The Horned Toad Of Keld

The Horned Toad of Keld is a divine anomaly amongst the ascended deities. Originally it was a familiar of an archmage from the land of Keld, infused by its master with powerful enchantments that made it much more than a mere animal. Together with its patron, it lived long and grew stronger and smarter than any mundane toad. In a sense it ascended to higher order of existence than the one born to even before its master, following many other adepts of his trade, decided to follow the ancient path and reach for the divinity. It took the archmage many more years of studies, gathering exotic ingredients, experimentation and other preparations before he deemed oneself ready.

On the eve of carefully predicted astrological conjunction the wizard sent away his apprentices and closed oneself within the tower he build years before in the anticipation of the ritual he was to perform. The knowledge of the following events is sketchy, however, for the only witness of them is the Toad itself. What is known is that the magician died while casting the final spells. His death should end the familiar's life as well, but instead, through an unexplainable quirk of magic, the bond connected to the gathering divine power. For a moment, the Toad was familiar of divinity itself. In a heartbeat, the barrier between mortal and immortal existence was breached. The Toad became the familiar of deities and the deity of familiars.

The Horned Toad Of Keld is enigmatic entity. Amphibiously inhuman and yet vaguely familiar for it lived a lifetime as a mystical extension of a human wizard. Usually indifferent towards mortals, it shows a degree of affectation towards mages and ascended deities. It has no real priests as it grants no magic of its own and has no organized temples. It is willing to enter pacts with wizards empowering their familiars with spark of divine power, however, and many familiar-owning wizards keep a small shrine to the Toad.

As other young ascendents, the Toad often manifests directly, appearing as a pony-sized, grey-skinned toad with its head adorned with a pair of antler-like horns. While it does not speak directly, it can communicate with a form of telepathy resembling the one used between familiar and its master.

Test Of The Starstone: The Truth

Those of you who know Golarion, the Pathfinder RPG's default setting will be probably interested in hearing the true story behind the Test Of The Starstone and Ascension of trio of mortals to godhood.

Dramatis Personae: Aroden (God of human culture, innovation and history, the last member of the mankind's first and greatest civilization, ascended prior to described events), Cayden Cailean (adventurer, hero, womanizer and drunk), Iomedae (virtuous if somewhat self-righteous paladin), Norgorber (mysterious thief) and Thais (prostitute with a golden heart, friend and occasional lover of Cayden).

The described events take place in the Starstone Cathedral in the Absalom where Aroden placed the Starstone after he recovered it from the depths of the sea.

Aroden: Behold! I have raised Starstone from the depths of the sea and placed it in the temple of Absalom where the worthy ones can taste my cookies! *Places cookies of divinity on the table*

Norgorber: *sneaks behind the Aroden's back into the temple and steals the cookies of divinity from the table*

Aroden: Dammit! Who stole my cookies?! *bakes another batch of cookies and places them on the table*

Cayden: *stumbles into the temple while drunk* Ooh! Fina-hic-ly! Shom snnach tho my dr-r-r-ynk! *grabs some cookies*

Aroden: Dammit! Cayden, you washed down my cookies WITH ALE?! How could you! Ale does not suit them at all! What barbarian could eat cookies of divinity with anything less than Azlanti semi-sweet red?! When I will be blessed with worthy connoisseur?

Cayden: OHai shweetheart, wanna some? *shares the cookie with Thais before getting to bed with her*

Aroden: You shared the cookie of divinity with whom?!

Cayden: *licks his finger* That was helluva of a cookie! Oh, theres some cr-r-rumbs left... Hey, doggie-doggie, hey doggie-doggie...

Aroden: *facepalm* Why do I even bother...

Iomedae: *enters the temple passes the test, eats the cookie*

Aroden: with anticipation Well, how was it?

Iomedae: Well, a bit undercooked. It could use more cinnamon and some raisins. I would add Arcadian chocolate instead of Vudran coffee too.

Aroden: angered That's it! I quit! Bake them yourself if you think you can do better!

The real proceedings of these three Ascensions were revealed on Paizo messageboard while discussing the circumstances of Cayden making Thais his divine herald. I would like to thank all the participants of that discussion for inspiration.

The Lone God

In times before the history, when the world was young and the people haven't gathered to build cities yet, a man was exiled from his band. Cause of his exile was lost to the fog of ages together with the people he belonged to. Was it crime? A broken taboo? Inauspicious omen? No one knows, maybe except the exile himself, but he does not care anymore. Exile for his people was death. Those who were severed from the family were left to fend for themselves and died quickly, alone in the cruel wilds of that age. Everyone exiled died, except that one man. He was the first exile to live, to endure the wilds, to survive alone. He was too skilled hunter to starve, too stubborn to surrender. His will to live drove him until he learned to appreciate the solitude, to enjoy it. No longer afraid of being alone, like his kin were, freed from the dependency on others he thrived where those before him dwindled.

His focus on survival and solitude slowly changed him. He lived longer than any member of his former tribe but living alone, without others to compare against he did noticed that for many turnings of the seasons. His senses grew sharper than any beast he was hunting for. His wounds mended faster and no illness ever touched him. He ascended past the boundaries mortality subtly and without witnesses. Forever alone, now of own choice, he grew into the deity of solitude.

The Lone God, the first exile, is a strange god. He has no servants, no followers, no temples, no priests and no worshipers. He enters no pacts and grants no magic. He is patron to no one because those who would be suited to worship solitude are those who require no patron and no companionship. Those who would turn to him for aid and protection he will reject; it is said that sometimes he hunts those who dare to disrupt his isolation with prayers — asking for help or providing it contradicts the very nature of his divinity, after all.

My Life As A Gamer: Computer Games, part 1

As I mentioned before, computer games played (and still play) important role in my life.
My first memories concerning computers are clouded by time. It probably was somewhere around '85 when my father (who was repairing electronic devices for living) brought a computer for repair. I think it was Comodore C64. Soon, he borrowed Atari 2600 game system with three or four cartridges. I am certain that there were Miner 2049er amongst them. I think that another could be Missile Command or similar game. While we had Atari 2600 at home, a Spectrum 48k was also brought in for a short time, but without programs (or maybe it wasn't working at all, I don't recall doing anything on it).

In late '85 father started buying Bajtek, a monthly computer magazine . For me, the most interesting part of it were 4-6 pages dedicated to games. Somewhere around '87 we bought our first own computer: Atari 130 XE with cassette tape player plus a few tapes with games and programs. Our collection of tapes grew quite quickly, at least until 1991. Father went to visit his brother, who was living in Germany since early 70s. He promised to bring us a new joysticks. He brought one... And Amiga 500. Quality of gaming jumped up exponentially. At time of its introduction there was no better home computer. Great graphics, great sound, great games, four times as much memory (practically eight times, because Atari 130XE used only 64 of 128kB of memory possessed due to 8-bit architecture limitations), 3-1/2 floppies instead of tapes... Sky was the limit! It's a terrible shame that Commodore and later firms that acquired rights to Amiga design failed to continue it's development at rate matching Intel-based PCs.

Switching from Atari 130 XE to Amiga 500 was a great change. No longer loading games took hours (sometimes literally with bigger games) so I could play multiple games each day, switching the played game for another at will. Still I had to share the computer with brother.
A few times we got newer Amiga and upgraded them with more memory, HDs, various expansions. Later we also got Amiga 1200 with expansions. At least we had two working computers at the same time.

The paradise lasted for ten years, until computer games outgrew capabilities of Amiga. In early 21st century my brother moved to grandfather, who later bought old IBM PC, then another and another. First my brother moved from Amiga to IBM and finally I got my own Intel-based computer (seriously outdated) a few years later. After some time grandfather gave me another computer, better than before but still outdated and then another (single core Celeron in times when dual core was the norm, with integrated 64 MB graphics...).

Only in 2009, after grandfathers death I bought myself my own Asus laptop with decent processor and good 512 MB Radeon graphics card and finally I could not only play a lots of games that I were missing but also I could play them at high quality settings, most of the time. It was great time until October of 2011, two months after the warranty ended. One day the computer just stopped working. No warning signs, no anything. Just didn't turned on in the morning. That was one of the few rare moments when I, while being awake, bitten my left thumb to check if I don't dream (or rather have nightmare in that case). I sometimes do that in dreams when I recognize that I am dreaming but want to be sure. That day I hoped that I haven't woke myself up yet and that's just a bad dream. Regretfully, it wasn't. I had to spend most of the money I had just to get it repaired. For two weeks I was back to using old computer after two years of heaven. This was time of hurting eyes and aching head - laptop built-in screen had graphic quality unparalleled by the old CRT monitor. After two weeks I got my laptop back, repaired. Or so it seemed until the Christmas. Just before Christmas it shut down without warning. I trembled but it turned on without problems. Until next Thursday when it shut down again. Once more it turned on but on the next day it didn't work at all. There was warranty on the first repair so the same company fixed it again without additional costs but since then I am exceptionally careful with it. Which means no games that force it into highest activity, regretfully and I won't be able to repair or replace it in foreseeable future. So for now, I switch between laptop and another outdated reserve computer.

Next time: Less about computers and more about actual games. Probably.

Commander!

And here it is! I can reveal that it was incoming publication that gave me the final push to start a blog about gaming:

Meet the Commander class, originally created as a Captain base class by yours truly, licensed and slightly modified by Amora Game to suit their needs (they changed Direct Order, Strong Voice and the way some of advanced tactics work). Oh, and Extra Tactics feat is also mine.

Together with my Captain Commander, there is teamwork-focused Centurion prestige class created by Kevin Bond. It certain looks interesting. It could suit an NPC or two from the City Guard in my current Forgotten Realms campaign.