Sock Dolls

I had forgotten how much fun sock dolls were. I made these for the craft fair in December and, as per the usual, forgot to take pictures until the last possible minute.

Blue guy is my favorite of the three, though I have a soft spot for the little girl as well; she's the first actual sock doll (as opposed to sock creature) I've made in a while. I really like the way the thread for her hair worked out. It's some sort of leftover crochet stuff my sister had--now I'm going to have to ask her for the proper name! It let me get shaded hair in without dividing out embroidery thread the way I've done in the past.

Books on Weaponry: Book Review

So a while back, I had to do some work on describing magical weaponry. Not being a weapons person, I had first to go to the library and find some books--and there's a scary lot of them out there, let me tell you, even if you're trying to concentrate on more stone age to medieval weapons and not to look at all the shelves full of modern ways to blow things up Anyway, here are some I found useful and otherwise in my meanderings. I've tried to note which section of the library they were in, in case you're looking for a particular age group:

Warriors' Weapons by Walter Bueh: I needed a Weapons 101 and this turned out to be surprisingly suitable. It did not convince me that weapons were my new passionate interest in life, but I did end up reading past the portions I strictly speaking needed, looking at castle building and sieges, so hurray for Bueh! I think the library had this stashed in Young Adult.

Eyewitness Books Arms & Armor by Michele Byam I love Eyewitness Books (thanks Greg for reminding me of them. I picked up a couple non-weaponry ones just because). They do such an amazing job of packing together information and pictures, lots and lots of really lovely pictures. Again, I found myself moving past the medieval stuff, fascinated to learn that dueling pistols used to come with "Do it yourself" bullet molds. The dueling pistols also came in matched pairs, and the book doesn't say why: Were duelists given two shots? Or were they supposed to supply the challenger with a weapon if he happened to have forgotten to pack his? Now, instead of being Through With Weapons, I have something else to look up! Shelved in the kid's section.

Weapon : A Visual History of Arms and Armor. DK Publishing, Roger Ford
Roger Ford (Contributor), R. G. Grant (Contributor), A. Gilbert (Contributor), Philip Parker (Contributor), R. Holmes (Contributor): This one was a bit of an overload. It's huge, at least as crowded with illustrations as the Eyewitness Arms & Armor, and packed full of information. For my purposes, it was a bit of an overkill, but for people who seriously want a "Weapons 101" covering everything, this is a really, really good place to start. Oh, and it has an awesome section of "strange weaponry" and a really good picture of elephant armor. Shelved in the grown-up section of the library.

Ancient Weaponry: From Clubs to Catapults by Michael Woods and Mary B. Woods: By the time I got to Ancient Weaponry, I was winding up my research, so I mostly skimmed it. It merits mention, though, for being the book that told me about the Ancient Greeks molding insults into the bullets they made for slings and thus undoubtedly warranting a much fuller read than I gave it. Shelved in the kids section.

Weapons & Warfare : From the Stone Age to the Space Age Not a bad overview, but bear in mind it is a kids book and covering a ton of territory. A bit redundant if the above books are already in your book pile.

Armour & Weapons by Charles Ffoulkes Um. See, this one was written back in the nineteenth century. It's interesting as an example of a nineteenth century antiquarian's view of things, and I did love his fussing at the beginning that the ancients just didn't understand the importance of their old armor and inconsiderately melted the stuff down when they were through with it,  but.... as a quick research source, it's a bit of a wash. Shelved in the grown-up section.

Arms and Armor (Then and Now) written by Adrian Gilbert, Illustrated by James Field: This one was great because it grouped the weapons by type more than country or century, so all the bows and arrows were together, the staff weapons (a particular area of ignorance on my part) in another, armor in another, and so on. A handy overview from the children's section.

There were a couple of others I skimmed, but really, after these, it was mostly skimming for the odd fact.

Girl Genius: Not exactly a book review

So today I am not tackling the enormous backlog of book reviews. Instead, I'm rereading Girl Genius

Starting from the beginning. I know I've mentioned it before. It's a funny, dramatic comic full of unexpected twists and turns and a very clever use of tropes. I've been following it for a while now, but just got seduced into rereading. It may take a while. They're up to Volume Eleven now.

There. That's sort of a book review. Now, go forth and read! You won't regret it.

Image from ElecTRONica

Creepy Doll Redux

 

We're talking serious squickage here.

I suppose he does make a good match for I Spy Barbie, though.

The Broken Hourglass: Weapons, a tidbit

I ran across this yesterday:

The ancient Greeks used to manufacture lead bullets for streams. They "sometimes etched insulting messages into the bullet molds; the messages were then imprinted on the bullets. One common message: 'A Nasty Present.'"

from Ancient Warfare by Michael Woods and Mary B. Woods

Now, onto typing out the descriptions that I scribbled into my notebook after yesterday's stint. Hopefully, I'll be able to decipher my handwriting!

The Broken Hourglass: Time to do some reading

I think my recent visit to the library should take care of my basic research needs. Now it's time to get serious about the reading!

Huntington Beach Pier at Sunset

V: Serpent's Tooth, a Review

Boring.

V finally came back. Given the phenomenally long break between one half of the season and the next, I wasn't too surprised to find that I'd missed the premiere episode.  I was surprised to find that ABC has, without announcing it at all, stopped putting full episodes online, so I couldn't catch up, but, not to worry. I figured I'd catch up with Serpent's Tooth and, hopefully, find it more gripping than last time (I never did watch the last few episodes. IIRC I petered out after Heretic's Fork). Also, Jane Badler was on, and I did want to see her again.

Cue a confused plot, cliched dialog, and mild boredom.

Confused plot: Random examples: I was paying attention, and I still don't know how we went from everyone sneaking around in the warehouse to the whole FBI descending and both our double agents denying ever having been there. I have no idea why our intrepid foursome who have accomplished nothing whatsoever on the stopping-V front think they'll be able to co-opt the services of a highly-organized, highly-effective, much larger group capable of blowing up 29 healing centers simultaneously. I get that Our Heroes can't be Icky Terrorists (Except for scowl-guy (Hobbes?) who is our token Moral Grey Area), but do they have to be downright stupid about it? What is Erica planning on doing--looking earnestly at them until they agree to stop blowing things up? Why, if Anna can contact Ryan, can't she just catch him, probe his memories, and find the other three people who are, inexplicably, so important to her.

And Erica.. I had such high hopes for Erica when I first watched. And here she, the trained FBI agent, does not even notice when her "ally" picks up a massive paperback book and tucks it into the back of his super-tight jeans (which, of course, is exactly what a trained mercenary would do with something he wanted to hide).

Oh, and then there is dialog. TV shows generally don't do well when they get to talking about souls, but this was even worse than usual--terribly, terribly stale and cliche ridden.

How many members of the little band have divided loyalty now? Let's see.... There's Chad, Ryan, and scowl-guy. From a summary, it seems that new scientist-guy isn't too thrilled about being co-opted, either. Three out of--what, five? Six?  The human race is doomed.

You know, I think I'm through.

I'll stick with the original--Yes, I know exactly how bad the original TV series got. It's still better than this.

The Broken Hourglass: Weaponry

Whew! Finally got that initial proofreading done! Yay!

So now it's on to weaponry.  I started Warriors' Weapons by Walter Beuhr this afternoon, and I have a couple of books on hold at the library, thanks to people's suggestions. Hopefully, that will give me the information I need to add a few useful magical weapons to the arsenal.

To clarify a bit on my last post: The base weapons and their damage stats & all are already in game. Someone else took care of that Back in the Beginning.  We need a few more special weapons though, plus a few descriptions need elaborating.

So--it's time for me to figure out what the difference between a glaive and a poleaxe is and why it maters.

Somewhat beside the point, but the bit about copper mining in Bronze-Age Tyrol was quite fascinating, and I was interested in the "Drop water onto stone" method the Stone Age weapon crafters apparently used to make holes in their axes etc for the purpose of fastening them to wooden hafts.

Will this be of use in game?  Who knows? There are ancient mummies running around in a couple of places. Anyway, right now I'm just doing some hasty base-research. Wish me luck!

Oh, and if you know of any  other really fascinating, irresistible books on medieval weaponry, let me know.

Kind of Creepy, Actually

Of course, Pez in general are creepy, so I suppose Scary White and the Seven Glares shouldn't come as a surprise.

The Broken Hourglass: A Look at Elementals

I was about to announce that the proofreading was finished and had, in fact, started some research for the next bit of work I'm doing, but then I found a 70-something page document that still needed work. So--I'm working on that, though I do have a (small) pile of books on weaponry out.

By the way, are any of you weapons lovers or experts? I'm not in charge of the weaponry in general (for which everyone gives thanks), but I am looking to add a few descriptions and specialty items, and would be grateful for any book or web page suggestions sent my way.

----

In the meantime,  here's an in-game excerpt, a book found in the university and (IIRC) one or two other places, modified from the world-design doc, written others, including Corvis, In the Beginning....

Dinopes' Bestiary: Elementals

Elementals are rare, hard to create, and harder to control, being fierce and unpredictable in nature.

The best known are the fire elementals summoned by the sun-priests of Hallilh and used as temporary guards, powerful warriors in battle, or as a display to awe a visiting dignitary. The fact that they are unruly and difficult to control for long makes their extended use impossible. A single elemental may be summoned for a night as an assassin or before large battles. During the War of the Red Rivers, the Tolmiran legions' initial defeats were caused in part by the two or three elementals the Hallihsh horde would summon as a matter of course. They were used to great effect as siege-breakers until the Tolmirans developed countermagics.

As fluid as fire itself, the actual physical appearance of a fire elemental varies. A fire elemental may appear as a simple sphere of flame ten feet in diameter; a man-shaped creature of the same height; or as a jet of flame that can pass under doors, through pipes, between fences, or any other conceivable obstacles.

A weakness of the fire elemental is also that which allows it to survive: flammable materials. A fire elemental in a wooden house will set the floor, walls, furnishings, and ceiling on fire, spreading, growing, and all the while tearing itself apart as it feeds. This suits the lands of Hallilh well, as most buildings are made of sandstone or other inflammable materials, but it also restricts the places the sun priests can use these powerful magics. A fire elemental unleashed in a forest is as dangerous to the summoner as to his foes.

Other forms of elementals can exist, but they are even more rare than those made of fire as the mastery of the magic involved is almost impossible to attain, so there is less information available about their form and character. Presumably, they are similar to the fire elementals in their ability to vary their form, and, like fire elementals, share the weakness of their formative elements.

Ever feel like you're being watched?

Bartlett Park Again