Bamboo Biscotti

As promised once upon a blog post, here's Aledys, PDQ Sharp style!  Or at least one version of her. My Name? They call me … Aledys van de Zeldenthuis I must confess, I’m known to have a Foible or two …Tomboy in a Man's Job. My strongest desire, my greatest hope, my Motivation (Good [+2] Forte) is …Wealth! And my Past (Good [+2] Forte), which has helped make me what I am today, is …Failed Novice. You might say that my Swashbuckling (Good [+2]) Forte is …Fencing Fortes? Why yes—I’ve several! Good (+2)  Pirate Good (+2)  Gear--Grandfather's Rutter Good (+2)  Gear--Letter of Marque Good (+2) Winning Smile And Techniques? Certes, monsieur! Idiom: Daring (chained to Fencing) Weapon: Cutlass (chained to Fencing) Situation: When Outnumbered (chained to Fencing) Situation: When Commanding (chained to Pirate) Not enough of me yet? Ah yes, I know the feeling… Perhaps this assortment of Miscellany will tide you over, hmm?  Tall, solidly built, blonde and...

First of all, a quick recap... Aledys and her happy band of misfit miscreants are prowling around this particular bit of Lemuria (Area 6): And her current fleet consists of Lily of Anjou (now under the capable command of English Edward, a Rep 4 Born Leader) and the new flagship Gertrude of Ulm , which used to be a Lung Ho junk. As usual, we start with the Random Event check, and the results are not doubles, so there's nothing special about May.  This is probably a good thing. After some consultation with her new crew and some griping and complaining about having to risk curried food on any new prizes, Aledys and Edward decide that it would be better to get away from the Lung Ho and Chang Wang for a bit (just in case) and so set sail for Area 5. This gives a whole new couple of vict...er, possible encounters, being in the main the largely Hindi kingdom of Alawar and the Sikh kingdom of Vendya .  None of these worthies are exactly easy pickings, but they...

Note the lack of update.  This will give you some idea of how busy things are over here! When I'm not trying to find a moment to look over the PI stuff for Urban Renewal, taking notes for another side project involving the a Quarter-ton Reconnaissance Truck and velociraptors with shotguns, scribbling notes for the other swashbuckling project in the works for a Frisian Tomboy running amok in Edenstein, or generally muddling about with a Zhuh-Zhuh battlecruiser dubbed The Big Banana for its bright yellow paint job...I'm suffering the slings and arrows of springtime allergies because the trees are very happy, getting smacked with yet another nasty cold making the rounds of the office, or just plain being exhausted. In the meantime, Ed has presented me with a beta copy of his new supplement for Bottle of Rum.  And it rocks.  All I will tell you is that shore leave has now gotten a little more interesting!  I'm going to wait until this is officially published before ...

I mentioned earlier that there will be more than just a piratical tomboy running amok in Lemuria, yes?  A few data points in this general trend. One, not long after my birthday, Ed officially released the next version of 5010: New Beginnings, which is called Urban Renewal.  Along with Urban Renewal, he put together a supplement to handle private investigator gaming, Ed-style.  And if there's one thing Bish loved more than swashbuckling, it was a good bit of pulpy noir with strong sci-fi touches.  My copy is currently in the mail, winging its way to me, and when it arrives, I shall have to dedicate some time to cobbling something together. Two, Ed is hard at work on an expansion to And A Bottle Of Rum.  He himself warned me to be on the lookout for a few After Action Reports on the subject.  Guess what's now on my wish list? Two point one.  By Savvy and Steel is set in 1620 or thereabouts, and Bottle of Rum starts in 1660, so the other Frisian Tom...

I'm leveling up tomorrow, going from 42 to 43, and for various reasons haven't had the time to do another month in Aledys's exploits.  Next week, though! In the meantime, as my birthday present to myself, I added two more of Ed's games to my collection, one of which WILL be showing up.  I already had Larger Than Life and Adventures In The Lost Lands, and now I have Motor City BC to go with them!  Because nothing says furious pulp action like dinosaurs and Caddy convertibles!  So far I think my favorite thing in Motor City is the "Where's the Yum?" table, which comes into play when Mister T-Rex realizes that chomping on the outside of an M4A3 Sherman Tank doesn't taste very good. Motor City is, by the by, an excellent example of why I like Ed's work so much.  According to the author's notes, it came about because Ed posted an AAR about a T-Rex meeting a Sherman Tank and the author (John Cunningham by name) asked if that was really how thing...

An apologetic aside: last weekend in January was the Lunar New Year and the Superbowl, so as you can imagine I was a little preoccupied by real life events.  And the following weekend, I had designated Sunday as the day to get this project going.  Saturday night it snowed enough for my technical assistant to enjoy a little sledding down our driveway and one of the hills at the park.  Much fun...but it slowed things down a bit.  The weekend after that  sort of went to heck in a handbasket, as did the following weekend...so instead of doing this in one two-hour chunk, it's been done in bits and pieces as time and attention have permitted.  And has been just about a month in post-production because the best laid plans of Pandas and Papas are at best fraught with peril. Still, here we are at last.  Now on with the show! As established at the end of last turn, our happy band of freebooters is currently in Sector 6 on the Campaign Map which has a much hi...

The weekend being full of distractions and other things, I was forced to run this turn by myself using a bunch of pre-rolls that I got using an online die roller and about a zillion batches of 20 dice at a time.  My lil' Cub has a sad about not being able to help, but there's always March 1660. Needless to say my luck with the dice holds true, and our first roll as the Lily of Anjou  sets out to sea from the no-longer-quite-as-welcoming settlements of the Moros, comes up doubles to ensure that I will suffer a Random Event.  It could be worse because the '6' gives a result of Storms At Sea, which is only 'active' from June to November.  Saved by the calendar! Movement, alas, is from port to sea, and so I must remain in Area 3.  Since one can hardly increase Fame, Reputation, and one's fortune whilst mucking about aimlessly, I choose to have an Encounter this turn.  For this, we roll 2d6 and compare each to the Area Activity Level of 3 and...4,6.  No...

In which our heroine, Aleydis van de Zeldenthuis , washes up on the shores of Lemuria and sets about carving her own destiny with cutlass and pistol. Firstly, our lass is a Rep 5, 22 years old, Dutch, and aspires to the Privateer class (with perhaps future options on going Pirate if circumstances demand it).  She automatically gets the Brawler characteristic for being a Privateer, and gains Hawkeye and Fast to go with it.  As is customary, she starts on her own with 500 gold pieces and a few Items...ten, to be precise (defined as a telescope, a compass, a sextant, a curious medallion of unknown origin, a copy of her grandfather's rutter, an open letter of marque signed by the Stadtholder, an extra pistol, and enough change for three rounds of drinks.)  Thus and so, she is ready to embark upon her quest for fame and fortune! On the grand scale of things, somewhere England and Spain are at war.  There are no Random Events this turn.  Otherwise, we begin in sec...

After a good night's sleep on the thought, I'm going to move ahead with a few other projects here as well.  Steph liked a good bit of pulp action as well, so from time to time there will be Larger Than Life AARs to add. Not to mention that one of her long-running characters, a PI named Octavia Butler, would do well in New Hope City.  So there's room for 5150 New Beginnings as well. And while the only kind of undead I hate more than vampires (twinkly or otherwise) is zombies, she liked a good bit of impending zombie-pocalypse.  So FFO and the rest of ATZ it will be.  Plus it'll be fun to get some mileage out of that City Card Deck from the High Rise to Hell project.  Not to mention that Steph would really have loved the addition of vampires, werewolves, and spellslingers to the mix. This will still mostly be about a Frisian Tomboy running amok in Colonial Lemuria, but there'll be some other stuff mixed in from time to time. (Maybe I should tease Ed about...

Full credit where it's due.  Some technical assistance for this project will be provided by the Crown Princess of Trans-shipped Goods. My Cub likes pirates almost as much as she likes cowboys and princesses.  She has the pink-ribbon'd skull and crossbones temporary tattoo to prove it, although for now she's more Jake and the Neverland Pirates than Pirates of the Caribbean. She's agreed to help Baba with his project--mostly rolling dice and maybe posing next to the table once in a while for the fun of it.  She gets to spend quality time with me, I get to find out if my horrendous luck with dice is inherited, and the project will get updates that much faster because I'll have someone pestering me to let her play with my toys.  Sounds like a win-win-win to me! If someday in the future you end up across the table from a cute lil' Asian kid in a Molly Roger tee shirt whose Space Marines use a Hello Kitty pink and white paint scheme, you'll know who t...

This project exists because of two people.  Let me tell you about them really quickly. I have a friend who writes, designs, and sells wargames for a living.  He's awesome.  His games are awesome.  He is one of the coolest adults it has been my privilege to meet here on this little blue and green marble.  He is the man, the myth, the legend... Ed Texiera of Two Hour Wargames.  You can learn more about Ed's handiwork here: http://twohourwargames.com/ Ed's motto is "just play the game".  He doesn't have official miniatures, official terrain, stuff you have to have to play one of his games (outside of the rules).  The play's the thing. I first met Ed ages and ages ago, out here in the Great Green Northwest, back when he was putting the finishing touches on something called Warrior Kings.  I got to play in one of his demos at a small local convention and was hooked on the concept.  Warrior Kings begat Warrior Heroes, and then he did so...