#stardock

[piccogirl]

Hey...sshhh... I try to give Jerath a face. You know? That blinded Githyanki from Crèche K'liir. That one, which is playing the lute!

[savingcontent]

Sins of a Solar Empire II, the long-awaited 4X RTS sequel releases onto Steam on August 15th

Continue reading Sins of a Solar Empire II, the long-awaited 4X RTS sequel releases onto Steam on August 15th

[brutalgamer]

Acclaimed strategy game Sins of the Solar Empire returns this summer for part II

Publisher Stardock’s sci-fi strategy series is back. Sins of a Solar Empire II arrives on the PC this summer.

[wanderingnork]

Losing my entire goddamn mind about the Stardock writeup in “Dungeon of the Mad Mage.” Lae’zel grew up in an absolutely *terrifying* environment. An asteroid where your choices are to go outside and walk around in a tiny air envelope or stay inside where there’s no natural light. A portal direct to a dungeon with illithids inside. A commander who’s cruel and manipulative even by githyanki standards.

That she’s even functional is all is incredible, and that she can grow so far beyond this is frankly heroic.

[irodethecyclone]

I LOVE SPACE I LOVE SPACE 💯 🔥🔥🔥🔥

[secretgalaxyhologram]

Stardock Start11 1.4.7 Crack is software to customize the start menu and the taskbars of windows, especially for Windows 10 and Windows 11.

[gunvewor]

How to disable stardock deskscapes

How to disable stardock deskscapes plus#

Playlists are just one of the fun and fantastic features in DeskScapes 11.

How to disable stardock deskscapes plus#

In theory, since I work with 2 monitors, I could have 2 different playlists running, one on each, plus a separate one for my screensaver.Īm I extra enough for that? Yeah, probably. You can also choose to apply the playlist as a screensaver. If you work with multiple monitors, DeskScapes gives you the fantastic option of applying different wallpapers - and, now, playlists! - to each of them. There are plenty of options to suit your preferred speed! You can set it to change only when you login/reapply, every 30 seconds, every few minutes, every hour, and so on. Once you’ve imported all of the images or videos you’d like to use in your playlist, it’s time to choose how often it will cycle from one thing to the next. If you have an entire folder worth of pictures or backgrounds you’d like the playlist to cycle through, you can add an entire folder to the playlist. TIP: If you’re not sure where a background saved to, you can check it in DeskScapes by selecting the background and looking at the file directory listed to the right of the thumbnail image. If you’re going to use backgrounds you’ve downloaded from DeskScapes, make sure you know the folder directory they’re all saving in so that you can add them here. You have a few options here - you can import backgrounds one at a time, selecting from different folders. Once you name your playlist, it will appear in the menu below and you can edit it. If you already have some playlists made, they’ll appear there - but for our purposes, let’s select “Create New Playlist” and go from there. Go to the “Playlists” tab on the main menu of DeskScapes. Once you’ve found some backgrounds you like - either from your personal camera or from within the app - you’re ready to move onto the next step. There’s also a section that keeps track of all the backgrounds you’ve favorited so that you can find them easily when you need them. You can browse via categories, popular author, and by latest updated or uploaded. If you want to use backgrounds other than personal photographs or videos, you can browse the entire WinCustomize library right from within the DeskScapes app. You can also select and deselect folders from this menu to control what shows up on your DeskScapes UI. Go to the “Manage Folders” option and once you open that menu, choose the “Add…” option to put a new folder on the menu. Then, on the main menu, click on “Settings” down at the bottom. First and foremost, you’ll want to make sure that all of your pictures you’ll want to use are easily accessible in a Folder on your PC. That’s great, and there’s an easy way to access them in DeskScapes. There are thousands of backgrounds to choose from on, but maybe you have a few hundred photos from that awesome trip you took, or that family reunion you visited that you’d like to use. If you’re going to start a playlist, it makes sense to start with having an idea in mind of what backgrounds you’d like to include in it. Let’s go through a few of the settings and get you on your way to setting up your own background playlists. I usually will manually change out my desktop background a few times a month or so - but now I don’t have to! I have a lot of interests and things that I love, so sometimes choosing just one of something is tough for me. In the newest version of our popular customization app, you can set different backgrounds - both animated and static - to a playlist that will cycle in and out at intervals of your choice. DeskScapes 11 is currently in beta and although there are a lot of fantastic new features, one in particular is my personal favorite: playlists.

[spicyraeman]

You can't convince me lae'zel never once got caught up looking at Toril from the docks of k'liir, that she never sat there in awe looking at a sea of stars and Toril front and center after weeks of training in the dark caverns of Stardock

[piccogirl]

[savingcontent]

Beta 3 of Early Access 4X game Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova Edition is now live on Steam

[vintagerpg]

Well that sure is a butt-tastic cover, huh? Struggling to not make a “dying from exposure” joke. More than the general lack of clothing, I think the most troubling thing about this painting, by Stephen Venters, is that fellow’s metal loincloth. That thing looks deeply uncomfortable with or without the frigid wind of a mountaintop.

Anyway, this is Pinnacle (1986) and we’ve reached the last batch of Role Aids adventures. That might be for the best? After this it’s…all down hill. Ugh, I hate me, too, don’t worry.

But yea, this is about a race to climb to the top of an unclimbable mountain. It immediately reminds me of Fritz Leiber’s “Stardock,” but also the recent RuneQuest adventure “Pegasus Plateau,” which I feel must be inspired in some way by this. There is more to the mountain than punishing elements and weird magical storms, though. There’s an ancient ruined city and a dreaming titan thing and a secret assassin factory? I really didn’t see one of those things coming. The whole mountain is hollow, too. Players are gonna be so pissed when they get to the top, wander inside and find the elevator.

There is a whole lot of intrigue too. The sponsors of the climb have hidden motives, the assassin factory folks have secrets that they wish to keep secret. There are rival climbers, too — the reward is 100k gold pieces to whoever reaches the summit, so expect lots of bedchamber scorpions ahead of the climb.

The investigative system is really just a set of rumor charts, so that’s a little underwhelming. Otherwise, a solid adventure. The climb is a pretty unique character test, and the subsequent encounters, while over the top (there is an assassin in a cake!), should be satisfying. A top shelf Role Aid.

[riobhca-of-the-north]

Some more datamined cut content from BG3 :D Digging through the dialouge files is fun. This bit of dialouge was from Raphael. The Monitor/Monitor was his name during development. There's still some flags associated with Raphael that are still called Monitor like this line from Korilla when you get drugged by Priestess Gut and she saves you:

Korrilla: The honourable Raphael. He's terribly excited about you… and your condition. (GLO_TheMonitor_HasMet_TheMonitor)

This particular line of dialouge I think was supposed to play in Act 1 - from the tone the placeholder dialouge has it looks like Raphael was trying to stir division in the party while it was still new.

Raphael would try and reveal each of the Origin companions' secrets: Shadowheart: worships Shar Astarion: vampire Wyll: warlock cast out by his father

Gale: Netherese Orb Karlach isn't mentioned here, and neither are the cut Origins Helia/Minsc.

The only one I can't figure out is Lae'zel's. Out of all the Origins, her and Karlach don't really have a deep secret like the others. Maybe it's her expressing doubts about Vlaakith? Might make sense since she's from Stardock - Creche K'liir was led by Urlon, who was a member of the Sha'sal Khou. (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Urlon) The Sha'sal Khou was a organization dedicated to reuniting the githyanki and githzerai into one Gith people. Urlon helps to kill Al'chaia (the previous leader of Stardock/K'liir) and sets about turning Creche K'liir into a base where both githyanki and githzerai can live in peace. Doesn't this sound like what happens to Lae'zel if she completes the game on the Orpheus path? She goes and tries to make an alliance between the githyanki rebels and the githzerai. And Orpheus does make a lot of points that agrees with the Sha'sal Khou in the Epilouge, if he survives - The First Protocol (https://bg3.wiki/wiki/The_First_Protocol) states that "All who call themselves gith shall unite under one sky." Also, when you meet Vlaakith in the creche, she mentions Urlon by name as well as his predecesor, Al'chaia. They're never mentioned again through. Would they have been more important to the story? Or were they turned into what the Orpheus path is in the final game? This is pure speculation on my part, but could Lae'zel's secret be that she was part of the Sha'sal Khou? Or at the least symphatic to their cause? I'd be interested in knowing your thoughts. I think if I was right about the Sha'sal Khou thing, it would make the whole 360 from Vlaakith to Orpheus make more sense to me. Thanks for reading folks! I should have some more stuff uploaded soon. Hope you all have a wonderful day, whereever you may be! :D Filename: Campfire_Moments/CAMP_Monitor_AvD_RevealPartySecrets

[jvluso]

Does House Baenre have a spelljammer? The only time in the game when Lae'zel refers to Creche Ka'liir as Stardock is when talking to Minthara, and I have no clue why.

[tunarath]

i like to imagine that ilu has met lae'zel before during one of her trips to stardock. ilu patting a curious baby lae'zel, who is totally enamored by this kith'rak, on the head and giving her a little trinket that she has kept all this time. and then when they meet again on the nautiloid, lae'zel's impressions of her just shatter lmao lae'zel is SO annoyed by ilu constantly. local kith'rak is a pain in the ass

lae'zel: why did you come to my creche all those years ago, ilu?

ilu: i was just saying hello to urlon

lae'zel:

lae'zel: no... tell me you didn't...

[swanmay-that-got-away]

Fritz Leiber Was Always a Creep

I gotta hashtag cancel a dead man. I feel like I've talked about this before but I can't find the post so, shrug.

So there is this widespread idea among Sword and Sorcery fans who desperately want to reconcile their love of Leiber with the fact that he wrote some genuinely grotesque things in his books. The idea is, Leiber only wrote more pedoshit after his first wife died and his alcoholism got worse. And this isn't to say that topics like rape and child abuse and formative traumas are not things we should write about. They are, but I would submit to you, Leiber is pretty blatantly fantasizing with his self-inserts. Leiber isn't saying anything about the human condition here, or giving you an arena to contemplate your relationship with the topic. This is not Lolita, folks, this is just an old man who thinks preteens are hot.

So the refrain you always hear is "Oh Leiber really suffered from Alcoholism and his later works get really gross because of it. It's a shame because he was so great before." And I need to point out to those people that that timeline of events doesn't make sense. Leiber joined AA in 1957 or so, and there was a marked increase in his drinking in 1969 when his first wife died. Here are some of the stories he wrote during his active alcoholism:

Bazaar of the Bizarre

Lean Times in Lankhmar

Stardock

The Swords of Lankhmar

Here are some of the books he wrote during his worst drinking period:

The Snow Women

Ill Met in Lankhmar

Rime Isle

You will notice that these are all some of his best stories. Basically, if the story is good but it wasn't in Swords Against Death specifically, he wrote it while he was in his alcoholism mode. The Leiber you love is not divorceable from his alcoholism period. This is not by itself an issue. It's a disease like any other. Being an alcoholic does not make you a bad person automatically, holy shit, it makes you a person who is ill and needs assistance.

But the specific cause of the "later alcoholism = gross stories" idea comes mainly from the fact that Knight and Knave of Swords gets really pedophilic. I'm reading Swords of Lankhmar (written 20 years previous) right now, and let me tell you, it's been here the whole fucking time. Swords of Lankhmar is 1968 and Fafhrd AND Mouser are already openly wishing there were children for them to fuck. It certainly becomes more prominent in the half of the story Leiber wrote post-1969 alcoholism increase, but it was always there. Kind of like how the misogyny was always there, The Snow Women was dinosaur-tier misogynistic even by 1970 standards. He was always like this, at LEAST as early as 1962, when he retroactively decided Mouser's pedophilia was caused by a traumatic incident involving his childhood love interest dying in front of him (in the same incident that made Mouser give up magic).

Leiber was a great and influential writer to the Fantasy genre, the Pulp genre, and specifically Swords and Sorcery. He also wrote his beloved self-insert characters as pedophiles for almost 30 years. You can like the story even though it has gross parts. I think we all have favorites with gross parts. Just, let's not pretend it didn't happen, OK?