Rounding out my transmogs for the five dragonflights, here’s a mage set for the earthy, fiery black dragonflight.
If you like this one, you can check out my previous efforts for the blue, red, bronze, and green flights.
Image: World of Warcraft screencap
Of Dice and Dragons talks about games and gaming.
Thoughts in no particular order but grouped thematically. Spoiler warnings in effect!
Characters
Erik’s thoughts:
Eppu’s thoughts:
Story
Eppu’s thoughts:
Erik’s thoughts:
Visuals
Erik’s thoughts:
Eppu’s thoughts:
Concepts
Eppu’s thoughts:
Erik’s thoughts:
Nitpicks
Erik’s thoughts:
Eppu’s thoughts:
Image via IMDB
In Seen on Screen, we discuss movies and television shows of interest.
Continuing with my project to make dragon-themed transmog sets for the five flights, I have a druid of the green dragonflight. Here’s what went into the set.
Image: World of Warcraft screencap
Of Dice and Dragons talks about games and gaming.
Want to add some color to your tabletop role-playing games? Here’s a quick method to roll up a random tavern, complete with name, atmosphere, staff, and even the potential for some side stories to shake up your ongoing plot.
First, to name your tavern, roll a d20 twice to get two numbers between 1 and 20. Apply the following adjustment for the quality of the establishment to each number to get two final results between -2 and 23.
| Quality | Adjustment |
| Squalid | -3 |
| Poor | -2 |
| Common | -1 |
| Average | 0 |
| Nice | +1 |
| Fine | +2 |
| Exquisite | +3 |
Find the result of your two rolls on the table below. You can either name your tavern “The Adjective Noun” or “The Noun and Noun.”
Let’s say you’re making a poor tavern and you roll a 9 and a 2. You subtract 2 from the results to get 7 and 0. That gives you The Grim Snake, The Dead Sailor, or The Snake and Sailor (or Sailor and Snake), whichever one sounds best for your setting. If you’re making a fine tavern and you roll a 6 and a 15, those become 8 and 17, giving you The Lost Hero, The Cheerful Hare, or The Hare and Hero / Hero and Hare. (Of course, reroll or adjust if you’re not happy with any of the results.)
| Roll | Adjective | Noun |
| -2 | Hanged | Rat |
| -1 | Drowned | Thief |
| 0 | Dead | Snake |
| 1 | Drunk | Outlaw |
| 2 | Dizzy | Badger |
| 3 | Tipsy | Shepherd |
| 4 | Lazy | Dog |
| 5 | Thirsty | Drover |
| 6 | Hungry | Cat |
| 7 | Grim | Sailor |
| 8 | Lost | Hare |
| 9 | Lonely | Tailor |
| 10 | Wandering | Lamb |
| 11 | Quiet | Rider |
| 12 | Stout | Bull |
| 13 | Drowsy | Knight |
| 14 | Merry | Deer |
| 15 | Lucky | Curate |
| 16 | Cozy | Stag |
| 17 | Cheerful | Hero |
| 18 | Dancing | Lion |
| 19 | Winsome | Prince / Princess |
| 20 | Flying | Peacock |
| 21 | Blessed | Sovereign |
| 22 | Glorious | Unicorn |
| 23 | Regal | Dragon |
Now that you have a name, the next thing to do is roll up the atmosphere and staff. For this roll a d6 and apply the same adjustments for quality.
| Roll | Atmosphere and staff |
| -2 | A rickety old hovel, half falling down, with rotten floorboards and vermin scuttling just out of sight. The staff is surly and suspicious of outsiders. |
| -1 | A dilapidated shanty with broken windows. The wind whistles through chinks in the walls and rain soaks through the uneven thatch of the roof. The staff is gloomy and unhelpful. |
| 0 | A ramshackle place knocked together from an old barn and its outbuildings. The staff is tired and rude. |
| 1 | A worn-out house that’s seen better days; the furniture is unsteady, and the curtains are faded. The staff is harried and disagreeable; they respond to the needs of their guests, but slowly and with lots of grumbling. |
| 2 | A modest establishment with good ale and decent food, but the furnishings are old and threadbare, the beds are uncomfortable, and the walls are thin. The staff is capable but does not take initiative and is hard to get moving. |
| 3 | An old but tidy farmhouse adapted to hosting travelers; everything inside is worn but well cared for. The staff is polite and proud of their inn, but they have limited resources to work with. |
| 4 | A plain but cozy little inn; most of the guests are regulars from the local countryside who come here to see old friends and enjoy familiar comforts after a hard day’s work. The staff is cheerful and helpful, but often distracted by conversations with regulars. |
| 5 | A comfortable and well-kept place; the furnishings are new and pleasant, but not expensive. The staff is proud of their tavern; they are gracious to guests who appear well-to-do, but brusque with any visitors who seem poor or unkempt. |
| 6 | A charming old-fashioned tavern that has been run by the same family for generations; many of the furnishings are heirlooms passed down from the original owners. The staff knows the full history of the inn and will share interesting historical tidbits at the drop of a hat, but doesn’t know much else. |
| 7 | A new establishment, recently built with all the modern conveniences, comfortable rooms, and excellent food. The staff is eager to advertise and encourages guests to spread the word. |
| 8 | A luxurious retreat, built in the style of distant lands and filled with imported luxuries; exotic spices flavor the food and vintage wines fill the cellars. The staff performs elaborate courtesies with an affected air, but are also expert at discreetly fulfilling guests’ wishes, even the more unusual ones. |
| 9 | A palatial lodging built with cut and polished stone, gilded everywhere; the furnishings are immaculate antiques, and the serving wares are the finest porcelain and silver. The staff is highly competent, discreet and unflappable, accustomed to both accommodating the whims of wealthy clients and being handsomely rewarded for their service. |
If you want to add a little extra drama to your characters’ stay at the tavern, you can also roll up a little side story with a d6, applying the same modifier for the quality of the place. How your players deal with this added drama is up to them.
| Roll | Drama |
| -2 | A gang of brigands is dividing up the loot from their latest raid in a corner of the common room. They suspect the player characters may be hunting them, so they try to look innocent, which only makes them look more suspicious. They are likely to react with violence if challenged. |
| -1 | A young traveler spots the player characters and thinks they recognize the person who killed their parents and against whom they swore vengeance. (They may or may not be correct, depending on your party’s backstories and adventuring habits.) |
| 0 | The kitchen catches fire in a cooking accident, and the guests are called upon to help evacuate the inn and fight the blaze. |
| 1 | A very large, very drunk patron spills their drink on one of the player characters and gets belligerent demanding the character buy them a new drink. |
| 2 | The innkeeper accuses the player characters of trying to pay with counterfeit coins. Depending on the setting, local law enforcement may or may not get involved before everything can be sorted out. |
| 3 | A smuggler, on the run from the law, attempts to slip some of their contraband into the player characters’ baggage. |
| 4 | A spy in the service of the player characters’ enemies is staying at the same inn. In their haste to get away before the party notices them, they accidentally leave behind some evidence that helps the party on their current quest. |
| 5 | Two young nobles from rival houses are staying at the inn under false names, having run away from their families together. They fear that the player characters may recognize them, so they take steps to evade, eliminate, or ingratiate themselves with the party. |
| 6 | One of the player characters recognizes a familiar taste in the cooking and discovers that someone from their past is working in the kitchen. Whether the reunion is a happy or tense one is up to you and the player. |
| 7 | One of the staff falls into hero worship of one of the player characters and hangs around making starry eyes at them and being generally awkward but harmless. They may be persuaded to do something to help out their newfound hero. |
| 8 | The player characters are mistaken for visiting dignitaries from an important neighboring power and find themselves besieged by petitioners and sycophants. |
| 9 | A wandering prophet recognizes the player characters and offers to share valuable information about their current quest in exchange for picking up the prophet’s rather hefty bar tab. |
Image: Interior of a Tavern, with Cardplayers and a Violin Player, via Wikimedia (currently Royal Collection, UK; c. 1695; oil on canvas; by Jan Steen)
Of Dice and Dragons talks about games and gaming.
My next dragon-themed transmog is for the bronze dragonflight. Here’s my hunter in mail with a scaly bronze theme and some dragony accessories. You can see the gear here.
You can check out my previous transmogs for the blue and red dragonflights, too.
Image: World of Warcraft screencap
Of Dice and Dragons is an occasional feature about games and gaming.
A couple of weeks ago I shared my blue dragonflight themed paladin transmog. Here’s a warrior set for the red dragonflight. This shield doesn’t breathe fire, but it is pleasingly dragony.
Image: World of Warcraft screencap
Of Dice and Dragons is an occasional feature about games and gaming.
With Dragonflight on the horizon, I’ve been messing around with some dragon-themed transmogs. Hopefully the next expansion will give us some great new dragony appearances, but in the meantime, here’s my set for a paladin of the blue dragonflight.
The shield even breathes fire! Here’s the Wowhead dressing room link if you want to look up any of the pieces.
Image: World of Warcraft screencap
Of Dice and Dragons is an occasional feature about games and gaming.
We recently rewatched the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s been a fair few years since we last saw it, which is long enough to forget a lot of details, so there was pleasure in rediscovering some of what made the show so good. A few random thoughts inspired by our rewatch.
To begin with, we can’t avoid the fact that Joss Whedon has now been exposed as an entitled sex pest who created a hostile and unsafe working environment on his shows. This knowledge casts a pall over our enjoyment of the show and gives an ugly tint to some of the character interactions. Xander’s puerile lusting after Buffy or Buffy’s teen crush on a two-century-old vampire are harder to stomach knowing what Whedon was up to behind the scenes. It’s not impossible to enjoy the show now, but we have more than the usual amount of disbelief to suspend.
There are other things that require a little indulgence as well. The series is twenty years old, and it shows. The special effects don’t hold up particularly well, the stunts are a bit obvious, and the pop culture references have not all aged gracefully. Still, that’s par for the course when going back to something older, and we can’t hold it against the show.
Other things date the series, too. It is a clear product of third-wave feminism, with its insistence that girly girls can be strong and don’t need boyish boys to protect them, but the series still can’t fathom the idea that girls don’t need to be girly or boys boyish at all. The overwhelming whiteness of the cast is also hard to ignore—it takes seven seasons before we get a person of color as even a side member of the cast. The show was notable at the time for showing a happy, loving queer relationship; it is notable now for crushing that relationship for the sake of drama.
Those things being said, though, Buffy is much better than I remember. The early seasons hold up quite well. The characters are well developed, the dialogue snaps, and the jokes mostly land. The central conceit of taking the challenges and frustrations of young adulthood and turning them into literal demons is just as much fun to watch now as it was then. The idea of a young woman who needs no saving but can kick monster butt all on her own is not as revolutionary now as when the series first aired, but it’s still satisfying to see a woman whose heroism is not the product of overcoming weakness but of embracing strength.
I find it hard to remember how good the first few seasons are because my memory of the show is tainted by the failings of the last few seasons. The show lost something when it turned away from the monster-of-the-week-as-coming-of-age-metaphor formula in season five and went hard into dramatic arc territory with the mystery of Dawn, Glory, and Ben. Season six has its good and bad points: the good point is the musical episode “Once More With Feeling;” the bad points are everything else. The early episodes of season seven recover some of the magic of the early series by focusing on the friendships of the main cast, but those are soon sacrificed to the First Evil arc that drags on for most of the season.
Many fans have their own personal cutoff points where they choose to mentally end the series. The end of season three is a popular one and makes sense; there is great satisfaction in watching the senior class of Sunnydale High School pull together to slay a powerful demon, and the end of high school makes a natural end point for the show. The end of season five is also a popular contender, with Buffy sacrificing herself to save her sister and the world. For myself, I choose the end of season four. The season has its weaknesses, but I enjoy the early episodes that take the monster-of-the-week approach to adjusting to college life. The ending that sees Buffy and the Scoobies tap into the primal power of the slayer brings a nice conclusion to the themes of friendship, courage in the face of life’s horrors, and Buffy’s ambivalence about her calling that animated the early seasons. In fact, I now wish that the geek trio of season six had been the villains of season four instead of Adam and the Initiative. The trio’s overt goofiness was always an odd fit in the bleak season six, and their refusal to grow up could have made for an interesting counterpoint to Buffy and the gang’s rocky but earnest transition into adulthood. Ah well—these are such things as fanfic is made of.
When we were packing up our house for our big transatlantic move last year, I was considering getting rid of our Buffy DVDs. Now I’m glad we didn’t. It was a pleasure to rediscover the joys of the early seasons, despite all the show’s other problems.
Image: Buffy cast photo via IMDb
In the Seen on Screen occasional feature, we discuss movies and television shows of interest.
People have long been fascinated by dreams and seen them as potential sources of meaning and insight. While today we focus on dreams as potential windows into our unconscious minds, ancient peoples often thought of dreams as a potential channel to the supernatural. Ancient Greeks produced complex manuals for interpreting the symbolism of dream images as a way of understanding the gods and predicting the future.
In that context, it is interesting to see evidence for a more rational, grounded approach to dreams. This passage comes from Herodotus’ account of how King Xerxes of Persia decided to invade Greece. After debating the merits of the proposed campaign with his court and deciding against it, Xerxes repeatedly dreamt of a shadowy figure that demanded he carry on with the attack. When Xerxes brought up this dream to his uncle Artabanus, Artabanus offered a level-headed interpretation:
Now when you have come around to a better way of thinking, you say that although you have decided to abandon the expedition against Greece, you are visited by a dream from some god forbidding you from giving up on the plan. But there is nothing divine in this, my boy. I have many years on you, so I’ll teach you what recurring dreams like this are about: the things we see in our dreams are usually the things we have had on our minds during the day, and in recent days we have been concentrating on this campaign.
Herodotus, Histories 7.16b
(My own translation)
Now, in Herodotus’ narrative, it turns out that Artabanus was wrong and Xerxes really was being visited by some divine force prompting him to carry on with the invasion plan, but the fact that Herodotus could put that argument into Artabanus’ voice tells us that the idea was part of the contemporary conversation in the Greek world. Indeed, Artabanus generally figures in Herodotus’ work as a wise and perceptive counselor whose advice Xerxes would have done well to heed. Giving this argument to Artabanus gives it a significant weight as an idea, even in a cultural context where people were inclined to see dreams as messages from the gods.
Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.
The pyramids of Egypt may be famous, but they’re not the only pyramids to serve as royal tombs.
The region of Nubia lies along the upper Nile in modern-day southern Egypt and northern Sudan. The kingdom of Kush flourished here for a millennium and a half, even dominating Egypt for a century as the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty. Kushites had a long history of war, trade, and diplomacy with Egypt, including incorporating elements of Egyptian art and architecture into their own culture. Like all such cultural borrowings, the Kushites did not simply imitate what they had seen in Egypt but reimagined and innovated on those ideas to suit their own needs.
In Egypt, Kushite visitors would have seen the massive ancient stone pyramids of the early kings still famous today. They would also have seen small, steep-sided brick pyramids that were popular in later times as tomb markers for wealthy families. In their royal cemeteries in Nubia, Kushite rulers combined these forms to create stone pyramids much larger than the private monuments in contemporary Egypt, though not as large as the great pyramids of early pharaohs. These pyramids had steep sides, rising high over narrow bases. Many also had passages leading inside at ground level marked with monumental gates, a feature not found in Egyptian pyramids. While the major pyramids of Egypt were almost all built for kings, some of the largest Kushite pyramids were built for queens. These tombs drew on Egyptian ideas, but interpreted those ideas in a new way, marking the kings and queens of Kush as both connected to Egypt but also distinct.
The custom of building tombs in this style took hold in Nubia. Despite the depredations of modern treasure hunters, there are, in fact, about twice as many Nubian pyramids still standing today as Egyptian. They are are a remarkable piece of world heritage and a fascinating example of the adaptation and reinvention of one culture’s ideas in the hands of another.
Out There is an occasional feature highlighting intriguing art, spaces, places, phenomena, flora, and fauna.
Co-Geeking 
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