Historical References: Shield-wall

From antiquity to modern days, the shield-wall has allowed a small number of trained fighters to control or defeat a horde of rabble. The concept is quite simple: The men stand in formation, shoulder to shoulder so that their shields overlap. This way an enemy is denied the ability to flank the fighters one by one. Throughout history this tactic has been used by amongst others the Persians, Spartans, Romans, Vikings, Saxons, Normans, and in our own age, riot police.

I-CROP

In 2001 the world changed. A complicated and well coordinated terrorist attack was pulled off right under the noses of the global intelligence community. As a direct result, billions of dollars were pumped into new programs, laws were passed, and agencies and organizations were restructured or created to deal with the new reality. Of course, in this climate of fear and secrecy, every single dollar was not accounted for. More than one agenda thrived in this new world of darkness.

WoD: Marinating on a game

Friday will see a game of more or less vanilla Mage with the lady friend and a friend of her's. They've expressed a wish for some modern day spell-slingin' action, and I've not hosted a contemporary game in, oh, about three or four years now. I've also yet to run Mage-as-written. My lady's friend is a n00b as far as Pn'P RPG's are concerned, though she's done a bit of MMO-roleplaying. All in all, I expect this'll be a very refreshing change of pace. Hopefully for the lot of us.


In this post I'll put down some of my ideas, mostly so that I can see how it fits together, and so that the girls can look it over. And who knows, some blog-sourcing may come out of it as well.

My old notebooks, part II

When I posted the first part of this series, I was about to leave Bergen, now I've arrived in Ajax. There will most likely be some changes made as to how much I blog, and about what. The specifics are yet unclear though. I have begun writing what may become a novel, and that will take up most of my writing-time. Still, I will be playing, and posts on that will most definitely be forthcoming. The world of Argos will still turn, but for now, mostly in my head. This coming Friday will see a session of WoD, and some thoughts on that should be on the interwebs over the next few days.


For now, here's a few pages from another of my old notebooks. The chronology is a little messed up, as I used a few books in this period.