TacticsConsort

On one hand: I know damn well that formatting is a huge bitch, because I've made my own huge homebrew for the game.

On the other hand: This is a multi-million dollar company that's been around for bloody ages. Hiring a professional formatter shouldn't even be a blip in the budget.

I have to say, this is both incredibly impressive and absolutely fascinating. After such a long stalemate, it's wonderful to see Ukraine make such progress towards repelling their invaders.

Young Black Dragon called Gendridd, wasn't meant to be a major obstacle, his personally is that he's evil mostly just because he's having a fantastic time being an asshole and constantly taunting people (to the extent that the first and so far only lair effect he's got is the ability to heckle people at any location in the lair). Anyways he was fully aware that he'd get one-rounded trying to fight a party of four level 7 PCs, so instead of fighting them stole the party's unattended bags and sat in a tree to taunt them about it before flying off (he did not consider this might lead to fighting them anyway).

The party's plan was to ambush him in his own territory, so their plan was to cut through some of the most overgrown parts of the swamp to get behind his lair and set up an ambush, instead of confronting any of his minions. However, between several spellcaster party members who had both completely dumped their strength/dexterity and couldn't cast spells while drowning, party members wearing full heavy armour that weighed them down significantly, and bad rolls, then two of them fell into a bog, and in trying to rescue them the others also fell in and they all drowned, resulting in the first TPK.

Obviously that wasn't a super satisfying ending, so for closure I offered to run a oneshot with a level 5 party in Gendridd's lair, sent to avenge the original party, on condition that I wouldn't hold back with enemy strategy and tactics (no bullshit with magic, just good enemy postioning, balanced teams that had lots of options in fights, and had actual battle plans). They made it through most of the dungeon pretty well, while constantly trading off verbal barbs with Gendridd who basically ran a snarky sports commentary the entire way through, letting them know how eager he was to crush them when they made it to HIS big boss chamber. Anyways they reached the outside of the chamber and they were just preparing to fight the skeletons who were guarding his door when he jumped out of an acid river behind them and got a Surprise Round, hitting two of them with a breath weapon and then rolling good enough initiative to knock out their fragile backline casters.

After that then he's become popular/respected enough to get Promoted To NPC.

TLDR: First wipe due to RNGiamat cursing the d20 and a party badly suited to dealing with falling in a bog. Second wipe because Gendridd employed the secret chromatic dragon art of 'lying to people'.

Can confirm, I run a LOT of dragons and the interesting dragon villains are generally about finding unique takes on their common traits or villains because of their response to their circumstances rather than pure random villainy. We've got the red dragon who self-perpetuates her own cycle of violence, we've got the black dragon who's mentally broken because their worldview of being entitled to everything due to their strength collapsed after they lost a territorial struggle, we've got the emerald dragon who's desire not to be bothered by their humanoid allies led them to neglect their promises, we've got the silver dragon who loved her friends so much she was willing to fall into necromancy to try and undo their deaths.

Also we have That Bastard With Eight Player Kills.

That said, always remember: To become cliche, something needs to work super well first- so well that everyone does it. It only crosses from great into cliche if everyone does it and forgets why and how it worked in the first place.

Oh I like this topic! Fun fact, Ball Bearings are actually a SUPER important little thing and a major hallmark component of the industrial revolution. You need to be able to make really good ball bearings in order to make a rotating joint that's just decent, and churning out perfect little spheres by the tens of thousands was one of the first tests of the modern world's capacity to make things in industrial quantity.

Basically, a standard rotating joint (simplified) has an inner metal band, eight ball bearings equally spaced around the inner metal band, and an outer metal band that traps all the ball bearings between it and the inner metal band. This means that the two bands can be rotated with incredibly low friction and relatively low wear. This is used in basically every machine with moving parts, and trains absolutely fit that criteria.

But it's definitely not operated with zero wear, especially in machines that are constantly operated and weigh a lot, like trains. Ball Bearings can and will wear down during operation and need to be replaced semi-frequently.

As for buying them from China... I would assume that's totally possible, but China might not have enough stock, or they could be trying to leverage their position to sell the ball bearings at a high markup since Russia doesn't have the ability to buy elsewhere.

Oh shit, they've actually captured the area and are holding it? That's pretty significant! If they can keep this up, then maybe they can force Russia to concede? ...Though any russian deal to end the war obviously won't be honoured, which does make it a bit of a conundrum. Still, this is a good thing.

That number is... eerily close to the percentage population estimated to be hardcore unshakeable Trumpers.

Holy shit. The man's practically a saint. All the best to him, I hope Kamala takes him to the top, because that's where he needs to be.

RIP, he shall be missed. That site's been a good one throughout the years, I've made genuine friends over it even outside its' more famous uses.

This does raise some worries about the future of FurAffinity. That site runs at a deficit, so if a corporate investor gets their hands on it then it will be swiftly thrown into the Shit Pit in order to make a quick buck. Decades of art, literature and culture gone in a flash.

Thankfully, we are the furry fandom, so the chances of getting touched by corporations are a bit lower than other sites which are more marketable. But still, making sure that the site has sufficient funding for the future is going to be a real concern. I can't back this up, it's just a rumour I heard, but the most likely reason that Dragoneer died now is because he chose to use his money to keep the site running instead of buying medicines. While the shitty US healthcare system is absolutely to blame for this death, it also makes a pretty stark point about the cost of the site, if it's comparable to having to buy US Medicines.

I wonder who'll replace him. Changing owners of a site is always worrying; the last thing I want to see is yet another phenomenal collection of art and users and community get destroyed by corporate scum who think they can squeeze a few dollars out in the process.

...Goncharovka? Surely that's not a real place. Let me check.

...Hmm, it does seem to be a real place, but... Well, I guess I just find this generally suspect. We'll just have to see how it pans out before jumping to conclusions- maybe see if we can get some credible reporting.

Dude, the amount of firepower Kamala has given to the name of democracy is just incredible. I was apprehensive about dropping Biden but she's REALLY given the party new life.