Greetings traveler,

Welcome to the eight edition of the realmsofgildor.com newsletter.
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. I lost the domain of realmsofgildor.com. I had registered it with namezero.com, who used to do that for free. They ended that because I had been a member of one year now. My only choice was to upgrade the service or to leave it. I took the last option. I'm now looking for a nice new domain name, something that will both represent the site and attract lots of visitors. So if you've got any cool ideas for domain names for the site, please e-mail them to arjan_wardekker@hotmail.com . I'd be really grateful for that.
In the meanwhile, the site is still available through http://members.amethyst-alliance.com/gildor
Enjoy reading...

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:

24/06/2001 - new prestige class in the School: "Knight of Heaven's Vengeance"

22/06/2001 - new artwork in the Temple: "Elenion Mournbringer", new character in the School: Jonathan

19/06/2001 - new story in the Temple: "The Dragonmage"

07/06/2001 - lost the .com url of realmsofgildor.com

03/06/2001 - new article in the Town Square: "Incognito's Tale"

Visit http://members.amethyst-alliance.com/gildor/townhall/updates.htm for the latest updates.

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COMING UP:

Well, we're definitly working on getting a new domain for the site. I really hope to arrange that in the coming month.
I will also put lots of time in things like improving the site's speed and in advertising. There will be some good purchased hosting for the site, including the cgi's of the messageboards. That would finally be the end of the annoying pop-up screens that the current host is throwing all over the place. I will need to put banner advertising on the site, to finance it all, but I'll keep it as userfriendly as possible. Just a simple banner, integrated in the site's design, no pop-up stuff (those things are just horribly annoying).
Hopefully there will be more submissions to the site. Especially the articles and reviews section in the Town Square is rather empty. The new prestige class and the new character in the RPG Archives in the School need some more work done. I'll get to that next month.

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CLOSE-UP:

"The Dragonmage" (Temple: stories)

Preview:
His royal highness, king Alvaro, sat behind the large desk in his study. He was reading a message that had just found him by way of a courier.
"Listen, Vianodras," he said to his councilor. "This says that a red dragon has been spotted near Dobnell, a village just to the north of the Red Hell."
"Sir Raddrack will probably come to the palace then, Sire," Vianodras thought. Alvaro sighed.
"Indeed." he said. "He always knows immediately when a dragon is raiding. The man seems to have a sixth sense about it."
"His sixth sense is called magic, Sire." Vianodras said. "Sir Raddrack is also known as the Dragonmage and he really deserves that nickname."
"Well I also know him as greedy," the king grumbled. "The tariff he charges is outrageous. I wonder what he does with all the money he made the last four centuries. I wouldn't know what one could do with it in the Red Hell."
"I don't know that either, Sire," Vianodras said. "But although sir Raddrack is a plague to the royal treasury, he's a blessing for the land. Without him, the dragons could be doing wath they like in your kingdom."
"That is the only reason why I still hire him, Vianodras," the king said gruffly. "He's unusually late, by the way. Most of the times I hear it from him when there is a dragon, even before eye-witness accounts reach me."
Vianodreas nodded and the wanted to say something, when someone knocked on the door.
"Please answer thet for me, Vianodras."
The king's councilor opened the door and a lackey entered the room. The lackey bowed gracefully before the king, who made clear the could speak.

A story about someone called "the Dragonmage". A country is constantly attacked by red dragons, coming out of the Querg-mountains. There is only one person who can help them; Sir Raddrack, a.k.a. the Dragonmage. He is a mystereous wizard who lives alone in the Red Hell, a desert that lays in between the country and the Querg-mountains. When yet another dragon attacks, king Alvaro waits somewhat impatiently for Sir Raddrack to show up.
The story is written by a friend of mine, Jan Willem van den Brink. He's one of the people I frequently role-play with. Because we sometimes talk about the site and because other friends wrote some stuff for the site to, he got the idea to write a story. It is actually the first item in the Temple that I haven't made myself. The story is divided over 2 pages for reading ease. I really like it. It captures your imagination and in the end it will be a good laugh to. I'm not going to tell anymore; just go and read it :-)

Read the full story in the Temple:
http://members.amethyst-alliance.com/gildor/temple

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COLUMN: MEN WITH A MISSION
A column by Wouter vd Zandschulp; wouter@agroweb.nl

"Getting along"

Role-playing rarely happens alone. Most of the time you are in a party, with groups of people. People who role-play alone out on the street are there, but mostly not for long. Then later you can find them in a mental institution.
If you all role-play in a group, it will be fine, as long as you know when to stop as others enter the room, or you can find this group later on in a mental institution.
There are some dis-advantages about being part of a group, but you will just have to get along, while people outside keep wonder what that mysterious 'RPG' is all about and fear their child is part of a some kind of sekt. We role-players find their wondering quite stupid; we know it's true. We have all kind of secret signals, strange dices and weird ceremonies.
Like when a plastic bag is openend en all kinds of real small salt potato-chips just poor out. Everyone picks up hands full and puts them in their mouth! Strange things after which outsiders only can guess.
Being part of a group like this keeps you quite safe, from the outsiders, that is. To be safe from your groupmembers takes some adjustments, especially in our group. As well the players as the characters need to get along some way or another, the players can't role-play by theirselfes and the characters will get slain by theirselves. Further more, the characters want to be played with by players, but they can't if the players don't play.
So in the two worlds role-players are in, they both need to get along.
But how do you get along with people who throw their drinks over your character sheets, people who make fun of you and your character when they can and don't excuse when they burp? Well, I don't know. Maybe with good old friendliness? Let's demonstrate with me trying to play a gnome, against someone playing an orc, I will try to keep friendly.
Gnome: "I will walk to..."
Orc: "I will walk three."
Gnome: "What?"
Orc: "I will hit the gnome."
Gnome: "I ask: 'Why did you hit me?'"
Orc: "I will eat him."
Gnome: "I ask: 'Why do you eat me?'"
Orc: "You can't talk with your mouth full."
Gnome: "Why not? I see you doing it all the time.. err.. I mean, err.. say, why is my mouth full!"
Orc: "I didn't mean you as player, but you as character."
Gnome: "I'm not eating now as player!"
Orc: "That's why I ment you as player, listen!"
After this it's the Orc who listens at some serious insulting words.
The conclusion of all this is that it is not possible to get along all the time. That's why we will say things we don't mean. It's not our fault, it's not the fault of the others, it's just the way it is. No-one of us is perfect, everyone isn't. So that's why we can take take everything and forgive and forget everything about one another.
We may hit each other, may throw with them, clean the windows with someone else his tongue, but we are all just boys and we can take it, that's what role-play-buddies are for.
We all just stick together and bond when it comes to enemies from the outside, just as our characters. Only they just deal with monsters, we with school and parents, is it a wonder we want to escape in our fantasy-world?

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Well, that's it for this month's newsletter. I hope you enjoyed it. Lord Gildor
"May the stars guide you on your journeys"
http://members.amethyst-alliance.com/gildor

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