Topic: Random Updates from Terry Amthor

[Terry K. Amthor]

Elon Musk stole my idea! The Subshuttle is like this, only more spacious, and underground.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacex-founder-elon-musk-unveils-plans-for-hyperloop/

[RandalThor]

That is pretty-much what I envisioned, except maybe a bit more "roomy" than that.

[Terry K. Amthor]

Or kind of like this 

[Guillaume]

Do you still have those plans? 

Made a quick and dirty scan of them at work today ( forgot to change the Color/PDF to BW/TIFF setting thus the quick and dirty... ).
This is one of them, it's one of the tunnels in the cliff.



( really dirty, I had to convert the PDF to bitmap and then tickle Contrast and Luminosity for things to be readable )

[Terry K. Amthor]

Do you still have those plans? 

Made a quick and dirty scan of them at work today ( forgot to change the Color/PDF to BW/TIFF setting thus the quick and dirty... ).
This is one of them, it's one of the tunnels in the cliff.



( really dirty, I had to convert the PDF to bitmap and then tickle Contrast and Luminosity for things to be readable )

Cool!

[Terry K. Amthor]

I swear I do not think I based the Ahrenreth and the 'Crystal' on the Skeksis and this movie (The Ahrenreth is based on something else). But that opening with them around it floating in their citadel is pretty darn cool.

http://geektyrant.com/news/watch-the-creepier-version-of-the-dark-crystal-jim-henson-wanted-you-to-see

[Terry K. Amthor]

I just put up a few books on ebay, for those interested.

Shadow world Gethaena
http://www.ebay.com/itm/261346980814?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

MERP Riders of Rohan
http://www.ebay.com/itm/261346983336?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

MERP Havens of Umbar
http://www.ebay.com/itm/261346985222?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

[Terry K. Amthor]

More Coral Road pictures!

http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2013/12/11/the_mendenhall_ice_caves_in_juneau_alaska_are_surreal_gorgeous_and_endangered.html

[Terry K. Amthor]

Feeling a little at loose ends with the final PDF draft of Emer III. I could work on the layout for the print covers, or the Wuliris module, or I could knuckle under and work on the NPC stats for Eidolon 2.0 (the old version didn't have skill stats for NPCs).

[Valkrist]

No Christmas break for Terry??? Please don't burn out on us, my friend. Take some time to enjoy turkey, hoist some eggnog, then back to work.

Any of your listed options sound good, but what I want to see most are the Emer I and II revisions, please.

[Terry K. Amthor]

No Christmas break for Terry??? Please don't burn out on us, my friend. Take some time to enjoy turkey, hoist some eggnog, then back to work.

Any of your listed options sound good, but what I want to see most are the Emer I and II revisions, please.

Aw, thanks for the thought, but this kind of work is fun for me, though sometimes (like this morning) I am having a little trouble getting the creative thoughts going, so then I work on stats (ugh). I think another pot of tea (and maybe a little eggnog  ) will come in handy later.

At the moment I have layout files for Emer I and Emer II open and working on both at once. I should concentrate on one or the other, but I like to jump around. The adventure section of the original Emer II book was really kind of a disaster, and for this one there is a lot of new material. And Emer I, well, lots of new adventures, and integrated stuff from the long out of print 1990 'Emer' book from the boxed set. Yay!

[Terry K. Amthor]

Fascinating stuff, an exploration ship near Antarctica was trapped by floating ice, pulled in by a low pressure system. Icebreakers from 3 countries are on the way to get them out. Great research material for the module I'm writing set in the far north of Kulthea where there are similar shifting ice floes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAsqAIfK4_8&feature=youtu.be

[zyax1]

Fascinating stuff, an exploration ship near Antarctica was trapped by floating ice, pulled in by a low pressure system. Icebreakers from 3 countries are on the way to get them out. Great research material for the module I'm writing set in the far north of Kulthea where there are similar shifting ice floes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAsqAIfK4_8&feature=youtu.be

Start of an adventure: Trapped with a ship and encounter some interesting feature maybe?

[Terry K. Amthor]

Fascinating stuff, an exploration ship near Antarctica was trapped by floating ice, pulled in by a low pressure system. Icebreakers from 3 countries are on the way to get them out. Great research material for the module I'm writing set in the far north of Kulthea where there are similar shifting ice floes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAsqAIfK4_8&feature=youtu.be

Start of an adventure: Trapped with a ship and encounter some interesting feature maybe?

Definitely could be the start of an adventure. If you look at a map of NE Jaiman, that huge white peninsula; north of that is icy-cold water that is frozen much of the year, but breaks up in summer... yet those chunks remain. I had never heard of floating ice chunks trapping a ship because of low pressure before, so this is fascinating stuff

[Terry K. Amthor]

Two videos that may have influenced Court of Ardor (in case anyone is curious)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOg5VxrRTi0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTQbiNvZqaY

[Guillaume]

I had never heard of floating ice chunks trapping a ship because of low pressure before, so this is fascinating stuff

It's quite easy actually and does not require any low pressure.


The ship didn't get stuck, but at a time we thought we had gotten stuck :


It's not exactly the same circumstances ( Greenland in summer with The Pack melting and Fjörds being freed from ice by the tides compared to Antarctica in Summer with The Pack being pushed by a low pressure condition ) but it's something common in Arctic/Antarctic navigation.
Being able to force the way through The Pack is  something for Icebreakers, most of the Actic ( Antarctic ) going ships are not Icebreakers, they just have a Ice graded hull so that they don't explode under the pressure.  ( the ship you see the superstructure on my first picture couldn't handle ice thicker than half a meter without going into battering ram mode ( then he could cope with a meter ), but using the ship as battering ram is not good for the people aboard - inertia and shaking -.

[Guillaume]

I forgot to give the scale, on this one there's some human beings on the helo pad of the ship :


( that way it puts some perspective on the size of the icecubes floating around it in the first picture )

[Terry K. Amthor]

Wishing everyone a happy new year!

I am slogging through Emer II and Eidolon simultaneously right now, since of course the two are very much intertwined, especially with the updated timeline. I have several new adventure ideas for both, just need to flesh them out. And then redo all the NPC stats into pretty table format... For Emer II, lots more information about all the realms, including some details about various cities, travel information, and such.

[Terry K. Amthor]

New poll! go to the top of the thread...

[egdcltd]

Something else: Artefacts and Lost Tech. I think there was another something else as well, but I can't remember what.