Burrowowl

Code Geass starts with a lots of strikes against it. Let’s list a few:

• Character designs from Shojou uber-group CLAMP. Aloof pretty-boys with angular features must be the order of the day.
• Giant robots. This is a draw for some folks, not for me. They tend bring a lot of baggage.
• Japanese patriotism. Everybody gets to be proud of their country, I get that, really I do. That said, oldies like Starblazers have already taken the sci-fi metaphor for America’s occupation of Japan everywhere that premise needed to go.
• High-school hijinks. Everybody can identify with school drama and school romance and school comedy. I have no particular problem with school-based stories, except when combined with other premises that I already take issue with. Throwing some stereotypical shy-students-in-love-dodecahedron tripe in with a contrived romantic-comedy harem or Japanese Liberation Front sci-fi war saga, and it’s bound to be trouble.
• Strong-headed student council president. This falls under high-school hijinks, really, but deserves special credit. Oh! Great ruined this character archetype for me with Tengo Tenge, though others had damaged it before him.
• A demure, frail, wheelchair-bound, kind-hearted blind girl. What? That’s a joke, right?
• Mysterious science-experiment-girl. Not the redhead in the picture above, but there’s what amounts to a djini in a bottle that has escaped from the evil empire’s scientific laboratories. This isn’t a thematic dead horse or anything.
• Mysterious ancient magic-girl. Same girl as above. Her mysterious sci-fi past also appears to be some kind of mysterious magical mythology past. Oh boy, this is really starting to add up.

But some how it’s working. I’m still not clear on why I even gave Code Geass a chance. There have been other titles that were well-received by the discerning anime fans that I just never got around to (such as Nadesico, also featuring giant robots), but fourteen episodes in I’ve found that production studio Sunrise has risen above the traditional confines of its component genres. The principle characters are accessible, in that you can readily identify the familiar archetypes they’re built around, but have layers of complexity built onto them. In most cases, this is done without getting too heavy-handed about character development.

Despite the heavy, heavy handicaps this series brings along from its very conception, Code Geass is a solid series with well-executed action sequences, an interesting cast of characters, excellent production values, and good pacing. Give the first couple episodes a chance, and it may draw you in, too.

Jean-Paul Nwynne has a variety of allies available depending on the circumstances. Each uses the Force of the summoning as a baseline for its attributes, skills, and the strength of its various powers. Spirits of 3 or more Force get one Optional power, which allows for a pretty broad variety of servants.

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A while ago I installed a copy of Mediawiki for giggles. I wasn’t dead-set on what I wanted to do with it, so I figured I’d put some old Iron Kingdoms web forum content into it. The Privateer Press server has had issues in the past with its search tool, so having a bunch of info at my fingertips on a server that isn’t likely to be bogged down seemed like a reasonably-good idea. Problem: I didn’t populate it in an automated fashion and copying & pasting hundreds of forum posts is tedious. Horribly tedious. I’ll have to muster an army of wikimonkeys to get that task completed, or get an awful lot better at HTTP scripting.

Enter the Spirit of the Century SRD, a website containing the OGL information from Evil Hat Productions’ new RPG. Since it’s open content, I can wrench on it just like the FATE 2.0 rules, but secure in the knowledge that I’m dealing with something that isn’t about to be made horribly outdated by FATE 3.0. What a great chance to kickstart a stalled Iron Kingdoms conversion while brushing up on my wiki-editing skills. I haven’t gotten very far into things just yet, as there is a lot of 1920′s pulp fiction baggage built into the pre-set skills, stunts, and such, which will take some time to properly remove.

So if you’re interested in an Iron Kingdoms Roleplaying Game that isn’t caught up in the sacred cows and proud nails of the d20 game system, come on down to the Gobbernomicon and chip in a bit. The Resources, Gadgets & Gizmos, and Character Ideas articles are in particularly dire need, though any constructive input is appreciated.

*Edit March 6, 2007: Hey neat, somebody else has been working on an IK conversation of Spirit of the Century, here.

Hi. I’m not a collector of scale models of female anime characters. I am most certainly not somebody that purchases dozens of them and then compulsively posts photographs of them. I’m not somebody who is really interested in ever doing so, even were an awful lot of disposable income and free time land in my lap.

That said, HappySoda has put together this excellent guide to help you, the novice taker-of-figurine-photos, get started. I like Haruhi Suzumiya as much as the next guy — well, maybe not as much as the guys that own dozens of 1/8 scale PVC replicas of her with removable skirts and such — but any well-executed ribbing of fanboy clichés make my day a little brighter. Well played, sir. Well played.