Greetings traveler,

Welcome to the second edition of the realmsofgildor.com newsletter and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all.
There is an archive of the previous newsletters in the Townhall and the columns are added to the Town Square, so you can always read it again. It's been a busy month; christmas, new year and many other festivities and "must go visit family situations". There's also been a lot of work done on the site, though. My favorite one this month, is the "Bookgenerator" script, a weblet that generates a book randomly (not the text of course, but lots of cool details and stuff about it). Check it out for yourself, it's in the Temple.
This month's close-up is about a christmas story... what a coincidence, right ;-) For the rest, just read on through.

This letter's content:
1. What's New
2. Coming Up Soon
3. Close-Up
4. Column: Men with a Mission

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WHAT'S NEW:

26/12/2000
Changed submission forms in Barracks and School, changed School archives and changed rpg mission archive in the Barracks. The basic idea of the changes is to give the submission forms a more "general rpg" look. I've added "game system" fields to the forms and put a note behind some of the submitted items. I've also uploaded bookgenerator script v.1.1 to the temple; the script is now Netscape-compatible.

25/12/2000
I've put up a statistics page in Townhall: you can view the page-views for each section. The Wing of Positive Energy, Elfstone Pantheon is finished and uploaded and I've changed the submission forms in Barracks and School and the School archives.

24/12/2000
Finished moving the pages from geocities to the amethyst alliance server: load time is now shorter and the error messages are gone!

21/12/2000
New links in The Gate.

20/12/2000
I've removed the preload confirm from frontpage and I've been working on the Town.

18/12/2000
There is a new song in the Temple: "Open your heart"

17/12/2000
I've expanded the new counter system; now almost all pages are connected to the system. Through this system, I can get an idea to what pages are viewed best and when.

16/12/2000
There's a new link in the Gate.

15/12/2000
I've put up a new counter system to replace the geocities-counter.

11/12/2000
There's a new picture in the art gallery (Temple): "Gildor and Serena". My third picture about the RPG character after which this site is named and his wife Serena.

03/12/2000
Added the mailinglist archive to the mailinglist page (Townhall) and added Wouter's column to Town Square. I've done some work on the Townhall and I've changed/upgraded Temple navigation. The submission rules & privacy policy and links to it from the submission forms are also available now.

02/12/2000
Finished and uploaded the bookgenerator v.1.0 (in the Temple). Great DM/GM gadget: it generates a random book for you, through a JavaScript. It provides you with lots of info on the book, like title, subject, quality of content, quality of the book itself, author's style, language, etc.

Visit http://updates.realmsofgildor.com for the latest updates.

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COMING UP:

Hopefuly lots and lots of new monsters, items, spells, etc. for the archives... it depends on how many (if) people submit anything. Maybe I'll create some of those things myself. I also hope to do some more work on the Elfstone campaign setting and the Minas Elen Chronicles (which is still at 11 pages). I'm working on a new (medium level) ad&d mission for the barracks and there'll be some d&d third edition character sheets coming up soon to. Furthermore, I'll put some time in convincing my friends to start writing some reviews or articles for the Town Square (something that hasn't worked yet).. :-)
As for the Town movie: I've got some lovely pictures ready to replace the current citizens. They just need to be scanned and fitted into the flash movie. Maybe, I'll even redesign the Inn and add some more content to it.

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CLOSE-UP:

Jahera and the Treant (the Temple: stories)

Preview:
"A long, long time ago, near the realms of Vilya, there were lands were the small folk dwell. In those realms, the time passes slowly and worries were still far to seek. It is the land known as Byrell, where the Thane of the Halflings rules. There it was, where a young Halfling girl, named Jahera, lived. Jahera was the only daughter of a hard-working farmer and his, also hard-working, wife. They all lived happily together in a small farmhouse near the Lake of the Butterfly, in the farming-community of Rána.
It was in the dark times of winter, in the seventh month, in Mihrívë, during the Days of Darkness. In those dark and cold days, the Halflings used to place candles all around and in their houses and decorate everything, to drive away the darkness. All the streets were cozily illuminated.
It was near the date of the Mid-Winter Feast, when Jahera set out into the nearby woods, to gather some wood for the fireplace. The world was bathing in the white carpet of snow, freshly fallen upon the small Halfling houses and holes, upon the lands and the trees of the woods. Here and there, some furry ears stuck out of a hole, as a snow-white bunny took a quick look around on the alien landscape of this frozen world.
Jahera stepped into the soft snow and happily went on her way, trying to count her footsteps in the snow. After only a while, she gave up on doing this, as it was very difficult to count her footsteps, because the snow reached up to her shoulders."

This is a story about a young halfling girl named Jahera, who lives in some far away halfling country. The story plays in winter, during the end of what we would call December. It basically is a christmas story, so that's why it is this month's close-up. The girl Jahera sets out into the forest to gather some wood for the fireplace. As you might have expected, she will find the wood... she is in a forest, so that wouldn't be too hard, right? Of course, not everything will go as planned (it would be a *very* short story if it did).
You might expect a story like this to be written during the days christmas and new year, because of the inspiration of snow, candles, trees and the like. You would be wrong, though. Jahera and the Treant was written in the middle of the summer. I've written it during my summer vacation in the Swiss Alps and it took me about 2 days to finish (every day a few hours of writing). Maybe the snow of the high mountains got to my head and made me write about christmas :-)
It was first published on realmsofgildor.com on the 8th of August, 2000, thogether with the Legend of Orodin. A bunch of poems and songs that were also written during that period had been up since the first day of August.

Read the full story in the Temple: http://temple.realmsofgildor.com

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COLUMN: MEN WITH A MISSION
A column by Wouter vd Zandschulp; wouter@realmsofgildor.com

"Not good role-playing"

The dragon was furious. He came right at them; fire came out of his mouth and there was no stopping him. But the brave party had come real far, and there was no turning back for them; they had to slay him. The dragon came at them real fast and then stopped right in front of them. He suddenly sat down quietly and calm he picked up his box of dices.
"Hmm.." he said. "Can someone tell me the number I must throw to get initiative?
"Well.." the warrior said.. "You should throw your d20."
"Ok" said the dragon after throwing, "I can attack first and I.. err.. I miss."
"Then it's our turn" the warrior said. "I will throw.. what's your armor class?"
Nothing is as exciting as fighting a big fight. But there are some things you have to keep in mind:
- Don't forget your dices
- Don't forget your character-sheet
- Wait in turn to fight
- After you've hurt your enemy, you must give him the change to hurt you
The reason why you hurt him is more simple; you want the biggest treasure in role-playing; the experience-points.
So when the dragon had his turn first the warrior hit him, while the other party-members played cards till it was there turn.
"Excuse me," the dragon said, while the warrior picked up his sword for the second time, "Isn't it my turn?"
"No, I've got two attacks" the warrior replied.
After hitting the dragon, it was his turn. But first he had to change his hit-points.
"Wait a minute" he said surprised. "I'm dead. What a shame."
The party-members almost cheered because of the experience-points, but for the dragon's sake they didn't. Then the gnome among them discovered a big treasure behind the dragon.
"It's mine!" he shouted. He picked up the treasure and ran away with it.
The halfling ran after him, but wasn't able to keep up.
"Wait a minute!" he shouted angrily. "What's your Movement?"
The halfling found out the gnome's Movement was lower than his, so the gnome had to slow down. It also came out the gnome wasn't strong enough to lift the treasure at all, so he was prompted to pay more attention to his character-sheet next time.
After all this, the party-members thought they had done some pretty good role-playing, so they asked the DM how much experience-points they would get.
"You get none" the DM said. "This was not good role-playing, you got everything mixed up."
After this the party-members began to slay the DM, which gave them the maximum of experience-points.

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Well, that's it for this month's newsletter. I hope you enjoyed it. Just go on an eat, drink and be merry or something like that :-) Enjoy the holidays and my site (hopefully). Reactions to the newsletter can be sent to: mailinglist@realmsofgildor.com

Lord Gildor
"May the stars guide you on your journeys"
http://www.realmsofgildor.com

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