Brickdoctor

So, if I understand correctly, you're mad at the admiral for ruining your roleclaim by telling us that there are no clues in the pictures, and now you claim that four of the rest of us are Scum based on a picture? Does that even make sense? Also, it's against the rules (as if this was some sort of game ) to quote private conversations you've had with the admiral.

Thanks for the new pics. Looking at the comparison with the scale model, the scale and dimensions of this model look great.

That's why I don't try to estimate the length or page count of my quests. The players will always find a way to alter the timing of the quest. (nothing against my players; I encourage more freedom in quests)Although, ironically, my quests are pretty consistent: they're always really long.

I haven't been active in a while, but I plan to start building for Historica again after I finish the Heroica quest I'm hosting. I'd like to keep the island that my watchtower was located on. (It was number six on the original map, if I remember correctly) Thanks.

QM Note:Did I miss something?

I think it fits too well. It seems too convenient to me. I still don't see any reason not to lynch Jones, though. This is a similar situation to an investigation result that turns up Scum. The suspect can claim that a number of things happened to wrongly implicate him (framing, being a Miller, the Cop being Paranoid or Insane, etc... and, yes, redirecting), but the general rule is that you still test the result by lynching the suspect.

QM Note:Yeah. QM Note:I stole it from OoTS. (with adjustments to make it fit the situation) Party: Arthur Justus Regulus VII, Level 13 Mage (Flipz) *Party Second-in-Command* Power: 20 Health: 19/19 Ether: 12/17 Defense: 1 Gold: 18 Inventory: Staff of the Cultist Battlemage (WP: 7; 50% chance of Fleeing instead of being KO'd), Standard-Issue Crossbow (WP: 1), Robe of Magi (SP:1), Potion(x2), Bedroll, Healing Staff (WP: 5), Scroll of Sealing, Scroll of Blindness, Scroll of Confusion, Scroll of Sleep, Shovel, Grand Tonic, Opal (Ice), Telescope, Amethyst (Darkness), Tonic, Mead Luke, Level 19 Sage (controlled by Flipz) *Pacifist* Power: 24 Health: 27/34 Ether: 11/26 Defense: 0 Gold: 0 Inventory: Arthur's Staff of Elven Necromancy (WP: 5), Standard-Issue Crossbow (WP: 1), Wooden Staff (WP: 1), Diamond (Light), Tonics (2), Bedroll Alexandre le Chevalier, Level 13 Knight (Capt.JohnPaul) Power: 21 Health: 22/22 Defense: 7 Gold: 17 Inventory: Sword of the Elven Blademaster (WP: 8; ignores SP), Standard-Issue Crossbow (WP: 1), Cross Heater Shield (SP: 7), Potions (6), Tonic, Remedy, Smoke Bomb Count Lewis Knyghton, Level 14 Engineer (controlled by Flipz) Power: 15 Health: 21/21 Defense: 0 Gold: 0 Inventory: Spatha (WP: 3), Standard-Issue Crossbow (WP: 1) "Sir Lyonel? Hah, the boy's an incompetent fool. I have no idea whose side he's on. I don't think he does, either." You expend 1 Ether to launch a Darkness Elemental Spell at Sir Laurant, but Sir Loren parries the attack with his sword. "Do any of us have a choice? Once, I had a shark. I took my shark out for a swim in Lake Glaz, but there was a fisherman in the water. My shark mistook the fisherman for prey, and it attacked him. It didn't have a choice. My shark was driven by instinct. As he had been taught, the fisherman fought back, going for the eyes and the gills. He didn't have a choice. My shark was attacking him. I loved my shark. That day, my shark died. In time, all things die. Some by having their eyes gouged out. It is our destiny. "Do you really think that you can threaten me with death, by separating my soul from my body? The caterpillar's destiny is to give up its body. It doesn't have a choice. Only by shedding its old body can it become a beautiful butterfly. "

I speak to the party. "I think this confession can be considered a part of Master Bluehood's statement, which we were tasked with obtaining. I say we take him alive and return to the Town Watch to present our findings."

If you have a defense, it might be a good idea to present it in public so we can consider it...Anyways, whenever there's a night action result that implicates someone, the rule is that you test it by lynching that suspect. That alone is enough for me to Vote: Zachary Jones (Flipz).

"Nah, my Somewhat Beloved Evil Secretary was supposed to prepare one, but he kinda got killed along with the rest of my men a hour or so ago." "You seem to have an interest in power, so let me educate you a little. It's sort of this thing I like to do sometimes, especially for learned wizards such as yourself. Power, it isn't something that you put on or take off like a jacket. It's something you just ARE. If you can lose it by blowing two die rolls, you never really had power in the first place, see what I'm saying? Your scroll shenanigans are real flashy, but they have one weakness: they are shackled to your MegaBlokin' mid-level self! I used to think scrolls equaled power, too, back when I was Chaotic Good. I've learned a lot since then. You know what does equal power? Power. Power equals power. Crazy, huh? But the type of power? Doesn't matter as much as you'd think. It turns out, everything is oddly balanced. Weird, but true. For example: Right now, power takes the form of knowing who's allied with whom and not telling you. So, Uncle Loren, what's the moral of the story? A big pile of scrolls isn't enough when the other guy has a big pile of scrolls AND the knowledge you want. And they died happily ever after. The End."

Welcome to EB, skayen! This looks incredible. It looks slightly too wide, but the other angles look great, and I love the amount of studs you've left visible and the amount you've tiled over. I think the 'city' might be a little too smooth, but it's a sort of simpler, more refined style that I myself like to use often. Is this a WIP or a completed MOC? If it is complete, could we get some more, larger pics? (I also want to blog this if it's complete)

Welcome back, Sir Christopher the Meatshield with Too Many Potions Fred Fred!

I do mine around late morning, if possible, since the room I take them in has a big window that faces south-east. At late morning, the window is facing the sun, but the sun is just high enough that the light isn't harsh and direct. Since you say that they get fuzzy late in the day, I assume you mean that the photos are grainy, which is caused by a lack of light. If you can't increase the light, increase the exposure time.

Okay, I'll have to try that. Thanks for the tip. I've been using Ctrl/Cmd+C and Ctrl/Cmd+V for so long, though (going back to my Paint.NET days), that it might take me longer to think about hitting 'J' instead.

Okay, fair warning, this is a long post with a lot of pictures. So, here's my 'behind the scenes' look at the latest picture I did for Q31. (no story spoilers, so those of you on the other Dastan Quests, feel free to look) This is the setup for the shot: (I took this in front of my white backdrop since I already had a big white background set up for an review I'm doing in the RA) I start with a 16x32 baseplate in old light grey, and cover it with whatever plates I want for the ground. In this case, it's a tan, sandy ground for Dastan. (otherwise, I use brown for normal ground and tan for roads. If this was an indoor shot, I would tile the baseplate instead) I set up the main elements, which in this case are the tree, the signs, and the minifigs and horses. You can also see that I built a pair of smaller scenes on top of 4x6 plates that I can move around in the background to fill up any empty areas. I used the grass to fill in the empty areas along the ground, to cover up most of the horizon, which makes it less obvious how small this setup is. I added in the bird on the left to throw some more color into that corner of the shot. The tree is just a taller, skinnier version of the tree in the MMV. The backdrop is a 8.5x11 sheet of light blue paper, which is looking a little beat-up after a few quests. Here's the initial shot: This was an eight-second exposure at an aperture of f13. And here's what it looks like opened in Photoshop CS5: I just use the default layout for PS, so this should be pretty familiar to anyone who has the program. First, I double-click the Background layer to unlock it. Name and other info in this box don't matter to me; I just click 'OK'. I adjust brightness and contrast in Curves. I'm no expert; I just do a basic adjustment. I drag the line down near the bottom until the blacks satisfy me, and then move the point at the top to the left until the whites satisfy me. Using Selective Color, I make the yellows a little richer and brighter: With some images, I might also tweak the blues and reds, but I'm happy with the way this one already is. After I resize to 800px, I use the wand to select the larger areas of the sky. You don't really need to be that precise when you do this for this photo. Hold down Shift while selecting to add to the current selection. I did select some areas of the Lion Pikeman's helmet and the bird's head on the left, so I'll just use the lasso to fix that. Hold down Alt/Option while selecting to remove from the current selection. I copy the selection and paste it into another layer. Just use Ctrl/Cmd+C to copy and Ctrl/Cmd+V to paste into another layer. I use a huge Surface Blur to smooth out the sky. The sky looks ugly right now, but that'll be fixed later. I apply a light Gaussian Blur to make the transition between the new sky and the existing objects softer. Again, no need to be precise with this. The old sky is still in the original layer, and it was already blue, so there's no reason to try to be very fine with the background isolation. I use Curves to adjust the color of the new sky. I just eyeball the basic adjustments until it looks good. In a new layer, I add a solid white ellipse. Hold Shift while drawing the ellipse to confine its dimensions to a perfect circle. I apply a light yellow outer glow to the ellipse. Again, I just play with the settings and color until it looks good. Just make sure the spread and size of the glow are such that there's no definite edge between the glow and the ellipse. Then, move the sun to wherever you want it in the sky. I reset the palette to its default colors (D) and render Clouds in a new layer. I left the sun above the clouds for now so I can see where it is. It'll be moved under the clouds later. I render Difference Clouds twice. Then I adjust the clouds layer with Levels to make them more opaque and the edges more definite. Shape and position of the clouds doesn't really matter. I change the blending mode to Screen. I use the lasso tool to move the clouds around to where I want them. This step is optional; if there was more sky in the shot, I might just flip the clouds layer around and rotate it a little before dragging it into a good position. This shot has less sky in it, so I'm using the lasso tool to move the bigger chunks of cloud to areas where they'll be more visible. Then I apply a mask to the clouds layer. I take a soft brush and mask out the areas where the clouds are blocked by an object. There's no quick, automatic way to do this; just keep brushing until you're happy with the effect. Yes, you could have removed the sky entirely and put the clouds layer behind the layer with the LEGO in it, but I think it's easier to do it this way. You don't have to worry about getting perfect edges when you isolate the subject. I permanently applied the effects on the sun layer so that I could mask out the part of the glow that was on top of the sword and the signs. I noticed that that area of the sky on the left was too light, so I also added a layer below the new sky and filled it with a better shade of blue, and then masked out some of the sky to reveal the deeper blue in some areas. There are more organized ways to do that, like doing this way back when I was editing the color of the sky, but I wanted to quickly adjust this when I noticed it while I was doing the clouds, so... Last thing to do is to add the text to the signs. This is the PR Uncial font in a tan. No idea why I started using it for Q4, but I've used it ever since. I zoom in and rasterize the type. I use Distort to match the perspective of the text to the sign. I apply a slightly grainy texture to the text, which makes it look a little more like it was printed onto the tile by TLG. Repeat with the other sign, and we're done! Here's the final image: I'm no PS expert, so I'm sure there's some simpler way to do all that.

QM Note: Lion Knights C should have moved another hex north-west last Round, so they can't move two hexes in that direction this Round. (well, actually, they could, if you want to see another section of the map full of blank hexes that I haven't mapped out, and I know that, being a Darths and Droids reader, Flipz, you'll want to do that, but I assure you that there's nothing of importance there) I'll just move them within striking distance of the closest enemy when their Turn comes up. Results of Round Twelve of the Battle of Drakencourt: Imperial Pikemen C move one hex north-west. Lion Pikemen D move one hex north-west. Lion Crossbowmen A vs. Teuthisal Crossbowmen A - Shield ((6*2)-1=11 Damage) Lion Crossbowmen B vs. Rogue Lion Pikemen A - Special Damage (No Damage) Lion Knights C move one hex south. Lion Knights C move one hex south-west. Lion Pikemen B do nothing. Arthur, your crossbowmen, from atop their hill, stand in front of the sun and fire arrows that the Teuthisal don't see coming until too late. "Crossbows B, keep firing on those pikes from afar; you can't take Damage. Everyone else should do nothing. There's no reason to risk losing any more men." QM Note: As it is possible for you to win this battle without taking any more Damage, I'm going to declare this an automatic victory and move to the next phase of the Battle. This is not a separate Battle; just a short interlude before you move to the boss phase of the Battle. Take some time to roleplay and chat with the enemy. I've got a 'behind the scenes' look at this next photo coming up shortly in the QM Lounge, by the way. As your troops finish off the rebels, a pair of men approach on horseback, galloping along the road leading back to the city. Seeing you, they slow down and one of them dismounts. As he turns to you, you see both men draw their swords. "Ah, heroes, we meet at last. You have defeated my armies, despite being outnumbered, but even as I speak, the final pieces are falling into place. Soon, the emperors will be dead, and I, Sir Loren, will rally the people of Dastan behind me. Sir Laurant and my other lieutenants are all that I need to finish what was started all those years ago." "My lord?" "Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen."

The poster says that those sets are ultimate, but it doesn't say that they're UCS. Notice that sets that are clearly not UCS (TIE Collection, Cloud City) are on the poster, while sets that clearly are UCS (UCS TIE/in, UCS T-65) are not.

How ironic. After all I was arguing with Francis about, and we don't lynch anyone, the Vig (I assume; I guess there's a small chance that it could have been an SK) goes out and kills a Scum. Not much to do but wait and see whom the Blocker blocked, then, unless we want to discuss Yesterday's suspects... I don't think he was saying he suspected you; I think he just wanted to simplify the process and make sure that other Townies with night actions don't tell someone that they have an action if they don't have to.

"Master Bluehood, it is not our duty to explain the explosion to the Town Watch, as sabotage or otherwise. We were instructed merely to acquire statements from all the investors involved regarding their roles and their opinions of the project."

Ooh, my turn! Even if I pretty much never roleplay. What the character loves: SP, big yellow feathers, SP, Mythril, SP, and artifacts. But mostly SP. What the character hates: Anyone who is drunk, heroes who don't follow their orders to the letter, bad grammar from anyone other than Cronk, and Crusaders armed with shurikens. what the character fears: Armor-piercing enemies and Rangers who poison whole roasted cows. What the character believes: Heroica seems like some sort of game. What the character values: Law, respect, and eyes. What the character wants: More SP, though you can't really go wrong with more Gold. What the character knows about: Everything everyone in Heroica has ever done. What good is Out of Character Knowledge if you never use it? People who made a difference in the character's life: Brickdoctor, whoever the MegaBloks he is. See also History of the Lords of Brickdocton. Discoveries that made a difference in the character's life: SP. Decisions that made a difference in the character's life: Tipping over a table to shield himself from Bacari's arrows.

Results of Round Eleven of the Battle of Drakencourt: Lion Crossbowmen A vs. Teuthisal Crossbowmen A - Damage (4=4 Damage) Lion Crossbowmen B do nothing. Lion Knights C move one hex north-west. Lion Pikemen B move one hex north-west. Imperial Pikemen C move one hex north-west. Lion Pikemen D move one hex north-west. Rogue Lion Pikemen A - Free Movement one hex south-east. All your troops move to engage the final enemies. Arthur, your crossbowmen are surprised to see the Teuthisal manage to fire off a few arrows. "Finish them!" Enemies: Rogue Lion Pikemen A Type: Footsoldiers Level: 4 Health: 10/10 Defense: 1 Passive Special: Footsoldiers gain a +1 Power flanking bonus whenever their target is adjacent to one of their allies. Drops: 12 Gold Teuthisal Crossbowmen A Type: Ranged Level: 4 Health: 3/10 Defense: 1 Passive Special: Ranged units can fire over obstacles or other units to attack enemies up to two hexes away. If their target is two hexes away and not also Ranged, they cannot take Damage. Drops: nothing Allies: Lion Pikeman B, Level 3 Footsoldiers (lead by Capt.JohnPaul) Power: 3 Health: 6/10 Defense: 1 Passive Special: Footsoldiers gain a +1 Power flanking bonus whenever their target is adjacent to one of their allies. Lion Pikeman D, Level 3 Footsoldiers (lead by Flipz) Power: 3 Health: 2/10 Defense: 1 Passive Special: Footsoldiers gain a +1 Power flanking bonus whenever their target is adjacent to one of their allies. Imperial Pikemen C, Level 2 Footsoldiers (lead by Flipz) Power: 2 Health: 7/10 Defense: 1 Passive Special: Footsoldiers gain a +1 Power flanking bonus whenever their target is adjacent to one of their allies. Lion Knights C, Level 4 Mounted (lead by Capt.JohnPaul) Power: 4 Health: 9/10 Defense: 2 Passive Special: Mounted units can act twice in a Round. (move two hexes, move one hex and attack, or attack twice) Lion Crossbowmen A, Level 3 Ranged (lead by Flipz) *On a Hill* Power: 6 Health: 6/10 Defense: 0 Passive Special: Ranged units can fire over obstacles or other units to attack enemies up to two hexes away. If their target is two hexes away and not also Ranged, they cannot take Damage. Lion Crossbowmen B, Level 3 Ranged (lead by Flipz) *On a Hill* Power: 6 Health: 10/10 Defense: 0 Passive Special: Ranged units can fire over obstacles or other units to attack enemies up to two hexes away. If their target is two hexes away and not also Ranged, they cannot take Damage. Party Second-in-Command, choose the order of actions. All of you, choose what action(s) each of your units will perform. Any enemy not targeted will get a Free Action at the end of the Round.

Not quite, thank goodness. It was 7.75% last time I was in Carlsbad, if I remember correctly.