of the Anomaly growing and became
very interested in gaining access and possibly using it to go back in
time and win the original ‘Wars’ and set themselves up as the
vainglorious rulers of every Dimension and ‘reality’ they could gain
a foothold in.) Shanti (Still alive in her original form, those
thousands of years old (and still looked like an 18 year old) found
the Highe-Elf LenJaelienne family, saw lots of goodness and ‘mensch’
qualities there and inspired and led them to the spot where she had
created the Anomaly. This took them twenty years, as they were
rounding up animals and out-castes from even younger races (Forest
Elves, Delvahrians, Mer, even Dark-Elves, Drax and Sectoids who had
no taste for the war and/or had rebelled against the racist
megalomaniacal policies of most members of their respective races. (A
relatively new race, called Humans, had emerged and reproduced at an
insane rate and had all but claimed the entire planet for
themselves.)

The Brotherhood’s ‘Master Race’ the Ghardra, appeared at the
beginning of this ‘Last Wars Of Magick’ time and threatened the
humans, and everyone else, with total extinction. The Drax and
Sectoids signed on with the Ghardra ( The Ghardra (singular=
Ghardran) are race in which less than one percent hold all the power,
do most of the thinking and plotting, and rule the other 99% by
‘keeping them down’ and ‘under control’ in deplorable conditions that
made their existence nearly impossible.)

Back to the LenJaelienne’s, while rounding up their refugees,
the husband and wife became separated, believed their spouses dead,
remarried humans, had children, lost their second spouses and then
discovered each other when they set sail for a ‘promised land’ that
became Aerendel. They reached what they thought was the Island of
Aerendel during a horrendous storm and followed an insanely
persistent dove up into the hills where they discovered a cave and
herded everyone they could save into the safety of that cave before
the storm to end all storms changed the face of their planet.

When they emerged from their cave they thought they might be the
only sentient life on their planet.

What had happened:

When it looked like the alliance of the Ghardra, Drax, and
Sectoids, along with Trollish conscripts (Collectively known as the
‘Krim’) just might take the planet, Shanti remembered her Dimension
and went to rediscover it, and found an abundance of amazing new
intelligence creatures living within. Ursans (Bear like) Khatzen (Cat
Like) Faaxen (Fox like) Ottahrians (“Otterly delightful creatures”)
and many of the Faer Races emerged for the first time to what had
once been the planet their ancestors had come from. They absolutely
loved the ‘real world’, which felt ‘fresh and new’ (and ‘dangerous’
was not in their vocabulary, but ‘thrilling’ was. Shanti explained a
few things about the danger to this world, led these new creatures
back through the Anomaly to a very safe time and imported military
geniuses and weaponsmaster to teach them the nasty arts of saving a
planet from complete annihilation. (Which later earned her the
nickname “The Avataress of Peace, Love and Carrying a very big
stick”. She then led a fully trained army out of the Anomaly, into
the middle of the fracas, Was amazed herself by the appearance of
Qaeglans (citizens of another world, which they had freely shared
with Sectoids (who had been able to invade and use the Anomaly) and
were repaid for their kindness by being declared enemies and hunted
toward extinction in their own world, found the Anomaly and flew in,
saw the hated Sectoids trying to ruin another planet, flew back,
grabbed most of their people, and their families, flew out and and
jumped into the fracas (taloned feet first). Shanti’s forces and the
Qaeglans won. The Brotherhood was so overjoyed they tried to destroy
the planet.

Which caused a commotion in the great beyond. The Children of
Light, The Brotherhood, and the ‘disinterested’ held a
multi-dimensional conference, re-established the balance- sent spies
into each other’s camps and severely reprimanded Shanti for ‘Creating
the problem in the first place’ and made her a ‘prisoner’ of that
planet for centuries.

She supervised the re-establishment of civilization on the
planet, which had a good head start, seeing as her people could run
through the Anomaly, find a book on technology, or even entice
engineers or inventors back to her world. This prompted another
inter-dimensional conference, in which it was decided that she would
either turn the Anomaly over to a committee of three highly place
members of a Triumvirate (each member appointed by the most prominent
men in their Groups’ hierarchies) or be hunted down and uncreated.
She basically gave them the finger and disappeared, reappeared with a
room full of White Dragons and told them to go ahead and try- they
backed down. She gave the White Dragons the run of the Anomaly and
went back to Aerendel where she flittered about disguised as a dove
and took an interest in the LenJaelienne step brothers.

L’Haeren was tall, blond, had pointed ears and an inward,
mystical nature. Haemahr was large, muscular, solid, dark haired,
thickly bearded, and had the soul of a brooding, brawling, genius
(musician) who lost his heart every other week and flew off the
handle at the mere whisper of injustice anywhere. They made each
other feel incomplete, like they had totally ignored the path the
other had embraced and both felt like their parents loved the other
one more acutely. But they loved each other, defended each other
ad-nauseum to their less tolerant friends and once or twice a year
feuded like cats and dogs.

After they proved themselves more than worthy she gave them the
secrets of near immortality (L’Haeren practices his secret routines
every weekend and remains looking like a twenty five year old.
Haemahr ages dramatically week by week and then goes into a month
long trance and re-emerges, looking like a youth again. He’s been
nicknamed ‘Father time’, goes into his trance for the last month of
winter and re-emerges with the first days of spring.

When Shanti got sick of life in the material world, she ‘went
beyond’ and discovered that she’d a direct line to the heart of the
Creator all along and had been a willing agent of the Creator’s will.
(Many members of the First Race denied or doubted the existence of
any single Creator and will never believe her accounts in this area.
She voluntarily allowed them to try to uncreate her several times and
they have never succeeded. This, they believe, is ‘spooky’ but they’d
rather believe she discovered some kind of parlor trick than believe
her accounts of worlds ‘beyond beyond’.

((* Shanti went on to become the Founder of the religious sect most
often referred to as “The Church of Peace, Love and Freedom”))
[‘shanti’ actually means “peace” in Hindi (and maybe Sanscrit)] )

Tell me to get some rest, will ya?

Jim

Sigh, what am I doing still awake?

Any of you with any talent are here-by drafted. (well, more like
pleaded with, cajoled, whined at and/or bribed with loads of stuff
that money can’t touch (or isn’t interested in?).

Any non-stolen graphics of anything even remotely related to
anything I’ve hinted at in the racial descriptions (or will hint at
here.) can be sent to the list, or popped into files that are related
to this list. They don’t give us a whole universe of megs but a bunch
of stuff can go into the file section.

This list is yours as well as mine. I only evoked it. It’s a
brain child. All kinds of children grow beyond their parents’ wildest
dreams. (which might be difficult in my case. I have some rather wild
dreams.)

But- jump in and take over.

Jim

I’ve been busy.

[[[ “npc’s” are Non Player Characters, sometimes referred to as
‘monsters’ or Mob’s (as in ‘mobiles’) ]]]
[[[ “pc’s” are Player’s Characters. Sometimes referred to as alter
egos of “Me, if I could actually live my dreams.” ]]]

Healing skill stuff.

Healers might automatically “Attract” wounded NPCs to heal.

{{ I’m thinking of a Multi-pathed route through Newbie lands /
‘Training Grounds’?. –> }}

sign: +———————————————————–+
|
|
| Choose from the Paths ahead : |
|
|
| Healers’ Utopia — Up [u] ^ |
| Fighters’ Training – Down [d] v |
| Save the world from Crazy Robots–North [n]–> |
| <– Magick Students, head South [s ] |
| Artisans and Professionals head [w] west |
| Artists / Musicians / Poets head East [e]–> |
| Psi? use the only other listed option [ne] |
+———————————————————–+

(North, South, East, West, Northeast, Up or Down)

Newbie Healers would find [read] “Wounded children, animals, men,
women, and monsters of all races, all desperate for healing.”

A ‘stressed out healer’ would ‘greet them’ and ‘shout’,
“Thank goodness you’re here- pick a patient and [“hea [target]”]” (if
the npc is a wounded child type “hea child” without the quotes.)

There would only be one ‘real’ “Wounded” npc {of the
newbie’s race} in the room (generated by whomever entered) if
multiple newbies of the same race stumbled in at once the ‘Stressed
out healer’ npc would shout, ‘Count the number of wounded %npc name
(s) here, are and if there are 3, type [“hea 3 [target]”] (((“Or type
“say [text] and press return or enter to ‘talk’ and choose who heals
which character”)))

all npc’s in the area /zone would generate / be set to “is in
serious trouble” and rigged so as not to auto-heal themselves.

low level healers would have a one in three chance to
do any good at all with their initial efforts.

the healer npc would continually encourage “Don’t give up,
keep trying!”

any wise guy who tried to kill the wounded npcs would be
fragged by the healer’s staff or a bolt of potent lightening hurled
by the gods. or whomever. “You’re dead, your name and isp address has
been recorded
in the log, try that again and you will be barred from this game.”

When most npc’s are either healed to better than 50% of their
“normal”, or
reached 30 H.P. (whichever is easier) they would “stumble to their
feet” and give their benefactor a couple coins, explain, “It’s all I’ve
got- take it, you’ve earned it.” and shuffle off to recover somewhere
(the “Wounded” tag might change to “recovering”) the npc healer would
say, “sometimes they insist that you accept heirloom jewels or valuable
items you can either donate to a worthy charity, keep, or sell.”

The first healed npc would grant the newbie healer a
‘level up’ in healing, moan, and announce [his or her self] to be a high
ranking healer who got too close to the action. (and possibly give
the healer newbie a generic healer’s staff* or something (* & no, not
a nurse or two and a stressed out typist agonizing her way through
archaic databases… but a stick with a medical symbol on it or
something)

Other npcs would give them a couple coppers, a silver or two
and maybe a silver dagger with an emerald in the hilt for good
measure.
At the end of the ‘newbie training program’ a master healer
would touch the character and: “You feel incredibly good as massive
currents of healing energy course through your body, healing,
relaxing and invigorating you- to the point where you begin to wonder
if physical love or drugs could ever match this high.” or something
similar.

(successful training for level 5 could give the healer a
custom (bonded) weapon or device that would come in the color of the
character’s favourite religious sect (grey for agnostics?) (various
sects might have better results when healing) (the Church of Peace
and Love would certainly have more dedicated and powerful healers
than the Church of Hatred, Fear and Death, whose founder is often
referred to as “Stupid ghost, him think him really am some kind of
god or somping. Him nuffing!” Muhdagus spits on the ground.) & If
the healer character trains with that gift readied, The gift would
develop magical properties like an effortless teleport spell that
could yank endangered PCs out of harm’s way in a hurry.)

+=+=+=+=+

(I gave ‘Clerics’ three real choices: “Healer” “Questor” and
“Protector”)
(they could call themselves Priests, Monks, Nuns, Priestesses or
anything within reason. I detest censorship, but since I’m planning
to have kid-specific regions, anybody calling a character a ‘whore
for the gods’ would feel like a snowball in hell if they tried to
invade a kid’s area.) I’d want to find some dedicated parent type to
hang out in the kids’ areas (invisibly?) and monitor everything that
happens there.)

In this context:
Healers were the strongest in the healing arts, could
bash away with maces and blunt weapons or be given a ‘staff’ at
character generation that would make them almost invulnerable to PC
attacks (80% plus defence bonus) the staff would shatter if ever used
to attack another PC.
Questors weren’t quite Paladins. They were Religious
devotees with weapons skills. (often sent on trumped up quests
because local authorities found them obnoxious for some reason or
didn’t like the way members of the opposite (or same) sex looked at
them during meditation or something. They had sharp weapon skills
(could choose actually, but sharp was the most likely).
Protectors were the religious Martial Artists. (secular
martial artists ‘paid more’ for advancement. Religious Martial Artists
supposedly took vows of poverty and ‘were expected to turn over and
payment for their services to their church or sect.’
**And Healers earn 3 bonus Religious Points (toward stuff
like charisma improvement etc) points every time they cast a healing
spell. or used their ‘hands on’ healing skills. Questors would earn 2
points. Protectors earn 1 Religious Bonus Point for every
healing spell they cast. / healing act they commit ((independent of experience
points)).

*** Shamen are a very special class of healer / magick users as
are “Seekers”
**** A Psi-Healer would be pretty wimpy at first but develop
phenomenal healing talent later on.

+=+=+=+=+

Jim

=====

Jim’s Web Site Now = <http://www.crosswinds.net/~qaeglan/> Temporarily?
or <http://www.angelfire.com/vt/aerendel> if crosswinds
takes like, forever to load…
AOL IM IDs = “TaleRocker” & “Aerendel”
Yahoo Instant Messenger (and MSN IM)= jaerendel (rarely there)
ICQ (?) Aerendel, #115145390, *** But I might never bother with
ICQ — 3 invitations to sex chat in the first five minutes I was on?
from people I never heard of?
Writers Check out:
<http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/CreativeWritersWorkshop>
Role Players / MUDders MUSHers: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Aerendel/>

+=+=+=+=+

Hi,

“Dryads” came with the software package I’m working with. At
first, I thought another flying race would be over kill. but..I took
a look at their description in the internal files of the game and
they average about four feet tall? How could I kill off a race whose
only fault is being beautiful and misunderstood?

Dryads are nearly full sized, sensitive, delicate and much
maligned winged creatures who have inhabited the ‘Faer Realms’ (and
lots of Earth’s mythology) for millenniae. (Aerendel quite often
connects to Earth, but is not ‘here’, it’s where all the good hippies
went when the yuppies took over down here on Earth.) (they sent me
back here to recruit you.)

Dryads have been rumoured to be a race of sterile (but extremely
attractive) females who steal babies from anyone else and love them
to death, bring them up elvish (yay!).

I’m thinking (uht-oh, dangerous sign), Dryads are not all women
(guys may appear almost as beautiful as the women) and most men would
avoid humans entirely because they’re accused of being perverts on
sight and considered trophy game by most testosterone poisoned idjits
of lots of races. And well, yes Dryads have rescued many many human
and ‘other’ children, from abusive families. They may have a
larcenous streak, don’t understand human economics (who does?) and
have no idea why they shouldn’t have every beautiful thing they lay
their eyes on. They keep their children well hidden, because they’ve
very often been raped and slaughtered on sight. They may revel in
sensuality and sexuality and not be the sort of people you’d want
your children to hang around with, because, face it- How’re ya gonna
keep em down on the farm after they’ve been ‘pixilated’ and/or
seduced by gorgeous, innocent to a fault, perfectly formed, creatures
with silken butterfly shaped wings they can wrap around you, tickle
your wildest fancy and revel in whatever you discover in yourself
that you can share with them (before they fly away and look for
something else to tickle their fancies)? The truth could be that they
absolutely adore everyone they see and constantly need new inner or
outer worlds to explore. (an ENFP race?) They wither away and die
when trapped by controlling lovers. And have no use for most human
concepts and constraints?

I might revive the Satyr race that came with the package. I
might turn one of the other races into “Squirrels”.

(Feedback appreciated)….

Jim

Looky what I found? (slightly esoteric)

coded in like 1995 with a “teach yourself to program in C” book
in one hand and a pile of reference manuals on the floor next to me.

*** New to programming? Do not assume this code is good. I
learned with this generic C compiler (which promised it could handle
files as big as they could ever get and went app-solutely ape shit if
you got anywhere near 1 meg in size.) might have had other
idiosyncrasies not common to many compilers. I just retyped the
stuff below here. (Now, July 2001), wearing bifocals that I’m not
used to, and it is part of a larger program that might have had some
bizarre “includes” way up at the top somewhere. ***

I’ll explain some details about the variable strings after the code.

+++++

{{{Two Routines listed here: “duh()” and “shapechange()” }}}

duh() /* I wanna hear Mac voices, “Victoria” or “Cellos” sing this
one to me….*/
{
printf(“\n (You just had a brain fart : \*You’ve sent me a message
I cannot compute.\*) “);

return;
}

shapechange()
{
if ((race != Dhalgger) && (race != Faer-Elf)) /* If you can’t
morph, this won’t work.*/
{ duh(); return; }

else { printf(“\n\n You can ‘Morph’ into the following shapes : “);

morphChoice() /* I forgot what this does. */

printf(“\n\n\t 1. %s”, raceA); /* Either Dhalgger or Faer-Elf *?
printf(“\n\t 2. %s”, raceB); /* Animal form. */
printf(“\n\t 3. %s”, raceC); /* Dhalgger’s humanoid form or
Faer-Cat options. */
printf(“\n\t (4. You can remain as you are.) : “);
printf(“\n\n Please Choose [ 1-4] : “);

fflush(stdn0;
scanf(“%d”, &go); /* Get input. */

switch (go) /* Apply choice to visible strings step one. */
{ case (1) : { raceNow = race1; apparentRace =
raceNow(raceName,raceA); break; }
case (2) : { raceNow = race2; apparentRace =
raceNow(raceName,raceB); break; }
case (3) : { raceNow = race3; apparentRace =
raceNow(raceName,raceC); break; }
case (4) : { printf(“\n Okay, you remain in your present
form.”); return; break; }
}

printf(“\n You feel your stomach pulled inside out and your
nerves burn. “);
printf(“\n Forces pull you apart molecule by molecule as your
body turns to putty. “);
printf(“\n But when it’s over you feel a massive influx of
relief and renewed vigor.”);
printf(“\n You have successfully morphed into your %s form.”,
apparentRace);

expMorph++; /* Get credit for morphing. (a meaningless stat,
unless you want to peek in from time to time to see how often
characters morph. */

namelineRaceObvOcc(); /* reassemble the line that shows name,
age, race and obvious occupation */

printf(nameline); /* print the new name line so the character
knows what he/she looks like? */

fflush(stdin); /* clean out the stacked up variable memory
cache so the computer doesn’t lag to death? */

pause();
}
return; /* Go back to your regularly scheduled activities. */

}

+++++

It’s Eleven Oh Four, do you know where your parents are?

Okay. Dhalggers and Faer-Elves got to choose their morphable
forms at character generation time.

Dhalggers ‘Normal’ form was somewhere between “Goofy” (Mickey
Mouse’s buddy) and Chewbacca. Upright Humanoids with dog heads.
(Loyal as hell, great healers, but they were not at all suited for
military occupations.)
Faer-Elves were Mustard coloured or Green skinned, spindly
little guys who put the “P” in peevish. They invented ‘Faeromancy’,
the non-lethal but extreme nuisance school of Magick. (since citizens
of the ‘Faer Realms’ were, on the whole just about immune to death,
they got real creative, and taught people how to turn whole rooms
full of PCs and NPCs to sticky smelly gorp with “Chicken Soup”
spells. Noodly things would curl around everybody and sting them,
hold them immobile and zap one or two hp out of them every now and
then. ((I should have let them morph into life sized skunks who
could dance around in glee as their spells made ‘normals’ burn their
brains out in helpless anger. ))

=====raceB choices:

Dhalggers could choose from a pure dog shape for their raceB
string: /* Capitalized to distinguish from dog npcs */
(And the room description would read “Arnold the
Weener Dog is here”.)
Doberman Sheep Dog Hound Dog Wolf Hound Weener Dog
Beagle Husky Corgy Collie
Pointer Peekinese Poodle Spaniel Pug Setter
Chihuahua (or beg an Elder for your favourite)

Faer-Elves could turn into cats:

Alley Cat Calico Cat Siamese Cat Persian Cat
Himalayan Cat Manx Tiger Cat (or ask an Elder for your favourite)

=====raceC choices:

Dhalggers’ raceC came from in-game humanoids:

Ottahrian Human Highe-Elf Forest-Elf Dark-Elf
Half-Elf (( Not Mer, Mer have racial Stun powers, I let the
Dhalgger-Ottahrians believe they had claws, but couldn’t pick locks
with them.))

Faer-Elves (the hyphen’s there because a space signalled the
end of the string to the save function and all the other variables
that got saved were out of place. it got ugly) Faer Elves 3rd form
was something like Felix the cat with psychedelic fur:

blue Faer Cat green Faer Cat red Faer Cat purple Faer
Cat they could customize their descriptions to include blue and
yellow stripes; red, orange and pink day-glo patterns, whatever… I
think they all came with obligatory dark glasses and played the
saxophone.

Faer Elves were encouraged to be as strange as they could be.
Vegetarian Faer Elves were expected to torture and eat mice when they
were cats and everybody was warned that they didn’t want to know what
Faer Cats ate. (Faer Cats had claws. Dhalggers were canine monsters
in their dog forms (teeth=weapon of choice) Faer Cats and the
“Khatzen” were supposed to make each other nervous and curious about
each other but were emotionally and intellectually incompatible.

C code for robots’ fighting routine tomorrow? (I think it’s all here)

Jim

Everybody, Anybody,

First the good news?

Some of the code to the character generation program(s) Has
(have) been found! Oh no! Now what???

I’ve found the print-outs of two of the 5 the text files
(chargen2.c and chargen3.c) that were compiled separately into
execute-able programs. Everything (after the first step/first
program was called by the menu program) had to be called by the
previous program (the last thing each linked program did before it
shut itself off was tell the computer to wake up the next segment)

Bad News?

I still have to dig through a zillion boxes to find parts 1, 4 & 5.

And (get this) Part 2 is 42 pages printed in a 5 point font
(Microscopic) Part 3 is only 35 pages same microscopic font.

Now the fun part.

Each “monster” has a list of weapons it can use.

Each “weapon type” has its distinct style of being used.
(Swords are “swung at” the target. Axes are ‘chopped at’ the target..)

Most weapons hit you on one of your body parts (arms, legs,
head, neck, etc…)

Magic and Psionic weapons hit you in your mind, imagination,
ego, self-image (I got creative) <wink>

You could suffer ‘Freeze damage from cold spells, fire damage
from fire spells, confusion damage from psionic projections, (you
could die from confusion damage) (part of the psi-bolt hit you
routine was to pick how it effected you, you could imagine your soul
caught on fire, your private parts froze, your whole being
exploded…)

(I forgot about some of the ‘gonzers’ I invented to attack
characters who specifically asked not to be able to kill either PCs
or ‘living’ NPCs [ PCs are players’ Characters NPCs are
Non-Players’-Characters or computer generated ‘monsters’ ] [ ‘gonzer’
is the Ymmpish word for ‘robot’. Some gonzers look like vacuum
cleaners with dangerous attachments trying to kill people. Some
gonzers look very much like living beings. Most Gonzers were
originally built by Ymmps in the future to teach weapons skills to
novices)

some of my weirdest monsters were “12-step-nahtzi-gonzers”,
“politician-gonzers”, & “sponge-head-gonzers”

12-step-nahtzi-gonzers had a weapon called a co-dependence
and their method of wielding that weapon was “projects”.

So if you were attacked by a 12-step-nahtzi-gonzer you might read:

— The 12-step-nahtzi-gonzer projects at you with its co-dependence.
— The 12-step-nahtzi-gonzer scored a decent hit.
++ Your armour absorbs some of the damage ++
*** You suffer 4 points of sympathy damage.

— The politician-gonzer whines at you with its promises.

*** You suffer 5 points of gullibility damage.

— The sponge-head-gonzer sucks at you with its brain drain.

*** You suffer x points of stupidity damage.

— The farking-idjit-gonzer whines at you with its bullship.

*** You suffer x points of tolerance damage.

Gonzers didn’t die when you disabled them, they ‘shorted out’
‘exploded’ ‘vaporized’ and left behind their weapons.

I laughed my butt off searching the scene after a fight with a
gonzer and finding:

a co-dependence
a promises
a brain drain
a bullship

You could pick these ‘items’ up and carry them off market and
try to sell them to shopkeepers who would look at you funny and say
something along the lines of, “You expect me to pay you real money
for this worthless piece of doo-doo?”

I suppose things could really get nuts if half a dozen players
sell these weapons to players who could attack other players and you
had a high level character no skill in ‘gonzer weapons’ whine at you
with a bullship for 30 points of damage.

Oh gawd, the possibilities of waking up in a cartoon world just
dawned on me.

insert module, “Hallucination Land”

where all these sick characters attack you with bullships and worse?

grinning,

Jim

Jim Wellington

Aug 1, 2001

Good Morning,

I was going to say something about putting up a sign whe characters
enter the game saying they can choose a bunch of options and one is to
go off and womp on renegade robots instead of killing people and things
in their new world.

But I checked and I already did that.

I also mentioned that characters who want to be healers don’t have to
kill nothin to survive and have fun. (Characters who choose not to harm
anyone can cast healing spells and do other good things to them. They
may be able to step between a wounded party and somebody who’s trying
to kill that party and dedfend them the wounded person, just stand
there and block blows from the attacker without attacking the attacker
in return.)

That’s going to be complicated, but worth it.

I’ve heard from reliable sources that your soul doesn’t know the
difference between really killing people in the real world and
pretending to kill cartoons in a game environment.

(shrug, That might be true.)

here’s a character I rolled in a version of the character generator I
started working with in, yeeesh, 1992?

Finished Product: showing all the choices made while rolling the
character and customizing with one line of descriptive text.

+++++

This was taylored for an 80 column display: If you have a proportional
font selected for your email this will not look right:

You are Ducky McAllister, a male Qaeglan-Ravenna Scout.
Hea Str Dex Agi Per Int Wiz Wil I.S. M.P. Voi App *
Great SuperbExcel Fair Excel Avg Fair Great Fair Excel Fair Fair*

*Cha
*Excel

You are 18 years old, have a wirey build.You do have night vision.
You are 5’10” tall. You weigh 119 lbs.You can carry 225 lbs.
You have healthy fair skin, long chestnut hair and sapphire eyes.
You have strong rust-coloured wings.
You are wearing a light blue Ranger’s cloak.
You show the mark of he Dove on the hilt of your sword.
You look alert.

“He seems aware of everything around him, but his heart is elsewhere.”

+++++

The “You are” stuff would be replaced by “He is” when another character
looked at him, typing in a command “look Ducky” or “l Ducky” {without
the quotes} the player ‘controling’ Ducky would see all of the above
by typing “l me” (that’s the letter “L” in lower case if it looks like
the number one.)

A lot of the text in he “look” lines can be changed.

The ‘Obvious Occupation’ (Scout, in the first line) would be a sub
class of the Rangers (each sub-class is supposed to have it’s own
specialities, especially in the Bard group, where a dancer would have a
‘spell’ called “Hypnotic Dance” which could mesmerize on-lookers so
thief characters could pick their pockets more easily, an Artist-Bard
would be able to draw something or someone and then play a couple notes
on his or her favorite musical instrument (as a concentration aid) and
open a portal to that person or thing (building? area?) a Loremaster-
Bard would be someone who specialized in studying old stories and
ancient languages (possibly with an eye toward finding lost treasures
or learning magic spells that others have long since forgotten.)

The Stat headings line and the stat line were broken up by the fact
that I’m writing this on yahoo’s site and the text box appears to be 72
characters wide for some unknowable reason.

Stats:

Hea is health (Most role playing games call tha “Con” for constitution.

Str is strength

Dex = dexerity

Agi = agility

Per = perception

Int = intelligence

Wiz = wisdom

Wil = Will power

I.S. = inner strength

M.P. = Magical Potential

Voi = voice

App = appearance

Cha = charisma.

there will be other stats that will be invisible, Attack bonuses,
damage bonuses, defense bonuses, I don’t think the characters
themselves will know if their race is comparatively slow or real quick
in fights. (racial round times) I also had a Magical Round time figured
out, thinking some races would have a slight advantage in speed over
another.

the stats themselves run from “useless” (real bad) to “unbelievable”
(real good).

useless, pitiful, low, average, fair, good, great, excellent, superb
and unbelievable.

Each race (sub species in the Qaeglans’ case) have their own age at
which they start off as a character. this is the race’s “age of
responsibility” (at which they are legally responsible for their own
actions.) In some Dungeons and Dragons games the characters start out
at an age that might be 1/3 or 1/4 of their way through their life
expectency. (Not here) Half Elves in many D&D games are ‘young’ at 42.
Elves (Highe Elves here) start their adventuring at 180 years old. In
the real world most animals’ life expectencies are pretty consistently
something like 5 times the age at which most individuals reach full
physical maturity (using this formula, they figure a good average life
span for humans should be 105.)

The ‘wirey’ build description above is one of several possibilities for
this race. Average build for some races would be “solid”, some are
thin, some are chunky. I think I’ll roll a possibility for them and let
the players decide whether they’re skinny, average, fat or whathaveyou.

night vision is something that most members of certain races are born
with. many members of most races can ‘develop’ night vision by eating
magic herbs to boost their perception stats. Rock Trolls will be blind
in daylight

Each race has clearly defined minimum and maximum heights (has no
actual effect on how the game is played, just helps you as players
visualize the person you are ‘looking at’ or playing with, or
whatever.)
I had the character generation routines generate a random height
for each character and give the players an option to choose their
character’s own height.

Weight is a complex computation of race, health and srength. How much a
character can carry is computed by the weight and strenth.

Sprites are tiny, they don’t weigh much. even at their racial max in
strength they might have to get a ‘friend’ to carry their boot around
for them. Sprites will have the ability to attract animals who will
bond with them and carry their stuff around for them. Even if the
characer is non-combatant (protected by religious vows from being
slashed by PCs) their pack animals would be vulnerable. There will be
areas where nobody and none of their pets will ever be able to be
killed. they might fall down and lapse into a coma, but they won’t die.

Skin colours and textures will be a range of choices within that race’s
group.

Hair colours and styles will be a racial deal (races with no hair will
a style called ” ” (space) and a color called “no” “you have no hair.”
Eyes are racial. Bird people, mer, highe elves, half-elves, characters
from the :faer: group (I’ve re-included Sartyrs as a playable race) and
Ymmps can have ‘jeweled’ eyes (ruby, sapphire, emerald, lapis-lazuli,
amethyst, jade) forest elves, half elves and the furry races will have
eye colours in keeping with their races (brown, green, amber, grey)
Insectes and lizard people will have black, brown, red, orange, maybe
all white eyes, humans will have human like eye colour choices, ymmps
can choose any of the above, plus silver and gold coloured eyes.
Watchers will have translucent eyes. metamorphs will have to choose
within the racial limits of the race they are born as.

wings and fur and racial specific appendages (Spider: “You have six
legs and two ‘arms’ with black and yellow stripes.)

Each character will have an outer ‘garment’ which they can change at
will by typing “change clothes” and reading the list or typing in a
short string of letters to be saved as their new clothes. (this garment
is pure illusion. Characters can opt to run around naked or covered
with caked mud and moss if they want, and this will show here,
independent of whatever in-game armour they might be wearing.)

If a character has chosen a religion, they can show or hide a tattoo or
trinket linking them with that sect. Agnostics can wear question marks,
atheists can have and show the mark of “nothing”. each character can
choose to hide of show his or her or its religious mark to everybody in
the game who looks at them.

There will be a short mood indicator, or individualization line with a
bunch of one or two word options, like “You look – ” hungry/tired/
ravishing/ marvelous/ agitated… I thought I’d let characters write
their own mood descriptions.

And, finally, the bottom line is one the players can fill in with 80
characters or less or leave blank.

Elders will be able to look at any character without that character
realizing they’ve been looked at (everybody else will read,
“[Character’s name] looked at you.” Psi characters will know if anybody
looks at anybody else and will know if one character who has opted to
play PC killer sized up another character to guess whether that
character would be an easy target or not. Elders and psi characters
over a certain level will be able to see other characters “Current hit
points” number of npc and pc kills and maybe know whether to warn other
characters of apparent danger. psi characters may not be popular with a
lot of characters. everybody might want to have characters with “psi”
as their secondary occupation so they can read that stuff.

I gotta check something and then send this off…

Take Care…

Jim

This linking the accounts business is a pain in the butt. Nevermind
they don’t give you an authorization code unless you ask for it! So
anyway, I’m here now and we’ll see what this role playing thing is
all about…

Aug 1, 2001

Cathi,

Yay! Cathi’s here.

Jim

P.S. So far the actual game server can be logged into with a telnet
client or a mud client. I could probably configure it so anybody out
there could get whatever IP address I hooked up to and log in, but
right now I don’t think I could run it and connect to it myself if to
interact with anybody unless I snuck down to the radio station and
secretly fired it up on one of the networked computers there and
copied down their IP address drove home, connected to the web, fired
up the specialized telenet client I bought to connect to the game
(it’ll connect internally as well as over the net) and …. sounds
complicated, doesn’t it? (The radio station’s IP address is pretty
constant, but once in a while they go down and when they come back
up, their address has changed a bit? Gack, it’s complicated, I could
be complicating it even further in my mind.)

If any of you don’t have any idea what role playing is all about
you can go to <http://mudconnect.com> and when the page loads there’s
one of those good old fashioned pull down window things in the upper
right corner, (it says, “TMC Navigation”) if you click and find the
pull down menu spring to life the first real option is I think
“Introduction to MUDs” highlight and click or let go and that will
take you to a FAQ page. And you can read a lot of stuff that might
even make sense. It might be a whole lot more fun to sniff around and
find a MUD or MUSH that is 99% role play and not much monster bashing
and learn a bunch of commands (commonly called “Socials”) so your
character can bow and curtsey and burp and make other strange bodily
noises that make kids of all ages laugh a lot.

MUSHes are more likely to be entirely role play than MUDs.

(I’ve been slightly cooked in the brain department lately for
all kinds of reasons, can ya tell? Getting things done though.) (not
counting P.S. messages that are a couple thousand times longer than
the ‘real message’?)

Wide grin:

>em bows graciously.

I read “You bows graciously”
everybody else reads (presuming I’m logged in as “Rocky”) “Rocky bows
graciously”
“em” is an alias for ’emotes’, it calls a text line. you can pretty
much put any text you like in there. and it will print”

“say” is another good command. If you’re logged in as a ravishing
creature named “Cathi” and type at the prompt:

>”say This isn’t quite as complicated as I thought.

the server routines will print to your telnet client : “You say,
“This isn’t quite as complicated as I thought.” If you’re fastidious
and put in the quotes you’re liable to get two sets of quotes around
everything you type after the word “say”.

>hug cathi

>Rocky hugs Cathi.

Until next time….

Oh, I got a message from yahoog about them thinkin they were gonna
delete the creative writers eGroup if it didn’t have any traffic in
90 days and by the time I got there to give it a traffic message,
“Hey, they’re gonna shut it down if we don\’t use it.” It was
already dead and gone. sigh.

Rocky waves to “E”.

=====

Hi,

I was pretty happy with this idea when it hit me:

See what you can pick up by reading through what happens when
your character takes this plunge….

<grin>

Jim

P.S. the little map above the text looks best in a non proportional
font The four areas in the cave are pretty much straigh ahead, like
only N, S, E, and W commands move you from place to place.

+++++

Underwater Mer caves at Ottarian Village:

(PL = pool Ca = Cave)

———-
| 524/PL|
———-
———-
| 559/CA |
—————————-
| 563/CA | 560/ca | 561/Ca |
—————————-
| 562/CA |
———-

524. “This is the ‘deep end’ of the pool.Older children, and,
occasionally, adults climb the rocky side of the pool and
dive to see how deep they can go. Anyone swimming here must
be ready for loud splashes and cascading water.”
{If character has a swimming skill level of 4 or better
he or she will see: }
“A Cave is down near the bottom of the pool here.”

<<<At “Go Cave” from Space #524 you get this message:
<unless you are a Mer>:

“You dive deeper and deeper, pull yourself through
the opening of a cave and then swim several yards. Your
lungs begin to ache, you begin to feel trapped. You
pull yourself along the cave’s underwater cieling. Then
almost miraculously your face breaks the surace. You
can breath. Somehow you pull yourself out of the water.”

{automatically puts you in space # 559.
You are lying down, and exhausted.}

559. UNDERWATER CAVE
“You are in a chamber with a polished blue marble
floor. An eerie green light glows from the walls while
pale blue and white lights dance around, somehow
reflected from the water.
A pool is here. <“Go Pool” to go back to the Ottarian
pool, space #524>
Obvious Path: South

<< Go Pool.: “You dive strongly and pull yourself
through the cave with ease, but then you have a
long way to rise. Just before you’re sure your lungs
will burst you break the surface. You made it.

Go to message for space # 524 >>

560. Underwater Cave
“The dancing lights look more like blue and yellow
in this chamber with its polished marble floor. As you
look around you are surrounded by four almost identical
archways. They look like a natural occurance, but they
seem so perfectly formed.
Obvious Paths: North, South, East, West

561. Underwater Cave.
“There is another pool in this, the Eastern
Chamber of this underwater cave. In the eerie light
you look around and see a green marble table, set as
if a banquet for two should begin any second.
There is a pool here.
<Go pool: and walkers get:
“You dive as deeply as you can, but you can’t find
any sign of a way out of this pool. You nearly pass
out on the way back to the surface and somehow manage
to pull yourself back out of the water.”>
<Mer surface here. or connect with an underwater river where
only they can survive.*> <<Non-Mer find themselves back in
space #561, lying down, exhausted.>>
Obvious Paths: West

562. Underwater Cave
“In the eerie light you see two thrones of gold
and alabaster, shaped like open shells with indigo
velvet cushions for the seats and backs. An empty
goblet of gold lies on the floor, slightly dented.
A goblet is here.
<“Get Goblet” gives you: “The goblet
vanishes as you reach for it. Then reappears when you
give up.”>
Obvious Paths: North
<“Sit [on] Throne” gives you: “Your
body freezes. You feel as if some unseen giant has driven
a huge, frozen nail through your head and down your spine.
You are thrown to the ground. Your body trembles, out of
control.”
***Your arms and hand suffer 5 points of frost damage.***

563. Underwater Cave
“There is a Large bed in this chamber, with a
Wedding Dress laid across it. There are unopened gifts
on a table beside an open book. A dagger and a quill
lie near the book.
There is a wedding dress, a dagger, a quill and a book
here.

> Look Dress: “This wedding dress is woven of fine silk

and lace. The woman it was made for must be about five
feet, six inches tall and slender.”

> Look Dagger: “This Dagger seems to be of tempered steel

with a glowing blue gem in its hilt. The hilt is shaped
like a sea horse.”

> Look Quill: “The quill looks like an ordinary quill, but

wait- No. It’s carved of Mother of Pearl.”

> Touch Dress: This dress feels cool and smooth, but you

feel an intense sadness that you suddenly feel could drive
you mad if you don’t leave it alone.

> Touch Dagger: This Dagger pulses warm and cold. The Gem

seems to react to your hand. Then a searing pain cuts
through your mind and you cry out, realize you’ve
pulled your hand back.
*** Your hand suffers 3 points of frost damage.***

> Touch Quill: “This quill has a fine and delicate feel.

But then your mind fills with visions of betrayal and
murder. You see a beautiful young woman dead. You feel
three hearts breaking and one of them is yours.”

> Get Dress: “The dress vanishes as you reach for it, then

reappears as your hand is withdrawn.”

> Get Dagger: “The dagger moves away from your hand, rises

in the air pointed at your heart, then moves back to
its original spot as you instinctively jump back
away from it.”

> Get Quill: “The quill vanishes as you reach for it,

then reappears as you pull your hand away.”

> Look Book: “These words are written in blood:

“Beloved,
My curse forever be upon your people for this! I shall
wait, forever if need be, until you are born again and
return to me.
(signed,) “Draemahn, Prince of Mer.”

> Touch book: “Feels like an ordinary book, but then your

hand freezes, and your arm freezes, you fear your whole
body will freeze. But you pull yourself back in time.”
*** Your hand suffers 2 points of frost damage. ***

> Get book: The book turns to dust and blows away. Then

it becomes whole again as soon as you pull your hand back.

Obvious Exit: East

============================================================

Okay, I’m a total dork. I went to the mud site, read through the TMC
thingamabob, searched for Aerendel, couldn’t find it, twisted a couple of
brain cells thinking about telnet clients…..then…..figured I should
probably read the manual!!! I’m a little busy right now (my life is rapidly
becoming a collection of boxes and unreturned telephone messages) but I will
figure this critter out sometime soon!

Hugs, gang!

Cathi,

I’m sorry, I guess I didn’t explain myself, it’s so early in the
development phase that it isn’t actually up anywhere yet.

& you are not a dork (not unless a dork is something positive
with a talent for making his/her/its friends feel good about
themselves and life in general…)

Jim

=====

At 10:45 PM -0400 8/4/01, C. Davies wrote:

Hi,

I promised (or threatened?) to post this a while back. This is
stuff I was working on in 1995?

I hadn’t figured out how to add the round-time ‘ticker’ or
whatever to automate the NPCs’ combat routines so they would take
their swipes, then wait for whatever their round time would be, and
swipe again.

I *was* trying to figure out how to add fatigue into the
routines and hadn’t gotten that far yet either.

The hard drive on my old 286 has so many bad sectors that a lot
of the 5 part character generator stuff is permanently lost. I took
extensive notes. My ‘filing system’ is such a freakin mess it might
take me months to find everything and get it in an order that *I* can
understand…

Here goes nothing:

This was written with “#include <dos.h>” & other not-Mac stuff. so
it is probably not instant-port -able

+++++
/* weapa would be the ready weapon your character, gonz would be the
specific robot which just decided to attack you*/
/* srand(2) is the truly random number generator on most dos based
machines, srand() would call numbers in a predetermined order so
things could be tested with predictable results*/
/*
gonzerCombat()
{
int a, b, c, d;

+++++++++++++++++++
+ if (gonz > -1){}
+ srand(2);
+ a = rand();
+ attRoll = ((a%20)+sklvl01);
+
+ if (attRoll < 4) { printf(“\n — You Missed –“);
+ goto GonzRE;
+ }
+ if (attRoll == 4){ printf(“\n — You Barely Missed –“);
+ goto GonzRE;
+ }
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ the above activates the gonzer’s
defenses if you attack first+++++
gonzerParts();
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ decides where you whack the
gonzer with your weapon+++++
if ((attRoll > 4)&&(attRoll < 9))
{ printf(“\n – You take a decent swing at its %s -“, gnzPart); }

if ((attRoll > 8)&&(attRoll < 13))
{ printf(“\n – You take a good swing at its %s -“, gnzPart); }

if ((attRoll > 12)&&(attRoll < 17))
{ printf(“\n – You take a strong swing at its %s -“, gnzPart); }

if ((attRoll > 16)&&(attRoll < 20))
{ printf(“\n — You take a amazing swing at its %s
—“, gnzPart); }

if (attRoll > 19)
{ printf(“\n — You take a CRITICAL swing at its %s
—“, gnzPart); }
++++++++++++++++++++++tells you how wonderful a swing you made+++++++++++
b = rand();
defRoll = (b%24);

if (defRoll > attRoll) { printf(“\n — But the %s blocks
your blow with its %s –“, gonzer, gWeap); goto GonzRE; }

if ((attRoll – defRoll) < 5)
{ printf(“\n – The Blow is partially Blocked -“);
readyWeaponStuff();
gonzerHealth(); goto GonzRE; }

if ((attRoll – defRoll) < 10)
{ printf(“\n – You land a decent blow -“);
readyWeaponStuff();
gonzerHealth(); goto GonzRE; }

if ((attRoll – defRoll) < 15)
{ printf(“\n — You connect with a damaging blow –“);
readyWeaponStuff();
gonzerHealth(); goto GonzRE; }

if ((attRoll – defRoll) < 20)
{ printf(“\n — You land a Terrific Blow ! —“);
readyWeaponStuff();
gonzerHealth(); goto GonzRE; }

if ((attRoll – defRoll) > 19)
{ printf(“\n +++ You land an AMAZING Blow +++”);
readyWeaponStuff();
gonzerHealth(); goto GonzRE; }
+++++++++++++++++++++ calculates whether your wonderful swing at the
gonzer actually hit it and how much damage you might have made+++++++

GonzRE: /*actual gonzer combat routine begins here*/
if (gonzHP < 0)
{ printf(“\n Your opponent has ceased functioning.”);
silver = (silver + bounty);
gonz = 101;
strcpy (gonzer, “disabled-gonzer”);
return;
}

printf(“\n — The %s swings its %s at you!”, gonzer, gWeap);

if (flyHeight > 20) { tooHigh(); return; }

srand(2);
c = rand();
gAttRoll = (c%20);

d = rand();
gDefRoll = (d%20);

if (gAttRoll < 4) { printf(“\n — It missed! — “);
return;
}
if (gAttRoll == 4) { printf(“\n — It barely missed! — “);
return;
}

gonzerParts(); /* see above in this case I cheated and let
the computer think you had the same body parts the gonzers had so it
swung its gonzerweapon at your gonzer[body]part */

if ((gAttRoll > 4) && (gAttRoll < 9))
{ printf(“\n – It’s made a decent swing at your %s – “,
gnzPart); }

if ((gAttRoll > 8) && (gAttRoll < 13))
{ printf(“\n – It’s made a good swing at your %s – “, gnzPart); }

if ((gAttRoll > 12) && (gAttRoll < 17))
{ printf(“\n – It’s made a strong swing at your %s – “,
gnzPart); }

if ((gAttRoll > 16) && (gAttRoll < 19))
{ printf(“\n – It’s made an Amazing swing at your %s –
“, gnzPart); }

if (gAttRoll > 18)
{ printf(“\n – It’s made a Critical swing at your %s –
“, gnzPart); }

if (gDefRoll > gAttRoll)
{ printf(“\n — But you’ve blocked its attack with
your %s — “, weapa); return; }

if ((gAttRoll – gDefRoll) < 5)
{ printf(“\n — You’ve partially blocked its attack
with your %s — “, weapa); goto FigureDamage; }

if ((gAttRoll – gDefRoll) < 10)
{ printf(“\n — It’s landed a decent blow — “); goto
FigureDamage; }

if ((gAttRoll – gDefRoll) > 9)
{ printf(“\n — it’s landed a damaging blow — “);
goto FigureDamage; }

}
else { printf(“\n Huh??? There aren’t any gonzers here…”); /* if
you try to attack something that isn’t there, you get this */
return;
}

FigureDamage:
gonzerDam = ((gAttRoll – gDefRoll) + gonzDam + gonzWeapDam);
gonzerDam = (gonzerDam – armorProtection);
if (gonzerDam < 0) { gonzerDam = 0; }

if (gonzerDam < 1) { printf(“\n — But your armor absorbs all
the damage! — “); return; }

if (gonzerDam > 0) { printf(“\n — Your armor absorbs some of
the damage! — “); }

gonzerDam = (gonzerDam – bodyArmor);

if (bodyArmor > 0)
{ if (gonzerDam < 0) { gonzerDam = 0;
printf(“\n — But your thick hide
absorbs all the damage! — “); return; }
else { printf(“\n — Your thick hide absorbs some of the
damage. –“); }
}

printf(“\n *** You have sustained %d Points of Damage *** “, gonzerDam);

tempHP = (tempHP – gonzerDam);

printf(“\n *** You now have %d Hit Points *** “, tempHP);

return;
}

tooHigh()
{
printf(“\n — It glares and snorts and flails at the air –“);
printf(“\n — But it can’t quite reach you! –“);

return;
}

+++++++

Gonzers = Robots (from the Ymmpish language) (“Fonzers” are
computers. anybody who knows German well enough to know what they
call a television probably thinks the jump from [phonetic:] ‘Fonz
Apparat’ to Fonzer is worth groaning about. I didn’t even realize I
was subconsciously patterning lots of Ymmpish Humour after (more than
slightly warped) Yiddish humour until years later. ((I’ve had dreams
in which I thought I was being in informed that I had lived in
Egyptian times as some kind of priest class initiate, meditating in
pitch blackness under the great pyramid, was some kind of ascetic
Jew in a commune something like the guys who wrote the dead sea
scrolls, and I was also a Hindu Indian who was conquered by Moslems
and initiated into some kind of Sufi Group and was sort of presented
to some kind of a Sheik’s daughter at some kind of banquet. she
danced for me? (and later she told me about how her family had been
persecuted by various religious groups, and she was cute so I was
sympathetic as hell.) I was staring at hills that look like
Afghanistan and feeling wonderful that I belonged to a new culture
that believed that everybody was equal, where the caste system was
seen as a ridiculous waste of human potential)).

No more aside stuff: (well, almost….)

I **did not** get far enough to figure out how local variables and
global variables would figure into the combat routines. (A lot of
things came to a grinding halt when my father died that year) (—>
and since then, I have felt this near-paranoia, like everything I
wanted to do was being pulled just a couple silly millimeters beyond
my grasp. If I had the $500.00 I needed to buy something, it was
suddenly repriced to $550.00, If I got a bargain on some kind of
software, all of a sudden that software was worse than obsolete, it
would crash whatever I wanted to do… stuff like that.)

the “tooHigh()” routine was based on feet, not meters. any flying
creature more than 20 feet above the ground would frustrate the
“gonzers”, be beyond reach, but could swoop in and slash with talons
or stay in the air and try to hit the ‘gonzers’ with crossbows or
other ranged weapons (with a % disadvantage that vanished when the
character reached xbow or bow skills above level 5, –> figured the
flying characters had to concentrate extra hard and work extra hard
to get experience so they would be as good in the air as most
characters were on the ground by the time they made it to level 5)
(and they would have to know more about subtle air currents than
‘walkers’ and would learn to take advantage of that by level 5. I
thought about tossing another disadvantage to flying characters’
ranged weapons abilities by like giving them another variable to roll
against until their flying skills were above level 10. but there was
darned little they could do with their flying skills besides show
off, fly in figure 8’s above the ground, take off and land… it was
much more cosmetic than real skill stuff.

*****If I had figured out how to tell the game to count to
whatever the “gonzer’s” round time was and swing again that would
have gone in between the *** You now have %d Hit Points *** and
“return;” ***The npcs would continue to fight until they were killed,
passed out from lack of fatigue points or won. I never thought of
having some of them knock characters out and rob them until just
now. (walk off with their readied weapon? steal a couple gold coins?)
I think I mentioned that most PC’s would have been bitten by a ‘fen
dragon’ an aquatic mammal (glorified water rat?) with semi functional
wings and narcotic breath, whose bodies were usually infested with a
very strange virus that brought most characters who survived the
fever and hallucinations back to health more quickly than npcs who
hadn’t been bitten and wojuld even bring them back from clinical
death (with loss of exp and possibly a level) (or a hit point or two,
which they would get back next time they trained for a higher level
and made it.)

Meanwhile, the PC routine would be almost identical, but the
active weapon level would have been added to the character’s Attack
roll (I found it intriguing to think that most characters and NPCs
were fighting against themselves with the attack roll and the defense
roll being part of each character’s routine, as opposed to the robot
rolls an attack roll and the PC rolls a defense roll. I really wanted
to be able to conjure up a robot that would attack a PC character who
might be “razzing” another PC Character for being a wimp and fighting
robots instead of the real thing. I could drag out an NPC that
‘looked’ normal, but would have a fifty percent better chance of
pounding the cement out of anyone it attacked, and could be set to
attack certain players by invisible elders <evil grin> & the elders
would (of course) be able to whisper to any potential defenders of
karmic targets that they would be rendered unconscious if they tried
to enter this fight.

GoodGuy steps forward to defend PottyMouth the Whiner.
Low-level-gonzer whacks GoodGuy on the head with the hilt of its
Humongous Claymore. GoodGuy flies several feet through the air and
lands with a thud. GoodGuy is unconscious. PottyMouth tries to sneak
away. His exit is blocked. low-level-gonzer makes an incredible swing
with its humongous claymore. PottyMouth suffers three hundred Hit
Points worth of damage. low-level-gonzer leaks putrid smelling fluids
on PottyMouth’s unconscious body, grabs his fabulous wonderful
amazing sword and creaks as it rolls away, sweeping up trash and
looking for victims.

Jim

C. Davies

Aug 22, 2001

Okay, well, Shirley Maclean would be proud of you (and me too, but I’m not
going into that!) and, all this makes me want to dig up the C compiler from
my C programming course that I dropped out of when I was pregnant with with
my son ’cause it was an accelerated course being taking by a person whose
hormones had me on slow motion….you get the picture. But I definitely
remember the counting function – we spent oodles of time on that and was one
of the things I actually had a grasp on but of course I lost it because of
the same aforementioned hormones.

This from me, who almost understood the C code and the german, well, didn’t
know they call a t.v. that but I can tell you in French it’s television
(tough one, eh? hah! there’s accents involved and I’m not telling you where
they go ’cause my e-mail won’t let me!). This from me on vacation at 4:00
a.m., beddie bye time.

Hi,

I had a List nuked about a month or two ago for inactivity.

Can’t let that happen.

I haven’t been doing a lot about developing this game, lately.
(little bit of real life got in the way?)

I am moving my web site(s) to <http://www.aerendel.net/>

Somebody read my “Game Information Page” on one of my current
sites and posted suggestions about developping the game.

A new [INFP] friend’s son (he’s 19 and going to art school in
florida) hinted that he was drawing pictures of what he thought
characters and different races might look like.

on back burners: I’m still toying with the idea of becoming a web
server. it might be as easy as ‘plugging’ a Mac into a DSL or Cable
Modem account. I’ve been meaning to send a message to Apple Computer’s
Customer Service people and see if they’d respond to a “What do I need
to become an ISP using Mac Servers?” Inquiry. (Those of you with IBM
type computers, don’t worry, you’d still be able to connect, it’s just
that the ‘package’ I started working with needs a Mac Server. (YAY) ) I
can do a lot of stuff with the Copy of Code Warrior I have (the dinky
‘Learn to Code’ version. I should probably take a couple more dopey
courses at a community college, get a student ID and order the full
version of Code Warrior for Macs through a house that sells stuff to
students and Teachers at very good discounts. (figure less than half
price for the Dreamweaver-Firworks suite.) I think the code warrior
price was like $150 instead of $400 ? shrug. It’s 4 am. Do I look like
I know what I’m talking about?

Oh, 2 Newest real world INFP friends: Ones got Hummingbird energy
healing her, the other’s got Dragonfly energy making her enchanting and
fun.

If you go to my newest web site, there’s a link there (says “Free
Type Test” you can take a personality test and find out what [INFP]
means if you don’t already know?

Am I subversive or what?
(heh heh heh heh),

Jim

Good Morning,

I’ve been kind of busy, haven’t done much since I found some of
the old routines needed more work than I thought they would.

And having a couple close friends who were deeply affected by the
terrorist stuff (One was eye witness, another works for a church where
the minister’s wife was next door to the towers when the jets hit)
didn’t help much.

Members of this list were surprisingly helpful and surprisingly
deeply touched by the tragedy email (& IM) hugs were great.

But I had Yahoo kill a list that had gone inactive (got a message
one night, saying, “post something soon or we’ll exterminate your list”
and the next morning I went to post something and it was gone) and I
want to keep this one alive.

Thanks for being there,

Jim

Here’s me keeping the list alive, and saying I like your new site with its
cgi-gin thingme’s.

Cathi

Don’t want this to go down the tubes, so here’s me talking about
absolutely nothing!

Cathi

Cathi,

Thank you. I was on my way here to write a similar message to keep
the list alive.

Earlier this evening (okay, last night…a couple hours ago…) I
was working on editing some music tracks recorded by a friend of mine
who decided he was going to grow up to be “Galdrian the Green” the
first time he read The Lord of the Rings.) I’ll put a Real Audio
Version up on the web somewhere. And tell yas all about it. Anybody out
there who can’t get or doesn’t want RealAudio but would rather have
MP3?

& I do believe there’s a new version of the web server package
that I am working with. I should have already downloaded that.

But anyway, one of these days I may pop in a surprise notice that
a working demo version of something may be up temporarily and anybody
with ‘ftp client’ software may be able to log in and mess around.
(Don’t hold your breath. I’ve been busy up to here lately with radio
station stuff and web site stuff and stuff stuff…)

Happy Ho-Ho. I think I’ll post a Yule Card to this group pretty
soon. (been working on post cards for a friend’s site. she does
wonderful ‘figurative sculpture’, one of a kind ‘dolls’ that only
collectors with big bank accounts can afford. but…)

Anyway- Keep those imaginations working over time, hey?

Jim

=====

Hi,

It’s been since November since I last posted a “Keeping this group
alive message”? Oh no!

Professional as heck, hey?

but, hangin in there…

Yay?

Jim

P.S. I have a friend who has a ‘doll making’ workshop, I’m building an
Ymmp (one of the races in the game, probably my favorite race?) & later
on this spring, I think I’ll be taking a workshop in moldmaking and
working with polymers that are not toxic, so I might be helping her
churn out little window faeries and hang-em in a tree garden faeries,
maybe mass producing little characters and filling the world full of
Ymmps and Sprites and who knows what else? Heh heh heh hehhehheh…

catdaviesca

Jun 8, 2002

So here’s me keeping it that way.

Oh, big news, thanks to Prince on the INFP list – check this out:
http://www.d20reviews.com/bits/set.doc

Dungeons and Dragons is looking for people to write new settings.
How cool is that?

Cathi

Good Morning,

We’re still alive, I think.

Cathi’s been given god(dess) like moderator status.

And the Dungeons and Dragons people are looking for new ideas and I
hope they’re willing to pay people for them.

I think I may send them a few hints as to the depths and breadth of
my (clear throat) genius / imagination {coughs, blushes) and see
whether they recognize pure potential when they (gasp choke) fall over
it.

Yay,

Jim

Hmmm,

Might even get something done on the game this month. ey?

(Smiling in Canada:),

Jim

jaerendel

Aug 12, 2002

Hi,

Cathi and I have been looking into ISP / server possibilities. if
part of that involves a Mac server or a mac server linked to another
(windows/linux/unix?) server 🙂 then we might even be up and flying as
a playable game in the near future.

Another thing I just thought of, if we have web space to “sell”
we may be able to sell it to MUDD type game developers.

Hmmmmmmmm,

Thoughtfully yers,

Jim

well, if you just want hosting, I’d recommend my sysadmin
Dan– his rates are very reasonable and he can hook you up
with anything you need.

The lowdown:
——-
Here is the basic offer I give people for web hosting:

I charge $6 a month. For this I give you:

As much webspace as you need, up to half a gig (although I
may quota you
at smaller increments, at first).

As much bandwidth as you can do, provided you have no porn
(some artistic
nudity is okay, but I leave it at the discretion of the
user to know the
difference), no open mp3 directories, and no illegal
software.

As far as your domain name goes, I know a place
(www.godaddy.com) that
will register a domain name for $8.95 a year, or if you
like I can
register the name for you for the same price (I use them
too, but
sometimes it makes it easier for people if I do the
registration, because
I register it to my address, the privacy is better, and you

tend to get
less spam as a result.) Note that if you have your own
domain name you
need to switch it over to ns.gushi.org and ns2.gushi.org as

the
nameservers to have me host it.

My webserver is Apache, the industry standard, and supports

CGI, SSL, PHP
(3 and 4), Server Side Includes, and anything else you care

to customize
about it (passwording directories, custom errordocuments,
embedded pages,
you name it). I also support the frontpage server
extensions (2000),
although I haven’t had to use them yet (my server is unix,
I have either a
web editor or you can use ftp).

Also included with this is a shell account, if you know how

to use it,
although if it’s likely you will NEVER use it, I request
that you ask me
to disable it for security reasons. If you don’t know what

this is, don’t
worry about it. (It’s a type of text-only account through
which you can
do some power-user things on my server)

I have other services available as well, if you need them.

Generally, if
you can dream it, I can do it 🙂

As far as billing goes, I bill monthly, and accept checks,
money orders,
and paypal (it’s paypal@gushi.org for the email address,
btw). All checks
should be made out to Dan Mahoney. If you pay six months
at
a time, I
grant you a free month (so technically, you only need to
pay for five).

If you have any questions, you can feel free to email me,
or page me (it’s
a 2way pager) by emailing pager@gushi.org (keep the message

short, there’s
a 500 character cutoff, but it’s functional.)

Thanks, and I hope we can do business soon!

-Dan Mahoney

—

<Belldandy> ha. you have not met me.
<BaldDwarf> ha. but i have sene pictures
<Belldandy> thanks but uh.,
<BaldDwarf> seen dammit! SEEN!
<Gushi> I don’t know who dammit! is.
<Belldandy> so anyway

-Undernet #reboot, October 2nd, 2000, 3AM

——–Dan Mahoney——–
Techie, Sysadmin, WebGeek
Gushi on efnet/undernet IRC
ICQ: 13735144 AIM: LarpGM
Web: http://prime.gushi.org
finger danm@prime.gushi.org
for pgp public key and tel#
—————————
——-

=====
Emilie Sue Pellenz
Free-lance Cybernetic Nixie and Master Node Manipulator

Visit me @ http://scullyraptor.com/

Just a question – what in an open MP3 directory? The reason I ask
is that Jim had his website nuked a year or so ago when he had the
nerve to post a sound file of himself reading one of his poems.
Since he does radio work, and records interviews, etc., as well as
his own writing, and I record my own songs and post them on my
website, does that mean if one of these files made it up there that
would be nuked there too?

Cathi

Personal recordings are fine… this refers to the act of
keeping publicly accessible libraries of illegal MP3s (such
as those ripped from CDs you didn’t buy, or downloaded off
of a trading community (ie Napster, Morpheus, Kazaa, etc.),
and that only because (i believe) we don’t want lawsuits
against the entire network for enabling copyright fraud:)

Dan (aka Gushi) prides himself on dealing with artists of
any nature, so he would have no problem with you posting
your own music or poetry.

=====
Emilie Sue Pellenz
Free-lance Cybernetic Nixie and Master Node Manipulator

Visit me @ http://scullyraptor.com/

Jim Wellington

Nov 21, 2002

Hullo,

I’m still here.

I’ve been having trouble with the email account at the web site
provider (jimw@aerendel.net) and apparently messages have
been bouncing.

last summer every time I tried to verify the talerocker at
sympatico dot ca address nothing happened.

Cathi just managed to get yahoo groups to verify the fact that
talerocker at sympatic dot canada was a good address.

Yay.

So anyway, I’ve got the latest version of codewarrior that I know
of, it doesn’t support pascal. SlashMUD is written in pascal and
compiled by codewarrior (an earlier version.) if I have to re write
the whole code base I will. (maybe I can find an older version of
codewarrior that does support pascal for next to nothing $$ wize
and … oh hell, so anyway, I’m writing the game in my head and
on paper and have some silly ideas to toss into the hopper to
begin with so we (if an of yas are still with me….) can be meeting
on line in a virtual reality text space and pretending we’re beings
from another kind of universe entirely and blah blah blah…..

So anyway, I have go tell my other groups where to send my
stinkin email…

yay?

see yas soon,

…..Jim

here it is, 2003, and I’ve been playing sims on line instead of
working on this game, shame on me?

…..Jim

Cathi Harris

Jan 11, 2003

Yes, haven’t we all? I even have Sim dreams, lol.

Rumour has it there are pages and pages of descriptions and stuff that just
need to be translated into code, right?

Hee hee

Cathi

think I got a couple screen shots of what dryads abd sprites look like?

check out the photos section.

…..Jim

lol, very good 🙂

dreamcat

Cathi

May 14, 2003

I’m so lonely, I could die…just keeping the list alive, lol.

I’ve been playing Sims Online, and am currently enroled in a BSc
program in Computer Science, so one thing that really interests me
is how the heck they do it. Anyway, one thing I discovered in my
course is Flatland Rover, a place where you can create 3D worlds for
free – you create spots and then build using vectors and stuff like
that. If you do a search you can find Flatland Rover – my teacher
had never heard of it, and when I did a project on 3D programs, he
was quite intregued by it.

Strongly suggest anyone else interesting in building their own
little 3d world to check it out.

Now, back to the Sims….

Cathi

Lonely? Oh no….

You sent this a couple days ago and Yahoo had de-activated this group
but now , today, or, er, yesterday??? they reactivated it. ???

grrrrrrrr

they were pretty sleazy about shutting down the writers’ group I tried
to get going a couple years ago? Send me an email saying if there was
no traffic soon they would shut it down and when I tried to go to the
site/list to send a message it was already gone.

Good thing I’m not vindictive, eh? I could use my secret infp powers
to focus all sorts of nasty negative energy on the bleeeping bleepidy
bleep bleeping bleepers and prettty soon, their private parts would
fall off, painfully, in some very public place….

mwahahahahahahahahahaaa….

……anonymous : )

Sleazy? Yes. That’s why I quickly responded. Was worried about my
writer’s list (Imaginationonline for those who don’t know and might actually
care) but, a friend from the Sims wanted to join, joined, then started
spamming the group responding to herself. Does she has issues? YES.
Psychiatrists-r-us is not my group so I deleted her. However, it did bring
all those nice posting people out of the woodwork to remember that they do
like writing and they can post it, for what it’s worth. How’s that for an
early saturday morning self-esteem post? Still wondering how twisted you
need to be to sign up for a group,forget, complain, then respond to your own
complaints….way beyond what I’m familiar with!!!

Cathi Harris

“We are the music-makers
And we are the dreamers of dreams”
— Arthur William Edgar O’Shaughnessy 1844-1881

visit my website at http://www.cathisplace.ca

Cathi and I will be moving soon.

We’re not sure where yet.

so the talerocker at sympatico dot ca probably won’t work in the near
future.

we don’t know what our email addresses will look like, so I’m popping
old standbys into place here… and other places.

🙂

……….. Jim

Cathi

Aug 1, 2003

We’re moving in 2 weeks. Anyway, Jim did get his web server book
and CD and has been happily cursing at CGI bins and things like
that. More on that from him sometime, I’m sure.

Cathi

la la la la…keeping the list alive… la la la

And I just found out I haven’t been receiving email from any of my
yahoo groups for a month ????

……Jim

Jim Wellington

Dec 2, 2003

Hi,

Let’s see, somebody from one of our lists looked at the game
information stuff at www dot aerendel dot org slash AerGameInfo dot
html and said, “wow. you are really creative”

of course, that doesn’t get the game finished in a playable form yet,
but it helps.

: )

Jim

-At least in my desire to get a playable version of the game up.

Rapscallion is now free (mac mud client)!

do any of you use a mac?

oh well.

let me go, I have a seven year old trying to get me to make him some
eggs for breakfast (PD DAY) (professional development for his
teachers) and he’s sick of playing his game boy all by himself or
something.

talk to you soon.

Jim

I thought I posted here since January.

Anyway, tried getting a test version of the game up last night and
couldn’t connect so I think I gotta go read the instructions again.

😉 Happy Spring and all that…

Yum

…..Jim

I just sent suggestions to the scenario team at dragons gate and Cathi
just told me I was bouncing in at least one group I’m part of…

So I thought I’d come check this out and yikes…. there aren’t many
of us left here are there?

…..Jim

How dare you wake me when I’m sleeping …. bwahahaha

Yeah, pretty quiet list these days, members dropping like
flies…hmmm…should maybe send a link to stuff you’re working on?

Cathi

Hi,

this is still a viable (if not vibrantly yak yak yak talkitive group)

snar snar snar…

…..Jim

Okay, so I’ve been neglecting development of my own world while
messing around in dragons gate.

Dragons Gate has a system that starts you off with maximum hit points
and decent fatigue.

you gain fatigue points as you gain levels in important things like
weapons skills (and now brawling) including things like fire breath
and clawing, and probably biting if you belong to a race that has a
biting attack. (chomp)

sigh,

You also seem to randomly get stat boosts (if you’re lucky) when you
train.

I had a psi character gain intelligence (go from low good to higher
good?) and gain a couple psi points. I’ve had several characters gain
strength, dexterity, agility and constitution as they trained in
skills, and no, they don’t always have to be skills that are important
to their occupation or class.

but anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to.

…..Jim

We would like to remind you of this upcoming event.

Update

Date: Thursday, February 10, 2005
Time: All Day

Monthly update. This message should be followed by a message
saying we’ve made lots of progress. or not. but it should be
followed by something. hey-?

Sigh,

maybe next month I’ll put that link here.

Happy Valentine’s day…

Our universe is very slow, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. Eh?

Cathi

We would like to remind you of this upcoming event.

Update

Date: Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Time: All Day

Monthly update. This message should be followed by a message
saying we’ve made lots of progress. or not. but it should be
followed by something. Hey-?

P.S. – This messages repeats ad infinitum { ad nauseum? } I will check to see if anything worth

copying happened after I automated this message,

~~~~~ Jim

But we’re not it. He’s gone bye bye.

Cathi

Hi,

I opened a virtual store at http://www.cafepress.com/aerendelcafe

One of the first images I uploaded was Muhdugus, The character with
the pointed head.

He’s on a couple things, including a wall clock that is temporarily
out of stock, a long sleeved teeshirt and a sweat shirt.

yay?

Have a good day-

• P.S. The above Virtual Store was nuked by CafePress – We weren’t making them enough money,
• …..Jim

Has been removed from the site. Please don’t click on the link, just
delete it, it’s one of those sex site things that open a million
windows. The member has been removed (I wanted to say chopped off
but…)

Cahti