Over on his YouTube Channel, Daddy Rolled a 1, Martin R. Thomas has put up a pretty comprehensive overview of all the various Witch classes.
So, of course, you know it has my attention.
It is great overview.
Nothing new to anyone who reads this blog regularly, and I think I have covered more, but still a great overview.
It's Halloween after all and more witch discussion is always welcome!
Both episodes had a similar plot element, though dealt with in very different ways. On Discovery they are recovering from "The Burn" which destroyed all dilithium in use a little over a hundred years ago. The new Federation president (who looks like she might have some Cardassian DNA) mentioned that there were ongoing Warp Drive developments. She mentioned a new version of Discovery's Spore Drive and that a new Pathway drive had been developed and placed into the new Voyager.
Over on Prodigy, which shares the Voyager connection, we learn that the USS Protostar is more than just a neat name. Its warp drive is not just powered by an anti-matter reactor, it has in its heart an actual protostar.
There is a constant level of warp drive development going on in Star Trek. But the Spore Drive has proven difficult to get right or recreate, Trans Warp was a failure, and slipstream conduits are difficult to navigate.
All of this and one other bit of information I recently unearthed sets the stage very nicely for what is going on in BlackStar.
Let me restate something I said back in 2019.
We don't see many Ambassador class ships in the TNG time-frame, why? I am going to say there was a design flaw that was later discovered after Starfleet Corp of Engineers went over why the Ent-C was destroyed. There is a flaw in the nacelle arrangement that was missed in the R&D phase and only seen in practice. This lead to newer warp nacelle configuration that gave us the Galaxy and Nebula class ships. Despite living in the 24th century, human Starfleet personnel can still be somewhat superstitious and the Ambassador class gained the status of a "cursed ship".
This is also why there are 21 decommissioned Ambassador class ships outside of Neptune Station. Here, Commodore Peter Quincy Taggert, with a signed order from Admiral Nyota Uhura (who had been fond of the Ambassador class and hated to see them go to waste), began work on the Mystic Project. The NX-3100 (mislabeled on the hull as NX-3000 due to a clerical error) was developed at the Klatuu Nebula Yards in conjunction with the Theremin Science Council and launched to Earth on SD 30007.21. (2351 or there abouts)
We have 21 (or 22) decomed Ambassador ships over in the "junk yards" of Neptune Station. A prototype (the Mystic) was b
uilt at the Klatuu Nebula Yards by the Theremins. A desire by Starfleet to work on new types of warp drive, BUT all available engineers are working on the super-sexy new Galaxy-class project over a Utopia Planitia on Mars. This is why CDRE Taggert gets them. No one else wants them. But why are they here? I said due to a flaw in the nacelle arrangement. I said this because I replaced the warp nacelles on my model. But is there more?
Enter my "I have too much work to do, but instead I am watching Star Trek Starship videos on YouTube" moment earlier this week.
Enter TriAngulum Audio Studios on YouTube. They have a series called "Truth or Beta" that discusses Star Trek "Alpha" content (for Memory Alpha, or cannon material named for the Memory Alpha planetoid that is the Federation Library and the first stop for the USS Protector) vs. "Beta" (for Memory Beta, non-cannon material that appears in books). This series collects various bits of Alpha lore and select bits of Beta lore to make for a fuller picture of what is going on.
Here is their series on what went wrong with the Ambassador class ship.
The premise is basically the same. After the destruction of the Enterprise-C, the Ambassador class was given a top to bottom inspection. Where I claimed it was the warp nacelles, here it is an issue with the new warp core and other systems with the older duotronic computers. If you look at the Enterprise-C computer screens you can see they look more like the ones from the Enterprise-A and B eras. Whereas newer Ambassador class ships have the isolinear computers and the LCARS OS.
That works for me too. In any case it explains why we never saw a lot of the Ambassador class ships in the TNG Era despite the class having had an Enterprise among its numbers. It also explains why I can have a couple of dozen just sitting out by Neptune waiting to be used for something else.
Now I just need to get my reviews up of Star Trek 2d20 and Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 from Modiphius up.
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| I gotta admit I love the shirt! |
I will admit, I adore Ginny Di. She has unbound enthusiasm about D&D and all things related. I know she is young enough to be my daughter and I have characters older than her, but I still think she is great.
It is so refreshing to come to her Twitter or YouTube pages and see how excited she is over something D&D-related. I'll read the posts or blogs of some of my contemporaries and wonder when the fun died in their lives leaving them as bitter old husks.
Plus she seems to irritate the right people, so that is a bonus all on its own.
The fact that she also loves her witches has almost nothing to do with it. Well...maybe a little.
I have already posted about her or her projects in the past.
This week Ginny is back with Morelia the Wood Witch in a POV roleplay. It is a fun little bit video, but it really helped me cement the idea that Morelia would be a great NPC in my War of the Witch Queens.
Content Warning to Bitter Old Grogs Who Are Dead Inside: The video features a shop where an NPC Witch SELLS POTIONS! Gasp, the Horror! The audacity! The cheek of it all!
Anyway. She is fun. She is funny. She has a ton of enthusiasm and I think she is great. In fact, I even sought out items she has been sponsored by at Gen Con because she made them look really fun.
So check her out. If you don't like her ask yourself, when did I die inside?
Ginny Di online
Give her a follow or a like or something.
I have gone on record with my love for the newest generation of D&D Players. They are passionate about the game they play and they LOVE their characters. I know that can sometimes feel a bit odd to the old-school crowd, but I don't care. They have passion and energy and it is them that will carry role-playing into the future for the next generations, not us.
Among all these "New School" players one of my favorites is Ginny Di. I'll provide some links below.
I featured her last week as the start of my Tasha's Week of Everything. She did a cosplay of Tasha, sponsored by Wizards of the Coast. It was a fun video and I enjoyed seeing all the work she put into the costume.
This week she is back with another great video. Here is her Twitter post for it.
pictured: a dyed-hair woke millennial snowflake feeeemale here to put her girly SJW hands all over your tabletop games 😌 pic.twitter.com/fv9ACwbG1o
— Ginny Di 📆 #Natural2021 calendar (@itsginnydi) December 2, 2020
And the video itself.
I know what you are thinking and to quote the Ninth Doctor, "I bet you are fussing and moaning right now, typical."
But really, how is this any different than what we all used to do anyway? Roll 3d6 in order and deal with it. Ginny is not so much against "Old School" as she thinks. Maybe against the "Middle School" of character optimization (positive spin) or Min-Maxing (negative spin).
It is also great advice. Characters should never be perfect. Flaws, quirks, and shortcomings make for far more interesting characters. Stan Lee knew this well. Peter Parker was a neurotic teen struggling to make ends meet. Doctor Strange was an arrogant prick before and even after his accident. Tony Stark was an arrogant prick alcoholic. I have/had a cleric who is afraid of the dark, a warlock who is colorblind, a dwarven thief that was kicked out of his clan, loves opera, and hates ale (one did not cause the others).
One of the things the New School D&D players do and do well is to think about their characters and try to build a good group dynamic. This is mocked in Old School circles as "back story" but that is a rather naïve or limiting way of looking at it. It is simply a different way of having fun with the same game.
Here is another video where she talks about 50 Character Builder Questions to ask of your character. Now in a game like D&D where characters can grow and change a lot based on what happens around them then I say it is ok to answer "I don't know yet" or even change answers later.
She does these before each session (not all of them of course) and I think that is a good way of doing things. I have been looking at her list and thought I might use some of them for my 31-day character challenge in January.
Aisling
An aisling is a poetic dream or vision and an Irish name for girls. It is also the name of Ginny's elf warlock/druid character. And she is also such a great character! Here are some videos about her character.
Count me among those that have grown to love Aisling as well. She is such a great character and sounds like she is a lot of fun despite no because of her various flaws.
Since I feel that Ginny's advice is actually in line with Old School character creation ethos I wanted to try to recreate Aisling for old school/OSR D&D. Since she is a warlock/druid "witchdaughter" it makes sense to me that she is a type of witch. Her Fey patron, Ùir, the Woman of the Soil, would make her a good Faerie Witch, but given her multiclassing into a druid and other factors, I see her as a Green Witch. All apologies to Ginny for borrowing Aisling here.
Aisling
Aisling by Ginny Di
Female Elf
5th Level Witch (Green Witch Tradition)
Spells
1: Fey Sight, Fury of the Ancestor
2: Blazing Gaze, Evil Eye
3: Bestow Curse
Patron: Ùir, the Woman of the Soil
Coven: Solitary
I think this works well.
There is a lot of "fan art" of Aisling out there. Here is one from joenni, an artist I want to feature one day.
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| Aisling by joenni |
check out Ginny's sites and especially her video content. It is all great fun.
Links
Hi everyone! Thank you for the outpouring of support and concern about the disappearance of Adult Wednesday Addams from the internet. As many of you have seen, the Tee & Charles Addams Foundation flagged the show and, for now, it is off of YouTube. I am working actively on coming to a resolution and will not let Wednesday be caged in internet purgatory. I appreciate your patience and support while I sort this issue out!
Obviously, this is very upsetting that the videos aren't online. Wednesday means so much to me as I know she does to you. Thank you for all of your enthusiasm. Your support every step of the way has meant the world to me.
****UPDATE: At this point, the Tee & Charles Addams Foundation cannot do anything to change the status of this issue, so sending messages and donations will not remedy the situation. If there is anything that can be done in support of the series, I will let you know. Thank you again for everything!****
Full Heart, Dead Eyes, Can't Lose.
xo Melissa
