Greetings traveler,

A happy new year and welcome to the twenty-sixth 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 busy month again, although I haven't added as many things as I hoped. There are 2 new monsters, 6 new riddles, a new item and a new poem. I've still got some things waiting to put to html. Hopefully next month. A lot of time this month has been put in working on a new, easier and faster to use navigation system for the site. More of that in Coming Up. Again, this month's Close-Up is a bit different from the usual one. Instead of a preview and a short piece about it, I've put in a full brand new monster for Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition. My thanks to Jan Willem v.d. Brink, who created it and offered it to me for the newsletter. I'll upload it to the site in the coming days as well.
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:

30/12/2002 - added optional morale modifiers to "Mass Combat" custom ruleset (School)

27/12/2002 - new item in the School: "Sairel's Handkerchief", modified and uploaded Alcarin Forums image

19/12/2002 - added user comment to "Rich man's basement" mission (Barracks), uploaded 6 new riddles to Collected Riddles (Wyvern Inn)

13/12/2002 - new monster in the School: "Brown Forest Scavenger"

11/12/2002 - new poem in the Temple: "Lonely Spark"

07/12/2002 - modified "Mass Combat" custom ruleset

06/12/2002 - new monster in the School: "Glooze"

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

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COMING UP:

This month, a lot of work has been done to improve site navigation. We're getting rid of the frames and we're going to use a table, containing quicklinks to the different sections and subsections, on every page instead. The largest problem was communicating with the Citizens in the Town Screen. I currently have the scripts write to the navigation sidebar, but without it, it will have to be written to a small window that pop up when you click on one of the Citizens. I'm still testing both the new table and the Citizen communication and I'm experimenting with the link colors a bit. I think I'll make all links gold colored, like on the Forums, instead of eye-blinding yellow. The new system will be applied sometime next month.
Furthermore, I will begin working on putting a new Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, mission to "electronic paper" soon. I've just finished running it in my rpg group and it was good fun. The mission is a dungeon for level 8 characters, full of traps, riddles and undead. It is adaptable for characters of level 6 to 10 or larger than normal parties and playtested in a group of 9 characters of level 7 to 9.
I've also got several items for the RPG Archives ready and I hope several more will be submitted. Submission forms also still have to be modified, because they are too AD&D focused at the moment.

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CLOSE-UP:

"Dhaikler" (School: The RPG Archives: Monsters)
(by Jan Willem v.d. Brink)

Dhaikler
Medium-Size Aberration
Hit Dice: 5d8+25 (47 hp)
Initiative: +2 (Dex)
Speed: fly 30 ft. (good)
AC: 20 (+2 Dex, +8 natural)
Attacks: 2 tentacles +5 melee (+3 base, +2 Str)
Damage: Tentacle 2d6+2
Face/Reach: 5 ft. by 5 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks: Trip
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60'
Saves: Fort +6, Ref +3, Will +3
Abilities: Str 14, Dex 14, Con 20, Int 12, Wis 8, Cha 8
Skills: Hide +7, Listen +7, Move Silently +7, Search +7, Spot +7
Feats: Alertness, Dodge
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Climate/Terrain: Any land and underground
Organization: Solitary, pair, or cluster (3-8)
Challenge Rating: 4
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Usually lawful evil
Advancement: 6-10 HD (medium-size); 11-15 HD (large)

Dhaiklers look like flying orbs with a diameter of about 4 feet. A Dhaikler can range in color from deep green to deep brown. Rectangular pieces of skin hang down from the bottom of its body, allowing it to maneuver pretty well. Two long tentacles sprout from its body, with a large eye and mouth in between. When first encountered, many people assume Dhaiklers to be related to beholders, but Dhaiklers form an entire different race. Dhaiklers are able to speak the Common tongue, although they rarely have anything to say.

Combat
Dhaiklers usually hover above their enemies, staying just out of reach, and attacking with their long tentacles. They do not attack with their mouth, which they only use for consuming prey.
Trip (Ex): A Dhaikler that hits with a tentacle can attempt to trip the opponent as a free action (see PHB 139) without making a touch attack or provoking an attack of opportunity. If the attempt fails, the opponent cannot react to trip the Dhaikler.

See more monsters at: http://www.alcarin.com/school/school.htm#monsters

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

"How many time does 'French Toast' get mentioned without a good point to it?"

"I will not stop role-playing when I get a girl-friend."
"If I get a girl-friend, I'll still go my own way and do my own things."
"I do not like French Toast. No, really."
"I will always need fantasy to escape from reality."

A lot of this can be heard of people who rpg together. If you've got a group of good friends, why would you ever need more? You can tell them all about your problems and depressions and stuff and they will relate it a bit to make way to insensitive jokes about it. Then you hear it's all the same. Everyone has got problems, but you all relate to it with humor and the knowledge you're not alone. Your also pitiful friends are there and they live with all their problems, so do you. And you get real close to one another, which expresses itself in the ultimate annoyement of one another. Teasing someone by being misquoted in a newspaper, by having lost his career, by not knowing what French Toast is or thinking it really is from France, you know.
You spend a lot of time with one another real easy and you all are friends in the best sense of the word.

Then you meet a girl. Happens a lot. You like her a lot. Is quite common. She seems to be more special. And by some weird twist of faith, you really get to spend time with her and she grows a liking on you too! It happens. Fungus also can grow on someone's toe.

Well, okay, you've got yourself a girlfriend! Someone to be sweet to, someone who can say nice things about you and even THINK nice things about you. Someone you can explain for hours, without result, what role-playing is. Someone who seems to have no common interest with you but still seems to please you, even when you spend loads of time with her.
Well, it's the whole secret of girlfriends. They are different. They like boys and you like girls. Even that is not common. All you like about her is not what she likes about herself. It's all the differences that seem to attract you to one another.

Well, fine, but now what? She is good for you and she is real. Although you intend to keep on with your fantasy-hobby, you start to lose interest. Why escaping to a world if it's a world where your loved one does not exist? If she really annoys you, okay, but... wait, that's not right either. That annoyment even attracts you more to her. Quite complicated, this girl-friend-stuff.

Well, it's an inevitable consequence. All the time you're not real happy you escape, but if something real good comes along you might lose this need. But not to worry, this might fly over. Though still loving your girlfriend, the new-factor might change. She might grow to be part of your life and you might start living it with her. Still very happy with her, but new problems might arise. Problems with dividing attention to her and your family and school, problems with jealousy, first quarrels, not knowing how to make French Toast, you know. What to do? Well... escape.
And you might once again long for a good old-fashioned night out role-playing.

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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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