Pada'lagh -- In the Kingdom of Life, the most popular drink and smoke come from the same plant. The Pada'lagh grows on a tree near the western foothills away from the sandy soil of the coast. The trees are tall and bushy, dark green leaves and large red fruit like pomegranates. The tree flowers all summer and the fruit grows in size throughout the winter. In late spring, they ripen splitting open, revealing small seedlings of pink & orange. The seedlings are highly sought for their narcotic nature and the most popular Pada Wine is made from it. The skins of the fruit themselves are harvested, dried and shredded into a weed smoked in pipes.
The groves of Pada'Lagh draw a creature left over from when the otherworldly creatures ruled & haunted the Kingdom of Life -- the panther like monster called the Displacer Beast. It eats the fruit, getting drunk on the seedlings for weeks at a time. Prides of the creatures will eat the contents of an entire grove. The worst thing are the weeks after they have eaten the fruit. Going through withdrawal they start prowling the lands of the Tupari, killing indiscriminately. Thus it is always in the best interest of the Pada'lagh pickers to get their fruit before the displacers show up.
The tupari used to hunt the displacers but in these times when good men are either taken for the armies of the Druids or just ... taken, the Tupari are forced to hire outsiders. Adventurers, mercenaries and sailors needing quick coin often do the work but even they are in short supply these days.
The first thing I have noticed in the (meta focused) creation of adventures for Zahara Blackthorne, TIefling Warlock seeking to eliminate the pact that was forced on her in childhood, is that I don't use any defined structure. 4E is too focused on the group to take the stock source material. Thus i use my old fallback of encounters which are vamped up. But that leaves a lot lacking, in the 4E world.
So I am endeavoring to create an adventure that follows some define parameters and uses techniques and concepts as laid out in actual rulesets.
I want to create a structured adventure tailored to her character without doing my usual 25% prep, 75% winging it. Part of the creation of this character for her has been the idea of learning the 4E ruleset. Part of doing so will have to be understanding how a standard adventure is created in 4E and then use people's solo gaming suggestions to alter set parameters. I guess the coming/recently arrived 4E DMG2 should assist.
Part the problem in any adventure creation, especially for a solo game, is having it both challenging and focused on the character's goals while also allowing for the DM to have some fun. I so often make the game about giving her some fun and often leave myself out. I need to have some enjoyment out of the game beyond the mere act of playing and established Mary Sue NPCs.
So, so far I need some structure and some DM related fun. The structure comes in a creation of a hook, a good beginning (something snappy that draws her in beyond the contract of the hook), a great climactic ending and interesting filler in between. Seems disingenuous to use the term filler but that is essentially what it is. I am required to provide a series of challenges -- combat, skill and roleplaying -- and each should move her on to the next goal. Mini-goals in each part of the adventure are a good idea. And rather than linear, stepping stones are a better format for an adventure. This is all very basic stuff but I have never been a basic stuff kind of guy.
Now, another thing I need to do is troll the interwebs for more material on solo gaming in 4E. There are some basic assumptions such as what character class is best, what monster roles are best against a single character and the good ol XP buy. Still seems far too crunchy to me, like having play guides for a video game. I want the more intangible material as well, such as balance and pacing. Hopefully someone will have thought about more than the numbers.
Hmm, so this meta talk is not going in the direction i want it to go. This is supposed to be the scratch pad online that will collect all my thoughts that i usually write down. I have to "think out loud" in order to think some things through. Its not meant to be structured as a proper blog post because its not about someone reads it or not. Its for me. But most of what i just said, didn't really need to be said. Not even to my by me.
Oh well, next post !!
Let's hope that it is a Druid doing this and i end up as a lizard man.
huh?
I am bringing back this blog to be the notepad for thoughts on D&D and RPG development, but unlike the the toasted Livejournal, it will be a scratch pad with no need for assembled thought. It will also be hidden from Marmy, the recipient of said games.
Yesterday and early this morning, while talking about our impending move to a new apartment a few blocks away in a much bigger building (and no longer on the ground floor), Alaina and I talked about how being in a larger complex essentially acts as a fairly effective form of security through obscurity. Unfortunately, as always seems to be the case, the conversation was prescient.
I'm going to give Tumblr a try for a while. We'll see how long that lasts.
I'm always embarrassed when my education fails me. Last night while at dinner with friends, I was asked what "H1N1" meant. I quickly responded with a guess that it was the chemical composition of the core antigenic part of the virus. One hydrogen, one nitrogen. Not only was that wrong, but it doesn't even make much sense from a chemical standpoint. So, I'm here to set the record straight.
What is "H1N1"
Aside from the "butt" of a fantastic joke, it is a serologic classification which identifies the exact subtype of the influenza virus. You see, there are two main proteins on the envelope of the influenza virus—hemagglutinin (H!) and neuraminidase (N!)—that are critical to the mechanism of infection and replication of the influenza virus. These two proteins are known to exist in a number of different configurations, 16 for hemagglutinin and 9 for neuraminidase[1] and each configuration is numbered. This means that H1N1 is hemagglutinin type 1 and neuraminidase type 1. H1N1 has the same hemagglutinin protein structure as H1N2 and the same neuraminidase protein structure as H5N1.
Why is this important?
This stuff isn't just taxonomic fluffery. For those who don't know or remember, the proteins which exist on the surface of a pathogen and the structure of those proteins is like a key which fit very particular locks (receptors) on the surface of the certain of the body's cells creating some change in the cell. Changes in these configurations can completely alter the way that the pathogen works. Because these proteins are so unique, they are also markers that the body remembers and recognizes in its immune response and hence are critical to the creation of vaccines against the pathogens.
In short, these proteins are the critical actors in both the mechanisms of infection and the identifiers in the war against them.
Particular to the influenza virus and our two proteins, Wikipedia tells us that Hemagglutinin "mediates binding of the virus to target cells and entry of the viral genome into the target cell" and neuraminidase "is involved in the release of progeny virus from infected cells". To use a metaphor, if flu virus infection was a bank robbery, hemagglutinin would be the explosives expert responsible for blowing a hole in the wall of the bank and neuraminidase would be the safe cracker and getaway man.
Different configurations of these proteins present differently-abled virus subtypes. One configuration may be more resistant to conditions outside of the body, another might be more easily communicable from host to host, others might have more devastating effects on the infected host. So knowing what virus we're dealing with not only helps us develop a vaccine, but also informs us of its typical characteristics.
What is swine flu?
You may have noticed recently that the World Health Organization and other related agencies just stopped calling the virus the "swine flu" and started calling it by its scientific name Influenza type A subtype H1N1. Some falsely believe that this was a worldwide response to cries of foul from pig farmers worried about their business, to stem the worldwide panic causing countries to slaughter pigs and the general public to have sworn off bacon and other lesser pork products. While those factors all certainly exist, in fact, this was the correct thing to do epidemiologically speaking.
"Swine flu" is just a generic term for any influenza virus that is transmitted between pigs. Once the flu crosses over to another species, like us, it's no longer a "swine flu" but a "human/dog/seal/bird flu of swine origin". So calling the current Influenza A H1N1 virus a swine flu doesn't cirrectly communicate the human-to-human transmissibility aspect of the virus. H1N1 has, just like in 1918, become a "human flu".
Related Articles
- jay.vox.com: Why is swine flu more dangerous than normal flu?
- Fluidinfo.com: A few comments on pandemic influenza
- Fluidinfo.com: OK, it’s a pandemic. Now what?
- virology.ws: Influenza Virus Transmission
- virology.ws: Structure of the Influenza Virus
- Wikipedia: Swine Flu
- Wikipedia: Influenza
- Wikipedia: Influenzavirus A
- Wikipedia: Influenza A virus subtype H1N1
- Wikipedia: 2009 Swine Flu Outbreak
Maxwell's "Pretty Wings". I've been waiting 8 years for him to put out a new record, and two years since I first heard a snippet of this track. Worth the wait.
