u/rogthnor

Just bought our first house. Lawn is super overgrown and there is some sort of creeping vine around the building. Anyone recommend some good lawn care businesses to come and clear it all out so I can start the regular maintenance work?

I went to the Renaissance Fair the other day and I was given a list of nearby orgs where I could learn to sword fight. But I lost the list. Does anyone know any nearby historic societies which do this sort of thing?

IIRC a lot of them were kids. So did the government set them to a special school to catch up on the time they missed?

The numbers are confusing. What goals does Boeing have to hit and what do we get if they do?

Do we ever get told what number or percentage of players were clearers in SAO? Or even a rough estimate?

London: The Falling Tower lays out the benefits of Resonance as:

- When casting a spell in line with your Resonance, reduce the difficulty by up to (Resonance) or 3, whichever is lower.

-- You're resonance cannot reduce the base difficulty by more than 3, but it *can* buy off additional difficulty increases such as that caused by things such as fast casting.

-- Resonances stack if multiple ones are applicable.

As a bit of dollcrafting I want to make a Mage with multiple, high resonances. So what are reliable, useful difficulty increases I can apply to my spell casting since I know I cam buy them off.

All,

I've been attending the city council the past few months (mostly online) and taking notes on what is happening in our city. Its been fun, and I've decided to start sharing those notes here for everyone else. These are high level (and opinionated) so I encourage you to read the official minutes as well. My opinions will normally be in asides (formatted like this).
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Access Project Update:
The Access Project is a local NGO which "is committed to providing South Snohomish County’s youth with the tools, resources and support they need to overcome adversity and reach their full potential."

They were at the meeting today to ask the Lynnwood City Council to commit to an School Resource Officer Pilot Program for select schools. Basically, they want to put a police officer in certain select schools for one year, with the hope that these officers will be able to develop a relationship with the students and head off misbehavior before it elevates to the level of actual crime. This has pros and cons, which you can all read about on your own. Some notable talking points which came up:

1. There was an SRO program previously which was stopped. The Access Project did not have data on why it was stopped, or what data was used to justify this.

2. When asked what data they had to justify the effectiveness of an SRO program, the Access Project could not provide any (and, again, we tried this and stopped it once before). But, in their own words something has to be done so we should try this. (While I am sympathetic with the desire to try things, and am withholding judgement until the pilot program is implemented, I am not sympathetic to the argument put forth. "Something must be done -> this is something -> this must be done" is a hallmark of bad, rushed, and short sighted government iniatives.)

3. The pilot program is for select schools. Would last one year. Access Project is asking that clear metrics be implemented to judge whether it is effective. (I agree with this 100%, though I do worry the long term effects would not be apparent without a longer study. I would suggest check ins at 5, 10 and 15 years).

4. Lynnwood City Council is already facing a budget crisis and has had to turn down requests by the police for more officers. When asked how this would be paid for: The Mayor mentioned he had already talked to the police chief who said he would prioritize this effort over other staffing concerns. Access Project also pointed out (no data, but this was in response to a question so it is not unreasonable for them not to have this) that the police already spend a lot of time responding to these issues. Having an officer in each school would not increase manpower requirements but just concentrate it in a specialized position.

5. The SROs would get special training. (No mention is how this will be paid for).

My Thoughts: I am tentatively against this effort, though open to be wrong. In general, I think the police are simply the wrong tool for this and will end up doing more harm than good (again, concerns about SROs are easily researchable so I will not get into them here). That said, I am not strongly against trialing it to see how it works.

I am also a little worried about the close relationship between the presenter from Access Project and the Chief of Police. The presenter has been a member of the police advisory committee since its inception and its clear that this was an idea he came up with in conjunction with the chief of police. While I do not believe anything untowards is happening, I do worry that this close relationship is blinding them towards other methods.

I would also like to end by noting that Access Project is putting in the work to offer a solution and that its easier to criticize then to do the work.

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Water Utilities Rates Briefing:
We (Lynnwood) buy our water from Alderwood. Alderwood buys it from Everett. Everett has increased their prices by 143% in 2022, only some of that is going to infrastructure costs. Part of it is going to a general fund.

Alderwood is currently in arbitration protesting this rate increase. It (and thus we) are paying the old rate until the case is finished. If the courts side against Alderwood they (and by extension we) will need to start paying the new rate and pay the difference owed.

This would represent a significant one time cost and an average increase of about 8$ a month going forward for the average consumer.

Council kicked around the idea of absorbing some of that cost.

Apparently state legislature is getting involved.

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Regional Complex Petion

The City Council has received multiple petitions stating that Everett is using Youth Activity Funds improperly to fund a new stadium. They were asked to make a formal motion to protest this (not binding, Lynnwood has no power over Everett)

Per Parks and Recs director (who looked into this at the behest of the council) the funds are actually coming from the Public Facilities Infrastructure Funds. The PFIF is pulling from the Youth Activities fund, but that is allowed for stadiums due to a carve out at the state level.

As this is legal and outside their authority, the Council will not be pursuing this further.

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AWC Annual Conference Report Out:
Lynnwood City Council President and Assistant City Administrator report out on their experiences at the conference. It was a conference. They learned a lot, made connections that will help coordinate between different regional governments within the state. Not much directly relevant.

I feel like most examples of premodern societies I know of are patriarchal, but I've hardly done an exhaustive survey and also I might be wrong about which ones are. Was hoping for some clarity.

Going to be running an episodic, mission based campaign where players are special operatives on the front line of the ascension war, traveling to strange, mystical locales to overthrow governments, assassinate high value targets, and set up military resistances. Think the magical equivalents of The A-Team, or Hogan's Heroes. Experienced, powerful, but not grand masters.

Trying to decide what XP value to give my players to make their characters. Any suggestions?

I am getting the "slow connection to pc reduce your bitrate" message. My MBS is set to 10 so it can't go much lower. Trying to understand what determines what my bitrate should be. This feels low as I have decent internet and specs. My internet plan through Xfinity is meant to give me an upload and download speed of 1000 Mbps each.

The Scepter of Impossible Dreams (Artifact N/A)

The Scepter of Impossible Dreams  appears as a siderite rod the length of a forearm, stained black  and capped at both ends by adamant starbursts. A faint white flame burns within the head of that starburst - a piece of Beyond made impossibly real and trapped for the Distant Eden’s use. The light this flame sheds burns with all the colors that exist and many that don’t. The strength of the flame and the light it sheds waxes and wanes with the scepter’s own use. 

In battle, the Scepter of the Distant Eden may be used as a heavy melee or archery weapon with the following stats. Its ranged attacks take the form of blasts of opalescent 

Essence.

Ranged: Lethal, Archery (Long), Crossbow, Piercing, Powerful, Slow

Melee: Bashing, Melee,, Smashing, Two Handed

Evocations of the Scepter of Impossible Dreams 

The Scepter contains within it a shard of the Beyond, the terrifying un-light of which warps and changes the world. It spreads madness and mutation to all it touches. 

Mental Flaws are always counted as Major Intimacies supporting social rolls by the wielder of this scepter. 

Flawless Transmutation Technique

Cost: 6m

Mins: E3

Type: Supplemental

Keywords: Combo-OK

Duration: Instant

Prerequisite: None

Rainbow light springs from the head of the Scepter, transforming all it touches in shape and substance.

This charm supplements a Feat of Demolition by the wielder. She may use "Intelligence + Craft" when making this roll. On a success, rather than destroying the object the wielder may choose to instead change the object into any non-magical material (or combination of materials) that she wishes. The shape of the object is unchanged.

Dreams-As-Resources Methodology

Cost: 6m

Mins: E3

Type: Supplemental

Keywords: Combo-OK

Duration: One Task

Prerequisite: Flawless Transmutation Technique

This charm supplements a single craft project the wielder is performing. For the duration of the project she is considered to have access to all mundane resources needed to create the project, transmuting them from air and ground as needed. 

Meeting the Alternate Self

Cost: 7m

Mins: E3

Type: Reflexive

Keywords: Decisive-Only

Duration: Instant

Prereqs: Flawless Transmutation Technique

As the charm Wyld-Flame Crucible* (Lunars p.g. 339) save that the transformations are permanent barring their reversal via other magicks. 

Keys

Malleable Mind Methodology: The wielder may alter the context of a minor or major intimacy in lieu of dealing 1 or 2HLs of damage respectively. Intimacies can have their context changed from positive to negative, or have their target altered, but not both at once. 

*Weirdflame Errata - It's transformations are also permanent by default. 

Madness-Poisoned Words

Cost: 1m

Mins: E3

Type: Supplemental

Keywords: -

Duration: Instant

Prereqs: Meeting the Alternate Self

This charm allows the wielder to inflict purely mental Flaws or transformations granted by Meeting the Alternate Self as if they were Major intimacies.  

Is there a good source of various NPCs, creatures and other things so I don't have to make my own? My Cabal is about to head into Warhammer Fantasy to assassinate the Emperor and the technocrats are ing to try and stop them so I need a wide variety of different NPCs

Played my first mage game in years (schedules and such). We had:

1. Bruce Wayne

2. The Ghost of Shakespeare

3. A Necromancer

4.Some other guy who I did not understand what the hell he was doing.

Their mission: Produce a fantasy movie which grossed 1.25mil in the opening week.

Complicated by the fact that most major movie studies and actors work for the technocracy. (Further complicated by the fact that I threw in an NPC Mage in their cabal who was an etherite who had strong opinions about their movie needing more robots as a roadblock NPC. They had him do the practical effects and did a science vs fantasy thing)

They ended up making an independent fantasy vs science movie (dragons vs robots) funded by and staring Bruce Wayne, billed as his passion project and playing only for one week in a bunch of old drive in theaters Bruce Wayne bought and renovated for this showing. (That was the cover, in reality they were zombie movie theaters raised by the necromancer)

Since they couldn't get any mainstream actors they took a bunch of theatre kids and had them possessed by the spirit of true art. When The Technocrats tried to kill the project by signing all the main actors for films which would turn off the indie audience the group was courting, that same spirit cursed them to be typecast so people would only ever think of the character and not pay attention to the actor.

The War in Iran meant the Technocrats could drive up gas prices to keep drive in attendance low, but the group got good word of mouth and made piracy easy so while they didn't actually make the money they wanted they did achieve the actual goal of making fantasy more popular in the zeitgeist and so this was treated as a success, if not an unqualified one

I have a hankering to play me some more planescape. Anyone have some modules they would recommend?

Getting a hankering for a proper Planescape Adventure. Anyone have recommendations for their favorite?

I've always been interested in Eberron, finally going to have the chance to DM in next month. Anyone have some recommendations for a module? Length doesn't matter.

Any system, any game. Give me the best of the best