Autumn pictures of the ground

Took these one day last fall for the fallen leaf textures.

Spring is coming

A couple shots of a tree down the street last Saturday morning.

Scott's Siege Machines

I visited my high school friend Scott Wisher in 2012 when back in Illinois for Russell's funeral. He's still playing miniatures and I took some shots of his excellent scratch built siege engines. Posted these before on Facebook, but they deserve to remain accessible.

Sunset at JGI

We had some amazing sunsets this winter. Here's one.

Nike Missile Site SF-88 at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area

A few weeks ago we visited the old Nike Missile site in Marin County that was a Cold War base defending California. Here's some pics.

The Julia language looks interesting

Came across the Julia language via the WIRED article. Bookmarking with this post. It's a low-ceremony dynamic LLVM based language aimed at being good for scientific computing. Dynamic and fast.

The Halfling's Map

Copied from my posting in the G+ Map-Making in Games alternate media challenge by +Edward Lockhart.

Waxed leatherworking cord found clutched in the hand of a half-eaten, half-mummified halfling half-exposed in the mouth of a badger den just outside the Malefic Mines of the Magister Mixos.

The halfling mapped from the entrance stairs through the first 4 rooms and a corridor of the dungeon, and marked the ladder down with this cord map that he could use by touch in the dark, before meeting his badgery doom.

The puns in that thread have given me a name for a tavern in this campaign, The Quartered Halfling. The sign should be grisly but humorous.

The Devil's Staircase

This one is all about the vertical. It will probably be one of the near vertical zigzag fault lines in the map from my first "How to Host a Dungeon" game (not posted yet) connecting down to one of the northern entrances of "The Heart of the Spider".  I'll want to have an interesting fight with the peril of falling at the path that wraps around the "bottomless pit" at the NE corner and another at the switchback in the SW.  The cave in will seal off both a great horror (of course) and a great treasure.

Axe of Renewal

It's been ages since I tried seriously to draw something representational instead of a doodle or something schematic like a dungeon map. This axe missed the target but I like it.

Stats? It's a one hander. If it's a magic item, it should be a simple +1 or something equivalent. Given the name my wife came up with for it, perhaps any tree cut down by it grows back at 10x speed, and other wood chopped by it puts out shoots and roots and tries to start growing again. That would be an elvish or druidical enchantment in most game worlds. Given it's plain style, not elvish make.

Never Cry Crawdad

Found this digging through a box of old stuff. Now I just have to find the rules or bug Martin and I can inflict it on people.