Podcasts about half elves

Finally able to have a serviceable meal and some sleep, Vergevil must find what he may in the small settlement of Whitebridge. Thanks to Jason from Nerd's RPG Variety Cast for the call-ins! Game System: Forbidden Lands Emulator - CRGE Music/Background Sounds - Tabletop Audio & Original Music Send me an email with any feedback here -> jamessral@proton.me Special thanks to Jason for reminding me to do better with the show notes. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/sub-class-act/message

In this week's episode, I explain why I won't write any more crossover series in my 2nd decade as an indie author. We also discuss why too long of a backstory can become a problem. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 178 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is December the 10th, 2023 and today we're going to talk about why I won't write any more crossover series. Before we get into our main topic this week, let's have an update on my current writing projects. I'm pleased to report that Half-Elven Thief is now available. This book will be out on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. Amazon seems to have solved many of the Kindle Unlimited concerns I had earlier in the year, and so what I'm going to do with Half-Elven Thief is repeat what I did with Wraithshard back in 2020, where the books first come out in Kindle Unlimited, and then once the series is done (I am planning for six books), then they will go wide to other platforms. So if you are an Amazon and Kindle Unlimited user, you can get that as the last book I have published in 2023. Now that Half-Elven Thief is done, I am writing the outline for Shield of Storms, the first book of the Shield War series, which will be set in Andomhaim and follow up on the results of Dragonskull from earlier this year. I'm hoping to start writing that Tuesday or possibly Wednesday of this coming week. Sooner would be better, obviously. I am also about halfway through the rough draft of Sevenfold Sword Online: Leveling, and I'm hoping to have that come out early in 2024, if all goes well. In audiobook news, I had two audiobooks come out this past week: Dragonskull: Doom of the Sorceress, as excellently narrated by Brad Wills and Ghost in The Serpent, as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy. You can get those audiobooks at Audible, Amazon, Kobo, Google Play, Chirp, and all the usual audiobook stores. Audio for Dragonskull: Crown of the Gods is almost finished. If all goes well, it may yet come out before the end of 2023, though, given how the holidays slow down processing for everything, it might not come out till 2024. But in any case, it will be out soon. If you stop by my website between now and the end of the year, you will see that I'm doing 12 Days of Short Story Christmas, where I'm looking over the most popular short stories I've had over the last two years or so and giving them away for free on my Payhip store until December 31st. I'm doing it on weekdays. As of this recording, I have gone through the first four short stories and tomorrow on Monday the 11th we will be having the fifth of The 12 Days of Short Story Christmas. So if you're looking for free short stories to read, stop by my website and at the end of The 12 Days of Short Story Christmas, I will have a bonus coupon for my entire Payhip store. So I think it would be worth checking that out. 00:02:42 Main Topic: Crossovers Now on to our main topic this week: why I am not going to write any more crossover series. Occasionally I get an e-mail from a reader suggesting that would be cool if Caina met Ridmark in a book or if Nadia went aboard Jack March's spaceship or crossover like that between characters from different series. Much more frequently, I get emails from readers confused by the Cloak and Ghost series. How did Caina get Nadia's world? Is this a version of Caina that lives in Nadia's world? How does this affect the timeline of Nadia's books and Caina's? Didn't Andromache die in Ghost in the Storm? Why is she running around and Cloak and Ghost: Lost Gate? Or I will get an e-mail from a reader who read and enjoyed Malison: The Complete Series and then continued on to Dragontiarna: Knights, only to be confused and annoyed that Tyrcamber Rigamond doesn't appear in Dragontiarna: Knights until Chapter 15, even though at the end of Malison: The Complete Series said that Tyrcamber's adventures would continue in the Dragontiarna series. Tyrcamber really does arrive in Chapter 15 of Dragontiarna, I promise! Now I'm in my second decade of being an indie author and one of the things I've decided for decade two is no more crossovers. My reasons follow: #1: The Cloak and Ghost books. I'm very grateful to everyone who read and enjoyed the Cloak and Ghost books, but boy did I get a lot of confused emails about them, like a lot of confused emails. I still do on occcasion. The idea that when I started writing them way back in 2018 was that it would be a fun little crossover side project. I figured it would just be a side story where Nadia meets the version of Caina who lives on her world and then adventures follow. Comics do parallel versions of characters all the time in comic books, right? Of course that overlooked the fact that one: hardly anyone actually buys comic books anymore, so it's probably best not to use them as an example. And two: when the Marvel movies started doing the Multiverse and parallel versions of characters after 2019, the franchise basically went off a cliff. But that was in the future yet. What actually followed was many confused questions about the continuity I tried to explain in the prologue of the book, but then I remembered the old adage that if you have to explain the joke, it's probably not funny. The same thing applies to concepts in fantasy novels. If you can't explain it adequately within the book itself, then it's time for a rethink. #2: Malison. Malison actually went pretty well. Thanks for reading it, everyone. The idea for Malison was that it would help set up the Dragontiarna series. When I wrote Dragontiarna, I wanted the story to cut back and forth between two different worlds, Andomhaim and Tyrcamber's world. Writing Malison also helped me to work out the way the rules would work in Tyrcamber's world, and then that would lead into the first book of the Dragontiarna series, Dragontiarna: Knights, which also happened to be my 100th novel. Malison did well enough on its own, especially in the box set, that lots of people picked it up in both ebook and audiobook. This did cause an unintentional degree of confusion, since it says at the end of the final Malison book that Tyrcamber Rigamond will return in Dragontiarna: Knights, so numerous people continued onward, and I still get confused emails ever since from people since Dragontiarna: Knights starts with Ridmark's perspective, not Tyrcamber. So now I have a form letter that I copy and paste reassuring people that yes, Tyrcamber does return in Dragontiarna: Knights in Chapter 15 and is one of the chief point of view characters for the rest of that series. So Malison was probably the most successful crossover I ever did, but it still caused confusion. Reason #3: internal setting logic. Very often my settings have completely different internal logic from each other and so a crossover simply wouldn't work. Malison was probably as successful as it was because I deliberately planned it from the beginning to tie into Dragontiarna, so the internal logic of the settings matched. Like when people suggest that Nadia come aboard Jack March's spaceship, in Nadia's world, magic is real. In March's world, there's no such thing as magic, and even things that appear are magical like the targeting abilities of Navigator or Lysiana's superhuman intelligence are the result of natural phenomena that are only partially understood by the characters, but are nonetheless essentially the results of applied science. So for characters from these two different settings to cross over, one or the other would have to submit to a completely different set of logic, which would be difficult to write and confusing to read. Like if Nadia went aboard Jack March's spaceship, would her magic be a partially understood scientific phenomenon? Would magic suddenly come to the galaxy of the Silent Order series? Or would Nadia's magic stop working, which would be a bad thing, since sudden character depowerment is frequently a sure sign that the author is beginning to run out of ideas. Elves are another good example. I've written a lot about elves in both the Frostborn world and the Cloak Game/Cloak Mage setting, and now I'm about to add more elves in Half-Elven Thief. The elves in Frostborn and the elves in Cloak Games work under extremely different rules. Like, in Andomhaim so far we've had the High Elves, the Dark Elves, the Gray Elves, the Cloak Elves, the Umbral Elves, and occasionally Half Elves. In Cloak Games, we just have the elves and they're way more concerned about the divide between nobles and commoners than they are about High, Dark, Gray, Cloak, and Umbral elves. For that matter, the way magic works in Andomhaim and the way it works in the Nadia-verse is completely different. So the basic premise of some of my settings are incompatible and trying to force them together would create some weird story structure problems. #4: Marvel movie lockout syndrome. The entertainment press has spilled much ink over the fact that The Marvels is the worst performing Marvel movie in the last 15 years. A lot of the opinions about it are wholly subjective and based around whatever social or cultural drum a particular writer feels like beating. But I think two undeniable facts worked against the movie, one of which is very relevant to me as an indie writer. First, it just cost too much. The Marvels cost $274 million to make, and it brought in about $200 million. If your movie costs $75 million to make, a $200 million return is a good return. If it costs $274 million, you are up the proverbial foul-smelling creek without a paddle. To put these numbers into perspective, the top three movies of 2023 were Barbie, Super Mario Brothers, and Oppenheimer, and with respective budgets of $145 million, $100 million, and $100 million, they all cost less to make than The Marvels. In fact, the combined budgets of all three movies put together is only like about 25% higher than the budget of The Marvels alone. Granted, while I wouldn't object to someone giving me $100 million budget for something, as an indie writer, this is not a particularly relevant concern to me. Nonetheless, it is a good reminder of the importance of keeping your costs down while running a business. The second fact that is in fact very relevant to me as an indie writer with 147 novels published, who has written many long series: the movie's backstory was way too complicated because it was a sequel for too many different things. The backstory to The Marvels…okay, so this is a sequel to Captain Marvel from 2019, but also to Wandavision from 2021, which introduced the adult version of Monica Rambeau and also a sequel to Miss Marvel from 2022 on Disney Plus, which is where Kamala Khan made her introduction, but is also a sequel or possibly a prequel to 2023's Secret Invasion and in some sense is a continuation of the story is told in the four Avengers movies and the setup for the plot was introduced for the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie back in 2014, with the character of Ronan the Accuser, who also appears in Captain Marvel as the younger version of himself and they're also linked to the X-Men movies and the larger multiverse, and on and on and on. That is a lot of backstory. And if I've learned anything writing really long series is that people are very often completionists. They want to read everything and read it in the order it was written. The downside of this is that the longer something goes on, the more readers or viewers you lose along the way. You can see how this works against The Marvels. It has, like dozens and dozens of hours of movies and TV shows to watch first as its full backstory. That's a big time commitment and an expensive one. For indie authors, if the series goes on long enough, you tend to lose people from book to book as they get distracted with other things or the budget happens to be tight the month the new book comes out. I think Cloak Mage will be the last series I write that has a double digit amount of titles in the series and everything after that is going to be around five to eight books, depending on the complexity and length of the story I want to tell. The problem with crossovers is that it increases the complexity of the backstory exponentially. I ran into that with Malison and Dragontiarna, even though they were both pretty successful and in a smaller way with Cloak and Ghost, even though that was a crossover with no connection to the main storyline for either Caina or Nadia. So as I plunge into my second decade of being an indie author, I don't think I'm going to do anymore crossovers for the reasons listed above, which is why my new book, Half-Elven Thief is entirely unconnected to anything else I've previously written. But of course, when I start at the Shield War next week, it will be a direct continuation of Dragonskull and the Frostborn series. So that's it for this week. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe, stay healthy, and we'll see you all next week.

Come one, come all! Humble performers become leaders of the Circus of Wayward Wonders when tragedy strikes!It is begun! The party gets their showdown with the gang known as... The Muggers! Will the party find the answers they were looking for or will the leader Two Punch hit them so hard that they think theyre back in Mistress Dusklights circus?Same Crit Different Day is an actual play Pathfinder 2nd Edtion podcast where a group of friends sit around the table and enjoy some good ole classic tabletop roleplaying, laughs, songs and more!Pathfinder is a product of Paizo as well as the Adventure Path The Extinction Curse.All background music/ambience is from https://tabletopaudio.com/Special thanks to Will O'Wisp Productions for the amazing and wonderful chiptunes and 8 bit music. Almost all chiptunes are made custom by Will O'Wisp Productions, however there are a few from other independent creators on Fiverr.comAnd one more final special thanks to Paizo for making an amazing product and bringing friends and strangers together!So join us at the table and lets roll some dice!.. and do some rippin and the tearin!

The band finds a farming community but mostly we debate half elf phrenology, just as Gary Gygax intended. Gnari checks the ears. Drulog thanks the harvest. Blarf tires out.    If you like show, make sure to tell a friend or write a review on Apple Podcast for a shout out during the credits!

Join us as we take a look at the more unusual races D&D has to offer! Gem Fiends, Daddy Issues and Not-Hobbits await! Check us out at: https://rulesaswrittenshow.com Support us at: https://www.patreon.com/RulesAsWritten Contact us at: toby@rulesaswrittenshow.com We love you guys ❤️ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rules-as-written/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/rules-as-written/support

In this week's episode, Megan, Dan, and Dave discuss the concept of half-humans in Dungeons and Dragons 5e by highlighting the "good" and the "bad" poster children of the concept.  The hosts go into the mechanics that both races bring to the table, as well as the four variants (Aquatic, Drow, Wood, and High Elves) offered up for those Half-Elven players who want a little more depending on their Elven heritage.   Orcs be Orcin' just one way I guess.   The panel then discusses some roleplay and social options for Half-Elves and Half-Orcs, but then get distracted and try to brainstorm what other half-humans we want to see in our campaigns.   Social: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Reddit Email: info@itsamimic.com Intro/Outro Music by: Cory Wiebe Commercial/Shout Out Music by: Tyler Gibson Logo by: Kate Skidmore

Here's a rundown of the episode: 00:43: - Heard Any Good Rumours Lately? News from the Planes. 03:25 + Off To The Races: This episode features Half-elves 08:52 + You So Classy! This episode, we're looking at the Ranger 18:30 + Background Check: Guild Artisan 23:16 + Monster Menagerie: The Hook Horror 29:56 + Lore Academy: The Underdark Total runtime - 34:56  Sources & further reading:Half Elf - PHB: 38-39 Ranger - PHB: 89-93, XGTE: 40-43, SCAG: 133-134 Guild Artisan - PHB: 132-133 Hook Horror - MM: 189 LinksNewshttps://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/lrdtob (https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/lrdtob)D&D Beyond - Legends of Runeterra: Dark Tides of Bilgewater https://www.dmsguild.com/product/316467/The-Book-of-Weird-Magic (https://www.dmsguild.com/product/316467/The-Book-of-Weird-Magic)- The Book of Weird Magic by Oliver Clegg  https://www.dndbeyond.com/marketplace/sourcebooks/mythic-odysseys-of-theros?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=moot&utm_campaign=TOF_+D%26D%2BMTG&utm_content=spider-+preorder&fbaid=23844632008460174&fbclid=IwAR3O09bVyZDKqt0rKkSpD5VMm8qgbz55CEuSpCbjIpTIomQmC6t6UheEQXI (https://www.dndbeyond.com/marketplace/sourcebooks/mythic-odysseys-of-theros?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=moot&utm_campaign=TOF_+D%26D%2BMTG&utm_content=spider-+preorder&fbaid=23844632008460174&fbclid=IwAR3O09bVyZDKqt0rKkSpD5VMm8qgbz55CEuSpCbjIpTIomQmC6t6UheEQXI)- Mythic Odysses of Theros on D&D Beyond Underdark areas https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Underdark (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Underdark)- FR Wiki on the Underdark https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Buried_Realms (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Buried_Realms)- FR Wiki on the Buried Realms https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Darklands (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Darklands)- The Darklands https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Deep_Wastes (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Deep_Wastes)- The Deep Wastes https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Earthroot (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Earthroot) - Earthroot https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Glimmersea (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Glimmersea)- Glimmersea https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Great_Bhaerynden (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Great_Bhaerynden)- Great Bhaerynden https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Northdark (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Northdark)- Northdark https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Old_Shanatar (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Old_Shanatar) - Old Shanatar https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Great_Rift (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Great_Rift)- the Great Rift Underdark denizenshttps://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Phaerimm (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Phaerimm) - Phaerimm https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Aboleth (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Aboleth)- Aboleth https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Kuo-toa (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Kuo-toa) - Kuo-toa https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Sahuagin (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Sahuagin) -Sahuagin Episode TranscriptCold open Welcome to I Cast Pod, a D&D podcast about creating characters, taking chances, rolling dice and having fun. I'm Mike, your DM and guide to all things dungeonesque and dragon-y.  In this episode, we're talking about Half-elves, rangers, guild artisans, hook horrors and the Underdark! So let's get started! Heard Any Good Rumours Lately?We made it to ten episodes! That's not including the 2 bonus episodes so far. If you're listened to all 12, I want to thank you personally for coming on this journey with me. I've had almost 200 unique listeners, according to my stats, and they've come from all over the world. I've had listeners from the UK, the US, Canada, Germany, Iran, the Netherlands, Uruguay, and Australia! Wow. Thanks so... Support this podcast

Keith, Wayne, and Kristian explore the culture and identity of Eberron's half-elves.

S2 Episode 29. The conclusion of our D&D race analysis. Half-elves and humans, and hopefully better quality from the void. Intro and outro music - "Marty Gots a Plan" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

After a much needed rest after fighting Thorne's long lost frog love, the gang continues towards wherever the goddess is leading them which just so happens to be a hella spooky forest. Katar is pretty shaken up about the thought of entering a creppy forest of untold horrors but they go in anyway! What will the gang find inside? OOOOooooOOOO who knows. Twitter Instagram Reddit Discord

Tragic outsiders caught between two worlds? The perfect fusion of elf and human? A soft option for people who want to see in the dark? Today's episode, brought to you by Patreon backer Paul, explores the half-elf, both as hero and villain. If you're enjoying the show, why not consider supporting it on Patreon? You'll get access to lots of new bonus content, including my other podcast, Patron Deities! Thanks to Ray Otus for our thumbnail image. The intro music is a clip from "Solve the Damn Mystery" by Jesse Spillane, used under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

In this episode, we discuss dragonborn, lizardfolk, and kobolds, and how much we like each of them. We upload every Tuesday and Thursday Our next episode is about: Halflings, Half-Orcs, and Half-Elves

In this episode I delve into the half races of D&D 5e

This week we're dissecting Half Elves and Half Orcs and how they differ from their pure blood relatives.Background beats by YondoMusic!

Episode 20 yields some excellent world-building discussions, plus a look at Half-Elves and Half-Orcs. Joint ST: Gray Owls and Emotional Literacy, plus how tiny elements and experiences can change the entire plan for a character.  Fundamental Topic: Half-Elf and Half-Orc discussion Cloudsinger 5E airs over on twitch.tv/qwaygameon every Monday at 3:15-4:45pm Our lore and event-filled website: qwaygameon.com Our community center website: questersway.com Our awesome art is done by the amazing Chelsea Cottle.  Find her and her art here: https://www.instagram.com/ccottleart/ If you like what we do, this podcast now has a crowdfunding campaign to help us continue growing the show: https://patron.podbean.com/QWayGM

Introduction Oh hi. You must be here to learn about our world of Niisii. Awesome. Unlike many campaign settings who’s history and design were created by a small group of designers, Niisii is a shared world where the future, and the past, is constantly being created by those that play in it. So when I say our world I do mean our world. Whether you were directed here because you play in one of the many games that are run in this campaign setting, you are listening to this on the Dave & Gary podcast, or you have stumbled across this some other way, consider this a primer to the lands of Niisii. This will not be an exhaustive overview of the world and its history but it will hopefully get you comfortable enough with the world so that you can play with us or follow along with the podcast games. In this short introduction I will try to cover: The origins of the campaign setting Games Played In The World What the average character would know about the world including The Ages, or history, of Niisii And finally, for those interested, some of the design choices made for the world (but don’t worry, I’ll give you a bit of warning before we get to the dry stuff). That’s a lot to cover so let’s get started. Origins The world of Niisii is one of constant growth and change. It was first designed around the end of 2011 by Randy at the request from a group of friends that wanted to start a campaign. Many had not played RPGs for years, and a few were novices to this style of gaming. So we talked a little about what kind of game and world they wanted. They all wanted to play a fantasy, D&D like game but didn’t want something very heavy or expensive to get into. So I came up with a very light and simple system to use. Furthermore, they wanted was a world were their lifestyle choices were the norm and not the exception. Many of these players were members of sexual minorities and participated in alternative relationship models. Finally, there was some discussion about some of the players being able to tell their own stories if they got brave enough. With those three requests Niisii was designed (originally called Niise). The world was designed from the ground up to support multiple storytellers and to be one with a bent towards more mature and developed themes. Sadly that group didn’t last long. So Niisii got put on the shelf to be forgotten. Flashforward a few years. In the fall of 2014 my wife started to try her hand at DMing. D&D 5e had just been released and we were involved with a local game shop running adventure league games. We met some awesome new people and soon a new gaming group was formed. We all quickly found that we wanted to play games that weren’t so … scripted. Adventure League is great for some people, but not us. We all wanted to play homebrew. As the most experienced DM I stupidly opened my mouth and said I would run the game. They said great, how about that Friday? Two days to come up with a game and a world… sure, no problem. So I did what every DM does; I stole. I went to the last world I had worked on, Niisii, and pulled it off the shelf. These were different players with different styles so I toned down some of the mature themes. There were also mostly players in their 20’s who hadn’t been around in the early days of D&D so I reached way back in my early days of RPGing and pulled a touch of Sci-Fi into the world. That choice would be, and continues to be, the primary catalyst for change in the world of Niisii to this day. That was 2014 and Niisii has grown from a small world with a single DM to a massive world with almost a dozen different DMs and several times that number of players. We each add our own spin on the world. The history of the world reflects the desires, demands or passions of different people to have the world reflect their own vision. With so many voices and colors in the mix, Niisii could have been… it should have been… just an unwieldy mess, but it isn’t. It should have collapsed a dozen times, but it didn’t. It works! And it works because no one person owns this world. Not the first DM nor the latest DM. We all share, we all work to make room for each other’s voices and we all do it because we love this game and we love the people we play it with. With that being said there needs to be a warning here. This homebrew world isn’t for everyone. Our style of play isn’t for everyone. For every person who has found a home in Niisii, there are two that didn’t. Role-playing games, as a hobby, represent a huge range of styles, interests and options. No one can tell you that are playing them wrong or that what you want to see in your stories has ‘no place’ in gaming. If the group you are playing in doesn’t fit your style, that’s cool. Don’t knock one group for playing different than you do; just find, or even make, a different group. Niisii can be dark one game, light hearted another, slapstick the next. It can get confusing, mistakes will happen (and they’ll have to be ret-con’d), rules are bent (or broken), change will always happen and the story always comes first. Furthermore, our group isn’t one for the shy, quiet, unassuming or easily offended. The bold and daring thrive here. If these things aren’t for you then no problem. We actually see that as a positive. Honestly. Because we have been able to help someone find the game they want to play in. We love seeing people play the games they want to play. So enough of reality and warnings, let’s get into the make-believe. The Games People Play Our primary game system, for the primary stories, is Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition. But it isn’t the only system in use by our gaming group. Aside from the standard fantasy game that we play, there is also the story of a world hidden to most humans and elves and dwarves. A world of sentient mice. That story is being told using the Savage Worlds system and the Burrows & Badgers system. And tomorrow we may find another system we want to try, and then it may be incorporated as well. The styles of games played in the world vary by location and DM. From the combat focused to the intrigue driven to morality plays, from light-hearted and positive to the dark and mature, the games run in Niisii span a wide range. What The Average Character Knows About The World… In No Particular Order. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Gravity is just slightly greater than the Earth standard. There is a single moon. The days are 24 hours long. There is 360 days in a year. There are four months, Plant, Tend, Harvest and Rest, of 120 days each. Cows and horses are rare. But there are more gods than you can shake a stick at (and do they like mettle). The current year is 2172. The greatest Empire on the planet is the Hythain Empire in the north. It is bound by the lands of Xora and the Shimmering Shores in the north, the Sister Islands in the west, the Rud Coast in the South and the Gateway Islands in the East. The largest city in the world, Bondment, is its capital but that city, and its empire, has seen better days. Most of the common gods are from the Hythain Pantheon. And the most commonly used calendar is the Hythain Reckoning Calendar (HRC). The next greatest empire was the Stone Empire, centered around the Tiber Isles in the south, but it too has seen better days. Magic is not as common today as it was in the past because of an event called the Upheaval. From 1459 to 2166 HRC the vast majority of gods were banished from the world. In their absence, magic, as it was known, became highly unstable. It took decades of research during the early part of the Upheaval to find new forms of magic that were not so chaotic. But by that time the damage had been done, arcane magic had developed a superstition to it that last to this day in smaller parts of the world. Religion had a similar superstition during the Upheaval but is now experiencing a revival. When the gods were banished they took all clerical powers with them. For over 700 years the healing powers of the gods that people had relied on for Ages had abandoned them. So much knowledge was lost during the wars and strife of the Upheaval that most believed gods granting powers to their followers were just a myth. In 2166 we first saw the trickster god Wit returned in Xora, and then a follower of Uxie in the Gateway Islands began to show divine ability. Soon gods, old gods, new gods and some that had changed, began to make themselves known throughout the world. This has sparked a golden age of belief. But enough about that, let’s talk about the people of the world. By and far humans are the most common race in Niisii. They are on every landmass and have a great diversity of cultures. Elves, dwarves and orcs are the next most common races. And within these people there are multiple species. Some of these are familiar to role-players as they are found in D&D 5e’s player’s handbook and some are custom to the world of Niisii. Those that are custom are original creations or borrowed from other worlds. In each case they tend to be rare. Examples include the River Elves in the Land of the Keats, the Gully dwarves of the Gateway Islands, and the Scro lords of the Orc. There are many races in the world known collectively as The Little Folk.These include Gnomes, Halflings and Kenders. They are most commonly found in the western half of the world but they can be found in coastal cities anywhere. Kenders are a special race in Niisii and they require a bit more explanation. They are a race of people without a homeland. As a people, they believe in an extreme form of sharing which for other races borders on thievery. They are the smallest race of people and are seen as a nuisance. They are frequently mocked, beat or even enslaved. As such, the Kender have learned cultural ways to defend themselves. They are extremely hard workers, talk very fast and tend to play the clown out of necessity. They are also the only race that cannot bred with other races; there are no half-Kenders. There is a lot more about Kenders but that will get you started. Next are those that come from a mix of racial backgrounds. Half-Orcs, Dragonborn, Half-Elves, and others. These people are much more rare in Niisii than perhaps in other fantasy worlds. And in many parts of the world these people are viewed with open hostility. Finally there are the rarest of the rare. Races that make up far less than one percent of the PCs and NPCs. These include the Drow, Gnolls, Tabaxi, Tieflings and Aasimar. The sizing of the races tend to run: Orcs a head taller than humans, Humans a head taller than elves, Elves are a head taller than dwarves, Dwarves a head taller than Gnomes and Halflings, Gnomes and Halflings a head taller than Kender. These are of course general guidelines. Of all the races, tieflings and aasimar might be the most important to the story of Niisii. They are the rarest of all PC races and we have homebrew rules in place to determine if a player can even play one! Aasimar and tiefling never give birth (they are sterile) and are born from other races (which can be a huge surprise to the parents). They are driven with two main passions; a hatred for the other and an insatiable wanderlust to find ‘home’. No tiefling or aasimar has ever been recorded to find this ‘home’ but many have been lost as they tried. But to understand all of this you need to know some world history. What The Average Person Knows About The History Of Niisii “Those religious types tell us that the world is old. A hundred thousand years or more.” “My mentor once said that we were living ‘the Broken Age’ but now that the gods are listening to us I’m sure they will fix everything.” “I heard a cleric once say that long ago there were only Tieflings and Aasimar but I don’t know much about that. I know that I’m not descended from any freaks.” What A Scholar Knows Of The History Of Niisii Our world operates according to a plan. From the smallest mouse to the greatest beast, all things follow the plan of the Creator, the Ohm, the One that is many, the God of the Gods. This plan is beyond the understanding of everyone. Even the mysterious order known as the Keepers have just the beginning of an idea about the plan (although they may say otherwise). What we do know is that the world must go through a number of Ages for this Divine plan to come to fruition. History starts before the first age. During this ‘Zeroth Age’, the Wild Time, it is said that the Ohm created two siblings, Nii and Sii. Nii, the brother, shaped the lands while Sii, the sister, shaped the waters. Once their works was done they asked the Ohm to allow them to people the world. The Ohm said it was of the Plan and the siblings did as the Plan dictated. Two peoples, the Tiefling and the Aasimar were birthed from the siblings. While no one can ever know the exact times, most scholars agree that this happen about -150 000 HRC. For 50 000 years the two people lived and loved as one. They learned to tame the great Hoora, they learned to write and they learned the secrets of agriculture. Things changed with the First Age. The Keepers call this the Age of Ancient Rule. It was a time of the greatest empires the world has ever, or may ever, know. Every landmass, every waterway, every city was under one of these two great governments. It was a time of learning and development. But while this growth was happening, something else was going on that no one noticed. The divine siblings, Nii and Sii were growing apart. And as they grew apart, so too did their children. They grew cold and distant from each other. Sometime around -40 000 HRC the separation went from cold to hot. With magic and technology not since seen in the world, the two Empires waged terrible war. When the two peoples finally agreed to a cease-fire, for no peace was ever signed, less than a thousand people inhabited the planet. Those survivors were driven out of the homeland of the Sibling gods and that land was buried under the Great Western Desert. The Ohm called the Siblings from the planet, broke the survivors into new tribes with new ways and new forms. These tribes, or races, the Ohm sent to forge across the face of a broken world. From -40 000 HRC to -15 000 HRC, the Great Change, or the Second Age, each of these new races continued to change and evolve. The Tall Folk left via the land, the Small Folk took to the oceans. For tens of thousands of years the races spread, changed, evolved and began to re-people the plant. Around -15 000 HRC, the progress of people across the planet began to slow. This age is known as the Birth of Divinity. From what little is known from that time, it seems to be at the request of a handful of new beings; gods. For it seemed the Ohm had felt that the mortals had been punished enough and were in need of guidance. For the Ohm created a family of gods to guide the peoples of the world. This was time of slow, inner growth. Each people developed a sense of identity. This age end when one people began to form a new Empire, the Hythainian Empire. In -15 000 HRC a human who would come to be known as Emperor Hythain the First founded the empire that bares his name still. The Age of Man started when this new, Second Empire, began. The Hythain Calendar was put into place by a later ruler, Empress Treish The Builder, who left her mark on history by creating and adopting her calendar to commemorate a war victory. This was also during the Second Empire. This Second Empire ended in 1459 with the beginning of the great dark age known as the Upheaval. Records became confusing, facts broke down, and much knowledge from this time and before has become lost. The Keepers calculate the Second Age should have lasted for centuries beyond the current year but something happened to spark the Upheaval. That spark broke the plan of the Ohm and put the world on a path it never should have gone. Today we live in a non-Age; The Uncertainty. This Age started in 2166 and no scholar knows why it began and what its ramifications are. What’s Really Going On There are two types of people in gaming. Those that love to know what is going on behind the scenes and those that want to learn the mysteries for themselves via games or stories. If you are the later, a person who hates spoilers, then stop here. Oh, and this is also the warning that dry stuff lies ahead. You’ve been warned. Are you still here? Good. Let’s clue you into the full story. For the most part the Ages of Niisii occured as the Keepers believe. They are wrong on the dates, they are missing major parts of the history and they have drawn all the wrong conclusions but for they most part they have general gist of things right enough. But what they can’t know, and the Ohm never expected, was other life in the universe. The Ohm made Niisii to fit their plans. The Ohm put it far from others in the Prime Material Plane. The Ohm seeded it with the best ideas from other worlds and they sheltered it. But while the Ohm were hard at work, other worlds were advancing in ways they could not have predicted. In the late part of the 29th century on Earth a great disease sweep over the various worlds that the humans had populated. All people were wiped out except those still resided on Earth. The best technology raced to keep this seed population stable. What was discovered was that the disease was genetic; a fault in the most fundamental structure of our genetic code. No medicine could stop the mutations and death it caused, no technology could edit the fault out of the species. Hundreds of ideas were tried; nothing was too crazy. A group of three companies developed a plan to save the species. They would guide the breeding and development of a select population of individuals through a process that would, at its conclusion, result with a new species of human. This species would have the genetic fault worked out of them. The process was very risky and the slightest interference could ruin the result of thousands of year experiment. But the A.I. in charge said it would work, the bio-mathematics checked, and it was the only hope people had. So the population was screened and those the A.I. thought that would be the best candidates to recreate the better human were sent to the isolation zone: the whole of Australia. And thus the experiment began. But there was a complication. The owners of the three companies who discovered the technology also learned that neither they, nor their families, fit the required genetic profiles to be included in the experiment. So while the official experiment was starting on Earth, they siphoned resources from the project to fund a secret, secondary project. This project would use a similar A.I. but would not be based on Earth. This A.I. would guide the adaption of the test subjects’ genetic code while aboard an interstellar craft. The A.I. would find a suitable planet in deep space, far from the Terran Systems, for the new group of humans to rule. The families of the three corporations would become like gods. At this point in human history, the species had the ability travel vast distance but the human form was still limited. Fortunately, other technologies existed that allowed for the storage of person as information. This information could later be reconstituted into a physical form using material found in-situ. A small collection of people would be kept awake during the journey to assist the A.I. These generational workers lived their lives in service to a plan they would never see come to an end. They lived, bred and died according to the plan of the A.I. For you see, the A.I. was constantly looking for a world for the humans to inhabit. There was incredible technology aboard the ship that could reshape a world as needed, but it was resource intensive to make use of them. The A.I. was designed to be very patient and frugal with its resources, but the lives of the human servants were cheap to it, very cheap. Furthermore, this physical crew was never designed to take part in the new world. The humans that were to be part of the plan, were stored digitally and were constantly being modified to make them suitable to candidate worlds as this worlds were discovered by the AI. And if a world didn’t pan out, or would require too many resources to modify, then the digital changes would be rolled back and the process would start again with the next world. These changes included new memories, new forms and new knowledge. If a world was found that already had intelligent life on it, the A.I. was designed to make sure its flock would not only adapt, but thrive in that environment. This worked surprisingly well until two accidents happened at the same time. The first, was that the A.I. encountered something that caused a glitch; the second, was that one human servant was there to see it happen. The glitch in the A.I. came when the probes the ship had been sending out encountered something they could not understand. On one world, in a distant system that the ship almost didn’t probe, it received data that didn’t make sense. It had seen worlds with strange technology. Worlds with unusual cultures. But this world broke the laws of physics. The A.I. was designed to handle such oddities. It would study it remotely, learn what it could and move on. But this world was so odd that the guiding intelligence needed time to reprogram itself. During that time, one man saw what was happening and instantly knew how to use it to his advantage. On a ship completely automated and scheduled, right down to when the human servants ate or mated, one had plenty of time to read and consume media. This man knew magic when he saw it. So while the A.I. was in a vulnerable state, he reprogrammed a change of plans; the ship slowly turned towards this new system. It would take hundreds of years to reach, but during that time the machine would learn all it could about this strange place, begin to put in place the mechanisms it needed to modify the planet, and get the passageners ready for their new life. And the rogue human servant? Well… if the technology existed to turn a digital human into a physical one, made from found raw materials, it could easily work the other way around. Minutes before his physical death, the rogue human was digitized to start the special modifications he had programmed all of his life. He would rule in this new world. He learned from the A.I. probing of the world that it was called Niisii. The first major campaign of Niisii was the story of a group of adventures that were, unknown to them, from this interstellar ship. The human rogue, who became known simply as the Merchant, broke not only the ship’s A.I beyond recovery, he also broke the careful and loving plans of the Ohm. The world is now suffering for it. There are satellites in orbit of Niisii that the inhabitants will never know about. The A.I. orbits the system trying to follow its last, poorly written program. Whenever one of the original, digitized passengers dies on Niisii, it begins the process of interfering with the world to see that, through genetic selection and physical modification of the resources on Niisii, that person is reborn. The process tries to help them retain memories of their most recent life but it usually just causes confusion at best. Most players in Niisii do not play a character that has its origins in these digitized interlopers, but there are a few recurring characters that you might notice campaign to campaign. To make matters worse, these enhanced visitors to Niisii were modified by the A.I. to have unusual powers. The most surprising one is the ability to kill the Gods that the Ohm created. After this was discovered, the Ohm removed the gods from the world for their own reasons and returned them likewise. So there you have it. History, the smallest taste of back story, and hopefully enough information to feel like you can follow along with a podcast or sit in as a new player. Welcome to our world. Welcome to Niisii. A Couple Of Notes About The Tools We Use And Our Style Of Gaming This section is for those of you who are coming to play with us. We are a rather large gaming group. Our ‘main game’ can have over a dozen players and a couple of DMs going simultaneously during our bi-weekly group games. But this is not the only way we play. Our gaming group is a network of players and DMs. There are many campaigns going on at the same time. Some meet weekly, some bi-weekly, some less frequently. Some of these campaigns have a large number of players, others only have three or four players. There’s many different styles and sizes of games that have formed from our primary group. Over the years we have build beautiful maps and elaborately designed scenario documents. But we don’t do that anymore. We use simple, easily accessible tools and wikis. As DMs we love a beautiful map, and as players they make us feel special. But not everyone can afford software that can cost hundreds of dollars or the countless hours it takes to first develop the skill, and then to actual produce, lovely hand drawn maps. We would rather make it cheap and easy for people to tell the story they want to tell. To us, the story is the most important thing. And this spawns another ‘feature’ of our games. For the sake of the story we make we make frequent use of ‘Rule Zero’. Some players don’t like this. They like to ‘win’ a scenario, or they enjoy the process of maximizing the potential of their characters. And we understand this and try to cater to those desires. But at the end of the day, the story comes first. Rules are important but nowhere near as important as getting together with friends and making an interesting story. And THAT spawns another aspect of our gaming style. We believe in making stories together. For thousands of years humans have gathered in a circle and told stories. For us, this game is one way we connect to that tradition. So while the DM will often have notes about things that might come in a session, our games are more improv than plan. This means that those who are more active in a game tend to have more influence in the way the story unfolds. For better or worse, the careful, slow planner and the quiet audience member style of player can often get upset in large group play. To combat these we strongly promote running spin-off groups where a slower style of play is possible. We have run games with more than a dozen players at the table. It is a chaotic madhouse that moves at a thousand miles an hour and is a massive amounts of fun… as long as no one gets hurt that the moment they wanted to give a big speech passed by ten minutes ago while they were thinking on it. There is nothing wrong with that style of play; it just simply doesn’t normally work in one of our large group sessions. And finally we are an adult group. We have zero problems with open sexuality, alcohol and deep, complex storylines that are not explained to death Hollywood style. We have had players get upset by a beer at the table, a magical item used as sexual device in a slapstick manner (don’t worry, only on themselves, not on another player) and over the fact that others in the party got the clues given but they missed. Again, nothing is wrong with preferring PG rated games that are straightforward and geared to the lowest common denominator. Hollywood makes billions doing that. From Adventure League to published modules to other homebrew systems, there are many ways to indulge that style of play. This group is usually not a group for that. Sure we have our exceptions (the above mentioned sentient mice game is an example… a game that’s run by the DM who is also known for the darkest, complex morality play style) but for the most part that isn’t for us.

Hosts I-Hsien and Shane discuss how to play Half-Elves, now that they’re no longer simply half as good as elves. In the Dynasty Unwarranted campaign, Arch-Militant Tranq faces down a dilemma, and The Dilettante dabbles a bit in every class in the Character Creation Forge. (47m) Important Links: The D&D 5E Dilettante Build (in alphabetical […]

Half-Elves, fairly simple but very versatile

The wisdom and grace of an Elf combined with the energy and enthusiasm of a Human. Will and Brian discuss the benefits, as well as the pitfalls of role playing as a Half-Elf on this week's Episode of The Dungeoncast! Talking Points: HUMAN+, Tolkien Time, Fitting In, Your Second Hundo, Wanderlust, Mechanically Speaking, RP Mentality Check Out the TDC Merch Store Check out our D&D Liveplay, Superquest Saga Support us on Patreon Join the community on Discord Follow us on Twitter Instagram --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-dungeoncast/support

  Wrapping up their series on Fantastic Creatures the gruesome twosome invite our listeners to send us their thoughts, which means we discuss: * Wehlan's Moorcock art making elves sexy (thanks Rachel Khan @portablecity) * Dire Halflings! * The Fertility of Half Elves (thanks to @lindybeige) * Elephantmen (finally, honest) * Channel 4’s Humans & Azimov's Laws of Robotics * R E Howard on race and sex (most picked up listening @theCromcast) * And plenty more! Thanks to everyone who got in touch!   And whislt we are on the subject, please take the time to do our listener survey & help shape our future episodes https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/CWBKB2K   Follow us on Twitter @dissectingwrlds and/or join our FACEBOOK group for more!

This week's show features guest Holger from DDO-Daily. We chat about preliminary PAX information, half-elves and more! The Brute has ''Unlocking the Vault'', Skaggy offers up another bit of DDO poetry and Ecgric makes his debut with ''The Premium Perspective.'' ### DDOcast Episode 183 :15 Intro 1:20 PAX stuff 3:10 Half-Elves, quests, new raid and more 9:48 Phone Call - Half-Elves and usage 13:05 Europe Opt-In Ends 14:15 Spell crit changes possible 19:40 Bug Fixes 21:16 Forums controversy 25:05 More bug talk and miscellaneous news 30:00 Medusa 33:00 Holger joins the show 37:58 Phone Call - Gnomes and Race cost guessing 46:00 The Premium Perspective 52:00 DDO Poetry Corner with Skaggy the Lost 54:14 Unlocking the Vault 1:03:30 Community Notes 1:05:30 Store talk 1:09:50 Emails END TOTAL TIME: 1:35:38 ###

This week’s show is top notch, grade A stuff, Jack, and you sure don’t want to miss it.  Art, religion, smurfs, Dungeons and Dragons, Duncan rattling on like an old man about how kids today just don’t understand punk rock, AND the show closes with Richard’s favorite music cue in the entire run of the program, a little pop diddy on Marx and Mao. A show with something for everyone. Duncan and Terri talk to James Elkins and David Morgan about the forthcoming roundtable… On April 17, SAIC professor and critic James Elkins reignites the discussion with the provocative Re-Enchantment Roundtable. The roundtable and associated events gather together secular and religious thinkers who rarely share discourse: artists, scholars and art critics—and religionists interested in art. Panelists will include Thierry de Duve, Gregg Bordowitz, David Morgan, Kajri Jain, Tomoko Masuzawa, and Wendy Doniger. The day long discussion is intended to span the full diversity of opinions, from those who think contemporary art is already “religious,? to those who believe art should have nothing to do with religious faith. Duncan and Edmar discuss the Lumpen Juggernaut’s new building project and HQ, the Version festival, art madness on the river and Half-Elves that are chaotic good. Hot damn.