Trail to the Heavens

by on October 22, 2026 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: MMO

We’re now about two months out from the next expansion for Final Fantasy XIV, so it’s past time to talk about the last few months in game, and patch 7.5(+).

First off, unlike Blue Mage, I hopped on the new Beastmaster limited class right away. Smudge and I need to get back to it and finish off the story, which is being good, but… the class is disappointing.

The general idea is about what you’d expect. And inside the Crucible of the Unbroken, it works about as you’d expect. It uses light/melee DPS armor, and you have a pet out who attacks with you and has special abilities. One note is the class gets fairly complex with the interaction of their special abilities and yours for the requisite class meter.

Outside the Crucible of the Unbroken, the beasts have the same token presence as, say, a carbuncle. They’re present, and they do things, but don’t have health, aren’t targetable, can’t tank, ect. I was hoping for more the Chocobo/companion model (even if they had to boot the Chocobo out while you had a beast out). This makes going into dungeons (which share in this problem) to collect some of the beasts much more annoying than it should be, and at that point shares in the Blue Mage problem of wanting a non-limited class along to help out.

Speaking of Chocobos, it has been announced that they will be able to fill out a dungeon party in the future. This is is what Smudge and I have been wanting for ages, so I’m eager to see it, probably around patch 8.1….

Spoilers for patch 7.5 and 7.55 story ahead!
↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Mr. Lincoln’s Army

by on October 18, 2026 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Bruce Catton’s history of the Army of the Potomac was the start of his ACW writing career, and his foreword is a favorite part of mine. He talks of growing up in Michigan, a bit over a century ago now, having seen all these veterans of the Civil War. They were, for his young self, more than he could understand. Old men who seemed more waiting for an end than anything, “…yet once, ages ago, they had been everywhere and had seen everything, and nothing that happened to them thereafter meant anything much.” Catton’s writing on the ACW all comes from a desire to understand these people.

Like all too many history books, this one has a separate in medias res opening, but this one has a real point. The entire first chapter, of six, is taken up by the account of the Second Bull Run campaign. Confusion, marching, counter-marching, Pope walking into a trap, and rumors of treason. At the end of it all, the army more demoralized than beaten, command more beaten than leading, McClellan arrives. He is there to take command again, and the army cheers, despondency forgotten.

We then go back to the birth of the Army of the Potomac to see why the men would react so. This naturally talks about the initial formation and organization of the army, and then eventually turns south to the Peninsula and the Seven Days. Chapter five is called “Opportunity Knocks Three Times”, and details the campaign that leads to Antietam, looking the great opportunities McClellan was afforded, starting with the Lost Orders, and how they slowly closed, untried, untested. The final chapter is about Antietam itself, and is as good a readable account as you are likely to find in seventy pages, starting with ominous stage-setting. (“…and south of the fence, filling all of the ground between the road and wood, was Mr. Miller’s thriving cornfield—the cornfield, forever, after that morning.”)

My 1962 edition has two maps, one for the Seven Days, and one for Antietam. The latter is very well done and helps place the elements of the battle very well. I suspect a lack of map for Second Bull Run may be very intentional, leaving you in the same fog of war as the Union army. I think this is not Catton’s best book, but he was off to a very strong start, and Mr. Lincoln’s Army is still a great casual reader account of the initial campaigns of the AoP.

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SH56 Another Surprise Package

by on October 14, 2026 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: SFB

Since Surprise Package is a fairly quick scenario and has an interesting matchup, Patch decided to go for turning it around and playing it again, and he tried taking the USS Kublai out for a spin.

My opening speed was close to Patch’s (21), but he went a bit faster with the DDL, speed 13. I launched a scatterpack on impulse 8, and then turned off so the drones would have time to be a separate target, and fired on impulse 10, hitting with three disruptors, and doing two damage with a pair of ph-2s to take down a little less than half the #1 shield, going to exactly half from a point from another pair of ph-2s the next impulse.

Patch turned to pursue and the scatterpack launched speed-12 drones on impulse 16, and I started turning around behind them. For turn 2, Kublai speed up to 19, while I kept my speed. The drones kept him off me a little while I finished my turn and fired disruptors on the oblique at range 13 on impulse 7, hitting with three again for seven damage to the #6 shield, with another point the next impulse from a ph-2. Patch made it around the drones at this point, and I launched one from the racks to discourage him as I turned off again.

This left him chasing me at range 10 at the end of the turn (much closer than I had hoped), so I increased speed to 26, while the DDL sped up to 25. With me going faster, he bolted one plasma torpedo on impulse 1, hitting for seven damage. I started a turn, and Patch followed a few impulses later. With him under a turn mode restriction, I HETed to reverse course on impulse 8.

We both slipped out, so the pass would not get too close, and I fired two disruptors (all I had power for) at range 8, hitting with both for six damage to the #6 shield. The next impulse, Patch launched a plasma torpedo, and fired two ph-1s to do four points to my #6, while I fired two phasers to do another three damage. The next impulse, another phaser shot got lucky to do three damage, punching two through the #6, for one hull and auxiliary control.

We both turned off at that point, and I ran out the plasma torpedo. I had hoped to get it to hit on its last move so as to know if it was real without Patch hitting the 10-point limit on plasma damage and earn off the VP penalty for that. But, near the end of its run it slipped over to be directly behind me, which kept me from doing that maneuver (I might have slipped too, and maybe gotten to do that, but didn’t think of it).

My goal for turn 4 was to get back at Patch (currently range 19), and get onto shield #1 or #6, hit him one last time with his damage going on my full front shields, and then disengage on turn 5 (required by the scenario). We both dropped speed, going back to our turn 2 speeds, with me at 21 and Patch at 19.

While I was technically on an intercept course, this meant I was unlikely to get across his course to get at the weak shields, but I spent too long giving up on it. Eventually, I turned in on impulse 26, just outside his FA arc. If he wanted to fire photons at me, he would have to accept a close pass with his weak #1 shield.

Well, he didn’t, but did fire off a FH plasma torpedo before turning off. This left me unable to penetrate his shields while I dodged the (real?) plasma. As it turned out, the earlier one was a pseudo torpedo, and this one was real, and I was unable to dodge it, taking 15 damage on my #2 on impulse 32 of turn 4.

Afterword

So, I got 9.4 VP for doing (two) internals, while Patch gets 28.25 VP for me disengaging, +4 for my faster drones, and +4 for the one T-bomb I took (and didn’t use; there’s a reason I only took one). 9.4 : 36.25 = 394% – Decisive Victory.

Certainly, a longer scenario allows the D6 time to break down the smaller DDL, and the main thing it has is the mix of heavy direct-fire (photons) and fast seeking weapons (plasmas). It turns out Patch had also been paying holding for the plasma-Fs (which should be 0); I know that had been discussed, but he forgot during a three-week delay we had getting the scenario started. So, he should have had a couple more energy available during the game.

It’s an interesting asymmetry. With the DD being noticeably smaller than the D6, it’s a rough scenario without the surprise element. I also knew going into this play that Patch had done a very good job with IKV Devastation in the first game, and I was going to have a hard time doing any better. The main thing was using a scatterpack, which did get me breathing room for over a turn, and let me get those internals in three passes, despite having “merely” average die rolls, or a bit better on phasers, while Patch had gotten very lucky on his disruptors the first time.

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The Khazars

by on October 10, 2026 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

I don’t follow Osprey Publishing very closely, but it seems evident that they went out of their way to get some experts in regions you don’t hear much about in English, and team them up with their regular authors to produce readable Men-at-Arms books on what can be esoteric subjects.

From what I’ve seen, it has worked very well for them. From what I know, Mikhail Zhirohov has written one other book (in Russian), but I would imagine there’s been papers and other scholarly contributions. Him and Osprey regular David Nicolle have produced a fine introduction to a Jewish Turkic people that you hardly ever get more than distant references to.

While a 2019 Osprey book, we’re back in “classic” mode with everything outside of the eight color plates being in black and white. There’s a good map showing the extent of the Khazar Khaganate, archaeological diagrams of a few Khazar period fortified locations, and a drawing (by David Nicolle) showing a reconstruction of the fortress at Sarkel. There’s over a dozen photographs of various artifacts, and drawings of about as many (and two photographs of archeological digs); most of these come from Zhirohov’s collection. All fairly typical for Osprey. Also typical is is five page history of the people, a chronology to accompany it, and then a history of the known wars and campaigns involving them. This then goes to chapters on military arms, armor, and equipment, and finally a short one on fortifications.

Nomadic/semi-nomadic peoples aren’t something I have a lot of knowledge of, but much of what’s here is not atypical. Sarkel is the main known Khazar-period fortification, and a discussion of it takes the majority of that short chapter. In fact, most of the second half of the text revolves around archaeological discussions, with the first half more dealing with what other peoples (mostly Muslims, who fought against the Khaganate over the centuries) had to say. The Bibliography takes about a page, and ranges from The History of the Jewish Khazars (D.M. Dunlop, 1954) to Mission to the Volga (Ibn Fadlan, 2017; this was written in 2019), and is probably a little more book-heavy (instead of journals) than I would have expected.

I am a bit disappointed with the Christa Hook illustrations, which are light on anything beyond the figures themselves, but they do serve their illustrative purpose nicely, and all the text is well written. It’s a great introduction to a subject that rarely gets touched in English.

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The Real Treasure Was the XP We Got Along the Way

by on October 6, 2026 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: D&D

By 1986, the nature of AD&D adventure modules were changing, going from a location-based format, to more story-based. So, it makes sense that TSR would produce a new introductory adventure. Earlier modules dedicated to being a “first adventure” with DMs advice had been part of the Basic line, but that wasn’t really a barrier to using them with AD&D, and modules such as N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God only misses dedicated DM-facing advice to be a “starter” adventure.

The new intro module, N4 Treasure Hunt, would be the most inventive of all of them. The cover mentions this is for levels 0-1, and this is—if anything—underselling the adventure. The PCs are all classless, “level 0” normal people, captured by pirates to be sold into slavery, and then shipwrecked on an island, left to overcome the one surviving captor, dodge other pirates, and survive. During all this, the DM takes notes of the things the players do, and near the end of the adventure they start hitting level 1, and get a class and alignment based on their actions.

The general format is classic TSR: A 48-page book with detached trifold cover. The third outer panel of the cover shows the general locale of the adventure, the Korinn Archipelago, while the internal panels have player’s maps that they will get during the adventure. The main booklet is actually on a slick glossy paper, so presentation is a little nicer than normal. The middle twelve pages are meant to be pulled out, and have tracking forms for the DM, some pre-made characters, and four pages of DM’s maps.

The initial two-page spread is a player’s introduction, and while it assumes you haven’t played AD&D, it does generally assume knowledge of character creation. (“Your Dungeon Master will tell you how to roll up your character’s abilities.” Since the DM is assumed to be new too, someone’s going to have to figure out what the primary characteristics are….) Don’t worry about class, money, or equipment, but it naturally recommends the use of secondary skills from the DMG, and then gives a third of a page description of the setting.

The next two page spread is for new DMs, gives the general plot, how the chapters are broken up, various class abilities that characters can freely attempt (generally, thief abilities, but also assassination and tracking), and how characters get to first level.

The first appendix is two pages giving advice about various things that could go wrong with the plot. This is the type of advice that any story-based adventure needs to have, and almost never does. It even freely admits that you can’t foresee everything, and encourages a flexible approach to problems (after having demonstrated how that works with some of the more likely problems). The second appendix is a further page about the Korinn Archipelago, and the back page is a listing of all the monsters that can be encountered, with checkboxes for their hitpoints to be marked off.

All this leaves twenty-six pages for the adventure itself. It moves fairly briskly from initial survival and freedom to bigger concerns. There are conversational bits basically discussing the adventure with the DM. (“Before launching into the third episode of the adventure, let’s look at the island as a whole.”) There are other pirates (generally orcs and goblins) on the island, and only a limited number of buildings available as shelter. Another nice touch is the players will encounter an old man who can draw decent maps of everything. These are given the module with a broad-leaf background, as that’s what he’s drawing on. They don’t really have the feel of been done on a rough, slick, surface, but that’s a minor point.

The adventure is also more involved than the initial setup might imply. I kind of worry that new players would be more concerned with what comes down to tomb looting in the second half than what is given. But, short of that, the adventure should flow very well. The biggest problem is that there is a “clock” to get off the island, and time tracking isn’t really emphasized in the module.

Greyhawk Adventures

The general idea of the 0-level adventure seen here was popular, and TSR got requests for more. More did eventually come, with Appendix 1 of Greyhawk Adventures giving more general rules for the idea. This version was even more flexible. 0-level characters in this system all start with 3 (!) in each attribute, and 3 HP. But, there is also a budget of points that can be applied to the attributes (and HP) at any point, so you can instantly boost an attribute up to pass a challenge. This can only be done once per week, but with a small group trading off who’s going to ‘step up’, that shouldn’t be a problem. It looks interesting, but I’ve never used the rules.

Forgotten Realms

The setting for the module is an extensive archipelago, which should be easy to drop into any setting as long as there’s a large sea or an ocean to place it in. And just a little while later this happened officially, with the setting being incorporated into the Forgotten Realms. Geographically, it’s a great fit, with the archipelago being added to one corner of the more extensive Moonshae Isles, and the goddess that appears in this module could even be the goddess of those islands. Past that, it’s a harder fit. There’s no sign of the Welsh/Norsemen model the Moonshaes use as a whole, and I don’t think there’s any known nearby orc pirates stipulated in the background here. (Though there are plenty of other pirates nearby, so that’s not a big deal.) This makes it the third Forgotten Realms adventure published (discounting Oriental Adventures materials, which would bump this back to fifth). The copyright says 1986, but my understanding is it came out in January 1987, a mere seven months before the boxed set.

Conclusion

This is a very well done adventure with a lot of good advice. Aaron Allston was a great writer, and it shows here. It’s also fairly quickly paced, with the deadline of two days to get off the island. The ‘see what you do’ and then award a class is an extremely inventive choice, and with the start is used to skip some of the initial choices that can take a while to get through (notably selecting equipment).

Presentation is great. In addition to the slightly better paper, Stephen Fabian has great art in here (including portraits of the pre-generated characters), and the maps are… mostly good. The one problem is the DM maps are black and light grey, and it’s too light on the map of the island, making it hard to see the elevation lines. The Easley cover is a spoiler, since it depicts the final escape from the island, but since that’s the obvious goal from the start, that’s not a big problem, and the destruction shown would just warn any players looking at that they will need to get out.

The main “failure” is that it is very much in the plotted adventure mode that took over in the mid-’80s. This adventure is small enough and has well done options so it should stay largely on track. But, if you prefer the older “location as adventure” mode, this not only is probably a bad choice for you, but may get players expecting the wrong things from you as DM. On the other hand, there’s only a few places of note on this island, and without the timetable, it is about a place, so it actually straddles the line a bit, and it might be worth using this to experiment with play styles a bit.

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