Greetings traveler,

Welcome to the thirty-seventh 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.
A reasonably quiet month has passed on Alcarin. I've been quite busy and haven't had the time to do much updating. Still, several tables for the Landlord Mass Combat RPG have been uploaded and, more importantly, we've got an brand new D&D mission by Jan Willem v.d. Brink. See this month's Close-Up for the adventure's background. Wouter continues the Jonathan saga in his column.
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:

29/11/2003 - new D&D mission in the Barracks: "Yidobbi's Dwelling"

26/11/2003 - new poem in the Temple: "Why does the rain fall?"

11/11/2003 - added Landlord RPG Table 4b: "Accessory cost"

04/11/2003 - added Landlord RPG Table 4a: "Unit recruitment cost & skills"

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

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COMING UP:

J.W. vd Brink ( bulak@alcarin.com ) has finished his new mission much earlier than I had expected. Instead of a few months, he has already finished it. Another great addition for the site, cosidering the popularity of the D&D missions section.
The main development plans for the coming month are the two major projects that are currently running: the Elfstone MUD and the Landlord Mass Combat RPG.
The Landlord RPG will probably get another chapter online during the coming month and perhaps another table, containing skill training costs.
The Elfstone MUD has some hosting problems at the moment. The java software won't connect with the mysql database anymore, after a change in server settings. We know it hasn't got anything to do with the software and it is probably related to some weirdness on the host. The MUD now being offline, causes a reasonable delay in the room implementation. Hopefully these issues will be resolved soon. The races are nearly finished now. Some 14.5 races out of the 17 we currently have planned are ready. We'll not implement them all when we first start the MUD, some will probably be kept for later, so we are ahead on schedule in that area.
For up to date news on these major projects and other major developments on alcarin.com, see the Announcements forum at http://www.alcarin.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=9

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CLOSE-UP:

Yidobbi's Dwelling (Barracks: D&D missions)

"Adventure Background
Years ago, the female drow cleric Bruzona had a dream in which she did not live deep underground, but in a dark house somewhere in an extensive forest. In her dream she travelled at night to the cities and roads of humans and elves, together with a band of several other drow and some trolls. They robbed and killed humans and elves. The ambushes and burglaries were done swift, efficient, and never twice at the same place. No-one was capable of tracking Bruzona and her gang down.
The drow dreamt about this several times and she believed it was a message of her deity. She gathered a small group of drow and even managed to convince three trolls to join her. Bruzona and her gang travelled to the surface and moved into an abandoned dwelling of a gnomish inventor. She tried to make her dreams come true and succeeded.
One of her companions was the warrior Finshar, who had some talent for arcane magic. He got tired of this way of life after a couple of years. The drow stole most of the loot Bruzona's gang had gathered and took off. He thought Bruzona would look for him deep under the ground, with fellow drow, since that was where he wanted to be. So he did not go there. He disguised himself as a high elf and bought a Hat of Disguise in town. With this hat he had a good disguise permanently.
Finshar was affraid his real identity would be discovered eventually if he stayed in town, so he moved out. He met the half-elf huntress Isana, who fell in love with him. Finshar pretended to be in love with her too, so he could live in her house, miles away from the nearest village. He buried the loot he had stolen and didn't tell Isana about his wealth. The drow planned to stay with Isana for a month or so, before travelling to a drow city far away.
Bruzona, however, is not as easily fooled as Finshar thought. She went through a lot of trouble to follow his trail. The drow found the wizard that sold Finshar the Hat of Disguise and knew Finshar didn't look like a drow anymore. The wizard told her what Finshar had looked like when he had bought the hat. Since he had not changed that disguise since, Bruzona managed to track him down. When she found Isana's house, at night, Finshar was there, but the half-elf was out hunting. Finshar was no match for Bruzona and her gang, so he surrendered. Bruzona forced him to tell where he had hidden the loot he had stolen from her. They dug it up and began their journey back to Bruzona's hideout.

When Isana came home, she found the house empty. Outside, the huntress discovered a lot of tracks. She recognized some of them as troll footprints. Isana followed the tracks and found the gang of Bruzona when they had just finished digging up the loot Finshar had buried. The half-elf saw Finshar was captured by the group of drow and trolls. Isana followed them all the way back to their hideout, keeping a safe distance.
When the huntress knew where they had taken her partner, it was time to ask for help. She went back to a road she had crossed a day earlier. Isana asked the first traveller she encountered the location of the nearest settlement and went there to ask for help.

Download this mission: http://www.alcarin.com/barracks/missions/dnd_m1.htm
More D&D missions: http://www.alcarin.com/barracks/missions/dnd.htm

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

"Jonathan the Goat"

A nice couple was walking on the street. The man was a big shouldered, macho kind of guy. His girlfriend looked white and fragile under his enormous arms.
Suddenly a man in a sort of goat-costume jumped them from the bushes.
"Buy..." he started, when the strong man, without any hesitation, launched the 'goat' of the ground, held him in the air and hit him again.
'... goat milk..." Jonathan, dressed in the goat costume said.
"This isn't a robbery?" the strong men asked.
"It's.. ouch... aggressive marketing, I've learned" Jonathan replied, in pain.
"Cute costume. Can I buy some goat milk?" the woman asked, while her boyfriend looked at her in a bit of a strange way.

Due to the force of the law Jonathan had began his career in marketing with Goat Milk Inc., a company harassed by people asking if they sold ink as well. As such, he was forced to dress up into a goat uniform and force goat milk on innocent passers by. Actually, he just wanted to make up songs, poems and story's to entertain the masses, but due to the intense marketing training he could not find the time for this anymore.

After a while Jonathans' new way of daring to speak out and his performing creativity caused him to make the goat an unique character on his own. Jonathan learned to 'beehh' like a goat better and better each day and he want to several lengths to get into character. Herding made his mouth all filled with grass, but he did all it took.
After a while, the people started to recognise him.

"It's Jonathan the goat!"
"Can I sit on his back mom, pleeeeease?"
"Someone draw a picture of me with Jonathan the Goat!"

The goat got known and loved for his clumsy attitude, his witty remarks and his nice songs. It did not take long till the owners of Goat Milk Inc. realised that much more milk got sold by Jonathan the Goat than by any other employee. Soon Jonathan the Goat merchandise came more and more popular.
After some while, a painter came over to repaint the old Goat Milk Inc. logo. Their new symbol was Jonathan's head with the horns, the ears and the small white hair under the chin of a goat. Jonathan looked up at his face and said to himself, touched: "You've got to be proud of that."

Soon the hype on goat milk got bigger and bigger. Jonathan enjoyed this tremendously. He was now found walking the streets, giving autographs and even signed autographs to anyone who wanted or did not want them.
"Even if you are Jonathan the Goat, that does not mean that you can draw on bag, and..." was heard some day, but Jonathan went on and on signing people and even animals.
"Shall I sing again?" he asked.
An enthusiastic mob gathered round him again.
"Beh, beh, beh, the milk is be-e-e-e-e-tter! Beeeeetter that other miiiiiiilk!"
No-one even objected to the fact that 'miiiiii' is not a traditional goat sound.
"Put you hooves together, ladies and gentleman!"
Jonathan startled for a minute. Inside the audience he saw the old man. His act suddenly did not work out all that well anymore.
"You forgot all about our meeting" he said.
"Ssssshh!!!" angry children shouted.
"Let him! That's Gandalf!" another one shouted.
"I'm not Gandalf" the old man muttered. "So this is what has become of you. A goat. That's your career on you own."
"I am quite popular!" Jonathan called out. "More than we ever were!"
"You have sold out" said the old man. "And what happened to your emotional poems which had creativity and artistic value?"
"I had to take this job. Do you think I enjoy this. But I must not get the name of the company in danger. Got to make like a goat again."
The old man seemed just to leave. But he turned around one more time, with a lot of emotion crossing his stern face.
"You know, for the first time ever I am beginning to think I should not have gotten you of your roof."
Jonathan looked at him walking away speechless and felt like the old man had left him alone for real for the very first time.

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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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