Fantasist's Scroll

The Magus knows!

And, now you can, too, with the Fantasist.net Fantasy Pocket “Litter” Generator. It’s pretty simple to use: just check the boxes that correspond with the categories that you want to generate random items in and click the button. The result is a list of what a character in a fantasy setting might be carrying in its pockets. Suitable for fiction, role-playing games, or just for fun.
The generator is a fairly simple idea that was inspired by Picked Pockets designed by Wraith Systems Labs. Their’s was built in Visual Basic, or Visual C++, but this is web-based and will work for anyone with a browser.
But, enough chatter, it’s Friday, so, go have some fun!

Well, it’s just as good as dreaming about winning the lottery!

A long time ago, I remember seeing a list of things not to do if you ever become an Evil Overlord. Well, the other day, I found it. Twice, actually. Bull’s Place has the “short list” and EvilOverlord.com has the “long list”. The second list also has some history about how the list was developed.
Something to think about the next time you design a villian. Or, try to take over the world.

A little review with a big title!

I recently purcahsed The Little Giant Encyclopedia of Spells & Magic, which is a neat, inexpensive, little book. It’s a very brief, simple encyclopedia of superstitions and magic beliefs that covers a lot of ground. First off, let me say that I don’t think anyone should try 99% of what’s in this book! A lot of it involves either dangerous materials or cruelty to animals. However, as a reference to what the people of Europe thought of or about magic, it’s pretty cool.
There are several sections, each highlighting a different area of magic. Everything from witches to alchemy to the Kabbalah. And, while I have to admit it’s not always the most accurate information, it at least gives a good overview of what was going on. Each section has a little bit of history, a couple of important historical figures related to that particular practice, and some of the general ideas involved.

While this is far from a book of practical magic, it is nice for either a writer or RPG game master who wants to add a bit of color to their work. At the very least, it’s a good reference overview that let’s you decide what general area to focus on and then find more information. If you take it for what it is, it’s a good little reference book.

An you thought you spent a lot of money on gaming?

Okay, I know I must spend several hundred dollars a year on role-playing game junk, of one kind or another, but $17K for a single 20-sided die? Yep, someone paid that for this Roman 20-sided die. Of course, it’s probably the oldest 20-sider that exists, but still… Hey, I’ll have to remember that the next time my wife says something about me buying yet another $40 RPG book!

It’s a crazy world.

Let’s make some history!

I love timelines. They’re a great way to summarize history and a wonderful way to stimulate sociological creativity.
Using timelines to outline historical development is a technique I first saw discussed in Dragon Magazine as a way to make the game world more “real”. The writer used it to great effect in an example from a post-apocalyptic game called Gamma World. He sketched out a timeline that made a small tribe seem more three-dimensional because they had a history. I think a lot of culture is history, or, perhaps a lot of culture is the result of history.

In any case, I’ve messed around with timelines for some time. In my search for ideas, I came across a little program that would, given a few parameters, generate a timeline for you. Sure, it was random and simple, but it had enormous potential for creativity. So, of course, I had to steal it. Well, at least, “co-opt” it. So, now, I have a simple, web-based version available for free.
Y’all enjoy the new Timeline Generator.

Ever wanted to have a blog recorded in Shire Reckoning?

How about Islamic dates? Well, now, you can do just that in MovableType thanks to my CustomDates plugin. I started with code from a plugin done by zumaidi and posted on the MovableType Support boards. Then, I added a CPAN module by Tom Braun for calculating the date according to Shire Reckoning.

As far as I can tell, no one has done this before. Not sure why no one’s done anything sooner, but I was totally dissatisfied with the lack of a custom date feature in MovableType. Luckily for me, one of the better features of MT is that it’s extendable with PERL. So, I put this little baby together. It’s not perfect, but it does a fairly good job. I still need to make some improvements and add in some more date systems, like Hebrew and the Forgotten Realms, but it’s good enough to release now, I think.
You can see and example of it running at my test blog. Of course, as I add and test new features, that test blog will change a bit.

Enjoy!

Three new additions to our conlang resources!

One of the places that I got my interest in conlangs is from the Dragon Magazine. In honor of that source of inspiration, I have uploaded word lists and basic grammar of three conlangs from the Dragon. All three are originally by Sean K. Reynolds. They’re pretty basic languages, but they do add flavor to a Dungeons and Dragons campaign! Actually, they could be used in any fantasy role-playing game, but the Dragon is mainly focused on Dungeons and Dragons.

In any case, Dwarven, Elven and Draconic are all uploaded, so enjoy them!

New and Improved!

Way back when I first put the ConLang Word Generator on this site, my ultimate goal was to have something that created an entire language via CGI. There were lots of tools available for making words and even languages, but they were all limited in some greater or lesser way. For instance, the very good LangMaker by Jeffery Henning, is for Windows only. Chris Pound’s Name/Vocabulary generators require going to the command line, and it helps if you know a bit of PERL, too. But, I wanted something that would crank out languages on the web. Originally, I have to admit, I was trying to figure out a way to charge for this, but it’s just too fun to keep it to myself, so it’s free.
My ConLang Generator is based on Chris Pound’s PERL scripts, but with heavy modification. My English source files come from a number of sources, but mainly from resources associated with LangMaker.

So, standing on the shoulders of giants, I have finally made a free ConLang Generator. Enjoy!