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The weather is decidedly spring-like today. Yesterday we got up to a high of 70 degrees or so (that's about 20C), which might have been a record. While it was nice to open the place up and get some fresh air in the apartment, the doomer in me cannot enjoy this. It just makes me worry about how brutal the summer is likely to be.
I'm not sure what could be done to prepare for it beyond insulating our home as best we can. We have a very large room AC unit that takes a lot of energy but can't cool the entire apartment. We could supplement with strategic room fans and maybe abandoning sections of the house during certain times of day, but I wouldn't prefer that. I'll figure it out; if blistering heatwaves are our new normal, I'll have to.
I have a small dilemma for the Unlicensed game. Two PCs want to create a magic item that will display someone's face on command, like a locket with a tiny hologram inside or something. It's such a neat idea that I'd love to make it happen, but 5E doesn't have a lot of great options here.
Programmed Illusion is the spell the players brought to me for a base; it's a 6th-level illusion spell that's more or less permanent. Basically, when a trigger condition is met the illusion activates, lasts for several minutes, and ends. It will keep doing this until it's dispelled!
The problem is that the spell must be cast by a person on a specific location, so the rules-as-written mean there's no way to imbue a locket with that spell. I've checked forums around the Internet and haven't found anything that would be able to do this out of the box; the problem with Programmed Illusion is that if you bend the rules to allow the spell to work on items things get hellaciously abused.
And beyond that, this item would be so useful in-world there has to be some reason why it'd be so rare to find or make. Programmed Illusion is a 6th-level spell, so not a whole lot of folks would be able to cast it in the first place, but the material components aren't so bad -- just powdered jade and a bit of fleece. I'm thinking the limiter for this would be expense; the level of knowledge and expertise needed to house such a powerful spell in a portable package is rare enough that whoever could do it can charge whatever they want for it.
It's possible that the Artificer rules could be fudged enough to provide a framework for it, and if I can find a cool enough adventure for it there might even be a hook or two for finding specialized materials. I wouldn't want to stuff the game with filler for filler's sake, though, so I'll have to think about it.
I'm trying to shift my thinking so that I'm working ahead as best I can. This morning, the addict's voice in my head tried to get me to wake and bake since I had done so much work yesterday. I can afford to slack today, yeah? I can still get work done while high, so why not?
Because up until now I've always been wondering why I can't get ahead of things. This is a big reason why. So instead I took my Adderall and now I'm pushing forward through the morning. Handled email, working on QC tickets, and later there will be a batch of lab reports to look through. If I'm on the ball this morning, I could maybe take the afternoon to work on my resume -- or the D&D game -- or the Jackalope Serial Company.
The free-floating anxiety today is based around those things I said yes to at FC but haven't made any movement on. I've added them to my 24 goals, but I should break things down to tasks that I can handle.
First things first, though. Write every day. Read every day. :)
I'm not sure what could be done to prepare for it beyond insulating our home as best we can. We have a very large room AC unit that takes a lot of energy but can't cool the entire apartment. We could supplement with strategic room fans and maybe abandoning sections of the house during certain times of day, but I wouldn't prefer that. I'll figure it out; if blistering heatwaves are our new normal, I'll have to.
I have a small dilemma for the Unlicensed game. Two PCs want to create a magic item that will display someone's face on command, like a locket with a tiny hologram inside or something. It's such a neat idea that I'd love to make it happen, but 5E doesn't have a lot of great options here.
Programmed Illusion is the spell the players brought to me for a base; it's a 6th-level illusion spell that's more or less permanent. Basically, when a trigger condition is met the illusion activates, lasts for several minutes, and ends. It will keep doing this until it's dispelled!
The problem is that the spell must be cast by a person on a specific location, so the rules-as-written mean there's no way to imbue a locket with that spell. I've checked forums around the Internet and haven't found anything that would be able to do this out of the box; the problem with Programmed Illusion is that if you bend the rules to allow the spell to work on items things get hellaciously abused.
And beyond that, this item would be so useful in-world there has to be some reason why it'd be so rare to find or make. Programmed Illusion is a 6th-level spell, so not a whole lot of folks would be able to cast it in the first place, but the material components aren't so bad -- just powdered jade and a bit of fleece. I'm thinking the limiter for this would be expense; the level of knowledge and expertise needed to house such a powerful spell in a portable package is rare enough that whoever could do it can charge whatever they want for it.
It's possible that the Artificer rules could be fudged enough to provide a framework for it, and if I can find a cool enough adventure for it there might even be a hook or two for finding specialized materials. I wouldn't want to stuff the game with filler for filler's sake, though, so I'll have to think about it.
I'm trying to shift my thinking so that I'm working ahead as best I can. This morning, the addict's voice in my head tried to get me to wake and bake since I had done so much work yesterday. I can afford to slack today, yeah? I can still get work done while high, so why not?
Because up until now I've always been wondering why I can't get ahead of things. This is a big reason why. So instead I took my Adderall and now I'm pushing forward through the morning. Handled email, working on QC tickets, and later there will be a batch of lab reports to look through. If I'm on the ball this morning, I could maybe take the afternoon to work on my resume -- or the D&D game -- or the Jackalope Serial Company.
The free-floating anxiety today is based around those things I said yes to at FC but haven't made any movement on. I've added them to my 24 goals, but I should break things down to tasks that I can handle.
First things first, though. Write every day. Read every day. :)
