On Saturday, I tried to run my Stormhaven campaign session from my iPad, and I’ll have to give the experience mixed reviews. In general, I was happy with the iPad’s responsiveness and with the ability to use a small handheld device instead of needing table space for my laptop. One of my key tools, though, failed for reasons I still do not understand, which dragged the experience down for me.

First, let’s talk about those tools. I have been using my laptop as a DM tool for quite some time. Most recently, my primary tool has been MasterPlan—if I prep and run a session using MasterPlan, I hardly need any other tool except for iTunes (to play background music). However, this does force me to run Parallels on my MacBook Pro, and it requires table space, electricity, and so on.

For the iPad experiment, I entered my adventure notes in DEVONthink Pro Office on my MPB and shared the database using DT’s built-in web sharing service. This allowed me to use Safari on my iPad to read the data I had stored on my MBP. For initiative tracking, I used DMs Tracker by KBAR Apps for managing initiative sequences, and CompendiumHelper by Alexander Bock as a front end for Compendium lookup as needed. Both of these are iPhone apps, though KBAR is hard at work on an iPad version of DMs Tracker (and I want it now!). With appropriate music loaded into the iPod app on my iPad, a few selected PDFs ready for consultation using iAnnotate PDF, and a few selected photos loaded into the Photos app, I was ready to rock and roll!

Or so I thought.

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Ahoy there, adventure fans! Come along with us as we launch into our next adventure, “The Sands of Time,” recorded on August 29, 2009! Please listen now or subscribe via iTunes, Zune, or plain old RSS. This episode features the following segments:

• Weighing Anchor: DM Neil of Nerdbound, another D&D actual play podcast, calls for your initiative roll.
• The Staging Area: I briefly recap “Escape from the Pirate Kings, Part 4,” but refer listeners chiefly to the “Story Thus Far” episode for summaries of the campaign to date.
• The Weather Report: The PCs set sail into the desert aboard a specially modified boat, in search of ancient cities once inhabited by giants, and clues to their ongoing quest for the Book of Life.
• The Prop Shop: For the “sand skiff” loaned to the PCs by the halflings of Attunga, I used the Broken Promise map that we usually use when the PCs are on the high seas, originally the Sea Wyvern from Dungeon 141 (which, happily, has a beholder on the cover). I used a desert floorplan from the Starship Troopers Floorplans set by Mongoose Publishing. The beholder-riding mind flayers were inspired by an illustration by Arne Swekel in Monte Cook’s mega-adventure The Banewarrens. In the audio, I list the D&D Miniatures used in the battle. My FRP Games pick of the episode is the Beholder from the Deathknell set of D&D Miniatures, my favorite of all the beholders released in the DDM line to date.

I hope that you enjoy “The Sands of Time, Part 1,” and that you’ll return for the continuation in “The Sands of Time, Part 2″!

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What do you know, adventure fans? We’ve already reached the conclusion of “Escape from the Pirate Kings,” recorded on August 8, 2009! Please listen now or subscribe via iTunes, Zune, or plain old RSS. This episode features the following segments:

• Weighing Anchor: Hannah Lipsky, a.k.a. Swordgleam, calls for your initiative roll. She runs Chaotic Shiny Productions.
• The Staging Area: I briefly recap “Escape from the Pirate Kings, Part 3,” but refer listeners chiefly to the “Story Thus Far” episode for summaries of the campaign to date.
• The Weather Report: The PCs continue to defend the halfling caravan against the gnoll ambush.
• The Prop Shop: I reflect a bit on behind-the-scenes factors in the fight with the gnolls, and recommend A Brief History of Gnolls by Skirmisher Press. I also describe some of the resources you can access at the Chaotic Shiny web site, as well as the Kingdom Builder, a Chaotic Shiny program for Windows. My FRP Games pick of the episode is Bloodmane, Gnoll Champion, a miniature by Reaper in its Dark Heaven Legends line.

I hope that you enjoy “Escape from the Pirate Kings, Part 4,” and that you’ll return for the continuation in “The Sands of Time, Part 1″!

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Here we go again, adventure fans! Come along with us as we share with you “Escape from the Pirate Kings, Part 3,” recorded on August 8, 2009! Please listen now or subscribe via iTunes, Zune, or plain old RSS. This episode features the following segments:

• Weighing Anchor: NewbieDM calls for your initiative roll to get things started.
• The Staging Area: I briefly recap the most recent developments, especially the state of affairs at the end of “Escape from the Pirate Kings, Part 2,” but refer listeners chiefly to the “Story Thus Far” episode for summaries of the campaign to date.
• The Weather Report: The PCs’ skill as bodyguards is put to the test when the halfling caravan gets ambushed by gnolls!
• The Prop Shop: I explain a little bit about Berrian’s experience. I describe my use of a Starship Troopers map to lay out the desert ambush. Since those floorplans are, as far as I know, out of print, I make the forthcoming Gamescapes: Desert Steppes map from Savage Mojo my FRP Games pick of the episode. The physical maps are expected to ship in April; if you’re impatient, you can download a PDF version from DriveThruRPG. I also give props to the new Dungeon Master Guys podcast featuring the aforementioned NewbieDM, the Chatty DM (Phil Menard), and Dave “the Game” Chalker.

I hope that you enjoy “Escape from the Pirate Kings, Part 3,” and that you’ll return for the conclusion in “Escape from the Pirate Kings, Part 4″!

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I’ve just updated my Dungeon Tiles Index to include the one and only set of Star Wars Galaxy Tiles. A good portion of those tiles could be used in D&D or other fantasy games as well as sci-fi games. The D&D Dungeon Tiles don’t have much in the way of metal floors, so the Galaxy Tiles make an intriguing supplement if you need such.

What do you know, adventure fans? The ep-a-day thrill ride that is the Icosahedrophilia podcast continues in “Escape from the Pirate Kings, Part 1,” recorded on August 8, 2009! Please listen now or subscribe via iTunes, Zune, or plain old RSS. This episode features the following segments:

• Weighing Anchor: Jeff Greiner, host of the Tome Show, calls for your initiative roll.
• The Staging Area: I briefly recap the state of the campaign at the end of “Clash with the Pirate Kings, Part 6,” but refer listeners chiefly to the “Story Thus Far” episode for summaries of the campaign to date.
• The Weather Report: The PCs sign on as caravan guards and head inland from Scalabar.
• The Prop Shop: We didn’t really use any physical props in the first hour or so of “Escape from the Pirate Kings,” because that part of the night focused on social interaction, travel, and research. I’ve got a nostalgia thing going this episode, so my FRP Games pick of the episode is the Dungeon Survival Guide.

I hope that you enjoy “Escape from the Pirate Kings, Part 1,” and that you’ll return for the continuation in “Escape from the Pirate Kings, Part 2″!

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This is it, adventure fans! “Clash of the Pirate Kings, Part 6″ brings the latest adventure arc to its thrilling conclusion. Please listen now or subscribe via iTunes, Zune, or plain old RSS. This episode features the following segments:

• Weighing Anchor: Ed Katayama of A Hidden Fortress in Simi Valley—my friendly local game store—calls for your initiative roll.
• The Staging Area: I briefly remind listeners of the events in “Clash of the Pirate Kings, Part 5,” referring listeners to the “Story Thus Far” episode for summaries of the campaign to date.
• The Weather Report: A confrontation with local law enforcement leaves the adventurers stranded outside of Scalabar.
• The Prop Shop: Everything I said about improvised props in the Prop Shop for episode 58 applies this time, too, since it’s a continuation of the same scene. My DriveThruRPG pick of the episode is a pair of scenery products from Lord Zsezse Games: a paper model of an old watermill and the battlemaps that illustrate its interior.

I hope that you enjoy “Clash with the Pirate Kings, Part 6,” and that you’ll return for the continuation of the campaign in “Escape from the Pirate Kings, Part 1″!

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When I wrote my recent post on Hebraic words in H.P. Lovecraft’s novella “The Horror at Red Hook,” I forgot to mention one other tidbit. In part V of the story, the narrator mentions a word written in “nothing less than the fearful Chaldee letters of the word ‘LILITH.’” In the wonderful Penguin edition edited by S.T. Joshi, Joshi provides the following footnote to the word “Chaldee”:

This is a reference to the script (a kind of hieroglyphics) of the ancient land of Chaldaea in southern Babylonia near the delta of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Its capital was Ur.

I think, however, that Joshi has misunderstood Lovecraft’s reference to the “Chaldee” language. While the ancient Sumerians did use pictographs in the earliest stage of their writing, I know of no scholarly convention of referring to those pictographs as “Chaldee.” The pictographs “soon” (over the course of a few hundred years) gave way to cuneiform, which is not really a kind of hieroglyphics. But I don’t think this is what Lovecraft means by “Chaldee.”

In nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, scholars used the word “Chaldee” to name the language that we now call “Aramaic.” If you doubt this, search Google Books for “Chaldee” and notice that virtually all the results from 1850 to 1950 are for Biblical Hebrew lexicons (dictionaries). Evidence that Lovecraft used “Chaldee” in this way comes, perhaps, from his reference to “Chaldee letters” (my emphasis). In Mesopotamia, cuneiform symbols were generally logographic (one glyph represented one word) or syllabic (one glyph represented one syllable or phoneme). The scribes of Ugarit, a city on the Mediterranean coast, did use a cuneiform alphabet, but this was very unusual; in easter Mesopotamia—Sumer, and later Assyria and Babylon—syllabic cuneiform prevailed.

Based on usage at the time and the reference to “letters,” I suspect that Lovecraft meant Aramaic, not Akkadian or some precursor thereof, when he referred to “Chaldee” in “The Horror at Red Hook.” If so, I take this to be one of those “spoof moments” where Lovecraft takes something utterly mundane and tries to make it frightening, as he does in “The Hound” by italicizing the words “in the Dutch language.” There’s really nothing particularly fearsome about Chaldee (Aramaic) letters; they’re the same letters in which modern Hebrew is written (or, rather, printed and typeset, as distinct from Israeli cursive). So if you’re brave enough, if you can handle it without going completely mad, here’s what Malone saw:

לִילִית

The horror!

So, adventure fans, are you ready for the third episode of Icosahedrophilia in as many days? Ready or not, here comes “Clash of the Pirate Kings, Part 5!” Please listen now or subscribe via iTunes, Zune, or plain old RSS. This episode features the following segments:

• Weighing Anchor: Andrew Wilson of Silent7Seven Games—who was featured on a recent episode of our sister podcast, the Tome Show—calls for your initiative roll.
• The Staging Area: I briefly remind listeners of the events in “Clash of the Pirate Kings, Part 4,” referring listeners to the “Story Thus Far” episode for summaries of the campaign to date.
• The Weather Report: Back on land, the PCs consider their options … and wind up fighting the town guard.
• The Prop Shop: We did need some miniatures and a grid for tactical positioning during this hour, but since I had neither planned nor anticipated the fight that took place, I just used whatever was handy. There are no great insights on props in this episode’s Prop Shop, then. However, I do recommend the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast, a new favorite.

I hope that you enjoy “Clash with the Pirate Kings, Part 5,” and that you’ll return for the conclusion in “Clash with the Pirate Kings, Part 6″!

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I’ve gone back into overdrive mode, adventure fans, and I’ve only made you wait a day between our last episode and “Clash of the Pirate Kings, Part 4!” Please listen now or subscribe via iTunes. This episode features the following segments:

• Weighing Anchor: Aeryn Rudel of Blackdirge Publishing calls for your initiative roll.
• The Staging Area: I briefly remind listeners of how “Clash of the Pirate Kings, Part 3” ended, referring listeners to the new “Story Thus Far” episode for summaries of the campaign to date.
• The Weather Report: The PCs finally get away from the Headreaver and head back to shore, wreaking some havoc along the way.
• The Prop Shop: Everything in this segment is pretty much straight role-playing; even the violent confrontations between S3rv0 and various sailors didn’t really require tactical positioning on a battlemap. This one’s all imagination, no physical props. My pick of the episode is Player’s Handbook 3.

I hope that you enjoy “Clash with the Pirate Kings, Part 4,” and that you’ll return for the continuation in “Clash with the Pirate Kings, Part 5″!

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