Possible missed updates

So, Stan Lee is running a contest for writers and artists, and I'm pretty damn excited about it - find it here. In any case, because I'm using pretty much all my brainpower on that, there may not be any content for the next week or so. If I need a break from The Seekers I'll post something up, just follow me on Twitter @Micorku, and you'll know when I post stuff.

Religion in Iroas

So, this will explain what a Pilgrim is from the RPG - I've changed it since then to say Pilgrim or Keeper, which is another term you will learn here.

The Nobility of Alitheia

If you look closely at the early version of the RPG I put up Wednesday, you may find some words you don't recognize yet. Today I'm introducing you to the Skafos and Sofos of Alitheia, while sometime next week I intend to do a little discussion on Iroan religions.

I'm also interested in doing another Worldbuilding series, but this time I want their to be input at every level. So, to start us off, we need to figure out what kind of setting we'll be building - sci-fi, high fantasy or low fantasy. In addition, I'd like to hear how cynical you want the setting to be - would you like Lord of the Rings, which is extremely idealistic even in the worst of times, or 1984, where everything is terrible forever? Or perhaps somewhere in between? Let me know!

Iroas RPG

So, this is why I stopped writing stuff about Iroas for a while; I'm designing a tabletop RPG for the setting. This is a pre-alpha version of it, which is missing a few things to make it playable - mostly the armor and weapons, but I'm trying to work on that. In any case, if you have any comments at all, please let me know - I'm kind of spazzing out about this, and would love some feedback.

New Olympus

I'm doing something a bit deeper this time - working strictly within the rules of a game. While Tyranix and Aquas were based in the MTG Multiverse, they didn't adhere to those rules very strictly. However, this past weekend I created a setting for the Technoir RPG, a fantastic new cyberpunk/noir RPG. The pdf is already available on DriveThruRPG, and the print version will be out sometime around September.


For those unaware (most of you), Transmissions (as settings are called in Technoir) have a fairly strict formula - they have to contain Connections (people that the players can call on for favors or information), Events (Things that happen before or during the story), Factions (large groups that have most of the power in the setting), Locations (places that are important to the setting), Objects (items that can play an important role in the story) and Threats (smaller groups that are likely to go up against the players directly). There have to be six of each of these because of the unique GM system, which essentially randomizes the story every time you play. You also have to give the Connections, Objects and Threats stats. I won't be showing the Events, Objects or the stats for the Connections and Threats here because this is what I would give the players, and that information would either be spoilers or unnecessary to them.

WWE Smackdown 8/5/2011

This week: the build up to Summerslam is in full gear, with them promoting the Christian vs Orton and Sheamus vs Mark Henry matches heavily. For those who know me, they may be wondering why I'm not reviewing Torchwood: Miracle Day. Simple answer: I'm enjoying it too much to review it, though I may review it after it's done.

We start out tonight with that little promo of Sheamus vs. Mark Henry, and continue into a match between Sheamus and the Great Khali. Not a big fan of Khali, really – he doesn't have any personality to speak of because he is unintelligible, so his character is essentially just “big guy.” I think Sheamus is reasonably interesting, though. He's a big guy with the gimmick of a Celtic warrior, and I'm always down for that. He's a bit of a berserker and he is supposed to be really good with weapons. And his skin is practically translucent, it's so pale. This match is mediocre, with all the good spots coming from Sheamus.

Next up is A.J. vs. Natalya, and my first impression is that A.J.'s music is awful. Not a great match, though A.J. is pretty damn hot. Natalya uses a pretty terrible Sharpshooter to win. And then comes the obligatory post-match beating as Natalya becomes a heel. I guess the new feud for the Divas is perky vs. nasty? I don't know? I guess the new default diva heel is just being angry at the popular girls.

Hey look, a promo featuring Randy Orton! And it's not a bad one, with him saying that Christian is “helping him work out his anger issues.” It's a good angle for him, because anger is pretty much the only emotion he can show. Well, maybe simple creepiness. After that as they set up the Justin Gabriel promo, I wanted to slap Booker T because his South African accent was AWFUL.

Next up we have what initially looks like it will be a squash match between Daniel Bryan and Tyson Kidd, because Kidd doesn't even get an entrance – he just starts in the ring. Not a bad match, I liked Kidd's submission with Daniel Bryan wrapped around the ringpost. As a sidenote, I find it funny that every time Michael Cole calls Daniel Bryan a nerd it just makes me more of a fan of Bryan. Then again, that's the reason Cole is a heel. The match gets a lot better after the commercial, with some good back and forth counter chains. Bryan ends up winning by submission.

The State of the Showski Address! Zack Ryder is gloriously lame. Ezekiel Jackson interrupts him and the quality of the promo goes down significantly as he complains about last week's handicap match against Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase. Speak of the devil, and they shall appear! The quality of the promo goes up once again once Rhodes starts talking. Jackson is just not a good speaker, so every time he speaks the promo gets worse. When Rhodes responds the quality goes up. Eventually Teddy Long comes out and it says that Zack Ryder and Jackson are wrestling. The match starts immediately and is quality – they both play to their strengths, with Jackson just showing off his strength as Ryder essentially just bounces around him for the most part. Jackson wins using his trademark submission, which I enjoy because it forces the victim to slap his head to tap out. What follows the match is a slightly creepy promo where a (new?) diva uses sex appeal on Teddy Long, and he continually looks way too old for her.

Mark Henry vs. Vladimir Koslov. From the very beginning this is clearly just showing off how strong Mark Henry is. It lasts a few minutes long, though Koslov gets a few good moves in. Mark Henry is pretty intimidating, but I'll be happy when this angle is over. I did like that Sheamus came down to protect Koslov from the post match beating (I need a word for that).

Sheamus has a good promo after this, explaining why he wants to stop Mark Henry. He has some good lines involving a gold horseshoe. This is followed by a six man tag team match which is David Otunga, Michael McGillicutty and JTG vs Trent Barreta and the Uso's. It looks like the Uso's are getting into a feud with Otunga and McGillicutty. This actually seems like it was set up to show off Barreta, who has a good top rope maneuver. Once again Otunga and McGillicutty win, and once again I have to say that I'm looking forward to when they lose the titles.

I'm glad that Johnny Curtis is done with his lame puns, though I have enjoyed most of them. Christian gets a reasonable promo, and R-Truth's new story seems to be unifying the heels as conspiracy theorists, though the best line is Christian's last one “Who the hell is Little Jimmy?”

And now for the main event: Randy Orton and John Morrison vs R-Truth and Christian. This has the potential to be a good match, as all four of them are quality wrestlers, and there is some kayfabe bad blood going on within this grouping, though at first they avoid the obvious pairings in the ring. A good match, as R-Truth and Morrison work well together, as do Orton and Christian. That and the fact that all of them are good performers. We get a little bit of a preview of Orton vs Christian, and it is fantastic. They work incredibly well together, with a good sequence of moves and counter moves. Christian pins Orton for the win, ending a good episode with a satisfying ending.

Batsos

This was created entirely for the Iroas RPG - as part of character creation, you have to decide what your character's current career is, and I needed something for the Eirini that wasn't a diplomat. Thus, the Batsos were created! Speaking of the RPG, the first draft is just about done, and I'm just about ready for playtesting.

Hunters

I’m actually not working on this project anymore, this is all Tak’s now; go bother him about not updating enough! Well, I’m still working as an editor for it, but I’m not writing it anymore. However, I still want to share the little bit that I had already written for it, which is about the real draw to the story: monster hunters!

WWE Raw 8/1/2011

Tonight, we watch Triple H deal with the WWE Championship situation, and there are a lot of very solid matches. Read on!

We start with that excellent promo they've been showing for the past week hyping the CM Punk and John Cena feud, which is just a great idea over all. We follow that by having CM Punk come out to the ring for one of his great promos – he's probably the best performer in the WWE today. He might be the best at the promos since Chris Jericho, who had my favorite promos of all time. In any case, a great promo about how he changed the company and the fact that it's now back to routine with Cena as champion. And then Triple H comes out! He's always been good at promos, and it seems he's starting to push himself as a heel which is where he shines, when he's not part of DX. During this promo, I loved CM Punk's references to various wrestlers that aren't in the WWE anymore – this was definitely somewhat of a shoot, as the WWE doesn't generally let them talk about those who have left the company, especially those who, like Mick Foley, work for a competitor. Overall, that was a fantastic promo, but that's to be expected when CM Punk is involved.

Up next we have a Battle Royal of most of the divas in the WWE right now. It's extremely chaotic at the start, and these huge matches are usually terrible and almost impossible to follow. It gets a little once it gets down to 6 combatants left, with the Bella twins and Beth Phoenix being the only ones whose names I know. Oh, and... Eve? I think that's her name, and she has a nice elimination where she just dodges out of the way of a baseball slide. Beth Phoenix wins through an extremely amusing double elimination on the Bella twins. Not a bad match, though it had a rocky start. Oh, and Beth Phoenix is now a heel, as evidenced by her attack on Kelly Kelly after the match. I hope that Beth wins the Diva Championship, as she seems like she's much better technically than Kelly is.

A decent promo between R-Truth and The Miz. Both of them are good heels, though the Miz is much better at promos. Of course, the fact that R-Truth called Triple H “Mr. Hs” is pretty fantastic. A reasonably good promo, though it's nothing special. Truth's gimmick is starting to get old, while I don't think Miz's ever will – it's basically the same as Mr. Perfect's, and that stood the test of time. Josh Matthews interviews Cena once they come back from the commercial break, though it's not a particularly interesting one. All he says is he's interested in what Triple H's decision will be, which is... kind of obvious, and really didn't need to be said.

In better news, we've got a tag team match next! Rey Mysterio and John Morrison vs The Miz and R-Truth. I always love high flier matches, and this is no exception – while Rey isn't quite as agile as he used to be, he is still a solid wrestler with great technical skills, while John Morrison seems to be inhumanly agile, and he's got one of the coolest finishers I've ever seen. Unfortunately, he has been on a break since I started watching again. Overall, this is a good match – R-Truth and the Miz work very well with high fliers, and it shows here. There aren't any huge spots in this match, mostly just a lot of very solid wrestling with some good counters by the Miz on both Morrison and Mysterio's counters. And look, more proof that beating an opponent after already winning is a heel tactic!

Another unimportant promo with Triple H about the situation with the WWE Championship, and I forgot what it was about before the commercial break was over. The next bit is a promo featuring Dolph Ziggler and Vickie Guerrero – while I appreciate Vickie's skill at being a heel, it makes me kind of sad. The promo gets better once Alex Riley joins in, and it almost becomes a contest about who can wear a suit better; if that's the case, I think A-Ry won. This could be a quality feud, especially when Riley points out Ziggler and the Miz's similarities – might be a good contrast between Ziggler's privileged attitude and the work ethic that Riley displays.

Hey look, Michael McGillicutty and David Otunga got new theme music! Makes sense, now that the New Nexus doesn't exist anymore. They're facing Zack Ryder and Santino – I don't know much about Santino, though he seems amusing, and my feelings on Ryder were made clear in my review of the latest Smackdown. What follows is another solid match – Ryder and Santino job convincingly, but I hope that McGillicutty and Otunga lose the tag team championship soon – they're kind of boring.

Kind of tired of these promos, though Punk's is by far the best of the bunch. He has a good sense of humor that works really well in his promos.

Following this, is it just me or does Ricardo Rodriquez, Alberto Del Rio's ring announcer, give off a massive pedo vibe to anyone else? So, for this match we have Alberto Del Rio facing Evan Bourne. Bourne is one of my favorite wrestlers, though a big part of that is the fact that he uses the Shooting Star Press, renamed the Air Bourne. He also displays some good high flying moves in this match, though I think the best spot in this match was the enziguiri to Bourne on the top rope from Del Rio. I can't decide if I like Del Rio or not, but it will be nice once he eventually gets beaten, which means he's an effective heel. His story seems to be that he's making a lot of enemies with his brutality, as Kofi runs to the ring to help Bourne in the post-match armbar that Del Rio puts on Bourne.

And we get the climactic promo, with Triple H coming out followed by John Laurinatis, who calls for Cena to be stripped of his title, which I am fully in support of! Cena comes out and there's some good back and forth banter between him and Laurinatis. Triple H decides not to, Punk comes out and joins the promo. It ends up with the most obvious outcome – Punk vs Cena at Summerslam for the WWE Championship. It devolves into an extended pissing match between Cena and Punk, which goes on for a little too long.

Ödland

Only a quick post today. Also, it should be noted that I'm going with Janelle's suggestion of Ziemia for our world name for Hybrid - it will be added to the tags of all previous Hybrid posts now!