Greetings traveler,

Welcome to the forty-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.
The past month has been a very, very busy one for me. Therefore, the site has been very quiet, for as far as updates are concerned, and the mailing list this month is about half a month late. Still, the additions that did arrive are quite interresting. Besides the addition of last month's Jonathan column to the greater story in the Temple, I've uploaded two interesting pdf files with custom monsters for the D&D roleplaying game. Both files are made by Jan Willem van den Brink, known from a number a number of monsters already on Alcarin and from the D&D quests of Agmanor's Treasure, Burglary in Dobnell, and Yidobbi's Dwelling.

Enjoy reading.

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

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WHAT'S NEW:

24/09/2004 - added 2 new monster downloads: Jan Willem van den Brink's "Booklet of Beings" and "Booklet of Dreadful Beings"

09/09/2004 - added column "Jonathan, the hero" to the Jonathan Saga (Temple)

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

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COMING UP:

Since I haven't had much time to work on the site during the past month, most of the coming ups of last month still apply for the coming month(s).
The first item on the agenda is to add the monsters from the Booklets of Beings to the site in html as well. Furthermore, I've got some templates, playable races, and a new prestige class planned. I hope to create and add those as soon as possible as well.
Due to the excess of work for both me and Jan-Willem v.d. Broek, the Elfstone MUD has not made much progress over the past month. Probably, this will be the case for the coming month as well. One development in this field is that our free mud host will stop providing service and we will be looking for a new one. Suggestions are always welcome.
Other plans include expanding the Elfstone Campaign Setting and writing a new chapter for the Landlord RPG. I've also been thinking about expanding the artwork section of the site with alcarin regulars willing to show their art. Looking at the site's statistics, there seems to be a lot of demand for fantasy artwork and it might be a good idea to expand the modest amount of that material already present on the site. In any case, these will be things for on the long run and I don't expect any developments on those in the coming month (especially considering that we're already halfway through that month, at the time of writing).

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

"The greatest game"

There are a lot of games to play lately. Games, made to enjoy yourself. To offer us a bit of relaxation with some sort of challenge. There are computer games. A lot of them get boring after a while. After all, your options are very restricted. You can only do what the computer is programmed to let you do. If that's not what you want, you can demolish your computer, but that's it.

All games consist of rules. There is no other option to make it playable. You have the real world and a game. And if you want to game, you must go by it's specific rules. Real life also has got rules, but you can do a lot of your own still (except in some police force states).

Real life offers the most possible ways to be original. Games are made by man, thus not as perfect as life; it's much more restricted. But getting out of life is relaxing.

And that's why there are rpgs. The ingenious trick is that it offers more then a game; it offers life. An alternative life. So the restrictions of the ordinary game get away. AWAY! BEGONE, RESTRICTIONS ARRR!!

Err... well... anyhow, that's what my story bottles down to. I guess rpg is the greatest game. The possibilities are endless. There is a whole fantasy world to get into. It just never gets boring.

Well, it can be sometimes though. Ironically in the big action scene, perfect in it's suspense, swords clattering, everyone ready in fighting mode, the pace of your fighting is of the essence... but in reality you just roll dices and wait for it to be your turn. You just sit there with your statistics while a colleague is discussion for about half and hour about the damage his move can make in this particular situation while half of the people around have forgotten what is happening at all.

Okay, so rpg-ing isn't quite flawless. But nothing ever is. It's the fun of life, I guess.

You can get a bit more living, though, those fights. Just dress totally weird and go into the woods, LARP-ing (preferable in an actual LARP-event). You might even get on the news as one of the 'total weird and crazy persons'. YAY!

Well, all in all, you've got to love it. Having weird friends obsessed with rules, the smell of the DM screen and the role-play-inside jokes in webcomics non-role-players wouldn't understand. It's a weird culture. But it's our culture. And it seems real nuts and evil to some people. YAY!

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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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