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Hyperborea » Winter is coming » 6/28/2017 9:13 pm

As I re-immerse myself in Hyperborea I've found myself thinking about what Hyperborean winter must be like. The boxed set makes it clear it is an absolutely horrifying experience - a year of night, and the years around it not much better. It's an idea I like a lot but also one that I find stretches my suspension of disbelief.

The challenge I'm finding is figuring out how the inhabitants are able to stockpile food - with no daylight growing crops will be quite challenging. Some Googling shows some plants are able to grow with minimal sunlight and I imagine Hyperboreans keep growing them as long as they can as winter approaches - and I also imagine they are likely better at preserving food than one would find in the Middle Ages - necessity being the mother of invention.

I could see how magic might play a roll - sorcerer's being able to create food would be quite valuable, though it is a 3rd level spell. Being able to purify food would likely be of great advantage, stopping food from going bad - and plant growth might have some interesting applications in a hungry community.

I'm a big fan of Stephen King's Dark Tower books and one thing it often features is the occasional remaining technological artifact. With Atlantean artifacts, I could see some communities in Hyperborea having as their most precious possession a set of ultraviolet lights that allow them to grow crops throughout the long winter. Finding a new power source could make for an adventure, as could trying to retrieve stolen lights.

This is just some stream of consciousness - anyone have campaigns take place during winter and have some interesting game experiences/ideas to share?

General Discussion » AS&SH Reviews » 6/28/2017 10:16 am

I think I've enough posts to now include links... Way back in 2013 I put a review on my blog - it's one of the more higher viewed posts I've made as it turns out -
https://19thlevel.blogspot.com/2013/03/rpg-review-astonishing-swordsmen.html

General Discussion » Introduction Thread » 6/28/2017 10:13 am

Thanks for the welcome. I'm greatly looking forward to the second edition - and backed the Kickstarter for it.

Funny thing... One of the things that really got my attention when I bought the first boxed set was the small handwritten thank you note included with it.

General Discussion » Introduction Thread » 6/27/2017 8:42 pm

Hey there. I'm Dan Stack, I've been gaming since the early 1980s, beginning with the magenta D&D set. I'm pretty varied in my gaming tastes, having recently GM-ed campaigns ranging from a Fate version of Star Wars to Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu.

I've an online gaming group and we're currently considering an old-school style game to play. Given our love of Cthulhu, AS&SH is getting some consideration - especially since one of my players recently got to play it at NTRPG Con and I'm a big Clark Ashton Smith fan. I'll probably be posting about the game here, as we could use 1-2 more players in the group.

I've a blog, 19th Level, that I can't yet link to until I've a few posts under my belt. :-) One of my top posts was a review of AS&SH as it turns out... I write about RPGs, fiction, comics, etc. - a variety of geeky topics. 

Outside of RPGs, I'm a software engineer turned data scientist. I'm currently pursuing an MS in Strategic Analytics part time at Brandeis University - which makes low-prep RPGs quite valuable to me. My younger daughter, age 12, shows all the signs of emerging geekdom, being into comics, beginning to read some Jack Williamson, etc. I'm quite proud.

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