Thoughts XIV: What D&D character am I?

True Neutral Human Druid (3rd Level)

Ability Scores:

Strength- 11

Dexterity- 13

Constitution- 12

Intelligence- 16

Wisdom- 15

Charisma- 10

Alignment: True Neutral- A true neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. He doesn't feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most true neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better than evil after all, he would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. Still, he's not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way. Some true neutral characters, on the other hand, commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. They see good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run. True neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you act naturally, without prejudice or compulsion. However, true neutral can be a dangerous alignment because it represents apathy, indifference, and a lack of conviction.

Race: Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

Class: Druids- Druids gain power not by ruling nature but by being at one with it. They hate the unnatural, including aberrations or undead, and destroy them where possible. Druids receive divine spells from nature, not the gods, and can gain an array of powers as they gain experience, including the ability to take the shapes of animals. The weapons and armor of a druid are restricted by their traditional oaths, not simply training. A druid's Wisdom score should be high, as this determines the maximum spell level that they can cast.

Alignment:

Lawful Good ----- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (21)

Neutral Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (22)

Chaotic Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (20)

Lawful Neutral -- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (21)

True Neutral ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (22)

Chaotic Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (20)

Lawful Evil ----- XXXXXXXXXXXXX (13)

Neutral Evil ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXXX (14)

Chaotic Evil ---- XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)

Law and Chaos:

Law ----- XXXXXXXXX (9)

Neutral - XXXXXXXXXX (10)

Chaos --- XXXXXXXX (8)

Good and Evil:

Good ---- XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)

Neutral - XXXXXXXXXXXX (12)

Evil ---- XXXX (4)

Race:

Human ---- XXXXXXXXXXXXX (13)

Dwarf ---- XXXXXXXXXX (10)

Elf ------ XXXXXXXX (8)

Gnome ---- XXXX (4)

Halfling - XX (2)

Half-Elf - XXXXXXXXX (9)

Half-Orc - XXXXXXXXXX (10)

Class:
Barbarian - (-8)

Bard ------ (-4)

Cleric ---- XX (2)

Druid ----- XXXX (4)

Fighter --- (-2)

Monk ------ (-15)

Paladin --- (-17)

Ranger ---- (-2)

Rogue ----- (-4)

Sorcerer -- XX (2)

Wizard ---- XX (2)

http://easydamus.com/character.html



Review: Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

Title - Fahrenheit 451

Author - Ray Bradbury

Year - 1953

Stand Alone or Series -Stand Alone

Pages - 227

Reading Time - August 2011

Rating - 7/10

Fanhereit 459 it's an odd book. I can't figure if I liked it or not. I enjoy reading a book about alternative history, dystopian and post-apocalpytic fiction and this one inserts alongside "1984", "We" or "Brave New World" but this one is a little difference. The author doesn't focus much on the politics and briefly we are told why the world change the way it change but even that is so scarce that it didn't quenched my thirst. In this point it was a let down. I really hope for more.

This edition have an introduction and afterwords by the author were he tells us a bit how he became a writer and how this book came to be. I always enjoy introductions by the authors specially the ones that try to explain something of the novel.

This novel was first published in a shorter form called The Fireman, later Ray tried to enlarge the story and by what I learn it was sold first to the playboy magazine. The title comes from the temperature need to paper to get burn which is at 450 degrees which gives around 850 Fanhereit degrees.

The main character is Guy Montag, a fireman (in this future he doesn't put out fires but instead is a book burner. We learn in the beginning of the (to-be)society full of hedonistic anti-intellectual. America is a lawless state where teenagers are violent and to other horrific grotesque pleasures like watching animals die. Reading is prohibit and anyone who is catch are put in a mental hospital and the books burnt (specially important authors).One day Montag meets a neighbour (Clarisse) with free-thinking ideals which makes him question his ideals and hapiness and life. Montag after arriving home and finding his wife full of pills and the "saving" by some technicians makes Montag question about society. In a following day they go to a house full of books where a old inflammes herself before the firemen do it. This also disturbed montag. In that "raid" he also snatch a book.

Montag calls for a sick leave and receives the captain of the fire team who explains the political and social causes that are tie in with their work.

We learn that the reason that there aren't so many books it's because society in search for hapiness and minimize cultural offences supress the literature through an act of self-censorship. He also says that all firemen passes what he is passing, even stealing a book out of curiosity. It's also implied that he knows montag had stolen a book. We learn eventually that Montag had been stealing books for a while having dozen books in the house. The reason is that he is trying to memorize the books but is failing the quest because the words escape him. He then remembers Faber, professor who helps him understand books but also with a ear-piece. He travels back to his work and after a card game they are called to a house.. Montag house. Here Beatty confronts him and tells him to burn his house because he knows of he's doing. Montag instead burns Beatty and runs away.

There is chase broadcast in TV as a spectacle (to distract people from on the oncoming threat of war). He goes to Faber house who tells him of vagabonds who roam the land and they are also book-lovers who preserv books orally. He escapes afterwards toward the river and the mechanical hound chasing losses his scent. He arrives at an encampent of these book lovers who make him watch in a TV that even if he escape another "montag" was capturerd and we watch the hound capture another person, probably scapegoat.

The book ends with Montag seeing bombers flying overhead and a nuclear explosion of the city he lived. Mildred died but Faber supposedly moves to another city. We are left with a optimistic ending that as a phoenix society must also rise from his ashes with the help of the book-lovers.

As I said, this book is a odd book. I liked reading and read it rapidly. But at the same time I hoped that more information about the society would have been given. But in overall I

understand it's value and why it seats along 1984 or Brave New World.

Recommend? To anyone.

Review: A Gathering of Crows - Brian Keene

Title - A Gathering of Crows

Author - Brian Keene

Year - 2011

Stand Alone or Series -Stand Alone

Pages - 204

Reading Time - July/August 2011

Rating - 7/10

Brian Keene is no stranger to me. It's one of those authors that I follow and read each and every book he releases. I have three more to read in my house but I am yet to read them .

Almost every book he released is a continuation of the Labyrinth mythos he created. Starting with The Rising and City of the Dead, by far my favourite alongside with The Conqueror Worms and the short story novel that links with the first two books The Rising - Selected Scenes from the End of the World. Then we've got The Dead Sea, Urban Gothic and Darkness on the Edge of Town also have some shed some information bout this mythos.   The only one that I think don't have nothing on this mythos is  Castaways (but I could be mistaked).

Unfortunally for me I should have read Ghostwalk and Dark Hallow because on the most important characters here is also on those books. I will read them shortly.

This book focus more on the Labyrinth and for the first time we get a glimpse of what is the Labyrinth and what it stands for. We learn more of the mythos and that was a plus on this tale. The connection with the Ronoake incident is also a plus side. The rest of the characters besides Levi are well accomplished but as The Dead Sea and Urban Gothic I failed to connect with most of them. I think Keene is focusing on integrating some types of characters like gay and black people and in my opinion they are not that well done. Again those young white boys behaving like black folk. I mean in a small town in the middle of nowhere should this people exist at all? I don't know.

Besides that I really enjoy the comeback of a war veteran and his problems integrating the small community. I think that character was good. But Levi Stoltzfus, the ex-Amish Magus was in my opinion the only character likeable. The evil characters are also on their "best" behaviour and enter in the mythos easily. Top notch. If you follow Brian Keene then read this book because some questions are answered here. If you are new or just want a quick read then I advice you to head for The Rising and City of the Dead.

I think Brian Keene is slowly becoming on the most interesting horror writers out there. He writes fast-paced books with interesting lovecrafian beasts and some good characters. I really hope he continues to write in his mythos.

Thoughts XIV: Top 100 books

NPR recently released the results of its poll asking readers to pick the Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books. Of course this is not the official list of the one Hundred Top books Sci-Fi and Fantasy but it's as close as it gets. 
Black Bold - I've Read the All Series
Red Bold - I've read partial
Orange Bold - I've got it but never read it (yet)
The ones in normal letters are the ones I don't have.



1. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Hitchhiker's Guide the the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
3. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
4. The Dune Chronicles by Frank Herbert
5. A Song of Ice and Fire Series by George R.R. Martin
6. 1984 by George Orwell
7. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
8. The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov
9. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
10. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
11. The Princess Bride by William Goldman
12. The Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan
13. Animal Farm by George Orwell
14. Neuromancer by William Gibson
15. Watchmen by Alan Moore
16. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
17. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
18. The Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss
19. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
20. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
22. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
23. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
24. The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King
25. 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
26. The Stand by Stephen King
27. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
28. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
29. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
30. The Sandman Series by Neil Gaiman
31. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
32. Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
32. Watership Down by Richard Adams
33. Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey
34. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein
35. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
36. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
37. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
38. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keys
39. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
40. The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny
41. The Belgariad by David Eddings
42. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
43. The Mistborn Series by Brandon Sanderson
44. Ringworld by Larry Niven
45. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin
46. The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
47. The Once and Future King by T.H. White
48. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
49. Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
50. Contact by Carl Sagan
51. The Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons
52. Stardust by Neil Gaiman
53. Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
54. World War Z by Max Brooks
55. The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
56. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
57. Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
58. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson
59. The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold
60. Going Postal by Terry Pratchett
61. The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
62. The Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind
63. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
64. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
65. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
66. The Riftwar Saga by Raymond E. Feist
67. The Shannara Trilogy by Terry Brooks
68. The Conan the Barbarian Series by R.E. Howard
69. The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb
70. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
71. The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
72. A Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
73. The Legend of Drizzt Series by R.A. Salvatore
74. Old Man's War by John Scalzi
75. The Diamond Age by Neil Stephenson
76. Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
77. The Kushiel's Legacy Series by Jacqueline Carey
78. The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin
79. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
80. Wicked by Gregory Maguire
81. The Malazan Book of the Fallen Series by Steven Erikson
82. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
83. The Culture Series by Iain M. Banks
84. The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart
85. Anathem by Neal Stephenson
86. The Codex Alera Series by Jim Butcher
87. The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
88. The Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn
89. The Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldan
90. The Elric Saga by Michael Moorcock
91. The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury
92. Sunshine by Robin McKinley
93. A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
94. The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov
95. The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson
96. Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
97. Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
98. Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
99. The Xanth Series by Piers Anthony
100. The Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis

So I have read 13, but Î have most of them.... Oh my... I have so many books... :X

Review: Razumov's Tomb - Darius Hinks

Title - Razumov's Tomb

Author - Darius Hinks

Year - 2011

Stand Alone or Series - Stand Alone (Part one of three indepent novellas about Storm of Magic)

Pages - 124

Reading Time - July 2011

This was my fourth story (second novella of Darius Hinks) First was Island of Blood here, then two short stories here and here.

This was an interesting read about a world a bit different from "our" Olde Worlde". Magic is running amock and many beasts, dragons and other beings are rampaging throughout the Empire. Bizzare plagues are stiring and it seems that there arent any safe havens. Even people are acting differently. And cat's are talking...

The reason? The Chaos Moon Morrslieb is closer and so it's influence is greater. But the Celestial College, pressured by the Emperor himself as an asnwer. The Grand Astromancer Caspar and his faithful apprenditice Gabriel must go to a place where an ancient mage made an atempt to be more powerfull harnessing the power of azyr. There they would try to continue the attempt and help the Empire. From this moment on we are inside the mind of Caspar jealousy of the young Gabriel which seems to know it all and likely the saviour.

There are other characters but they are not that desenvolped besides the previous mention and, Niclas the Reiksgraf of the Knights of Twin Tailed Comet (first time I heard of them).

The tale is told in several perpesctives (Caspar, Gabriel and Niclas) but also from the antagonists perspective. Besides the main plot line there are also two or three minor that intercede with the main plot. The setting travels from Altdorf to Schwarzbach and then to some Tomb King land and then back to where they start. The book ends as it begins with a chronicle from a "A History of Celestial Magic" book.

Overall, was an interesting read and another good story by Darius Hinks. 8.5/10