#random thoughts by xorn

[xornasharama]

What if the nether is the stomach of a giant creature...

Just like Tartarus from the Greek myths, the Nether is a giant being, like a titan or something else...

The Nether is massive caverns and fire, with an impenetrable roof and oceans of lava. The netherrack is the stomach lining, and the bedrock is the stronger layer of cells. The lava is stomach acid x20.

There are giant bones in the soulsand valleys, larger creatures that were eaten before the giant stopped feasting. Ancient Debris are metals that were melted and turned into an alloy during the digestion of the wielders.

And plants can't survive in extreme heat, so fungi is the only thing that can grow there. Giant Fungi for the giant stomach. and the smaller nether fungi are the baby fungi, which is already kinda true...

And, it's home to monsters. Not many, but there are monsters!

[popculturebuffet]

New X-Men Xtrospective Part 2: Germ Free Generation (Annual, #117-120)

Hello all you happy mutants! And welcome back to my look one of my faviorite runs of one of my faviorite super teams by one of my faviorite comic book writers!

For those of you just joining us.. it’s been a while. I did the first instalment of this retrospective back in early January as a present to my friend for christmas, as he had never read E is for Extinctoin and what with this run being vital to the current, utterly brilliant Krakoa era of X-Men. But with both Black History Month and Valentine’s day, February had no real room for this one and march ended up being just as crammed with me doing essentially the entire della arc of ducktales in one month. I didn’t mean for this retrospective to get pushed so far back, but since I gave up doing weekly coverage of Final Space I had some room on the schedule so this retrospective is back with a vengance with two entries this month and hopefully at least one a month afterword to keep it at a decent clip. 

Last time I covered the background of this run and didn’t really find much for the issues after, so I won’t have to spend as much time on background. 

So since i’ts been a few months, a refresher is probably in order

PREVIOUSLY, ON X-MEN:  Our merry mutants enterted a marvelous new era. As Charles redidciated to the dream with new equipment and a new uniforms our hero encounter a new villian: The Mysterious Cassandra Nova, a powerful telepath who used an uwitting patsy from the trask family and a defucnt sentinel factory to slaughter the mutant nation of Genosha, killing 16 million mutants in the most horrific act of genocide against mutants ever known. And the fact there has been more than one genocide against mutant kind MIGHT, just MIGHT be the reason they blackmailed for peace with life saving drugs instead of helping willingly and freely in the current comics. Just maybe. 

Cassandra was captured by the X-Men soon after but escaped and nearly got a hold of Cerebra only to be stopped thanks to a combination of former enemy, genoshan resident at the time of the genocide, and that bitch Emma Frost who snapped her neck and Charles himself who uncharacteristically shot Cassandra in the head. That night Charles took a bold step over that would change the X-Men forever and told the world on live tv:

While all of this was going on we got caught up on the team’s personal struggles, currently consisting of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast and Wolverine with Emma joining as of the issue we’re about to cover. Beast is grappling with a secondary mutation that makes him look like Aslan, the jesus of narnia and all lions. Meanwhile Scott and Jean are grappling with their non existant sex life as Cyclops possesion by Apocalypse shortly before this story has severely rattled him and caused him to close himself off emotionally. 

So that’s where we pick up. Our heroes are now no longer hiden saftely in the shadows from a world that hates and fear them but are out front and center with the world watching. And we’ll see both how that helps their cause and how it puts them directly in the cross hairs under the cut.  Content Warning: This review discusses Transphobia and a scene involving a school shooting. If either of these are a trigger for you or something you do not want to read about  please skip this part of the retrospective for your own well being. Thank you and have a lovely day. 

The Man From Room X:

We have three stories today: an annual that introduces our final team member and the main villians of our next arc, a one off that moves the main plot for the first 12 issues along, and a three part arc about said villains.  Before we get into the Annual, I have to talk about it’s weird gimmick: The issue is entirely sideways. I don’t mean it’s bad though some parts are problematic I mean when bought it’d be on it’s side and in my trade I have to flip the whole thing over on it’s side to read it. It’s just a .. weird choice. Not the weirdest thing about this issue somehow but not unexpected from Grant as they like to play with the formula. 

We open in said Room X, a location in China where a mutant named Xorn is kept and showed off to a mysterious group of dickweeds in suits representing “Mr. Sublime”.  His jailer, General Aao Jun,, shows him off as most bad guys would : By undoing his helmet and thus disntegrating two innocent children just by looking at them. Sublime says they have a deal. 

Meanwhile also in China the X-Men are there for a funeral and Emma and Scott trade insulting questions back in forth: She mocks him about his lack of sex with Jean lately and he brings up her criminal past. As for why Emma’s still with the x-men.. it’s out of pragmatisim. WIth Genosha gone, the x-men are the saftest faction to throw in with. 

As for why the X-Men are in China, Charles has rapidly expanded his operations now he’s public by setting up X-Corps, a multinational humantarian aid organization dedicated to helping mutants in need wherever they sprout up. He’s set up offices in Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Mumbai and Melborne. 

He’s also half assed it, at least for the Hong Kong office and only gave them two employees: Domino, who those of you not as familiar with the comics may remember from deadpool and Risque.. who I honestly had never heard of before New X-Men and frequently forget existed. I just looked her up for the first time and she’s a minor mutant who was an associate of X-Force and Warpath’s love intrest. She could compress matter causing it to implode. My assumption here is that Morrison simply picked a minor mutant at random for the job. 

But yeah naturally with only two mutants charged with, according to domino “All of asia” went horribly and the x-men are there for Risque’s funeral and to find out what happened. Unsuprisingly it’s tied into our cold open: Risque had found evidence of a mutant trafficking operation and died fighting them off and Dom is naturally f eeling in over her head since said operation involves the chinese goverment, who according to her exccute most mutants at birth and John Sublime and his cult. 

We soon see a press confrence from this asshole and find out what his deal is: Sublime is the head of the U-Men, a group that belivies they are a “third species” of mutants trapped in human bodies that deserve to have the surgery to make them into mutants, and thus wear weird suits until the world is pure and allows them to have surgery for it. 

Yeahhhh this.. this is really fucking uncomfortable and is going to be present throughout today’s piece so let’s just go ahead and rip that band-aid off:  The U-Men come off as HIGHLY transphobic. They use terms similar to trans people call themselves trans species and are trapped inside a body they don’t belong in. It’s VERY uncomfortable to read as a result and something that hadn’t really sunk into till thsi reading but once it had.. oh god does this not age well. 

The one thing that keeps this from runing the run and Grant Morrison as a whole for me.. is that I do not think for one second it was intentional. Grant themself is genderqueer, nonbinary and a cross dresser. None of this means they CAN’T be prejudice, being Queer does not magically make you immune to being prejudiced. But before this Grant had the genderqueer sentient street Danny the Street over in doom patrol and a trans main character in his book the invisibles, Lord Fanny. And given New X-Men’s biggest flaw as a whole is clumsy early 2000′s unforutnate implications such as a good chunk of the things about Cyclops affair with Emma, we’ll get to that at the right time, Angel in the next arc and Dust, who was introduced as from afganastan wearing an outfit not seen in the country and speaking a language not spoken in the country. Grant didn’t make these mistakes TWICE, it’s why I still have respect for them, and this won’t be the first or last comic i’ve forgiven for being stupid for it’s time. But I will still call Grant out when I see it. Just because I respect an author just because they changed my life does not mean I won’t call them out when they fuck up. And if they prove to be truly vile, have harmed someone or what have you I will cut them the fuck out of my life. I’ve done it with JK Rowling, Warren Ellis, Brad Jones and Joss Whedon. I would do it with Grant if I truly belivied they were transphobic and instead didn’t just write something very stupid without thinking the metaphor through 20 years ago. 

So anyway back to the comic book bollocks as Wolvie and Dominio prepare for an infiltration and flirt a bunch. We also find out Jun is a mutant himself with a power only Grant could dream up: his skin, hair and what have you that falls off him turns into a naked golem for a bit before expiring. And if you hadn’t read this issue before reading this review, yes that actually happened. While the first arc had a BIT of Grant’s trademark batshit insanity, the series REALLY starts to pick it up from here: This issue has a mutant with functioning star for a head, a poorly thought out bucnh of sci fi new age organ theives, and a general whose power is “makes naked clones out of his dandruff”. Oh and his fondest wish?

I just... I don’t know how to respond to that. I don’t know how you respond to an old man’s weird murder fetish that he tells a somehow even creepier cult leader while said cult leader is paying him to buy a star man, and their both surronded by the creepy old guy’s skin golems that weirdly look like mudokons. Look i’ve  read Grant’s entire utterly bonkers run on doom patrol. I’ve seen a man who looks like a question mark use a bicycle that makes everyone high like their on LSD for president. And THIS is what breaks me. 

So while.. THIS is going on, Dom and Wolverine plan to do it all night long on the professor’s credit card, no really he gives all his professors carte blanch to use school fun, and inflitrate, Dom through the elvator this horrorshow just took place in and Wolvie james bond style. Also I gotta say I REALLY love how Morrison writes Domino. She’s wittiy, entertaining and her power is as awesome as always, super luck if you didn’t know. It’s a real shame he didn’t add her to the team: She wasn’t on any other x-teams, with X-Force having been rebranded into X-Statix by this point. She would’ve been a fun addition to the cast. 

Naturally wolverine is found out.. but that was the entire plan, for him to serve as a distraction then cut his way to domino while she steals something from the vault. As for the rest of the X-Men, Cyclops, Beast and Emma are all downstairs in the parking garage and find a secret entrance. Jean is not on this trip and that’s a major plot point for this run. This is where Risque died.. and it only get’s worse when Hank goes inside, finding a bug like child, basically htink a giant caterpillar but with tons of human arms inttead of legs with her wings cut off. 

Thankfully as Logan and Dom escape above, the U-Men are dumb enough to storm down bellow.. and while they incapacitate beast with some launched tiny knives, designed to incapcicate but leave them in tact for harvest, Emma beats the shit out of them and get the info out as only she can....

Granted she could’ve just turned back to normal and used her telepathy.. but what fun would that be? Plus they have blockers and you know CUT UP A FUCKING CHILD. SO yeah fuck them, let emma have her fun. 

Thanks to her they find out the U-Men are a front for illegal organ harvest, and while they can’t prove sublimes attached Emma suggests killing him.  Good idea but Scott suggests the lighter approach and we find out what Dom stole, a key, something Emma can psychcially scan. She warns it might take her a bit to get something.. only to be flooded instantly and we find out who the man in the box was. Shen Xorn... i’ll let emma tell you more herself. 

It’s stuff like this why, despite some serious flaws like the U-Men debacle and some stuff to come, some I mentioned above other that’s just with the plot that i love this run. Morrison just gets how to really tell an x-men story and the real tragedy of being a mutant. That just for being diffrent, you get shut out, or in this case thrown into a box when you could’ve and should’ve been something more. As emma turns herself to diamond to deal with the psychic backlash, Beast has some solemn words to share. 

That night Scott rests in his bedroom while presumibly hearing some truly horrific and sexy things next door while talking to jean before clocking out.. only for Emma to head in in a sexy dress with champagne. What happened? Well we won’t know for sure for most of the run. 

The next day the U-Men prepare to load and we get some scrap of what the idea was supposed to be: John talks to Ao Jun about his procedures. We see wings crudely sewen to his back and his throat implaants hurting “But one day I will fly”. THe IDEA is their supposed to be lunatics, people who envy mutantkind but don’t actually respect their culture or their sense of personhood. It’s not the worst idea and had Grant not used trans termnology for htis, it would’ve been a great one. I think he INTENDED for them to be coopting the idea of being trans and what not to maks their true intentions.. which is problematic due to debates like the ones on bathrooms where a lot of transphobic asshats make the bad faith argument a bunch of people are going to pretend to be trans to assault people. 

We’re.. we;’re not even to the main storyarc yet. 

But things soon go wrong as Xorn’s starhead starts to collapse into a black hole, with no solution as the x-men took the key to his helmet.. and assault the compound. Turns out the star collapse thing is Jun’s revenge on humanity for lockig him down here and he gets his neck snapped.  Scott has a solution though.. and it’s stuff like this why I fucking love Scott Summers and get annoyed when people call him “boring”: He realizes Xorn is comitting sucicide.. so he’s going to talk him out of it. Not just for everyone else but he deserves to live. And while Emma points out only logan among htem knows chinese and she can’t get through to Xorns’ head due to the way his brain works, Scott has a simple workaround: Use the nearest chineses speaker to teach Scott chinese. So.. with that he talks to Xorn. 

And that my friend is Scott Summers. A man who faced with powerful man whose given up, whose lost all hope... convinces him he can still go on. That living’s better than dying.. and that it does get better. The issue closes with Xorn basking in the sunlight for the first time in decades while Domino sweats having an extremley powerful unknown mutant out in the world. Scott’s already thought of that.. and signed him up with the x-men. Granted it won’t be until our next article that he actually fully joins the team, but w’ell get to that next time. 

This issue is great... while the U-Men stuff is pretty bad and isn’t going to get better, the tale of xorn is excitiong, Aao Jun is an intresting antagonist and the sideways gimmick suprisingly works. So now we’ve finshed our apitizer let’s get on to the main course. 

Danger Rooms:

We open in well.. the Danger Room with Beast training a new student. 

This is Beak. Beak is my faviorite character Morrison came up with and one of my faviorite X-Characters. Beak is a bird like boy who can fly, it’s just a struggle and due to looking diffrent and not having the most impressive power has very low self esteem. It’s also part of something Morrison took a concerted effort to do: introduce more mutants with genuinely odd apperances and drawbacks. Like we saw with Ugly John last time and Aao Jun in the previous issue, Morriosn really likes adding weird mutants but he also uses it to give a genuine downside to being one. While this isn’t NEW to x-men, Morriosn upped the scale and number of characters like this with weird powers and apperances. We see a bunch of human passing ones too but the backgrounds just jammed with all sorts of unique designs and students. It’s also the point where the school became far more crowded like the movies, a good call on my part both to help those coming in from the movies, and to help sell the mutant baby boom going on. After all it wouldn’t make sense if the school was just about 5-7 students and a bunch of grown adults doing superhero stuff like usual would it.

But we get to see that Hank is a good teacher, as he reminds the boy that he’s getting better and won’t be an x-man overnight, and worries about him to the professor, wanting the boy not to slip through the cracks, figuratively, and not to feel like an outcast.. especaily here. But Hank dosen’t feel blue for long, metaphorically he was blue long before he became the lion minus the witch and the wardrobe, as he has a date to night.. and so does Charles. 

Or rather he did.. his girlfriend trish, a long time love intrest of his and a reporter.. breaks up with him. Over voice mail. While in washington. And the reasons she gives are not great

Yes Hank’s transformation is radical.. but not only was it not his choice... she’s being a coward, sending the message it’s okay to dump someone because hteir a mutant or because they happen tobe diffrent and that efffects your career. Again it’s moments like this that make the run soar over the more awkward bits. 

Meanwhile Logan’s off doing logan stuff, i.e. gazing at a deer. Wow. Jean followed him. Both notice a space ship: Despite recently outing himself as a mutant, leading to an increased number of students and a bunch of rioting morons at the gates, Charles has decided NOW’S a good time to take a vacation to the Shiar empire. As for why Jean’s really out here, her marriage to Scott isn’t doing so good and while Logan encourages her to stay it’s just not that simple: Her telekenisis is coming back, stronger than ever. She feels the most alive she’s been while he’s shutting her out and feeling his deadest. She tries to turn to logan for comfort but he shuts her down. Just wait two decades jean... he’ll open up to a threesome. In all seriousness though having Jean try and come onto Logan .. will backfire slightly on later storylines. But we’ll get to that eventually. 

In the basement Hank is studying Cassandra or rather a virtual version of her since her body is naturally in storage. And he’s found out something disturbing: She’s Charles Genetic Twin.. oh and it gets way worse. The Professor’s weird behavior? Barely staffing the hong kong office, leaving suddenly with rioters t the gates, outing himself? About that...

Cassandra tourtures Hank with the possiblity he’s devovling and then tries to mind controlli him into cleaning himself with his diploma when Beak enters. The good news is this allows hank to shake off her control and tackle her, showing off why hank mccoy is fucking awesome in the process. 

That is the Hank McCoy I know, love.. and miss dearly. The one we’ll probably never get back sadly after what others did and what Percy’s had to do to reconclie with all they did. 

Unfortunately beak being around means cassandra can force him to beat beast into a coma with his bat. She plans to tear Charles dream down around him and make him watch.. and cryptically says he tried to kill her. She then cheerfully leaves Jean in charge.. and talks about just how much damage one could do with an entire interstellar empire in the wrong hands....

This issue is also excellent and sets up the next two arcs nicely while giving us a nice peak in hank’s head. Great stuff. The artist also hid the word sex in a lot of the images see if you can find them. 

Germ Free Generation Issue 1: 

So now we get into our main story for today. This story and the one before it were drawn by Ethan Van Sciver whose a talented artist.. but also highly contrversial for being a conservative. I myself.. don’t know what he’s said or did, though calling himself “Canceld Superstar’ on twitter really isn’t a good sign. So I really can’t comment on it but I also know someone would mention it if I didn’t bring it up and if you know what he did please enlighten me. 

So we open with a school shooter who also scooped out a guys eyes and is part of the U-Men. He get shot by the swat team while making his speech> it’s an effective opening but one that’s become more uncomfortable to read with each passing day due to school shootings going up and up in number. And mass shootings in general and I... I need a second. I need something to relax me

Thank you Stoopy. Your doing Odd’s Work. 

So the news reports on this and we soon see how Jean watches the news.. by using Cerebra to read the minds of every person on the planet. Neat. Everyone’s talking about them. We also get a hint for later as we hear on the suicide of one martha johanson who wrote the note in her own blood. She’ll be important later.... and I mean that both in the context of this retrospective and for the fact she’ll go on to be part of x-men in perpetuity. 

This is also where another great concept of Morrison’s pops up: Mutant culture. After all mutants are a minority, they should have their own culture. It’s something Hickman’s era has taken and ran with, but it’s a damn good idea and one that it shoudln’t of taken almost 20 years for someone else to use given Decimation was undone way back around 2012 in Avengers Vs X-Men, aka that event half hte articles on the mcu around the fox sale used as either their image for the article or asked about happneing. And yes that is a pet peeve of mine: while I do think like Civil War AVX could use a movie version to make it better, I don’t think it’s an event that could be done right away and would have to be almost entirely redone anyway given the context for AvX is entirely couched in decimation i.e. something NO ONE wants in any x-adaptation. 

So it turns out while watching the news in a next level way Jean is also talking to Logan. “Stay out of my personal fantasies”. Yeah I .. I don’t think your ready for a hairy canadian dry humping a transformer.. specifically killbison. And yes.. that is an actual transformer and why yes, I have been waiting to bring him up. 

And he is , and I am not making any of this up, part of a group of decpticons known as the breastforce. Your life is better for knowing that and you are welcome. 

Anyway as you’d imagine a genocidal old woman in her brothers’ body leaving the X-Men to fend for themselves after having a teenager bludgeon one into a coma after publicly outing them with a rabid bunch of bigoted morons at the gates has not gone great. Henry is still out and despite the short staffing Jean needs logan to stay where he is as he’s close to an emerging mutant and within range to go get her. 

Emma of course has never been so fucking irate in her whole life and is plotting various forms of psychic tourture with the help of her proteges the Stepford Cucokoo, 5 teenage mutants who functoin best as a unit and are easily some of MOrrison’s most prominent additions to the x-cast. Unlike a lot of the x-kids, they’ve been featured prominently in every era of x-men after this including the current one. 

Jean decides for a less “Make them hate us even more” approach, but no less pissed off, opening the gates and going out directly to chew out the assembled bigoted morons, pointing out the ones carrying “Mutants Go Home!” signs are especailly dumb as this IS her home. And while she dosen’t point this part out, it’ the same for all of them: most of the mutants are either adults who choose to live here, teenagers who along with their parents choose to live here, or in the majority teens who have no where else to go due to either being abandoned by their families or it being way to dangerous for said families for them to stay due to bigoted assholes like the ones holding mutants go home signs. 

A member of the press asks if she’s willing to talk to the media and she refutes most of his bullshit allegations: He asks if their building an army, she and Scott respond they are not and are simply educating mutants and protecting them. When he counters with the fact their living weapons and wearing uniforms... she counters with the fact she’s wearing them to protect herself, rightfully, from people like her, and the x-men are an aid orginzation going where needed to protect the world and while asshole points out no one apointed them.. jean shuts him down by pointing out there are no mutants in goverment and a genocide just happened, so someone has to do the job. Another random asshole tries to pipe up with “Genosha declared war on us” and Emma senses this is just going to go round and round and round and simply presses the assembled mob’s “bliss buttons” in their brains to knock them out. Non violent but honestly warranted: A dangerous part of bigoted assholes is they’l bring up racist bullshit to try and couch it like an actual conversation. None of these complaints really hold water if you looked at the x-men’s history for more than 5 minutes. Yes Charles is training them to fight and yes hte ingial class was an army but every class since has only been trained for self defense: they still got into adventures and what not, but it was usually by their own choice or because they were thrust into them by circumstance. Xaviers is exactly what jean said and endudgling these morons, while good on paper, only makes them seem legit. 

Jean retreats to the infirmary where she’s on the verge of breaking down from the sheer weight of everything. Cyclops proves that despite not being the best husband right now... he still loves his wife, offering to go look into Sublime with Emma and hoping Hank wakes up. Turns out his mind for now is a big blank room.

So she can’t get any info off his skull, and neither of the two think what happened with Beak adds up. Something is up here. Their also coming down with colds which will be important later. And just as important.. Magneto is becoming a symbol among people and merch sales with his image are on the rise.  We then get this. 

So Jean is trying to be a supportive, honest wife, and while the questions incredibly insulting.. his answer is equally so. Spoilers, as mentioned we do get an answer long after this.. and they did not. So Jean is wrong to be suspcious, at this point, but is at least trying to be polite about it and gave him the benifit of the doubt.. and Scott basically said he slept with her without actually saying it despite not having to. You could’ve said “no we did not have sex, we simply talked all night”. It’s not ENTIRELY better given the horrible state of their relationship right now, but it’s still better than HEAVILY implying he rocked her body to the break of dawn for no damn reason. 

So we meet our next major addition to the cast Angel Salvador, an abused teen who is a mutant.. and whose abusive and molesting step dad beats her and throws her out over this. The scene’s a bit overdone, coming off like an after school special.. but it’s what happens AFTER that’s truly heartwrenching. 

A poor scared teenager clutching herself, finding herself homeless alone and desperatly wishing she wasn’t what she was. It’s just a striking image and shows how well Grant uses the mutant metaphor. I could easily see myself in that position had my parents not been good peopl and had I come out far sooner as bi. The idea of desperatly hoping your not what you are simply becaus eof what hell it brings, despite all the joy it can bring too. . it’s heartbreaking to hear. 

Naturally though things don’t get much better as the next morning the U-Men have found her, calling her a freak and successfully kidnapping her.. if only because while she uses acid spit to escape, she flies into a power line. 

We then get Sublimes meeting with Emma and Scott and a BETTER use of teh u-men as while Grant made the horrible mistake of calling them “transpecies”, seriously what the fuck were you thinking, the way sublime frames it here is a MUCH better, much less accidently bigoted concept. 

The idea isn’t bad: A group of humans jealous of the mutants powers, blatantly ignoring the horrible downsides and mountain of persecution that comes with being one. Grant just made the mistake of couching in in Trans metaphors, clearly trying to have the U-Men steal from Trans People too as a way to make themselves seem legit. And I say if you want superpowers.. fine.. wanting to be a superhero or a mutant is fine, the issue with the U-Men is their copoting a culture, trying to be part of mutantkind without having any of the drawbacks and by actively butchering them. It’s why the concept HAS shown up elsewhere; it’s not TERRIBLE, Grant just made a bad creative choice that’s only gotten worse as Transphobia has ramped up further and further. 

Sublime denies it when our heroes bring up Hong Kong.. but naturally he’s simply just keeping them talking long enough to bring out his trump cards, an army of u-men and a brain in a jar he uses to incapacitate them.. and announces his plan to use the school as an organ farm for his third species. 

Meanwhile Logan finds the U-Men in their truck preparing to rip angel apart.. and given he snikit’s soon after.. i’ts very clear whose REALLY about to get ripped apart. 

Germ Free Generation Part 2: 

Part two begins wth Sublime monologoging about how Mutantkind are just cattle to them and reveals the brain is martha’s, her sucicide having been faked and her brain currently being controlled to use as a weapon. 

So while Johnny monlogues we find out what happened with Wolverine last issue he didn’t cut up the guys yet as they fired their little flichete guns at him... it was about as useful and effective as you’d expect and the massacre you were expecting occurs. Though in a nice bit of reality the fact wolverine’s soaked in blood and just killed a bunch of blood shockingly does not make the already frighttend teen feel he’s safe and she spits acid on him. Logan pours some stuff on the acid, figuring rightly a black ops murder farmacy would have something to counteract it and tells her she’s safe now .. and tells the guy behind him not to try it. He’s stupid and does anyway and likely gets a claw to the head off panel. 

They go to a diner to eat and find a local asshole who threatens them with a shot gun to leave once angel uses her power to digest and goes on a rant about how he snapped his own son’s neck to prevent him being born a freak. Just.. fucking hell this arc is not good for my depression. We get some more angst from Angel and whiel her dialouge is not the best, i’ts a too bit mark millar flavored edgelordy for my taste and if I wanted that i’d go read Ultimates or Ultimate X-Me, her pain is real and Logan helps her through it. 

Back at the Mansion the U-Men are on their way to strike, whlie Jean unaware continues to buckle under the weight of all the shit she’s had to deal with, feeling SOMETHING is making them weak with the colds and something worse is going on and thus tries going to Beak’s mind instead and gently helps talk him through it, showing her grace and empathy.. and in return finding out Charles was the one responsible. The alarms flair up and Jean tries calling the police now that’s an option.. but it goes exactly how you’d expect. 

Also a second artist took over for this issue and the next Igor Kordey. He’s fine, but not nearly as good as Quitely or Van Sciver and it shows. Meanwhile Beast awakens and heads for the body drawer with Cassandra’s body, and professor’s mind in it. 

However Jean’s finally had enough and got her second wind. She’s outgunned, outmanned and left to her own devices. And she’s fucking fed up with it. She steels herself and assembles the students. This is obviously a last resort.. but some of them can defend themselves and their going to need to. But today they won’t be learning.. they’ll be teaching and as the U-Men call them defensless Jeans simply asks “Are you sure about that?”

Germ Free Generation Part 3:

So we come to the finale of this arc. Angel is once again an ungreatful brat to logan and he opts to just leave her there if sh’es going to be like that pointing out being a mutant sucks, it’s going to keep sucking.. and she needs to deal with it instead of lashing out at him and herself over it. 

We get back to the U-Men, one of whom is utterly flabergasted they want to him to cut of Cyclops head... only for Emma to awaken.. and take back her regular form meaning she has her telepathy back. The only reason they were able to get her ealier is she was in diamond mode which is stronger but lacks that, a nice way to check and ballance her new powers. She quickly takes them out and disables Martha. 

Back at the school we get one of Jean’s definting moments for me and a true chance to show how badass she can be. Before this while Morrison wrote her well, and his version’s still my favoirite, she didn’t really get to do much and was motly in the background. This arc has been her time in the limelight, having trouble grappling with all the stress of running this place by herself.. and emerging from it stronger, more capable and ready to kick some racist weirdo ass. She tries a few diffrent tactics first, having a mutant with a voice power project it to make them think their san invisible army and having the cuckoos fuck with their heads but when both fail, Jean REALLY gets to show off. Thier blade ammo gets turned into a cool looking 3 dimensioinal shape with her telekneisis, and in a cool moment and a wise use of something gross makes the only one of them with useable powers throw up, before issuing a badass boast, wreathed in flames all while she crumples their guns into uselessness. and tears open their suits. 

Bad ass.. and logan and Angel arrive just in time for the cecendo as hte u-men flee in terror

The Phoenix has been Reborn. Jean Grey has risen from the ashes and returned to full power. 

Meanwhile Sublime is pankcing.. and it gets worse when Emma shows up, fully enraged after all of this and has some words for him. 

Iconic. Emma prepares to drop him out of a building but Scott rightly tries to get her to back off, pointing out the pr nightmare it’d create and the fact that they have enough evidence ot shut him down. Martha however has other ideas and gets him to let go of his own accord, falling to his death.. but given he’d aranged a stunt for the press apparently this gives our heroes deniability and Martha her revenge. 

So we end this three parter as Jean revels in her new power, and Beast returns with an announcment:

Final Thoughts for Germ Free Generation:  This arc is pretty good if forgetable. The struggle of Jean to run the school herself and her rising from the ashes of her own pain at the end with the power of the phoenix at the end is fantastic, finally both giving her a chance to shine.. and a worrying sign for her friends given what her phoenix force copy whose memories she has a copy of, long story, did is awesome. The other parts are okay and ehhhhhhhhh though. Scott and Emma’s investigation into the u-men while having a really good climax, is pretty standard x-men stuff, and Wolverin’es trek with angel is just okay with Angel being highly intolerable during this arc, with Morrison trying a bit TOO hard to make her a “realistic” teen instead coming off as horribly unplesant. She’s supposed to just be lashing out but comes off obnxious as a result. That said this arc does furhter a lot of Morrisons best idea and introduce more, and is a great setup for our next arc, which we’ll get to in two weeks. Soooo

Next Time On X-Men: We find out just what the hell Cassandra Nova is, what her plans are, and what happened with her and charles as our heroes come down with a cold as the might of the shiar empire bears down on them. It’s IMperial in two weeks. 

Next Time ON This BLog: Speaking of long Delayed Projects, I finally return to The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck as a young Scrooge starts his prospecting career, learning the ins and outs from a rich new mentor, and finding the price tag striking it rich comes with. Raid a copper hill with me tommorow. 

If you liked this review, subscirbe for more, join my patreon, and if there’s a comic you’d like me to cover suggest it in the comments or outright comission a review from me via ask. See you at the next rainbow

[docandprof]

In Which My Internet is Back

Well hello there,

I’m sorry it’s been so long! As you know I lost internet for quite a few days and visited back home and with work I’ve just been busy, but I am back. Oh and I totally haven’t been playing a bunch of video games or anything either...anyways, I’m glad to hear you’re going to take things as they come. There’s no use worrying about things you can’t control, but you should still do what you can to be ready when opportunity comes knocking. You’re a good host though, so I’m sure opportunity will enjoy its visit with you! Just remember not to be bogged down by expectations - do what you will and be who you will be. You said you love history, but aren’t sure what you could do. There are lots of traditional options, but it’s 2020 - you have the internet - think outside the box! Whatever it is, you’ll do great. 

It’s been a while since I posted, so I hope you’ve started reading again! Since finishing Shogun, I’ve kind of fallen off the book bandwagon while I play more video games, but it’s all stories, kind of. Some other updates for ya - I’ll be staying at my current job (still part time) through November, in the hopes of getting a full time offer before then if we can get some funding. So I should still be here for a while, and hopefully another year or two at this job (at least). I’ve been playing a lot of Northgard, which I’ve already bugged you about, and started listening to The Adventure Zone: Graduation, DnD podcast by the McElroy guys - some very funny stuff in there, such as issuing a subpoena to a Xorn. I’m hoping while I’m here that I can get into some more DnD campaigns, since I’m always itching for more. It was great to hear about Lenny! I love just coming up with character ideas, and he sounds like a fun character. Keep me posted on “the best of Lenny.” You really need to play a character with higher intelligence, because you as a person have ideas that are too smart for your dumb boys! 

I’m glad you found a great love for DnD! I think it’s a great game and way to spend time with friends. But I don’t need to tell you how much I love DnD. I am sorry to hear you get lonely sometimes though. I know for a fact though that all of us from back home would love to hear from you more! I’m sorry you lost that connection with that certain friend, but just remember there is still a friendship there. From what I know, you don’t really talk to anyone else from the herd from back home, but if you’re feeling lonely, you’ve still got all of us as devoted friends. I know online communication isn’t the same as in-person, but it can still be pretty sweet. 

I suppose I should also mention, there was about a week when I was not doing so hot. I had missed an opportunity I thought I had for full time employment, but it fell through (just delayed, not totally gone). It was my own fault for getting myself into a headspace where I was going to get it then, which then led me to feel bad when it didn’t happen, but in reality the odds of anything happening that soon were pretty low. It just got me anxious about my future, since I didn’t know where I would live or what I would do without this job. The extension of part time employment has alleviated a lot of the stress, but I know I’ll have to address it again if I don’t get a full time offer in the next few months. It was just hard to worry about so many unknowns: work, residence, getting a car, being away from home (or being stuck AT home), and student loans. I’m feeling much better now, trying to remember that if I can’t control it I shouldn’t let it get me down too much.

Alright, let the wrap up begin. To answer your question, I would love to host Whose Line is it Anyway? because that’s one of my favorite comedic shows. It’s so random and goofy and hilarious that I think that would be a super fun job with lots of laughs, and occasional singing! It’s got everything I love. It’s also not super mainstream which I like because I don’t need too much attention, just a strongly devoted niche base. On the flip side, I’d also love to host Jeopardy, because I love trivia and just watching the show, so might as well pretend host it! Recommendation for the week: check out the end of the playlist, I’m going to be adding some songs that I’ve really been enjoying from my Discover Weekly! Question of the week: would you be interested in more discord chats? I was talking with another friend of ours about wanting hang out with you nerds more, and we figured we’re probably all sitting around playing games or something at home every week, so we might as well just hop on a call and hang out while we all do our own thing. Thoughts? Other ideas on how we can all stay connected? 

Keepin’ on,

Bearded guy without a PhD

[ciathyzareposts]

Rogue: An Obligatory Mid-Week Post

It took me a bit longer to get Haunt up and running than I thought it would – I had to figure out how to use Telnet – and to be honest my blogging fervour has somewhat subsided from the insane level it was at back in April.  So I haven’t been playing any games other than Rogue, which while still fun for me is death for the blog.  I’m determined to keep up my twice-a-week schedule, though, so I’ll half-arse a quick post and hope that you’re all satisfied.

I’ve lost another 17 characters since my last post.  This includes five deaths on the first dungeon level, 9 in the mid-levels, one to a Yeti while grinding for XP on level 15, and one to a hung game.  This is becoming a real problem:  I’ve had a few games that just became completely unresponsive to my keyboard commands.  I’ve taken some steps to fix it, but I might be violating Rogue etiquette.

Of those 17 games, I had one that was really promising.  I found a two-handed sword, and managed to enchant it a couple of times.  I was wearing plate mail armour.  I had a stash of potions of restore strength, and a Strength score of 18/78.  (Rogue uses the odd D&D rule where fighters with an 18 Strength get to roll percentile dice to see if they get any extra bonuses).  I had a scroll of scare monster, which I was pretty stoked about.  And I had a ring of slow digestion, among other things.  That’s a pretty hard equipment list to beat.

By the time I got down to dungeon level 13, I’d also amassed nine portions of food, and between that and the ring I had plenty of time to grind for XP.  At this point – and this is what I meant about the breach of Rogue etiquette – I backed up my save file.  I gather that it’s not the done thing among Rogue aficionados, but I wasn’t doing it for the purpose of cheating.  This was a failsafe against the game hanging on me.  I’m happy enough to start over when I legitimately fail, but this was a character that I didn’t want to lose to technical issues.

I spent a good long while on level 13, doing laps of the level and fighting Quasits, Centaurs, Yetis and other weaker monsters.  I was wearing bad armour so that my plate mail would be protected from Rust Monsters, but I didn’t run into any problems.  Advancement is slow though – the strongest monster there is the Yeti, which is worth 50 XP.  I managed to advance to level 11, which requires 5,160 XP.  Getting to level 12 requires double that, which seems like a pretty tough ask.  You could do it quickly enough fighting monsters like Dragons and Purple Worms, but survival is no guaranteed thing against those.  By the time I reached level 11 I only had three meals left, so it was time to move on.

I was extremely confident about my chances, and the first few levels below 13 went by like a breeze.  Unfortunately, it all came unstuck on level 16.  I looked at the list of monsters to see which was introduced on that level: Invisible Stalkers.  I scoffed, feeling that I could handle them without trouble.  Of course, when I did meet one it was nothing but trouble.  I noticed I was getting hit, and started flailing about at random trying to find my assailant.  I finally got a hit in, but by then it had reduced me to about 15 hit points.  I was getting desperate at that point, so I dropped my scroll of scare monster on the ground.  I had wanted to save it for the Xorns, Umber Hulks and worse monsters lower down, but I wasn’t going to reach those depths unless I did something now.

With the scroll at my feet, I knew that I couldn’t be damaged, so I made my attack.  The thing is, you attack in Rogue by moving.  And the Invisible Stalker wasn’t in the square where it had previously been.  So I moved off of my protective scroll, breaking the magic, and promptly got killed.  Chalk up another dumb way to die in Rogue.

I was really banking on that scroll, I must admit.  I’ve found plenty of them before, but never more than one in a game, and I have a tendency to read scrolls before identifying them.  With the scroll of scare monster, that’s a complete waste.  On this game I encountered a Zombie with the scroll on the ground between us, and I noticed the Zombie move around it to get to me.  That’s not normal monster behaviour in Rogue, and I quickly realised to save that scroll rather than use it.  Sure enough, it was what I thought it was.  Not that it helped me much, but I’ll be keeping an eye out for more such scrolls.

I don’t have any other images from the above game for this post, so here one of me fleeing from an absurdly powerful cadre of monsters on dungeon level 3.  I’d tested out a polymorph wand on a Kobold in the bottom left room, turning it into a series of monsters that were far too strong for me.  The last monster I turned it into before running out of wand charges was the worst possible: a Purple Worm.  So I fled all the way across the dungeon, avoiding monsters and luckily finding the stairs.  It was a narrow escape, not that the character got much further.

The sort of tension that only a roguelike can create.

I expect to post about Haunt on Sunday, but I wouldn’t bank on it.  I run D&D on Saturday nights now, which leaves me pretty knackered the next day.  Plus I’m determined to beat Rogue, and it’s been monopolising all of my gaming time.  I’m not sure how much more content I can eke out of it before winning, and winning seems a long way off.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/rogue-an-obligatory-mid-week-post/

[xornasharama]

When you kill the End Dragon, you get the achievement “Free the End”.

What if the endermen are the twisted souls of the late residents.

What if the End Dragon once was a protector. One of many protectors.

What happened for the End Dragon to turn on those they were protecting? Who knows. Maybe they were greedy. Maybe they went mad. Maybe they suffered the same sickness the Wyverns did, and lashed out in hunger.

Either way, the endermen needed to survive. The chorus fruits could bring them away, but it had side effects. It was only fed to shulkers for a reason.

When the endermen had too many chorus fruit, became reliant upon it, they found themselves porting randomly. The shulkers did this too sometimes, but they had control. The endermen did not.

Eventually, the changes grew greater. Their skin turned smokey, their eyes started glowing, and the teleporting became necessary. If they didn’t teleport, they felt trapped. Cornered. About to be caught by their fallen guardian.

The shulkers, the protectors of the cities, were their last line of defence now. But they couldn’t defend against a dragon. They couldn't move far, couldn't leave their posts.

The shulkers hide. The endemen run.

And still the ender dragon rampages.

Until the Players arrive, that is.

[xornasharama]

Shroomlights. Are they edible?!?! They have shroom in the name so supposedly they’re fungus, but good or bad effects are unknown. Are they a berry or a parasite? Are the nether "trees" trees or fungi? cause they're grown from fungi, but have wood. Shroomlights grow on the nether "trees", and they glow, but why do they need to glow? Nether plants don’t need light, as theres lots of lava 24/7 keeping everything bright and lights useless. Is it a warning? A lure, like lantern fish?

Going back to the first question, ARE THEY EDIBLE?? No matter berry or fungi, they should be edible, so why aren't they Minecraft.

[xornasharama]

Minecraft has zombies and skeletons, zombie horses and skeleton horses, but only zombified piglins. What happened to the piglin skeletons? Calling them all skeletons, while technically correct, would be inaccurate since the bone structure of piglins and humans are different. I suppose you can’t say skelefied piglin, but piglin skeleton works just fine.

That wasn’t what I was going to write about but it came to my mind and won’t leave so you get two for one.

What I was really going to say was do the zombies slowly decay into skeletons? Will all zombies eventually become skeletons? Is there some kind of slowed decay or total freeze? Do they have to undead as they will be forever?

Also, who on earth is reviving all these undead. The sheer numbers each night implies they get renewed each day as the burning stops, so who is going around finding graveyards to rob and reviving all these corpses. Is there a chaotic necromancer on the loose? Is there room for one more?

[xornasharama]

Here’s an idea.

Ever found yourself on fire with no way to put yourself out with water? Aka the nether, or perhaps somehow the End?

Why not use Water Bottle: Splash version!

Carry around an easy way to put out the flames that is compact and will dissipate into air and won’t wash away everything in the vicinity!

[xornasharama]

Do ghasts have tentacles, tails or ribbons? Are they octopus, jellyfish, ghost, balloon?

Could they swim? Do they float or fly?

If they’re an octopus or jellyfish do they need lava to keep from dying? Can they breathe under lava?

If they’re ghosts, what were they before? Did they ever have a life?

If they’re balloons then did they get animated by someone?

[ciathyzareposts]

Rogue: Email Addresses Make Me Nervous Now

Hey, guess what? You’re not going to believe this, but I haven’t beaten Rogue yet.

Okay, so that’s pretty much to be expected.  To be honest, I haven’t even gotten close.  My best efforts saw me getting down to level 19; in one of those I took one step right into an Umber Hulk and died almost instantly, and in the other I teleported away from an Umber Hulk only to be killed by a Xorn.  None of my tactics really seem to be helping, as I’m not reaching the deeper levels with any sort of consistency.  I’m just as likely to get cornered by Centaurs on level 8 as I am to descend further than level 15, and I really hoped I’d be doing better by this point.

So what I’m going to do with this post is lay out all the things that I’ve discovered about the game and try to use that to com up with a battle plan.  I’ll start with the monsters, especially as they might be significantly different to the ones in the commercial version of Rogue that most of you will have played.  There’s not an Emu to be seen here.

A is for Giant Ant.  As far as I can tell, they start appearing on dungeon level 3, and stop appearing after level 12.  Giant Ants are among my most hated enemies in the game, as they have a sting that drains a point from your Strength.  It actually doesn’t hamper your combat effectiveness on the low and mid-levels, but having a high Strength is almost a necessity when stronger enemies start appearing.  There’s a potion that restores your Strength, and I try to keep one to drink as soon as I hit level 13.  There’s no point drinking one before that, because you’re almost guaranteed to get drained again at some point.

B is for Bat.  The weakest enemy in the game, I’ve encountered them between levels 1 and 8.  They don’t attack you directly, but instead just move at random and take the occasional swipe at you.  They’re not dangerous unless you’re already in some dire straits, but they can be difficult to hit.

C is for Centaur.  Centaurs start appearing around level 8, and I’ve encountered them as low as level 17.  For me, Centaurs have been the first real hurdle in the game.  After you gain some XP most of the monsters you fight will be trivial, until the Centaurs show up.  They hit harder than anything encountered previously, and I’ve had a lot of ill-equipped characters go down to them.

D is for Dragon, I seem to recall.  I haven’t encountered one yet.

E is for Floating Eye.  These monsters appear between levels 2 and 11, and are completely non-aggressive.  They just sit there motionless, until you attack them.  You don’t want to let one near you though, because they have a paralysing attack which can leave you helpless for other monsters.  The best tactic is either to ignore them or kill them with missile weapons.

F is for Violet Fungus.  I haven’t recorded the levels that I’ve encountered these on.  Like Floating Eyes they’re stationary, but if you move next to one you won’t be able to move away.  They don’t seem to do a lot of damage, but they do take a lot of hits to kill.  Like the Eyes, they’re best killed from a distance.

G is for Gnome.  I’ve encountered these between level 6 and 15, and they’re among the easiest enemies in the game.  By the time you meet them they’re a trivial nuisance, and you can slaughter them with impunity.

H is for Hobgoblin.  The terrors of level 1.  Before you gain extra hit points, Hobgoblins are the enemies you most want to avoid.  They lose their deadliness once you’ve gained a level or two, but they’re definitely the leading cause of death for low-level characters.

I is for Invisible Stalker.  Again, I haven’t recorded where I’ve met these, but they don’t start showing up until around level 15.  Not that they show up at all, because you can’t see them without the right magic ring.  They hit pretty hard too.

J is for Jackal.  A fairly easy enemy from the first few dungeon levels.

K is for Kobold: Maybe the weakest enemy in the game aside from Bats.  They’re the only other monster that’s only worth 1 experience point.

L is for Leprechaun: These monsters aren’t hostile, and if you attack them all they do in retaliation is steal your gold and disappear.  I suppose that’s a problem if you’re playing for points, but if you’re going for the Amulet of Yendor it’s no big deal.  I always attack them for the potential experience points.

M is for ???  I have no idea yet.

N is for Nymph.  Like the Leprechauns they’re not hostile, but when you attack them they steal one of your magic items.  They’re worth killing though, because they drop items when defeated.  You want to do it with missile weapons though.

O is for Orc.  Another fairly weak enemy that appears in the mid-levels.  They’ve never posed much danger to me.

P is for ??? Another one I haven’t met yet.

Q is for Quasit.  They show up starting around level 10.  They don’t do a lot of damage, but they’re hard to hit, so they can still pose a danger with repeated blows.

R is for Rust Monster. Another hated enemy.  They show up around level 9, and I haven’t gotten far enough to figure out when they stop appearing.  Every hit they land on you worsens your armour by 1 point of Armour Class.  This even works on leather armour, which I thought wasn’t the case; perhaps it’s something that got fixed in a later version.  The only thing to do is take off your armour when you see one, and hope you still have something decent to wear when you hit the lower levels.  Or to just suck it up with an AC of 9 while you keep a good suit of armour in reserve.

S is for Snake.  Another of the weaker low-level enemies.  Not venomous, thankfully.

T is for Troll.  They start appearing on level 14, and when they do you know things are about to get serious.  They hit hard, and they take quite a few hits to kill. I suspect they regenerate hit points, but there’s no way to know for sure.

U is for Umber Hulk.  Of the enemies on the deepest levels, these are the ones I remember hating the most.  When they hit you, they cause confusion, which makes you act at random.  Once that happens it’s game over, as even the strongest characters will go down to three or four hits from an Umber Hulk.  Best avoided at all costs.

V is for Vampire, I think.  I haven’t encountered one yet.

W is for Wraith.  They aren’t too bad, except that sometimes their blows drain your experience points, which lowers your hit points and makes you weaker in general.  You get some, but not all, of these points back when you kill the one that drained you.  Wraiths are best dealt with from a distance.

X is for Xorn.  Alongside Umber Hulks, the high-level enemy that usually cooks my goose.  I’m not sure what abilities they have beyond hitting hard and being tough to kill, but that’s more than enough.

Y is for Yeti.  A mid-level enemy that’s reasonably tough, but nothing to get too worried about unless you’re already beat up.

Z is for Zombie.  Mid-level undead that are usually not much of a problem.

About to be killed by a Xorn.

I’ll list out the magic items I’ve found as well, beginning with the potions.  Whenever I find a potion, I tend to drink it right away so that type will be identified from then on.  There are some detrimental ones, but only one of them is a real inconvenience.

Confusion: Makes you confused when you drink it, but doesn’t last all that long.

Healing.

Extra-Healing: I think there are two levels of healing potion but I’m not certain.

Haste: Makes you faster but wears off after about a half-dozen moves.

Gain Strength: Adds a point to your Strength.  These are best saved for when your Strength is at maximum, or they don’t count towards your total when you use the next potion.

Restore Strength: Brings your Strength back to whatever it’s highest total has been.  Usually that’s 16, but the Gain Strength potion can make it higher.

Monster Detection: Gives you a screenshot of where all the monsters on the dungeon level are.

Blindness: Makes you blind, which is pretty bad.  You can’t see your surroundings, and you have no idea what monsters are attacking you.  It lasts for a while too, although it’s survivable if you drink one on the early to mid levels.

Paralysis: Makes you immobile for a short time, which is normally not a big deal.  I’ve tried throwing them at monsters, but it doesn’t seem to affect them.

Magic Detection: Shows you where the magic items on the level are.

Poison: Knocks a point off your Strength.

Gain Level: You gain an entire experience level, which can be great depending on how much XP you have.  Invariably I drink one when I’m only ten points away from my next level gain, which is pretty annoying.

There’s one potion that tastes like the juice of whatever fruit you specify in the options menu. I have no idea if there’s another effect.

The final potion gives you a “strange feeling”, but otherwise I have no idea what it does.

Drinking a Potion of Gain Strength

These are the rings I’ve found.  Rings have some great effects, but a lot of them cause you to get hungry faster when you wear them, so it’s a trade-off.  I tend not to put them on until I’ve identified them.

Aggravate Monster: I think this one just makes every monster you meet hostile, but most of them are that way anyway.  I don’t know if it makes them stronger at all.

Preserve Strength: Makes it so nothing can drain your Strength score.

Searching: Makes it easier for you to find traps and secret doors.

Blinking: This is a cursed ring that teleports you to a random location on the same level every now and then.  It can be annoying, but it can also be a life-saver.  I’d like to try a run at the deeper dungeon levels while wearing one.

See Invisible: Lets you see Invisible Stalkers.

Slow Digestion: Makes it so you need a lot less food.  You can actually grind for XP once you find one of these.

Increase Damage: I suppose this gives you a bonus to damage dealt, although it could make the monsters do more damage, I have no idea.

Dexterity: Increases your Dexterity, although there are cursed versions that do the opposite. Your Dexterity score isn’t visible, and I have no idea what it affects.  Trap evasion, maybe?

Protection: I’m not sure if this increases your Armour Class or reduces monster damage, but either way it makes you harder to kill.

Strength: Grants a Strength bonus. I don’t know if it can take you over a score of 18.

Scrolls are next.  I tend not to read scrolls until I have an item that’s worth identifying, because I don’t want to risk wasting a Scroll of Identify.

Identify: Tells you what a magic item is.  Maybe one of the most important items in the game.

Light: A one-use item that lights up a dark room.  Not all that helpful.

Enchant Weapon: Grants a +1 bonus to your weapon’s damage or ability to land a hit.

Teleport: Takes you to a random spot on the same dungeon level, which can be a very handy method of escape.

Remove Curse: Lets you remove any cursed items that you’re wearing.

Confusion: Makes your hands glow red. The next blow that you strike will confuse that enemy.  I’d love, just once, to land one of these on an Umber Hulk.

Mapping: Reveals the entire map of the level you’re on.

Enchant Armor: Gives  a +1 AC bonus to the armour you’re wearing.

Detect Gold: Shows you where the gold on the level is.

Sleep: Puts you to sleep for a short time.

Summon Monster: A random monster appears next to you, although I think it limits it to monsters that can actually show up on that level.  At least I think so, because I haven’t summoned a Dragon by accident.

Blank: I read a scroll that was completely blank once, not sure what that’s about.

There are scrolls that, when I read them, make me hear a maniacal laughter in the distance.

Another type of scroll makes a humming noise.

There’s a scroll that makes me feel a pull downwards.  I haven’t figured out any of the last three.

Casting an Enchant Weapon scroll

Finally, the staves and wands.  I’ll give them a test zap when I find one, on the off chance that I can identify it.  If not, I’ll try to test it on a weak enemy.  It wastes charges, but it saves on Identify Scrolls.

Haste Monster: Makes a monster move faster.  Not good.

Light: Lights up the room you’re in.  One of these with a lot of charges is really handy on the lower levels, so that you can see the monsters coming.

Striking: Deals damage to a monster at close range.

Lightning: Damages monsters at range, and rebounds off walls.  I’m reluctant to use these, because I’ve been caught in an infinite loop of lightning rebounds that made the game hang.

Slow Monster: Good for running away, because normally the monsters move at the same rate as you do.

Magic Missile: A ranged attack that doesn’t do a lot of damage.

Polymorph: Transforms a monster into another kind of monster.  Can be great, but can also get you into all sorts of trouble.

There’s also an attack staff that causes tingling when I use it.  I’m not sure what this is.

So that’s the extent of what I’ve discovered about the game.  Looking over it, I think I’ve come up with a list of things that I need to survive on the lower levels.  Good armour is almost a necessity, as is a good weapon: a two-handed sword kills enemies much faster than any other kind of weapon.  A Gain Strength potion is needed, to restore any losses incurred by Giant Ants, or a Ring of Preserve Strength.  Healing potions are also handy, but it can be hard to build up a big store of them.  A Ring of Slow Digestion is an absolute must, as it gives you the luxury to linger on the mid-levels and build up your XP.  I suppose I could also hang about if I happen to have a run where I have over ten meals, which happened to me once. Finally, I think I need a bunch of items to help avoid the toughest monsters: scrolls of teleport, wands of light, and wands of polymorph are all handy for that.  Plus, of course, a few scrolls of Identify so I know what I’m carrying.

Potions of healing, a +3 mace, several options for fleeing and a Ring of See Invisible; this is a pretty good load-out

The smart thing would be for me to keep playing the early dungeon levels, and starting over if my character hasn’t put together a few of the items above.  It would probably save me some time, for sure.  I’m not going to do that just yet, because I’m still having fun just playing the game.  Eventually, though, I think I’ll have to do it in the interests of making some progress on the blog.  I know I spent a year on Moria and The Game of Dungeons, but I don’t want a repeat of those experiences.

And now, finally, I present to you my litany of failures, with a roll call of the adventurers who have perished in the Dungeons of Doom.

Kejakena got killed on level 13 by a Troll.

Nobody VI was killed on level 3 by a Giant Ant, which is a pretty unusual way to go.

Jack Manley made it all the way to level 18 before meeting a Xorn and getting pummeled to death.  As with all Jack Manley appearances on this blog, this is strictly non-canon as far as my novels are concerned.

Nobody VII was paralysed by a Floating Eye, which caused the game to hang.

Sparhawk was softened up by a procession of Centaurs and Quasits, and finally succumbed to a Zombie on level 7.

Robilar had a two-handed sword and two Rings of Increase Damage, but that didn’t stop a Troll on level 14 from eating him.

Nobody VIII and Nobody IX both got killed by Hobgoblins on level 1 of the dungeon.  The curse of the Nobody family strikes again.

Mordenkainen got cornered between two Centaurs on level 8.

Nobody X became a credit to his ancestors by making it all the way down to level 19 before being confused and killed by an Umber Hulk.  His many descendants will come to avenge him.

Tenser got cornered between two Centaurs on level 12, a common fate for characters with names taken from the original Greyhawk campaign it seems.

Kael got cornered between two Centaurs.  It was a good day for the Centaurs, that’s for sure.

Nobody XI failed to avenge his father by getting killed by a Hobgoblin on level 1.

Nobb died on level 14 because I held down the space bar to search for a secret door at the end of a tunnel.  I found one, but the Centaur behind it got a load of free hits and killed me.

Nobody XII was killed by a Zombie on level 8.

Nobody XIII was killed by a Centaur on level 8.

Bain got to level 19 with the inventory you see above, and a Strength of 18.  I was pretty hopeful, but it went wrong when I got confused by an Umber Hulk. I teleported away to escape, but while I was waiting out the confusion I was cornered by a Xorn.  You can still use items when confused, so I tried to last with healing potions until I could fight back, but it wasn’t enough.

That’s been 30 characters so far, with little signs of improvement.  Six of those deaths were on level 1, and six were on level 8: that ramp-up in difficulty that comes with the Centaurs has taken its toll.  After that, levels 14 and 16 have killed three adventurers each, levels 12 and 19 have claimed two, and a whole bunch of levels have claimed one.

It was worth a shot.

I’ll definitely keep plugging away at Rogue, but I don’t intend to make that the sole focus of the blog.  There’s good news on the Futurewar front, as the creator answered my message and has fixed the bug that was stopping me from descending.  I don’t want to play two long-running CRPGs with perma-death at the same time though, so I’m putting that on hold until I beat Rogue.  That makes my next game Space II, the sequel to sci-fi RPG/trading sim Space.  That should be a short one, and I’ll probably have a post on it up by Sunday.  I’ve also got a post lined up for the TRS-80 version of Temple of Apshai, so never fear: the content will keep on flowing.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/rogue-email-addresses-make-me-nervous-now/

[xornasharama]

I told my dad about this theory (and had to explain the minecraft dimensions) and he went "The Overworld is on the back of a giant turtle, and the Nether is it's stomach."

I have no arguments. Minecraft is a giant turtle now.

What if the nether is the stomach of a giant creature...

Just like Tartarus from the Greek myths, the Nether is a giant being, like a titan or something else...

The Nether is massive caverns and fire, with an impenetrable roof and oceans of lava. The netherrack is the stomach lining, and the bedrock is the stronger layer of cells. The lava is stomach acid x20.

There are giant bones in the soulsand valleys, larger creatures that were eaten before the giant stopped feasting. Ancient Debris are metals that were melted and turned into an alloy during the digestion of the wielders.

And plants can't survive in extreme heat, so fungi is the only thing that can grow there. Giant Fungi for the giant stomach. and the smaller nether fungi are the baby fungi, which is already kinda true...

And, it's home to monsters. Not many, but there are monsters!