Forgive My Brevity, but This Needs Saying.

No matter how much you prepare, no matter how great the challenge is, your players will find a way to do things you never imagined possible. I say that as a Dungeon Master who built a room with a clever trap and my players dug a tunnel around it instead of going through it. I set a Giant to guard the treasure and they poisoned kobolds and sent them against him till all of them were dead and walked out without a scratch.

Fuck yeah.

Borkum 27, the Drink that Hates You More than You Hate Yourself.

So you have a death wish and want to make the Borkum 27 I mentioned in Where for Art Thou, Hipster Child, but don't know how to since I made it up for that last post? Well, you're in luck because I've got the answer.

Supplies

• Two 1 liter container that can be shut air tight.
• 1 Package of Borkum Riff pipe tobacco - I prefer the Bourbon flavor
• 1 liter of Vodka (quality matters so stray towards Vox and that price range as opposed to cheaper vodkas)
• 1 funnel
• 1 box of coffee filters

Okay, Got It. Now What?

Take all of the pipe tobacco and shove it into the bottom of the container, poor your vodka on top and seal the container. Put it somewhere away from the light and let the entire concoction infuse for 27 days.

That's Done. Now Do We Drink?

Not quite. 

At this point you need to take your second container and place the funnel in its mouth. Open a single coffee filter and center it in the funnel. Then open another coffee filter and lay this one on the side of the funnel; repeat this process until you've covered all the sides of the funnel. Finally add a second coffee filter over the center.

It can seem like you're going to a lot of effort here but trust me keeping the tobacco shreds out of your infused vodka is well worth the effort. 

Now pour your infused vodka into the funnel. Never let the liquid get over about two-third of the funnel's depth. By keeping yourself from going higher you prevent the possibility of over filling the funnel and having it flip out, and thereby ruining nearly a month's worth of waiting.

After you've filtered the concoction you're finally ready to drink.

So Should I Drink This? 

It Smells Like Death.

Fuck no.

Where for Art Thou, Hipster Child?

He sat down in the little pub and the waitress asked him what he'd like; so he flipped his stylishly quaffed hair out of his eyes and whined, "Borkum 27." 

The girl stared at him for a second and said, "I'm sorry I don't think we -"

He cut her off with a loud sigh, "Look, just because you work in this trite little bar with your predictable 'life story' doesn't mean that you should be so stupid that you haven't heard of the internet. Go look it up."

I took a sip of my coffee as the Master Planner looked over at him and mouthed the words, "I'm going to fuck his world up if he says one more stupid fucking thing."

The waitress went back to the bar and started talking with the bartender who gave her a look that deserves to be the standard for the phrase, What the what? As their over there trying to figure out how to fix this bullshit drink that never existed in the first place the little fairy slouches down in his chair and starts messing around with his iPhone giggling over how smart he is. 

Finally the girl comes back over to his table and says, "Sir, I'm sorry but the bartender has never heard of a Borkum 27."

"God," he ejaculated. "Whatever, this place is lame."

It was at that point that the Master Planner threw his chair at the little fuck. Get out now, I said with my mug in my hand, 'cause we've had enough of your bullshit.

Growing Pains

Just got the following comment on Google Plus and wanted to see it over here:

Umm... I am not particularly impressed with the analysis coverage in the article. It has facts I have no doubt, but the facts are not put into context.

The announcement of the D&D Next project should have immediately indicated to market analysts that these trends would take place. Consumers should be expected to hold off on purchases of existing products when a new product line with new rules is forthcoming. Moreover, the retailers should have expected no new products from the vendor for the same reasons.

It is interesting to see the stats on an academic level. But it should not be considered as major news.

Example: When Apple announces a new IPhone, sales of the previous version of the device plummet, with retailers dumping their inventories with dramatic sale pricing. -- +Allan Sitte 

My response: Sorry you're not impressed +Allan Sitte, but this wasn't a well financed article by a reporter being paid to spend hours on the subject. This was just me putting together several of the day's interesting stories in a single location so that others can get a start on it. If you'd like to change that situation though you can totally start paying me to do this and I'll put in the sort of professional effort you'd like to see.

 

Going back to bed now as the little boy has only allowed me three hours of sleep tonight.

That Girl's Looking for Trouble.

He screamed at her in the middle of the night that only the devil had been fucked by more men and that he'll be damned if he's going shove his dick into any hole that had been traveled so frequently that a god-damned toll booth was necessary to control the traffic flow. And she sat there on the bed with this indignant look on her face and said, with that cool temper that only a woman can have, It never bothered your brother.

So he tore a chunk of cement away from the porch and threw it threw her car window. Now she didn't get up screaming like some hysterical little thing as he wanted her to do; instead she poured rat poison into his greedy dog's bowl and watched it choke to death on the dinning room floor while she smoked a Camel red, filter first, and waited on him to come back upstairs. 

Oh, and did he ever come back upstairs!

He saw his dog dead on the floor and chucked a flower pot at her head but she didn't so much as flinch because the sad sack couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.  Rage is all he's got in mind, heart, and soul, so he's screaming saying things like, "You fucking whore," and "I never loved you;" and she's just leaning back against the window frame smoking cigarette after cigarette. For twenty-two minutes he screams at her tearing at his hair and clothing because by god he's not going to lay a hand on her, and that's when she looks at him and says, Are you fucking done yet? I've got shit to do today.

In that moment she stops being a woman and he a man and they're each of them just things that need to be destroyed so he charges her. He runs fast as the wind and leaps at her with open hands lusting for her throat. 

Only she isn't there. 

He's flying through the air with the ground rushing up at him and he has time to count the twenty-seven floors of their apartment building before he hits the ground with a sickening thud. She doesn't even look back for him after he jumps. Instead she grabs her purse and jacket and hits the door. 

By the time she's down on the street the paramedics have been called but it's too late for him but not for her. She's got an appointment on 27th street with this really cute hipster boy that's been trying to find her g-spot for the last month and as she cuts another mark in her purse strap it occurs to her that today might be a good day for a two-for-one.

She hails a cab on 9th avenue and whispers to the driver that she's having a great day. Only he's too foreign or too dumb to understand her words so she slaps the back of the screen when they get up on 15th and starts screaming at him. At first he pays her no mind but the louder she gets the more his mind starts to buzz and the anger that's been hiding in his belly for the last ten years starts to boil up his esophagus and dribble down his chin. 

She laughs at him. Laughs. at. him. 

He slams the car into park and jumps out on 26th street with a belly full of rage and practically tears the door clean off it's hinge. She laughs at him as he jerks her out of the car breaks his hand against her cheek. He stares at his useless hand, feels her silky fingers under his chin, and looks up into her eyes just in time to realize that Hell isn't an imaginary concept created by man to keep fools in line. No, it's a woman with raven hair and eyes that burn like the sun. 

He mutters a prayer in some Slavic tongue and she licks her lips as she leans lower. Pray to all the gods you know little man, none of them will save you now.

The twenty-two year old artist is still waiting for her up in his loft that his parents paid for and he's studying a copy of the Karmasutra trying to decide if position 94 requires a level of flexibility that is best saved for Olympic gymnastic events when she walks in. Her hair's a mess but she's all sex and hard tits so his pants are off and he's holding his flacid penis in his hands as she walks by him with a dismissive snort. 

"But I thought you said that you wanted . . ."

Not now junior, Mama needs a Long Island Iced tea. 

So he stands there with his pants around his ankles looking at his hands and feeling like a puppy dog who just got kicked when she finally looks over at him and rolls her eyes. Seriously, what the fuck is your problem?

"I thought that we were going to try a new position as soon as you got over here."

Life's full of disappointments. Learn to masturbate and get over it.

And he cries. He sniffles as she takes her first sip and then tears, big, bulbous, tears cascade down his cheeks! He lets out this mournful sound that seems to come from everywhere and nowhere all at the same time and scoots down the hallway, with his pants still around his ankles, to slam a door to a room that uses curtains for walls. 

The gut wrenching sobs coming from that wretched hipster would have put most anyone on edge but not her. No she sat there on the couch she had bought with her ex's rent money and a cruel little smile played across her face. She hummed and slid those lithe fingers into her purse and pulled out a mason jar where she's kept me for the last five years with only books and quills to keep me company. 

It's good to see you awake little diary, she begins with that devilish twinkle in her eye, today's been a very good day.

Spring is Here, Even if it Is 17 Degrees Outside.

The Avengers in Marvel Illustrated Swimsuit Special #1

Get your swimsuits ready and - why is Iron Man wearing swim trunks? What the what! Tony you rich bastard, stop being a drunken slob and show those super powered punks what your pale, sallow skin looks like. 

Put them to shame rich boy!

The Continued Sales Decline of Dungeons and Dragons and Other Stories of Note

A couple of noteworthy items have just broken and it seems like a good idea to wrap them all up in one place.

ICv2 Report

ICv2 has released their most recent market report and some interesting things came out of the report.

• The retailer hobby game market grew at a rate of 20% in 2013. This marks five consecutive years of retailer sales increases in the hobby gaming market and effectively a 70% increase since the crash in 2008 when the market shrank 5% in sales.
• With no new products to sale on retail bookshelves Dungeons and Dragons continued to drop in sales to an astonishing fourth place. Currently the game sits behind (1) Paizo's Pathfinder, (2) Fantasy Flight's Star Wars, and (3) Evil Hat's Fate.

Wizards Continues to Save on Content

After two years of weekly updates today marked the close of James Wyatt's Wandering Monsters column; and perhaps predictably, it went out with a whimper. The column has been lambasted in recent weeks for producing a consistently lack luster product more notable for its brevity than for its inspiring and thoughtful content.

The ending of this column leaves the Dungeons and Dragons home page with three regular columns: Forging the Realms by Ed Greenwood; Rule of Three by Rodney Thompson; and Legends and Lore by Mike Mearls. The dearth of new content available to the community on Wizard's page just drives more interest away from the former industry leader and they have no one but themselves to blame.

PAX East D&D Live Game

Continuing the tradition of Penny Arcade live Dungeons and Dragons games at PAX, PAX East will see yet another installment in the Acquisitions Inc. saga. This time will see the return of Chris Perkins as Dungeon Master, Mike Krahulik as Jim Darkmagic, Jerry Holkins as Omin Dran, and Scott Kurtz as Binwin Bronzebottom. Noticeably absent from the announcement are last year's participant, Patrick Rothfuss as Viari, and long time companion Wil Wheaton as Aeofel Elhromanë. Though the announcement does mention that there will be a surprise intern a this year's event. 

Guesses as to who will be the new intern are ranging far and wide though I'm hopeful for either a return of Wil Wheaton or Kris Straub.

You can listen to the entire archive of Acquisitions Inc. podcasts at the Wizards website.

Nevermind the Title, We've Got Fish to Fry

Last night I was reading about a game of Dungeons and Dragons and one of the characters died of hunger. Now that wouldn't be such a surprise if the party had been out in the middle of the desert, but they weren't. Instead the players were camped out near a river with giant fish swimming in it and they were too chickenshit to get in there and get those fish. The guy writing about it even went so far as to say that unless they found an inn soon they'd all be dead of hunger.

I sat there staring at my computer screen trying to figure out a way to respond to that statement that wasn't me screaming, "You fucking mouth-breathers! You're sitting on the edge of a river with gigantic, fuck-off, fish swimming in it. Grab a tree and tie a rope to it. Make a hook out of a caltrop and cut the dead guy up to use as bait! Don't fucking look for a damned inn and starve to death for no reason!" It shouldn't have elicited such a response from me. I should have just laughed at their foolishness.

Ho, ho! Look at those fools. They've got everything they need and they're still complaining!

Look, I grew up fishing and watching my neighbors gut deer in their front lawn and I realize that can make my internal voice a bit skewed against their ignorance, but I can't be the only one who threw his hands up in disgust at that bullshit.  Honest to god, kids, kill the fucking deer, catfish, and dog but don't starve to death.

What a bullshit and needless way to die.

Let it go? Fuck no! We're eating the shit out of this bitch!

Kick It!

This is the sort of stuff that makes life completely worth living.

Answering Letters from the Void

Why a picture of A.J. Ayer? Because.

This month has been a surprisingly busy one for my blogger contact form as I've gotten quite a few e-mails. Since I've got a few minutes this morning I figured it would be a good idea to go ahead and clear them all out in one quick go. 

Dear Dyvers,

I was thinking about starting a new campaign in the world of Greyhawk, but I'm not really all that familiar with the setting. Where would you suggest we start?

Yours,
Alan

While there are some Dungeon Masters out there who will tell you that you should start out in the main city, Greyhawk, I've always found that option dissatisfying. I mean this is one of the few major settings where you are the king. Unlike the Forgotten Realms or Eberron, the world of Greyhawk is mostly open to your interpretation as there isn't the volume of information out there for people to tell you that your Greyhawk isn't Greyhawk.

You could go west and start in the kingdom of Zeif and run Arabian adventures; or east to the Great Kingdom where you have your players adventuring as freedom fighters against the despotic Overking. Then again you could go to Furyondy and have your players help lead the world's defense against the overwhelming forces of Iuz the Old. Or you could do like we did in my last campaign and start in the Hold of the Sea Princes. There my players stole a ship and became pirates raiding the fleets of the Overking and sacking the coastal cities of the Great Kingdom. In the end you'll have to do a little bit of reading about each of the regions and select the grounds that feel most fertile for your imagination.

All the same that answer seems as though I'm gushing about Greyhawk more than answering your question. So I'll tell you that I would pick the city of Dyvers. You can launch a ton of adventures from one of the major cities of the world without having to worry about your players knowing too much about it. The Nyr Dyv is to the east and that means you can have everything from Underwater adventures to Piracy. To the south and north are the vile forces of Iuz the Old and the monstrous humanoids. To the west and east are rival cities and nations looking to knock your city down a peg.

Lots of room to adventure there.

FUCK YOU AND YOURCUTN DIVNIN BLOG!!#!@!@

-- Anonymous

I always wonder if people who send these sort of e-mails think that they're actually doing some sort of harm to me? I mean a stranger screaming "Fuck you faggot" on the street has no impact on me so what does some cowardly internet troll mean?

Jack-fucking-squat, that's what.

I really like the short stories you've been writing lately. Any plans on doing more?

-- Meg

Thanks Meg!

I'm actually working on a couple of different stories right now but I'm holding off on releasing them on the blog until I've finished them. The last story I wrote, The Tuesday Incident, fell flat because I was writing it as I went and just lost interest. 

But I will tell you the titles of the two projects I'm working on right now: The Ballad of Milo Jones and Little Bear; and Tomorrow's a Stolen Memory.

Hey Charles, 

I'd like to tell you that I really like reading your blog. I found it whlie looking around for RPG stuff, but your non-rpg writings are usually just as fun/interesting to read. 

The main reason for writing this mail is your complaint ab out just getting the profanity mails as 'fan mails'. This is not right, but all I can do is send an e-mail. 

Keep up the good work, 
Holger

Holger, dude you just made my week with this e-mail. Thank you so much for your kind words and your praise. I really appreciate you. 

Well, that's it for this round of Answering Letters from the Void. Hopefully I'll get more letters and I'll be able to make this a regular feature. Either way, thank you all for reading this blog, commenting, e-mailing me, and sharing it. It wouldn't be anywhere near as fun for me if it weren't for all of you. 

Thank you all,

Charles Akins