Greetings traveler,

Welcome to the forty-fourth 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.
The site has been practically silent for as far as regular updates are concerned. I have been way too busy at University to do any work on Alcarin and only one user submission arrived. This user subission, a cool prestige class named the Lightning Bow, is online in the School, but it arrived too late to be included in the June updates. With the summer holidays coming up, the next month will hopefully bring more updates. This month's mailing list again includes a Member of the Month interview, by Keeley F. Hearn (Forums' Vafoth). Our second victim is Jan-Willem van den Broek (Forums' Great Chtulhu), one of the site's regulars.

Enjoy reading.

This letter's content:
1. What's New
2. Coming Up Soon
3. Column: Men with a Mission
4. Member of the Month

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WHAT'S NEW:

08/06/2004 - added column "Success" to the Jonathan Saga (Temple)

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

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COMING UP:

With the holidays started, the coming month should bring more news on Alcarin than was the case this month. Although I'm still very busy, I think I'll be able to do some work on the site. The Elfstone MUD is making more progress nowadays, especially with the programmer having holidays now as well. Furthermore, I am working on some new material for the Landlord RPG: a table of defensive extras and a summarizing table for the skills. Perhaps I'll start work on a new chapter as well.
Other plans (still) include a few new monsters, spells, and custom rules. I am planning to start working on The Crypt, a medium level Dungeons & Dragons mission as well. Somewhere in the coming holiday period, I also hope to finish one or two short stories.

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

"Hero's in the bar"

Limbars' Inn had the lights on, still very late. A man came in, nicely dressed and with a blinding smile.
He jumped on a barstool and drank quickly.
A man in a black cloak came after him. The man threw his beer at the man in de dark cloak, quickly pushed the barstool on top of the man. More came in. He jumped towards a chandelier hanging on the ceiling and waved himself out of the window, yelling: "I'll be back!"
The men in black cloaks yelled angry and kicked a table, which fell. They left too.

Limbar kept cleaning a glass and sighed.
The man came back, with one eye and some missing fingers.
"They are on to me..." he said... "but I got away."
"So it appears" Limbar said.
"A beer man, quickly!"
The man started to drink his beer. Until black cloaked man came in. He quickly jumped of his stool, pulled the rug they were on. While they fell, he kicked a hole in the floor and got out under the bar, yelling: "I'll be back!"
The black cloaked men yelled angry. Some went outside through the door, some through the hole under the bar.

Limbar cleaned his glass and sighed again. He started to get a beer ready.
The man came back, with less hair and teeth. He tried to drink his beer quickly.
"What's the matter with you? Why do you keep coming back, demolish my bar. And why do you yell you will be back so that those guys know it? And why don't they just wait for you here then? What's the matter with those people!"
The man drank his beer.
"Simple. I'm a hero. I always come back to show I am still alive. I always live through everything and return to have my vengeance. Err... for the benefit of all mankind, of course."
He smiled his shining teeth in a general direction. He then looked outside.
"They are late, aren't they?"
Limbar looked at him puzzled.
"Okay, I understand you have to be back? But why does that have to be inside my bar?"
He got over there and threw the hero out.
Now the sign by his bar said: "No overpowered adventurer-party's, bards and hero's allowed."

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MEMBER OF THE MONTH
By Keeley F. Hearn

Welcome to another addition of Alcarin's Member of the Month. This month we have yet another wonderful member featured, and sadly, we must say goodbye to last months MotM...may his greatness live on in our hearts. This month we have Jan-Willem van den Broek. He is one of the many donators for the site, and has helped with scripting and other such technical aspects on the site.
If you are a forum member you almost definitely have experienced his wonderful sense of humor, or perhaps you've seen close-hand how helpful and kind he can be. I think we all (all that know him, that is) can agree that without Jan-Willem the site would have just a little something missing.
Here is the interview with Jan-Willem:

*You have been chosen for Member of the Month, how doyou feel about this?
Honored of course! How could I feel anything else?

*How did you first come across Alcarin?
That's easy. Arjan kept pestering me to go there. I didn't really have a choice in the matter.

*What do you feel is one of you biggest contributions to the site?
Hmm, filling the forum with over 10000 brilliant posts? Maybe the MUD, though it's very, very far from being finished.

*What is one of your favorite parts of the site other than the forums, and why?
That would be the interactive Dunekar. It's a cool thing to play around with.

*Which part of Alcarin do you think is best for the guests?
If I'd have to pick, then I'd say it's the barracks. There are a whole bunch of nice D&D missions there and those are always good to have around. Other areas are cool too, though. The school also has a lot of nice goodies, for instance.

*What characterizes your style of roleplaying?
This is one of those things that's easy to answer about other people, but hard about yourself. I guess I tend to pick an interesting concept - a background, race/class combination, mental state, whatever - and then playing as if I were in that character's shoes. That's why they always tend to get more and more like myself in time.

*Which race do you favor to have your characters?
I don't favor any particular race over all the others. In general I like halflings, dwarves and Tri-Kreen and don't much care for elves and "dumb" races like half-orcs, but that's just a general preference. I'll play pretty much anything if I have a nice concept.

*What class do you prefer?
Hmm, again I'll try most anything. In general I like classes that I can do my own thing with. With a class like the cleric you don't have quite as much freedom as with, say, a rogue. You're always expected to be the heal-machine and you're only making things difficult for yourself if you don't wear heavy armor. With a rogue you can be really good at social interaction (Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, etc.) or an exceptional craftsman or a ninja-like assassin or etc etc. I like that a lot. A wizard is very flexible too. A fighter should be, but in general I find feats to be uninteresting. Most don't do more then make you just a bit better at killing stuff.

*What are some of your other hobbies?
Hmm, I'm actually fairly boring. I enjoy messing around with computers (including, but not limited to playing games) and I like reading (mostly fantasy, sci-fi and horror). Besides that I don't have any specific things that I would consider hobbies, really.

*Name a few of your favorite things.
Favorite things.. Hmm. Well, there's this little restaurant hidden away in a back street in the city of Heraclion on the isle of Crete. I had a truly magnificent piece of swordfish there with a sauce I could eat a bucket of. That's still one of my favorite things. If I could afford it, I'd have their chef make my dinner every day. It's not very hip to admit this since those movies came out, but I'm also very fond of Tolkien's work. I like a lot of music too. I recently bought a CD by a Swedish band called Dream Evil. That CD's one of my favorite things at the moment. At least until I get another CDs to be excited about *grins*...and Alcarin of course. Really, there's quite a lot of stuff I enjoy. I also shouldn't forget my friends. Life would be very boring without them.

*Quick! Describe yourself with five words!
Brilliant, young, handsome. I only need three *wide grin*

*I added a Surprise Question to this interview... something that will make an appearance every so once in awhile:
What will be one of your first actions once you become Co-ruler of the Universe? Get rid of software patents. They're destroying the software industry. Been having those on my mind a lot lately, as we've been having elections.

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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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