Da Dominion: Home of DOMINIONCAST!

Citizen Steve of this our Dominion is soon to take his first step into the much larger world of Dungeon Mastership. May his rule be just, his stories engaging and his dice roll low against me.

Wisely sticking to what he knows the campaign will be D&D 3.5, evil themed, and with an undead party. We’ll all be bound to some lord vampire but the curse allows us to be different forms of the damned. I’ve played a vamp in Vampire the Masquerade Dark Ages, a smooth and manipulative Moor Lasombra - getting my Goth on - but I wanted something different.

I chose ghoul rogue gestalt - under the second level limit imposed - for the insatiably stalking predatory image it evokes. Abilities placed to taste and adding the Str +2, Dex +2 and Cha +2 of the ghoul racial class - a la the Libris Mortis supplement, whose spooky cover sets back popular acceptance of the hobby 15 years - he’s rolling with 17 18 Int 12 15 and 14. Two claws, a bite, paralysis ghoul goodness (err, devilishness) with sneak attacks and evasion rogue tricks and finished with Weapon Finesse and Improved Initiative for feats. Stalk up; sneak attack; paralyze; FEED! What he does and how are clear, but who is this creature?

Let’s go with the outside in. Unlike the other vamps, he’s no effeminate moody pretty boy destined to upgrade to Angelina Jolie from mundane Aniston, nor David Boreanaz. Ghouls are … well, ghoulishly ugly. No fitting in with polite society. I’m thinking the guise of a leper, with bandages and tattered rags concealing his true depravity. Steve has said that the change is something recent too. So a lot of who he is stems from who he was, a rogue. Criminals usually don’t come from the upper crust of medieval society - whom make the rules therefore can’t really break’em. An urban setting is the playground of these types providing the economic surplus to graft from, so I’m thinking son of a failed merchant.

This is an EVIL campaign too and I don’t subscribe to the bad seed idea cause it’s less dramatic and makes characters less empathetic - hence my commitment to watching all the Star Wars prequels despite they‘re drop in quality (LAWRENCE KASDAN, WHY DIDST THOU FORSAKE US?!). Father failed so bad he had to sell his son to strong-arm debtors whom raised him as property.

Labor built up his strength and the need to please his masters gave birth to a sly charisma. Initiative, improved at that, led him to hustle for more than meager scraps allowed to him. He steals to give himself value, more than what he was sold for - the bargained worth of a priceless child. This loss of a most basic love leads to a huge sense of entitlement, robbed of this he feels anything is his for the taking. This great need, and the skill it develops in practice, creates the cut above the ordinary character that is an adventurer.

After failing to con a young paladin, the youth is recruited into his adventuring group to repent for the transgression. He could’ve eluded them in his city, but the lure of great treasure and riches is too enticing so he submits to the knight’s authority. In the presence of other exceptionals, he begins to feel a kind of kinship he’s denied himself for most his life. One can’t be abandoned if one let’s none close enough. Amongst the teamwork needed to survive a dungeon crawl with all risking everything to protect each other it’s only natural, as is his attraction to another of the group.

A nightmarish foe fought and a teammate, perhaps a special person whom can understand him and fully accept him, is wounded badly in the fight. The risk of what he’s gained in friendship is too much and the gold recovered will never leave him nor reject him. He takes the treasure he can swiftly carry and leaves mid-fight. Safe sole survivor, which a fool would label “coward”, but a lonely soul again. Trying to make his way out alone without the map led him yet deeper in the depths, until something truly dark finds and does indeed take him for what he is … into undeath.

The driving need I plan to incorporate into his character by the constant hunger a ghoul is said to have. More so than being without nourishment of the body, but a deep spiritual need made incarnate - the hungry ghost of asian mysticism. The core concept of a fiendish hunger we encapsulate into the phrase “fiend starve” to form the name Venarvus - the lone, the betrayer, the empty.

Another fourth edition worth mentioning is Grand Theft Auto 4 - actually six counting GTA: Vice City and San Andreas. Yet, practically four since GTA and GTA II were essentially crime themed Spy Hunter clones. Old gamers don’t die; they just make obscure references to 8-bit dinosaurs - a fate worse than death. I’ve seriously played and completed San Andreas and now part IV, but this is not a review of either.If you don’t know if you’d like an ultraviolet shooter/racing hybrid sandbox role playing game, I suggest taking a deep introverted look at your life. To many, including myself, a fervent HELLS YES! erupts from the dark pit of the soul - or more accurately the abysmal post-modern emptiness occupying the place where it would reside. What could pacify such an aching id? Realistic weapons, tons of vehicles, a multi-option cell phone interface (Feel guilty? You can now call paramedics, the fire department even cops), in-game internet with a dating service, clothing stores to appease your latent metro-sexual, six figures of virtual cash, four apartments (2 economy, 2 posh), online multiplayer mayhem and more Easter Eggs than a tranny porn star convention.

I finished GTA IV and have deleted my files to do the whole thing over it’s so interesting. CJ’s on a disk at Game Stop, cashed in for the Xbox 360 upgrade. Maybe GTA 5 will be a compromise: a chubby fully fleshed out black star - voiced by Forrest Whitaker?

This is not another theme week mind you. It’s just that after pouring over the D&D core books for a week and getting stuff lined up for the pod cast, a holiday weekend of kicking back with movies was what happened. We’ve just discussed Hancock but this isn’t necessarily tied to the Love Guru, although “Hancock” is a pun joke Mike Myers would’ve used … if he didn’t and I was just over deluged in junior high school dick jokes.

This is a common complaint of reviewers, but I call them hypocrite-bastards. I just so happened to have seen the first Austin Powers again recently and concluded that Love Guru is in no way a lowering of comedic standard nor foray into crassness beyond the international man of mystery. For those that hated this classic’s humor, I will reduce the title of hypocritical-bastard to merely uptight asshole with the severity of this pronouncement equal to the hardness of those diamonds formed from many theatre chair cushions within their singularity like sphincters. May they collapse into themselves to form fetal universes where Woody “she’s not my daughter by blood” Allen movies are the platinum standard of comedy.

That said Love Guru isn’t especially as good as the first Austin Powers. Mainly this is Mike Myers moved to a new fictional context of cold war spy movie to the current appeal of eastern mysticism amongst celebrities. There‘s a scene where as a Deepak Chopra wannabe Guru Pikta Myers bids the blessing “marishkahargitay“ to several celebrities as themselves - Jessica Simpson and Val Kilmer (bonus points for randomness). The phrase sounds familiar, but I can’t place it. A third celebrity is the exotic milf from Law and Order SVU, Marishka Hargitay, leading into a Law and Order bit. Kind of clever, but if you recognized the name you saw it coming and if you didn’t you may not get it. Good news: this is the most complicated joke in the movie.

Pikta slings around a ton of joke acronyms the way profound yogis do with pun panache: intimacy = “In-to-me-I-see”, Basic instructions before leaving Earth = Bible and “Eat’ in ain’t Cheat’ in” amongst them. He uses illusionist-like Indian magic to escape situations and rides an elephant, all the while winking at the camera and heavy handedly spewing sexual double and triple entendres in a quasi-Hindu accent. Given that my mother is into this New Age esoteric importing, thanks impart to The High Gynarch Winfrey, I found the subject matter particularly funny.

Romney Malco as the Tiger Woods of the NHL and subject of Pikta’s assistance is decent but not really funny. Myers sets it so that the main sources of humor are himself and constants cracks about portable pocket co-star Verne Troyer. Megan Good and Alba are just eye candy set pieces, but Timberlake is sort of funny as the horse-cocked antagonist new boyfriend of Malco’s ex-wife Megan whom is a walking Celine-Dion-loving French Canadian in-joke amongst Canadians. Not realizing that we see them all that way. Colbert as a commentator could’ve been used a bit more.

If you hate puns and potty humor, DON’T SEE THIS MOVIE! Save your money by staying home to watch Annie Hall for the thousandth time.

With the mega monetary movie success of super hero franchises, it makes sense that we’ll get some wannabe trying to glam onto the genre, from My Super Ex-Girlfriend to the horrible Superhero Movie. When I heard Will “Jiggy-With-It” Smith was doing one titled Hancock, there was curiosity as to what this would be. He alternates between humanity pieces like The Pursuit of Happyness and balls-out action joints like I, Robot - was Hancock to be a mix of both?

A severely dysfunction super hero sounds like a humorous premise; hence it got the green light for production. It was funny for the first third to half of the movie, we’ve seen super heroic CGI so it’s impact is limited, and then it got dramatic. The super dude drinks and acts up cause he’s lonesome being the only one of his kind. No Justice League or Avengers to sit around and talk shop with, or be wary about should they turn rogue. No super villains to challenge a brother whom is tricked out with the Superman suite of powers - flight, invulnerable - but can get drunk -, ultra strong. Makes sense character wise for Hancock. Humanized heores is a big part of the appeal of current generation comic movies.

Jason Bateman’s charity pitchman, a normal guy trying to do good with marketing savvy - a feat of fiction in itself, helps Hancock get back into public affection and learn to do things with consideration for us little folks. Then, the twist drops and turns this tale sideways. Charlize Theron plays Bateman‘s out-of-his-league beautiful wife who is a super herself, three thousand years old, has the powers of Hancock and is old boy’s ex actually whose powers negates his - why she left him alone after a amnesia causing attack 80 years back, when interracial couples were so accepted in Florida? WHAT THE FUCK?!

We were on a nice path here! Lonely Superman develops feelings for a Lois Lane married to innocent good guy best friend Jimmy Olsen. No, we’ve got a race of uber-immortals made in pairs that can enjoy human love by becoming human, this isn’t so bad an original concept. That Charlize didn’t find and tell Hancock the deal 79 years back, after he’d healed and was super duper again from married life with her, says the bitch was sick of him (the seven century itch?) She doesn’t tell him about their coupling kryptonite until he’s already shot. Is this the OJ and Nicole dynamic in reverse? A pretty blonde wife is trying to kill her famous black spouse?

Hancock takes the high ground to except loneliness and be a hero by leaving his soul mate, but even this is made lame by the fact that he can wait 45 years until Bateman dies then get back with Charlize for a time before going back to world saving. It’s romantic enough for a date movie, but makes no literal sense to a super hero fan. Then again, making sense doesn’t matter as long as your date digs it emotionally, so only watch it if a woman makes you … or your gay for Will Smith.

No edition of D&D would be complete without the infamous Monster Manual (MM). Held off reviewing this book since we test drove 4^th edition yesterday, and to know the manual’s content would be unfair - you know how Dungeon Masters are so often disadvantaged *smirk*. Nothing spells doom and excitement like seeing is MM copy being opened by your DM as he begins to use spooky adjectives and asks for spot/listen/perception checks. You’re about to get what you came for: XP, loot, blood, GLORY! Failing all those, at least a heroic death.

Let’s begin. Aaracokras … are not included in this edition, neither are Aasimars. Despite the lack of weird bird people or angelic descendants there are many old favorites: all three brands of goblin, kobolds, carrion crawlers, owl bears, trolls, mind flayers, and an assortment of titular dragons - color-coded for your killing convenience. Swarms are mostly missing. There are stirge swarms, which is weirdly horrific because these sucky things are halfling size now. Each stat set is described in a tight little block of data including name, defenses, XP and some new entries.

Role we’ve discussed in reference to player characters (PC), well it rightfully applies to monsters as well. Brutes are your traditional tanks, while lurkers skulk in the shadows to jump out and jack up unwary heroes. Most to the other descriptors are simply renamed equivalents of defenders, leaders, and strikers on the home team. I like these labels being used to classify as that easily tells a DM how to use a monster. A young white dragon being a solo brute means his nest mates won’t be hanging around - sibling rivalry is animosity for them anyway. A Fey grove Choker - a lurker - sitting in a single tree on a flat plain at high noon isn’t lurking shit, plus one tree does not a grove make.

Besides healing surges and various themed powers, which monsters have too, some abilities have a recharge time determining when some bit of nasty can be used again to harm. A picture shows a dice face that indicates what on a six-sider must be rolled at the beginning of their turn to be able to use the ability again. Some of these powers have multiple faces, giving you multiples of 16% chance to re0gift the pain. On a roll of 5 or 6, one in three chance, the Tarrasque can use either its Rending Bite or Tail Slap if used before. The good news: you’ve got a two in three chance of not needing to worry about these in a given round while whittling through it’s one thousand four hundred and twenty hit points - if you do, suck it up cause this is what epic level is all about “hero“.

Unlike the DMG, the manual gives very little filler. A paragraph of their home terrain and general nature, a blurb on their tactics, and a nice illustration showing the variety of them is all you get besides the hard stats of hellaciousness. Besides horses, there isn’t a single normal animal in the book - a bestiary this is not. Turn to boar and you find the weakest version is a level 6 Dire Boar next to it’s level 15 Thunderfury cousin. Bats come only in shadow hunter or Fire varieties. Beetles are never smaller than a dog. Dog’s aren’t mentioned because the beetles ate’em.

More bang for your buck is also given in the form of encounter scaling. Only the solo creatures feature a single enemy. Kobold and other group dwelling menaces feature several examples with interlock functions based on role showing a bit of their society. Their level 1 minions are a hit point each, but give bonuses for attacking in mobs and flanking threats. Skirmishers hide behind the minions and stab at you with extra damage when they have advantage and better accuracy the more minions are around you. Slingers stay back and target foes with special effect weapons, while the Dragonshields being the knights of Koboldom level more hurt in the front line. Wyrm priests lowering the magical boom from distance and serve as leaders for the total forces. A level 4 Slyblade can hide amongst minion and deal debilitating damage while using its brethren for shields. KOBOLD NINJAS !?!?!11

Entries also include encounter groups that give you a group of the featured monsters organized by level and XP yield to save you time. Some of these pay no mind to the components used though. Stirge swarms and Flesh Golems? Wouldn’t the little suckers drain their Frankenstein?

All in all this book is definitely core and purchase worthy. In a week, we’ll have for you our first Dominion Cast discussing Fourth Edition amongst high Dominions such as Hunin, Nicole, your Dominus and others plus actual play of our first foray in the new world.

Thank you for enduring this week of focus-featured dorkdom to you cool kids. To our Dominion dorks, you’re welcome.