Welcome to 2016

Happy New Year and welcome back to Fragments from the Rim!

It's been a long year. I haven't really posted anything of consequence since Gamer Nation Con.  After that, it was a whirlwind trip to Celebration Anaheim, a very long couple of months dealing with the water damage in my home caused by ice dams from the Great Snowpocalypse of 2015, and...general lack of time and drive to write anything for this blog.

Which is sad, I really enjoyed writing and sharing my thoughts.  So with the new year comes a new focus, a new mandate to try and write as much as I can for this blog, while sharing what knowledge I can drop on you unsuspecting peoples in the interwebs.

D20 Radio

As some of you know, I've been an occasional writer for D20 Radio's gaming blog. There have been some handy and entertaining articles posted up on that site; hopefully you find that mine are some of them.  I do still plan to write for them in addition to writing here.  I'm not sure if some of my articles will be cross posted, or if I'll keep content to either page exclusive to one or the other.  I know my readership is more over there, they simply have more viewers.  Still, cross pollination of blog posts can't hurt, right?

Aside from that, Chris and Dave have graciously kept me involved and a part of the Order 66 Podcast, and it's still a lot of fun to do.  We're trying to get the shows down to 2-hours in length, partially because Dave wants some shows he can submit for Ennie consideration, and partially because they were honestly getting long and off-topic at times.  If you never listen, you should.  And "if you never listen", thank you for your patronage.

Another Longshot

Ah, my current flagship; the Longshot Campaign.  It's still going, and tomorrow marks the 1 year anniversary of it's birth. I'm celebrating with the second of two "Side Bets"; games that incorporate characters from both teams (I have one PC group consisting of Force Users from various factions, and another PC group consisting of Galactic Alliance troublemakers called The Idiot's Array). Tomorrows game involves one of the Legacy Era's watershed events, and the PCs get to deal with the backlash from it in the Hagen Sector. Or not. They're PCs after all, they could surprise me.

More about the Longshot Campaign will be shared in this blog as we enter Season 2 of the story.

Fallout 4

Another source of seemingly endless time-consumption lately has been Fallout 4.  I've been playing this game like a mad, mad fiend.  Juilian Cross, sole survivor from Vault 111, has crafted quite a considerable Minuteman Protectorate in the northern Massachusetts region.  I'm finding the game a lot of fun, but as usual I'm getting massively sidetracked from the main plotline by exploring the wastes, managing my multi-settlement Mutfruit-and-Purified-Water empire, and using the proceeds to construct bigger and better towns.  I'm glad I picked up the PC version, as the Settlement Creation Editor's size limit can be bypassed, allowing me to make some pretty elaborate towns (much to the dismay of my frame-rate, at times)

Playing Fallout has got me thinking about roleplaying Fallout.  It's the only real deficiency that I have with the IP, the fact that it doesn't have a dedicated RPG supporting it at this time.  I've kicked around a few ideas to home-brew something, or adapt it to Savage Worlds (pretty easy) or to Edge of the Empire (a little harder).  I even wrote an article about it for D20 Radio called They Came From The Vaults.  Doing so inspired me to come up with an Edge of the Empire module to play at Gamer Nation Con 2016 that takes place entirely in the Fallout world.

It's still under development, and a lot of that development is going to be shared here in the coming weeks.

Costuming

Remember how I advertized this as a costuming blog too?  I haven't forgotten about that.

I'm working on a few costumes for 2016, not all of them mine.  For the 501st Legion, I'm involved in a group project to make a horde of First Order Snowtroopers for the local garrison. My father and I are waiting with bated breath for all our pieces to be complete, and start assembly as soon as they are. I like the look of these snowy's, and while I wish they got more screen time in the movie, at least they were in the movie, you know?

After that, I'll be keeping my eye on something for the Rebel-side of the group, or should I say the Resistance-side.  I really dig the new X-Wing pilot outfits, and there's already talk of supplementing our pilots up here in "Phantom Squadron" with some T-70 jockeys.

Finally, I'm working on a more practical suit, something to be used for the upcoming Crossover LARP in my area. I've been working with EVA Foam to make (a rather mandalorian looking) armor suit for my new character, and my lovely wife picked up an airbrush kit for me to learn how to use. The airbrush can be used for painting and giving the armor some wear, but the main reason for the kit is for use with liquid make-up for my character.  Think something rather Darth-Maul-like, but with blue and white instead of black and red.  Along with that comes repaints of the various weapons I'll be using in the game; nerf guns painted a more appropriate shade for use in the game. I'm moving towards painting nerf guns for other players for commission, and am painting up 5 of them for the NPC camp's use.  I probably won't be doing much work on that until March, as the game isn't starting until May.

Welcome Home

And that's pretty much it for now. Thanks for reading, please check back in here from time to time and see where things are going!

Until next time, may the dice be with you!