A hit, a palpable hit.

I am off hunting swordsmen, so of course I can only find heralds. This morning, I decided to ensorcell my baby blue kakore runestaff. It was a good choice.

>incant 719
You trace an intricate sign that contorts in the air while
forcefully invoking Dark Catalyst…
Your spell is ready.
You gesture at a putrefied Citadel herald.
CS: +325 – TD: +280 + CvA: +17 + d100: +48 == +110
Warding failed!
… and hits for 11 points of damage!
A putrefied Citadel herald is suddenly engulfed in flames of pure
essence!
… 25 points of damage!
Flames incinerate right leg to the bone. Not a pleasant sight.
It is knocked to the ground!
… 15 points of damage!
The Citadel herald’s left arm trembles with the cold.
… 20 points of damage!
Heavy shock to left leg. Gonna limp for awhile.
… 25 points of damage!
Strong blow to chest!
You feel 5 mana surge into you!

Necrotic energy from your kakore runestaff overflows into you!
You feel energized!
Your kakore runestaff flares with a burst of flame!
… 15 points of damage!
Burst of flames chars neck a crispy black.
You hear a sound like a weeping child as a white glow separates itself
from the Citadel herald’s body as it rises, disappearing into the heavens.
A putrefied Citadel herald writhes on the ground then spits, “This
cannot be defeat…” before lying motionless.
The very powerful look leaves a putrefied Citadel herald.
The white light leaves a putrefied Citadel herald.
The dim aura fades from around a putrefied Citadel herald.
A white glow rushes away from a putrefied Citadel herald.
A putrefied Citadel herald seems slightly different.
A putrefied Citadel herald seems hesitant.
Cast Roundtime 3 Seconds.

I tagged him with DC which triggered a flare from my kakore staff and then an ensorcellment flare. I wish someone had been there to applaud.

Runestaff Collection for Gemstone IV

Magarven is lucky. He has found three rune staves in three weeks, bringing his collection to 4 four.

He first is a blackened orase runestaff, which is +20 and ensorcelled.

The second is a deringo runestaff that carries two different enhancements. It adds +2 to my mana and +6 to Dexterity. It has an odd bonus of +14. It is currently fully charged.

The third is a baby blue kakore runestaff, which adds to my mana regeneration. It is also ensorcelled. This one has bonus of +9 and flares with fire.

The last and most recent discovery is a banded faewood runestaff. It does not appear to have any special statistics other than the +20 to defense.

Pretty soon I will need a golf bag for all of my staves.

Tips and Tricks - Enhansive Items in Gemstone IV

There is a quick trick to figuring out if an item has a temporary enhancive bonus. Take it to the Adeventurer’s Guild and attempt to recharge it. Not only does this detect an enhancive you might not know about, he will tell you if it is full or not.

River's Rest - Ships and Dust Background Information

I was wondering why there was so much dust in River’s Rest. It turns out that River’s Rest is modeled on Andalusia in Spain.

Andalusia is a mediterranean climate and experiences both torrential rains and cool dry spells. This was revealed by Scribes on the forum.

Perhaps the image on the left is the hills where the Kakore was harvested for my runestaff.

I think it is wonderful.

The current descriptions go back to Bradach and Jineer. They gave the town a dry and dusty flavor, with vague hints of Middle Eastern Culture. I would describe it as Moorish, but Middle Eastern fits, too.

Another possible easter egg in the town is the inexplicable model ship available at Bertha’s. It might have been modeled on the ship in MYST, however no clear evidence of this exists. There is a couple of ships in the River’s Rest environ’s, so this could be completely independent of the MYST ship.

Analytics Rots the Soul

Stepping behind
my own curtain

According to Google, I have about 2000 page views a month. My target is a modest 3000 views a month. These are not thousands of individual people, several thousand times that someone comes to the site to read something. Fair enough, I think is a good measure.

But what are they reading?

According to the stats, my readers aren't reading much about me. My top 5 posts, in order are:

Google Docs Templates for D&D
Book Review - A Brief Study of TSR Book Design
The 3 Toadstools and #tenmonstersetting
Module Review - BSOLO Ghost of Lion Castle
Zero to Hero: Uncommon Commoners - Update - We are live!

The first is about  Benjamin Connell’s 3.5 Character Sheet, which I love for my D&D campaigns. The second is a review of Kevin Crawford's history of D&D books, the typography, style and page layouts. This was extraordinary helpful for my self-published books. The 3 Toadstool post was about Shane Ward's excellent campaign icebreaker experiment, Chris Hall's expansion. The ideas totally invigorated my creativity to produce new content for my campaign and my books. Ghost of Lion Castle was a solo adventure by TSR, which was a favorite of mine on rainy days. The final post is all about my first book.

So what?

3000 page views a month is not much of a goal. But to get there, I have understand my audience. If my goal was to convert every reader to a book purchaser, I am a total failure.

But was that ever my goal? I've been doing this since 2012 but didn't write my first book until 2018. That book was born out of the frustration of dealing with an accident at work, not any desire to... you know... make money or gain fame.

I've posted links to my books and thrown up some ads to make the website pay for itself, which is working. I have DriveThruRPG hosting files to mostly free titles I have written (I hate file hosting myself) which is also working. But going forward, I mean to be a part of the gaming community. My purpose isn't to make money or gain fame, but to transmit great ideas to the larger community.

In the month of August, I am bring out two new titles, which are totally tangential to the These Old Games. I mean to update and bring back 52 Weeks of Magic, which is a highly enjoyable activity even though it doesn't generate webhits. But most of all, I mean to write about all the things that are happening in this community.

At some point, I became a service provider, a place to read about all of the wonderful ideas from across the web.  Its time to fully embrace that.

Wish me luck!