Greetings traveler,

Welcome to the eleventh edition of the alcarin.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.
It has been a quiet month this month. Most new items are the submissions to the RPG Archives, especially a lot of new characters. Furthermore, the Dunékàr Online RPG is running very well and The Pits has proven much more popular that I could ever imagine it would be. Indeed the entire Forum is a great success. As for this month's newsletter, Wouter has been quite busy again and has produced a long and interesting column, so 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:

30/09/2001 - new link in The Gate: Fantasy Story-"Jon Son Of Jebudi"

29/09/2001 - new character in the School: Serena

26/09/2001 - installed a voting booth and created a poll in the town

25/09/2001 - new character in the School: sir Victor

24/09/2001 - new poem in the Temple: "Sword of Chaos"

15/09/2001 - new spell in the School: "Cloud of Rain"

09/09/2001 - new character in the School: Antera Griffuria for 3rd edition

01/09/2001 - new character in the School: Zifnaf

Visit http://www.alcarin.com/townhall/updates.htm for the latest updates.

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COMING UP:

Creating the new voting booth on the site has taken much more time than I had expected, but it is now finished and online. I'll ad a form for users to suggest a poll soon, but in the meanwhile, I've got a poll, titled "What's your favorite monster?", up and running. It's one of those multiple-choice-click-and-vote things you see all over the internet. Maybe not very original, but fun. Anyway much easier to use than a poll on the messageboards.
I haven't had the time to upload the artwork part of the "Raven's Dawn" project, but the artwork is finished and I've already scanned and editted it. It just needs to be added to a html page and uploaded, so I expect to have that finished in a matter of days. I'm probably going to move the pictures in the Fantasy Art Gallery from the Amethyst Alliance to the Alcarin.com server, because of picture loading problems. Getting any other things done largely depends on how much time I've got this month and of course, user submissions.

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CLOSE-UP:

"Incognito's Tale" (Town Square: Articles)

Preview:
"An example of the dangers of summoning demons.

Welcome my friend, since you've come this far there probably is no reason to kill you now, probably.
For now stay and rest a little while I'll amuse you with a little tale. I mean, you do want to gain knowledge don't you? Of course you do, why else would you have come here?

This tale begins in another world. In a dark city named Renoire. In this city lived a great wizard. A necromancer of great skill. He didn't slaughter entire villages or dined on the flesh of young maidens, no nothing of that. He was a careful man. But even the careful can be brought down.
But the wizard wasn't satisfied with the bondings of his mortal soul. He wanted more power than he could gather in an entire lifetime. SO he gathered all the things he needed for a great feat. The summoning of a demon.
This is not a thing to be taken lightly, demons are powerful beings so evil mortals cannot even begin to understand it.
He started casting his spell. Six days and nights he was busy. And at last, at the sixth night, at exactly six minutes after six the demon appeared.
The wizard stated to the demon his request for power. The demon merely laughed and disapeared in a large cloud of smoke. After the smoke cleared only the wizard was visible. One of his few servants came to him and asked if he was alright."

This is one of the few submissions that have been posted in town Town Square. It is written by a friend of mine, Jurri van Meerveld. The article is written like a story, like a letter written by a certain "Incognito, First of the Order of the Scripticae". Although it is a story like article, it has a clear subject and a clear message and is therefor categorized as an article and not as a fantasy story. It deals with the dangers of summoning demons. Especialy about the fact that evil is not always as clear as we expect it to be and that it may come from people of which you least expect it and in situations where you would not expect it.

Read this article in the Town Square: http://www.alcarin.com/townsquare

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

"How to marry an adventurer"

Love is not an uncommon or hidden thing in role-playing. There is no way it could be, this is so strong, it cannot be hidden. So sometimes the DM decides to give a player character a girlfriend (if only to shut him up). But this never lasts for very long. Also the players in an RPG rarely seem to have girlfriends. The reason for this is quite obvious (except that role-players are often treated like a virus).
The characters are adventurers, the players are that also, that's why they rpg. They both need the same adventure in their life. They like to walk on the wild side. They like to push a doorbell and run away, you know what I mean. While other youngsters go in bars, drink many gallons of alcoholic fluids and put many peanuts down their noses, others need to have adventures, and they rpg. When rpg is played while consuming all that alcohol, danger exits that the serious game also results in putting peantuts down noses.
But I'm getting way of track here, my point was that adventurers (both players and characters are) need adventure. They are always on some sort of mission, never on one place for all that long. That's why the loves of their lifes cannot get a good grip on them, they will always go away again, they are way to free. That is not stupid, that is just part of who they are. And the one's who love them know it. They know they love them for it and that that's why they have to let them free and adventurous.
But this doesn't stop them from loving them. Brave fighters are to be loved. They are big, strong and handsome. And for the ones with real weird taste there are also gnomes in a party. But the love will always be from a distance. The loving people are doomed to stare from a distance to her partner walking away to dangerous situations, hoping he once will come back. It's very hard, if you love someones smile, smell, clothes, way of walking, way of talking, way of thinking, way of being, just everything makes you so very weak from the inside because of infinitive happiness and that gives you such a strong feeling after only one smile that you want to eat grass, jump upside-down and evertything, but nothing helps against it. One person brings and takes all that is good. It's hard if that person walks away on a adventure, but you must let him go. Otherwise you will ruin who he is.
But as it is with real love, the other person feels the same way. Why can't there we total happines then? Well, as most people who know about life know, total happiness never occurs. Maybe for a moment, but there will always be something. People will always make problems, they are a bit self-destructive. So the adventurers will stubbornly keep on adventuring, even if they feel this same way. They have to choose. But what about adventure is so big that they will keep on going to it and leave their partner then?
Well, it's cheating a bit, I guess, because I believe there is another love. It's the party. The annoying group of people (and other creatures) that walks along with you for some kind of own benefit. The quarrels, bigger fights, jokes and discussions, the real adventurer loves it. Of course marrying a party existing of all kinds of people, races and allignments is very much forbidden (I don't know about Texas), but when you call it your job you still can be close to them. And that love can so important you will keep adventuring. But also for adventrure itself. And also for XP and treasures, of course.
Well, there has to be made a choice, I must conclude. Your true love for always with you or an adventure-life or a very difficult combination. I haven't got a solution for it. Why I wrote this column then? Well, just to look interesting, I guess.
Still, I have once met a hopefull couple. I won't use their names, but a boy and a girl in a relationship rpg-ed. They both had adventure-characters in one party. It seemed to work. What also might work is having a decent relationship all week and one night a week live all your need for adventure out. That also might work, as long as you make up excuses (like seeing someone else) and hide your dice very carefully.
Your very own Alcarin.com-columnist wishes you all the luck and recommands the ALCARIN.COM-COLUMNIST-T-SHIRTS to you all.
(red.: T-shirts?!)

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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://www.alcarin.com

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