Dolmenwood: Side Adventure

As I've said way too many times before - adulting is hard! One of the players could not meet up this weekend for our bi-weekly face-to-face game. Rather than skip or play without him, I did what our missing player has done when running games: a short 1 off for the other players using different characters but in the same game.

I generated 5 characters via the excellent Dolmenwood character generator, so that there would be a bit of a selection for the 3 layers, and one for me as an NPC. The quick backstory: Lord Bluewater, a Fey Count from outside the Frozen Prince's demesne, had sent in a few to recover the Gem of Yindra, a magical gem that can grant a minor wish once a month. Getting into the frozen lands was as simple as walking across the barrier, getting out would require using the wish as that was a barrier to keep the Prince in. While not in the main adventure this is based on, I decided to extend the Dolmenwood limits even to the land of the Fey. 

Our story starts with the 4 characters hiding at the edge of the woods, watching as characters from Dolmenwood head to the Princess' castle. The troll, Grimmlegridge, is tromping to the pile of corpses for a snack, while the Goblin Griddlegrim escorts the adventures, after they've eaten his magic mushrooms, into the tower. Not knowing how long the troll will feed, the party splits up with the Grimmelkin Topper moving off to distract the troll with the two Woodgrue and the Mossling going to the pile to search for the jewel. Unfortunately for the cat-Fey, the deep snow slows him down more than it slows down the troll, yet he manages to get to the forest fast enough. With the snowy chase on, we find the jewel in the 1st few minutes oddly enough. Meanwhile, a glamor on the troll makes him think he has done what needs to be done and he turns about, leaving the hiding Topper watching him lumber off. Though the glamor is short-lived as he scratches his head, but, upon seeing the pile of bodies, he heads that way to get to his snack. 

Our party moves back to where they came. However, the snowy forest is a bit confusing as they are not sure they are heading in the correct direction. Hearing something heavy come towards them in the woods, they prepare for battle when a large brown bear approaches. Before they can strike, he suddenly asks if they have berries. He's been lost in the woods as well and is getting hungry. Introducing himself as Gunther, Topper feeds him the last of his rations and Gunther seems quite content to munch on the dry food. He mentions that they should be careful - there are harpies in these woods. But he would be happy to go along with the group, esepcially if they can help find berries. 

Moving along, still not quite sure where they are going, the go deeper into the woods. Soon they hear the warbling of song. All but Gunther actually make their saving throws, but Gunther, being a bear, is not easily stopped as he tries to approach the harpies. Fortunately, the 2 Woodgrues play a song, and the harpies both were suddenly filled with laughter, and unable to continue singing. That is also when the party noticed they were eating. While playing their pipes, Topper searched under the tree to find an armlet made of pellucidum with some words engraved on it. They decided it was time to leave, and while the two Woodgrue rode Gunther and played their songs, the harpies did not quite fall out of the tree from laughing so much.

a tree full of harpies

They found a good cave to sleep in that night. Even with a fire and their cloaks, it was a hard sleep, and they were restless all night. From a mechanical viewpoint, this would have meant not renewing spells or healing, but as neither were an issue, it just means they slept poorly. They managed to forage enough to last the evening at least.

They next day they were pretty sure they were coming up on the edge of the Frost Prince's kingdom when they came upon 4 bedraggled humans. Holding scythes and wearing ragged farmers clothes, it was obvious they were somehow lost in the frozen lands. As they could see the scintillating lights of the border, the group took the humans, and bear, and went to the border. Gunther bumped his nose against the barrier, then Mabmungle made the wish with the crystal as they all linked arms and walked through barrier to the eternal spring of Lord Bluewater's domain.

As the farmers warmed up, and Gunther found some berries, they got ready for the next part of the journey. From here they knew where to go. Even though the Fey lands can twist and turn and not be the same day to day for mortals, for the Fey who live here it is home and they know where to go. They hike all day and set up a good camp. During the 2nd watch, they hear 5 people coming up to them. There is a fairly quick battle where they kill the 5 thieves. And yes - Gunther did manage to get a bear hug in. As the thieves were all 1st level as well, it did not take much to kill them. What was interesting was all the thieves were mortal humans, so it was a wonder as to why they were here in the Fey lands. They also all had a tattoo of a snake eating its tail, so appeared to all be from the same gang.

heading in different directions

After that, the farmers, along with the Woodgrue I was playing, headed off to a nearby fairy circle to get back to the mundane world while the rest of the party went to Lord Bluewater's castle. Where they passed over the gem and were rewarded with a minor magical weapon or armor of choice. Just in case we play them again.

It was a pretty decent game I think, low stakes. We took advantage of some of the kindred things based on the character sheets.  And everyone gained 250 XP I think.

Characters we met

Bilibom Mulchwump, Mossling Fighter

Danklob Woodfuffle, Woodgrue Bard

Madmungle Persnickle, Woodgrue Thief

Toppsy Flippancy, Grimalkin Hunter

Gunther, talking brown bear

Lord Bluewater, Prince of the Eternal Spring 

5 dead mortal human thieves

4 confused farmers

2 harpies eating a mortal

Traveller System Update 35 - Maybe A Better Menu

Though totally blown away by this application, As Above So Below,  I'll still poke along with my stuff. Not much progress lately honestly - searching for work is exhausting from a mental perspective. But I hated the UI so made it a bit better. Really need to make it snap even more - graphics perhaps, and a few things like I did with the old UWP version. 

Anyway, at least some cosmetic updates to help corral things a bit.

I did update this from 6 or 7 to .NET 10 which ended up being mostly easy, though somehow it lost some of the things in the automated process. But it has images and is a UWP application. Was going to be a ship tracker (again!) but Windows only. So many half-started applications, but without a clear end-goal or user it makes these just toys that never go anywhere.

TFT Death Test 2, or, Dead Again

Our 2nd run through this programmed adventure left us dead in the 2nd room. Again. And we even had 6 characters, 3 each. One got killed in the Black Room with the skeletons - they had a couple lucky hits, we did not. The next room we rolled up the mercenaries, and unfortunately for us they got 2 big bruisers with really good dexterity (which hindsight, I just realized when we rolled up the armor, we forgot to adjust their dexterity for attacks!) We died in that room. Next time we try this, I'm getting some 36- or 38-point characters with more armor. We just picked random character cards from the card deck I backed years ago. See - using my toys!

Skeletons attack!

On the bright side, I do have a lot of skeleton minis - a whole bunch of metal ones from the 80s as well as a lot of plastic ones from various Kickstarters. I can field a small army of them.

I am still looking for a job, 2 months on. Being 62 in the IT world, and all the crazy things that is happening in this field now, means it is a lot harder than it used to be. 176 applications out, 30 or so actual rejections, and at a guess, 20% of those jobs are "ghost" jobs: not real but put out there for any number of reasons. And I've been almost scammed twice - a few people ruin it for everyone else. And preying on vulnerable people is just so wrong. But I'll give it another month, then see about some job at a WalMart, Lowes or something. I can put boxes on shelves! But I've been lucky in many ways: the 1st time I got laid off about 15, 20 years ago I learned several valuable lessons about always being prepared. I am not in any sort of dire financial straits, and technically I could retire now. But I am just not ready to retire. I actually like working. Guess technically being a baby boomer does that for you - it has been engrained upon us that working hard pays off. Sadly, I feel that is no longer the case, but now we are getting maudlin and potentially veering into political stuff, so, distraction: spaceships!

Even unemployed, I did back for more little spaceships. One of these days we'll play something where we can use them! I no longer back at the posters unless it is something really different - at this point I have probably 100 or so posters and have only used 4 or so!

Dolmenwood Session 2: To the burial mound

Out intrepid adventurers, now back to full size and enjoying a meal at the Giant's Nose, were discussing future plans. The magician Breggle, Elrod Bumble, shared a map and was willing to share the reward for getting a ring from a burial mound. Friar Henry Moon had his own reasons for wanting to go, of which were not shared. And the Dwarf, Lozebell Nightmail, and her friend and occasional co-worker, Keir, had time on their hands and agreed to go along. 

Listening in was the Elf Fern Evergreen. He also had some time on his hands, and after some discussion, the group decided that as he seemed nice when they passed paths in the nose, he could accompany them. 

They eat and enjoy the music and have a good night's reset at the Giant's Nose. The next morning is a cold fog, unusual for this 2nd day of Iggwyld (see the Dolmenwood calendar in their amazing list of downloads). Thinking Fern should be a good guide, and having an inexact map with a few landmarks, they head off into the woods. A failed roll later and Fern may admit that they may be a bit lost. At that point, a large rat shows up. The group, seeing a rat of unusual size, is not sure what to do. The good Friar (I think - I really need to take notes!) tosses the rat some food. Who quizzically takes it, seems to enjoy it, and then scampers off. 

Finding a landmark, they get back on course and find a thorny patch that leads to 7 trilithons. Which I had to look up to see what those were:

Trilithons - you think I would have gotten that from the roots!

There is a twitching stag skeleton in the middle of the circle. The sound of metal clanking in the breeze is also heard. Turns out to be metal owls hung in the trees. The native Dolmenwood inhabitants recognize signs of the Drune. Friar Moon scrapes off the moss and sees carvings of what appears to be tormented Ice Elves. There are runes on the stones that appear to be summoning spells. While Keir climbs a tree to get a look ahead, Friar Moon tries to deal with undead. The stag skeleton gets up and wanders off. While Keir tries to shoot at it from the heights of the tree, they do miss. That and arrows do not do well with skeletons. Avoiding the green fumes, they proceed onward, and find the mound not too far up the path.

Checking around, Fern & Keir notice a hole, and 3 slime trails. Peeking down, Fern can see a chamber perhaps 15 feet down, but at around 2 feet wide, the hole is a bit small for anyone, even Belle the Dwarf, to fit down.

Deciding to muscle the stone slab, they managed to open the tomb. Dusty stairs lead down as Belle looks for any traps. A small foyer, with 4 religious items in each of its corners, opens up to 3 other hallways. Noticing the dust on the floor, they see a mosaic of Sir Chyde and his favorite two dogs on the floor.  As no one knows Old Woldish, they can only pick out King and Frost from the words spelled out. Heading to the right, there is a mirror that gives the willies to Elrod but nothing amiss happens.  There is a reflection of water from where the mirror is pointing - an archway with a carving of trees leads down below the current level. Friar Moon covers the mirror, an ornate floor-standing mirror that is probably worth a good deal. 

Belle, Keir and Fern go down the stairs. There are floating candles, and water is lapping at the bottom step. It is a circular room, with an Elf statue in the middle. Stepping down, Belle is suddenly in woods. And in deep winter, unlike the early spring when this jaunt is taking place. Keir and Fern follow, much to the consternation of Elrod & Friar Moon as their companions disappear as the end of the stairs. There is much discussion between the magician and the friar, but eventually they decide to step through as well. While they were waiting, the group in the woods saw a white messenger raven fly to the tower. 

At the edge of the woods, they can see a fairy castle on a frozen island. Standing in 2 feet of snow and slowly freezing, they decide to head to the tower. They do see huge footprints that lead to a pile of corpses next to the woods. But freezing to death overrides their concerns. Knocking on the door, they are met by a troll, Grimmlegridge, who has the goblin Griddlegrim riding on a palanquin on the huge troll's shoulders (and one of the players did mention he has a mini that actually is this very thing. We do have quite a collection between all of us!) Not having an invite nor being on the list, they decide to eat the mushrooms. Various impacts: Friar Moon now has glowing yellow eyes that he is unaware of, Fern shrank to 6" for almost an hour, Belle gained a bit of dexterity, and Keir had this warm feeling (and will automatically succeed on their next saving roll).

Now inside and warming up, the troll and goblin, who is laughing at the spectacle, tells them there is warm food in the kitchen and they should go there. Which they do, and two demanding Elf chefs through food at the group to carry up to the wedding feast. All but Keir take platters up the stairs. There they see a table with a few gentry Elves lounging about. Apparently, it has been a few centuries as they are waiting for this wedding. And apparently Elves have a lot of patience. The guard, Gierion, notices that they seem a bit out of place. He suggests that the group goes up to visit the princess. Keir decides to go back to their normal form: apparently this Changeling has to mold her face and body as they return to their base form. It was a bit disconcerting to everyone as only Belle (and I am not sure of that) knew she was a Changeling. 

Once upstairs, they meet the beautiful princess. Who looks like the statue in the pool room. A bit of conversation but she promises them a lot of things if they can just get the ring from Sir Chyde and bring it to her. A really powerful magical necklace that grants a single wish is one of the things they may be able to get. And of course, we also have some internal issues about the ring, and why the two male characters are actually here.

They head back to the woods and the passage back to the tomb. We made a quick peek into the main room, where Belle saw two dancing skeletons. And that is where we left things.

from Winters Daughter

Characters met

Player characters

Friar Heny Moon, human. Of which I still need to get which saint he said he is following.

Keir, a Changeling as the group has found

Lozebelle Nightmail, a stout Dwarf warrior

Magician Elrod Bumble, a Shorthorn Breggle

NPCs

Pierogi Poundflour, Dwarf owner of the Giant's Nose

Louie, the Dragonborn lounge singer at the Giant's Nose

Fern Evergreen, an Elf met first in the nose, and now a companion to the group

Gierion, an Ice Elf guard at the tower

Princess Snowfall-at-Dusk, the Elf princess in the tower

Grimmlegridge, Troll doorkeeper at the tower, eats moss from dead bodies

Griddlegrim, Goblin doorkeeper and keeper of the guest list as well as a bag of magic mushrooms

Traveller System Update 35 - World Maps

Was lying in bed and realized I could probably get AI to generate a world map for me, as I am not great at the UX side of things. The first draft actually mostly worked: I had it create the service, show me the updates to a few of the associated things, and it does generate a graphic thing. That is sort of close if you squint sideways and have a few drinks.

But - it is a start. I'll have to look over the actual code to see what is actually happening. I think the math side of things is correct, but it did not generate the world map based on the Form 8 I dropped into the chat. However - it was also about an hour or two of work, versus a few days had I been trying to do this by myself. 

Which sort of brings to mind the whole set of changes that software has been through. I've actually worked with punch cards (24 rows of 80 columns), teletype machines on greenbar, vim editors, plain text editors, early GUI editors and IDEs that started with auto-completion for lines and now the AI (technically large language models) that can write most of the code for you. Production-ready or not is an entirely different discussion, and a matter of opinions (mostly based on if they are trying to sell you an AI system or "reduce headcount"). Of course, Claude, the most popular code generator, just jumped up significantly in cost. Remember kids - the 1st hit is free!

What I was aiming for

What I got

I will get back to the orbital stuff, but I wanted to get something a bit splashy out there. I see what others are doing and honestly get a bit depressed: they are writing consumer-facing software, and I am sort of stuck in enterprise backend ideas. Of course, that is what I've done for years so it is a natural fit for me. 

Edit: a bit closer!

Terrain

One can only job search so much. So I've been working on painting the terrain stuff as well as I've got time. And one of these days maybe I'll actually use it. I've had some interesting discussions over the years, both with other gamers and inside my head about theater of the mind vs immersion via terrain and minis. 

On the one hand, our minds can envision anything and make up the details as we need to. One of the reasons I like the early Traveller line art: it was not overly detailed and left a good bit to our own imaginations. On the other hand, sometimes you really do need to understand how things look and how various characters are in relation to one another. TFT of course covers this with requiring a hex mat to properly handle combat. Traveller combat ranges from grids to pure abstract range bands.  

The trick is to remember that the terrain on the table is not all that there is, it is still an abstract representation. Just with more details. And that is where I get concerned that the toys actually detract from the game. And pretty sure I've had this conversation before with my readers!

So, pictures of terrain. This is the spider caves from the Archon Caves Kickstarter a couple years ago. The plastic showed up a while ago, and I've been doing some painting.

this may not be a good place to set up a camp!

spider bridges

closer view of spider bridges

finally "good enough" as she has been sitting on my desk for almost a year now. Also Archon but I think from an earlier KS

and good enough for these two as well

and read a blog where the author was making cool terrain from household goods and realized that the sprues from the terrain could make for a space dock of sorts. Just need to get some foam core or something and add more greebling and some sort of habitat dome or something.

And still trying to decide about MTU vs OTU for the Kinunir Traveller game I'll be running in a bit.

ships from 0-Hr

A Breggle and an Archer

For our 1st session we grabbed some minis I had, and 1 player chose the archer for her character, a changeling. I backed with the minis for Dolmenwood so had a Breggle Magician. They were unpainted, so I decided to go ahead and paint them. As I have a bit too much time, still being unemployed (and searching for jobs is such a horrendous experience!) The Dwarf is an old Grenedier model I think that I got in high school, so it at least 40 years old! And painted with enamel model paints as that was all I knew about back then. The friar was from some Kickstarter - I'd have to check to see if it was Reaper, Wildspire or something else. But I had already painted him oddly enough.

I also painted some of the terrain from the Caves edition of the last Archon Kickstarter. I've got another set of sprues with a wash and will just hightlight the bones and webs from that one. I probably will not be backing their next crowdsourcing: I am not even using the sets now a lot, I am sadly unemployed, and they really just did not grab me particularly this time around.

Keir the Changeling and Elrod Bumble, Breggle Magician. 

The Dwarf Lozebelle Nightmail and Henry Moon with their friends in the abandoned mine.

The Kinunir Game - Session 0

Color me surprised but I am going to run a Traveller game! Using the Kinunir since it was the 1st published adventure, I have the original version as well as the PDF, and there is some discussion over on COTI about the ship. I took that as a sign.

We had a session 0 and I had them roll up characters. Oddly, we have characters from Classic Book 6 Scouts, Mongoose 1st edition and Cepheus Diverse Roles. And even more interesting, to me at least, is that they only stayed for 2-3 terms. 

The Scout player wanted to be an engineer, and tried to get into college and failed, then tried to get into the Navy and failed, and the draft ended up Scouts. Which can give the engineering skills. I doubt he wrote down each year and what he did. Oddly none of the duty assignments had a chance of promotion. Nor did he end up with a Scout ship.

The Law Enforcement player, using Mongoose 1e, had an interesting career with some interesting events and picked up a smattering of skills. It has been a while since I rotated through that character generation process so had to backtrack a couple of time. He ended up a lieutenant, I think. 

The final player, who has joked for years about playing a juggling whore, ended up going through the Prostitute career. He picked up a few interesting skills, including advocacy (lawyer), got beat up by some of his clients. The mustering out benefits are not great for that career, but apparently the player has a plan for what he wants to do.

While I do like Traveller character generation, and I do house-rule that they roll then can pick the skill, the players I think wanted more control over things. And it kept coming up about the adventure: what sort of characters did they need for the planned game? And to me, that is where Traveller really differentiates itself from most RPGs: it really does not matter too much what your background was, what matters is what you do. All 3 characters will have something that can help with the game. Years ago, I ran a game and 1 player chose barbarian and had all of 1 term. He had 2 skills I think, and none of that mattered in running the game honestly. I'll probably recheck the Mongoose skill package and may do that as well. We have 1 more player that will need to generate a character as well. 

The other question is - OTU or MTU? I was going to go MTU but looking at the adventure, I'd have to translate a fair amount to map it well enough. I decided to stick with the OTU, and they are all from Regina by their choice. Being a long-time Traveller player I would have gone a different direction, but they all wanted it to be simple and that does simplify a few things.

The prostitute, a hetaerae actually (Hetaerae – You are a member of a trained and educated group whose job is to provide long term companionship) may have had some interaction with the police officer. They did end up with 2 contacts during character generation, though the player decided on his own who they were. I'll have to get that info so that I can link that into the rumors and patrons of the adventure somehow. The Scut has mustered out on Regina as there is a Scout & Naval base there.

I never did a world write up on Regina, so I suppose I'll see about generating some maps. There is a LOT of info on this subsector capitol, so I'll have to read a bit on that to not break canon too much. Not that we will really need maps, but I like them. Plus need to figure where to place the Scout and Navy bases beyond the starport, as well as the miscellaneous shipyards, one of which has the Kinunir in it. Maybe map the shipyards, though that would be an interesting challenge as space is a fully 3D environment. 

Traveller System Update 34 - Orbital info part 5

Orbital dynamics are hard! Maybe it is rocket science. Anyway, finished with at least the display for the edit. Just need to repeat for the create view, and then actually save off the data. Then add at least the primary to the index view.

In theory I enabled the multi-select, but now realize how would you tell which star type goes with which size? So - I need to make it single select, and possibly duplicate for multiple stars? Actually, I need to pull the star type stuff into a partial view and have a view per star. The create will need to have a "add new star" option as well. And this is one of the reasons you want to think things through before starting. As Abe Lincoln said, "If I have six hours to cut down a tree, I spend the first four sharpening the blade." And as more than one of my bosses has told me over the years, "Slow is fast."

Anyway, as this is a personal and honestly slightly meandering project, that's okay. But I'll have to add the partials to allow for multiple stars in the system. As well as making that work in the details view. And I do plan on cleaning up the landing page with drop-down menus versus the single line across the top. Just need to figure out what goes where. Which is one of the harder issues in software honestly: just where do you put stuff? I could bore you to death talking about repositories vs ORMs and various service layers. Though I will note that this application follows the basic standards so that other developers could easily find things for the most part. 

The job search is honestly depressing. 52 applications so far, 4 rejections. Main issue is I am an older software developer, and most companies do not want to hire older people. Which is silly - they are just about guaranteed that I'll stick out for a few years vs younger devs, who often have more options, will jump ship as soon as possible. And I do have a lot of experience. I figure I'll keep looking another couple of months then perhaps look at Lowes around the corner. Sadly, if not for insurance, I'd consider an early retirement. I have been working a long time. At least I've met a lot of really nice and interesting people along the way. Along with some not-so-nice people, but that is life.

Domenwood Adventure: Session 0 and a Quick Trip Up a Nose

Switching from Corsairs to Dolmenwood, we had a good session 0 I think. We have 4 characters, of which 2 are from the Dolmenwood setting directly, one from OSE and one from the expanded player options (a review here):

• Friar Henry Moon, human. I need to get which saint he follows and a few other details. Dolmenwood class
• Dwarf: LozeBelle Nightmail ("Belle" as the layer took pity on my ability to pronounce things). OSE kindred. Thebruiser of the group, but was a tailor before taking up adventuring. 
• Breggle Elrod Bumble, Magician. The player even used the random tables for characteristics and fun things. Dolmenwood kindred
• Changeling Keir (from the OSR Advanced Player Options). Offspring of a mortal and a doppleganger. They were a frost sculpturer in the land of Fey but decided to see more of the world from their human parent. 

A Breggle, from the Dolmenwood Player's Guide

It took us a while to get through the character generation, but I do that pretty much old school: roll stats straight as-is. But I do allow 1 extra roll to replace any roll, and the Dolmenwood rules allow for a 2 for 1 replacement, where you can take 2 off one stat to add 1 to another. But I decided to start at 2nd level after reading the initial adventure I wanted to run, as well as allow the magic users (magician and friar) more than a single spell. 

I also allowed the players to pretty much equip themselves as needed and still roll for gold. I figure a level 2 character will have picked up the basic weapons and armor by now. And things can get dangerous enough in old school games anyway.

Two of the characters, Belle and Keir, have worked together before: they have run the crab apples from the orchard to Castle Brackenwold for Zoemina Ladle. The NPCs are from the Dolmenwood Campaign book, but the job stuff came from the party backstory generator. It gives me some potential hooks later if I need them.

The friar is from the Old Abbey, a destroyed and ancient abbey. Actually, from an unnamed village nearby as the Abbey is in ruins and only inhabited by a few people. Think I'll get back to the Settlements book and roll it up just to have that. He is all the way over here due to dreams he has been having the last few weeks:

A valiant or courageous PC is visited in a recurring dream by a beautiful elf lady,clad in white. In the dreams, the PC falls in love with the Lady, and awakes with a deep yearning to be with her. After some weeks of experiencing this dream, the PC has a second one: venturing into a burial mound, opening a coffer, taking a ring from the finger of a skeleton, and bringing the ring to the Lady. At the end of this dream, the Lady tells the PC that the tomb is a real place, and that a magical door to her realm is located there, in the lower level. She (falsely) promises her heart to the PC, if they can retrieve this ring that was stolen from her in ancient times and bring it to her. She reveals the location of the tomb and says that one who bears the ring can enter the magical door in the lower level that leads to her realm in Fairy

The Breggle, a native of the Dolmenwood, has his own reasons to be here: he is getting paid to return a ring from a burial mound. He'll get paid 1000 gold to get that ring. Elrod has a map of the burial mound, and it is a couple miles from the Giant's Nose, a tavern run by an older Dwarf. 

And that is where we started the adventure, all 4 in there after a storm had come through, destroying Pierogi's gardens. The four adventurers, not knowing each other yet, are persuaded by a bit of gold and some free meals to go up the nose. 

After getting shrunk to about 1/2", they are hoisted up the nose on a stick with cotton to prevent splinters. The first part of the journey is climbing up some mucus-slimed hairs, but no one falls. They do meet an Elf heading down, Fern Evergreen. They talk briefly, and he manages to gracefully bypass the party. They find some of the brown mold here, before getting to the first ledge. They get to a ledge and manage to find some of the glowing spores. But they also find 4 snot creatures. There is a battle, but with the dice rolls, 2 of the creatures were fighting Keir, and 2 against Belle. The fight went well, though Keir and Belle both got hurt. Friar Henry Moon cast a healing spell and healed up one (and sadly, my notes are far too sparse to remember who got hurt the most). 

Seeing a rope, which is an old vein, they get a rope they have, and start climbing to the next level. Belle slips but manages her saving roll. so is just left swinging a bit. They notice that there is a bit of a breeze, and wonder if the giant is still living. Climbing up, they encounter some of the nerves hanging off the roof of the nose and are attacked by some stinging things. Elrod has managed to climb up, and they defeat the 2 vicious plants that plummet out of the nose. Which is not even noticed by Pierogi and Franklin as it stayed thee same size so got blown away by a mild breeze. But our heroes get some of the stinging nettle before getting off on the top-most platform. There is a small crack leading up, to where the last ingredient was at. The air was stale, but Belle climbs up. 

Poking her head out of the floor, she sees a glowing giant starting to stride to her. "Leave me!" he yells, club starting to swing. He hits her and somehow I managed to roll max damage for the it. But Belle gets out of the way, and the others pop up and we have a battle with the giant. Keir gets hit at least once, and everyone gets enough hits in to defeat the giant's spirit. The friar did try and turn undead which, sadly as the giant was a few levels above, had no effect as his roll was not good enough. Had the battle lasted 6 rounds he could have tried again. But they managed to kill the spirit, and gather the lace seeds. 

They climb back down, and enlarged to their normal size, and get some good food, some gold, and 170 XP each (I think - I need to remember to write down XP in the notes!)  And this was where we closed off the initial session.

Thoughts

I think they enjoyed the game - we also got to use more of the dice which, well, we are all dice goblins. Some of the things we had to read a bit on: one of the magician's spells, after re-reading the description, did not work like the player originally thought. We did a retcon on that turn as we are all learning the rules. Fortunately, one of the other players also has the books, and is a great GM so that helped to get help and have more than 1 person looking things up. 

I slightly modified the Giant's Nose thing a bit but it was mostly the same. It was a bit difficult to understand how to get the map working as it is more vertical than horizontal so hard to figure that for a few things. However, it was a silly introduction to the game, and I wanted something mostly non-lethal to get a handle on some of the mechanics. And I've read the adventure we'll run in a month a few times to get a feel for that. And I even found the minis and have them all in a single place for that game. Hopefully that will be fun.

And I made cupcakes.

NPCS

Franklin - a human druid who lives somewhere near the Giant's Nose,

Pierogi Poundflour - Dwarf owner of the Giant's Nose

Zoemina Ladle - human female, owner of the Roost, "a fantastic treehouse inn is nestled in the boughs of a trio of old beeches"

Fern Evergreen - Elf met in the nose

Traveller System Update 33 - Orbits Part 4

Progress is being made, though there are a lot of moving pieces. Turns out I never got around to adding the stars to the system model! Part of that is also due to the fact I was confused over the nomenclature: what I am calling stellar types is actually the sizes: Ia, Ib, and so on. And the star type is the traditional B0, G0 and all that. Which I *finally* figured out when I created the stellar data table to get all the other info.

So, adding those to the system pages as well as updating the repository so stuff is eager loaded. Meaning we collect all the related data when we do the initial request for the data. As this DB is so very small, as well as local, that sort of thing works well. For larger, more complex databases, this is not always a good idea. Like a lot of software - it is usage dependent. Sadly, I live in a world with few hard and fast rules as so much is contextual!

Regardless, got the star list to at least show up, though I am not saving off the data just yet. But once I get all that done, as well as the same for the stellar size, then I can get to the actual orbital period! 

work in progress. And yes, really need to make that a prettier list. I'll probably fancy it up via some AI prompting.

Job hunting is going apace. I fear that job scrolling has become the new doom scrolling! I've applied to 26 jobs so far, and of course, heard nothing back. Several I think I hit all the marks they want but this is a crowded field. And honestly, in the software world, not all those jobs posted are actually real jobs. Shocker, I know.

And finally - I watched the Artemis launch. So glad we are going back to the moon. I remember the Apollo flights and thinking we'd have a moon base not too long after that. I suppose too much UFO and Space:1999 spoiled me.

Space:1999

UFO

Traveller System Update 32 - Orbital Distances Part 3

And then I had to add the orbital distances table and UX as we need that to calculate the orbital period. Though to be "more" correct, the mass of the planet would also impact the orbit as heavier or larger planets will have to go faster in the same orbit. But not going to worry about that overly much: this is a game, not a reality simulation. Which often comes up in arguments over on COTI. Or at least very active discussions.

I did add the paging functions to the stellar data and still have a few of those rows to add in but getting closer to adding the orbital period to the planet information. Then we can also add in albedo, world average temperatures, and stuff like that. However, albedo will be interesting:

The albedo for a world can be computed by what portion of the world is covered by various terrain types, and noting the average cloudiness of the atmosphere. Combining these values provides an overall albedo for the world.

That is two more tables we'd have to add - albedo by terrain type, and cloudiness based on hydrographics. Which then means we'd have to figure out land masses, determine what is covering them and fun things like that. Do-able, but diving deeper than I thought this little project would go.

Regardless, I should have the orbital distance calculations done in the next update, probably another day or so as sadly, I still spend a lot of time behind the keyboard. But it is fun for me. Which is great as I've been doing this for a long time, and if it is still fun, then I've picked the right career. 

Anyway - more progress as I have a bit more time now obviously! But now off the start prepping for next week's game: I need to see if I have the terrain and minis and get all that ready to go as it is a face to face game. 

I'm going to have to rethink the menu as the horizontal is running out of space, and just because I have a wide screen monitor does not mean every else does!

Traveller System Update 31.5 - Notes on data entry

Well, putting in the data is certainly a longer process than I would like. If this sort of thing happened a lot, I'd create an import function as those are pretty simple to implement. Working my way through entering the stellar data, just so I can calculate the orbits! Yeah, I could take the easy way out but oddly I like math and figuring out how to do this sort of thing (not saying I am good at math, but like physics and a few other things, I like it without necessarily being good at it. See any earlier posts on game organization!)

Anyway, got through adding a few more and realize I'll have to add paging functions to this page. I had a few choices when I started this project, which was first, yet another version of some form of Traveller software, but also a way for me to play with the latest version of .NET. Way back when I started and .NET came out, the boss would never let me use the latest and greatest. "Never use a .0 release" was the common refrain. And from a business viewpoint, pretty standard honestly and safer. I went to a local .NET user group for years and they got to play and show of the latest stuff, things I could not use. Anyway - now I can at least for personal projects like this one. And actually I was at my former job as it was not yet in production, as well as that entire software ecosystem is pretty mature and thoroughly tested even for .0 releases.

Anyway, back to paging: the repositories in this application are mostly pretty standard, and now I am wishing I used a generic repository as that would have covered probably 95% of the usage. What that means is: instead of having a repository class (where we can load and update data for a specific table), we create a generic repository where we pass in something like <StellarData> to indicate the stellar data type. It would have simplified things so that I would not have to write a service class per model. However - the downside of that is things that are unique to a class, or if you want to include related records, I think makes that approach a lot more complicated. Like a lot of things even outside the world of software, one solution rarely solves all the problems. And as an aside, don't get me started with Entity Framework being a repository pattern already! I go back and forth on that a lot as well. And yes, unless you are a developer or in the IT world, probably a WTF am I talking about?!

Regardless, I'll have to add a paging function as the list, even when half completed, is already quite long! Maybe a search function as well so we can find all the G0 class info, or all the subgiant type info. Not sure what would even be needed since I am the only one using this. You can see why a product owner can be important - let the developer know what is really needed versus what we think is important!

But why this is only half an update: it was mostly data entry and some musings. Though I may go ahead & add the paging functions as that is not complicated. For good or bad, I just get the AI to do most of it. Or I can copy/paste from other code where I did this before. But AI is a great tool if still overhyped in so many ways.

that is a lot of data!

I really need to also start looking at the next game. Getting laid off really throws me off a good bit. Still taking some time off though I did attempt to sharpen up my resume and randomly apply to some interesting places where it looks my skills could work. But as I told my group - the good news about this is that I have more time for game prep and reading! There is always a bright side to everything. Sometimes you really have to look hard though!

But I think the players are excited - they have some character ideas, and I've started going through the Backstory Generator and two of the characters are in the employ of Zoemina Ladle and sometimes take the crab apples to the castle, a journey of less than a day. They usually meet at the Roost (an inn built into the trees of the forest) but also have a secret location as sometimes she may have them do more clandestine operations and need to meet a bit more in secret. The two players are the wife & child of one of the players, so not sure how to get the location of the secret place to them. Though my group is pretty good about metagaming so if the players know that and the characters do not, they will stick in character. I'll have to check.

not sure who did this but found on Pinterest

Back to job hunting!

I was laid off this week. This makes the 4th time in my career. Of course, IT is often precarious field. After the initial gut punch and a few days off, I'll start job hunting again. And sadly, just 3 years out before I could retire if I want to. I feel like I may be wearing a red shirt in Star Fleet.

Why do I bring this up here? Because of my 1st layoff decades ago, I started this blog to play with some Traveller trading software. Though the blog has definitely changed a bit over the years, I have been getting back to the software side of things for this (30+ updates since I started the .NET Core version). Oddly enough that ancient 1st version, still on GitHub I think. (and a quick check later, apparently that does not seem to be there. It was Winforms which is still a great UI thing in many ways! It may be buried on a drive somewhere - I'll have to look. It even used the TravellerMap APIs for a number of things)

I knew this was coming anyway - the new CTO was a previous CTO and every time the IT department gets a new person, they fire someone. I was pretty sure I was on that chopping block!

Regardless, it means I'll spend a bit more time playing with the software, trying not to freak out, and pet my cats and dog a heck of a lot. I'll note that every time I have been laid off, I've gotten a job that usually ended up being better in one way or another. And technically I could early retire but it is the insurance costs that hold me back from that. Plus, I really like working and solving problems.

Anyway - I'll be okay. Eventually. You may even get more game blog posts as this does give me more time to read the stuff I have, do more game prep, and read! Though I did just finish that last book today. But I've bookcases full of books to go back through then!

some interesting clouds I saw the other day

always look up - things will get better! Or there is a bug on the ceiling.

Next post will be game or software related, but a mini not-quote-a-vent post just to get this out there. 

Corsairs Session 6: Batkin Siblings

Our intrepid heroes grabbed what they could from the mines: ledgers, furniture, normal things for a not-quite pirate crew to take. None of the slaves were wanting to go with the group, so after loading the supplies, and leaving enough food and rations, they head back to the trading post. There's a bit of a chase as they approach the nebulous border (sorry, no George Jetson floating road guides here!) but a few deft turns and watching the mainsails they leave the Alderil Navy ship behind. 

Smooth sailing to the port. The crew starts selling what they can of the purloined goods, and the pay the crew for a bit of shore leave. Wanting to return to Dulcet Spire, but not wanting to take the Wind Razor, they get passage aboard the Wind Whale, a cargo vessel heading that way in a few days. Meanwhile, they get the Razor restocked, start looking into getting a stern gun for protection when chased. 

Getting onboard the Wind Whale under assumed names, they meet Bosun Fairly Heathcote. It is a two day trip to the Spire but they arrive, unnoticed by the Navy, and get directions to the Batkin Embassy. Several long flights of stairs up, some open to the huge open-air market inside the giant Spire, and they get to the Embassy up in the administrative sections. 

Ambassador Batrok, an older Batkin with a greying muzzle, talks with them after they introduce themselves. One of the things we found during this session is that the Batkin really have no formal government: most things are communal, and roles are pretty fluid. We did a bit of world building so I could envision how the player sees the race she created for the game. And they squeak in their language, which humans cannot understand, or even hear half of.

The embassy has 6 Batkin aids (Bentock, Biota, Batkra, Bit, Batony and Baroti) and 6 human aids (Jeager Hardjen, Yavin Kenosky, Ulric Dituri, Daron Voight, Fleur Cantos and Tessa Ducot). Not that they really met any of them other than as they walked through, though Batony did find the letter left behind by Batrina's siblings:

Batrina, if you receive this letter, we have been rescued from slavery by the Leitford Family. They have safely left us at the embassy on Dulcet Spire. A strange place with no dirt under our feet, nor enough sky to glide in. After regaining our health, we decided to return home. Living among the humans as shown us their cruelty and their compassion. But we cannot live among them. Please come home and let us know you are safe. 

 ~ Batmaya and Batzion

They were mistrustful of things, and even though 6 months ago it all seemed okay, this group rightfully does not trust the Anderil Empire.

And this is sort of where we left things. I felt that I was not doing a good job in getting the world I envisioned across well, and the play seemed more forced, and I am not sure everyone was having fun. O we decided, or rather I decided, to switch things up. We're going to try the Dolmenwood OSE game. I'm going to start with the short Winter's Daughter adventure to see how that works out. The advantage is that fantasy like this is easier for everyone to have a more shared idea of what the world is. And one of the players, as well as myself, want to use more than just our 6-sided dice!

Session 0 will be in a couple weeks. Even though there are good character generators online for Dolmenwood, I think they want to roll up characters face to face. I also just got the PDF for the backstory generator, so we may use that as well assuming I actually look through that to get a feel for how to use it. And, we may start in the Giant's Nose as I did back that and I should use the things I get!

Traveller System Update 31 - Orbits Part 2

Got to adding the UX (User Experience) for entering the data from the various charts in Book 6, pages 44-45. I've essentially combined all those charts to single chart. 

Edit and creates have nice drop-downs and the index seems decent enough.

Dropdowns!

Charts!

I do realize when reading what other people do when creating Traveller software that I am doing this in an entirely different direction. I'm coming from the viewpoint that the user may have a different physics or using more up to date info than the Scouts Book 6. This application is very, very heavy on allowing the users to edit and maintain all those tables.

Is this a good approach? Not really - people just want to use the stuff without having to deal with all that under the hood stuff. However, there are plenty enough applications out there for most of this, and all with a much better interface. My personal interests have always been in what we call the backend for software: the databases and internal business logic. Which is great for some things, and not so great for others. 

Regardless, this is my approach for this. In theory, of course, someone could write another application using the very same database that this system maintains. Why I chose SQLite to externalize the DB versus hardcoding all these values was to allow other applications access. Again - that's how I've always worked in the past: the DB is entirely independent of the application. Had one job where I mostly wrote microservices, and they all interacted with the same database. I'll also note the repo is under the MIT open-source license, so people can do whatever they want with the software.

Anyway, I'll have to finish adding all the data, then I can actually calculate the planetary orbit! I think - I may have missed something else but Ill cross that bridge when I get there.

And my next post will probably be the expected Corsairs recap, along with notes about why we are switching to the Dolmenwood game as an experiment.

Wondrous Worlds - Quick Review and Run Through

I recently got the physical book Wondrous Worlds, another book in Nord's world building series. I do seem to collect these. The link above gives a free preview and other people's reviews. But here is mine anyway!

Overview

Physically, it is a nice hardcover, with artwork similar to their other books. Nice art, if, hmm, not bland per se, but nothing really outstanding. I'd go with typical fantasy art. Which I may be getting jaded on, as with the internet it is everywhere and easy to find. Not like when you had to go out and buy books. But it is nice art. The pages are sepia toned with a spot of blue around the page number. 

The contents have 8 chapters and 7 appendices. The chapters are relatively short, with the meat of the book in the appendices for the detailed tables and a few other things.

Chapter Overview

Chapter 1 is the introduction, with an overview of the process and the advice to start small and build up. It has the usual advice that sometimes the results look strange, but often you can find good stories in those contradictions. Which any Traveller player already knows from world generation! It gives succinct paragraphs about the various things that go into deigning the world.

Chapter 2 is a quick start guide and runs through creating a region. Roll for the environment on a d12 table, adding points of interest such as landmarks, settlements, and destinations. Of course, they also have the Wondrous Destinations: Forests and Wondrous Settlements books, so you can really expand upon those. I also have those books and have used them. If anyone wants, I can also do reviews of those if I've not already. Decades of blogs and well, I don't always remember! Then step 3 is the realm, where you throw in all your regions. Realms have governance and rules, as well as borders. 

Chapter 3 is regions, the entire purpose of the book. To quote from the book:

In this chapter, you’ll shape your world by first choosing or rolling for different environments—each with unique topographical features, weather patterns, resources, recent history, flora, fauna, and looming dangers. You’ll then populate your region with points of interest such as majestic waterfalls, ancient monoliths, bustling trading posts, hidden villages, and haunted ruins. Finally, you’ll delve into the region’s culture and society, exploring its governance, traditions, economy & trade, history & lore, and conflicts. By blending these elements, you’ll create a richly detailed setting brimming with intrigue, laying the perfect foundation for your worldbuilding journey.

The environments table now includes the appendix where that gets expanded out a good deal more than the quick start chapter. There are more landmarks with d4 options for each. You roll on the history table, 20 possibilities with another d4 set of options each. You can have magical effects such as "arcane amplification", another d20 table with d4 options per effect. Settlements are next, with an abbreviated version of the Wondrous Settlements process. Destinations give a d12 list of various destinations, such religious structure or outpost. Dangers exist in the worlds of course - but apparently only d6 types. It finishes off with 20 possible regional conflicts.

Chapter 4 is Realms. Regions (and I suppose it could be a single region in a realm). There are 8 sections getting created: culture and society, inhabitants, governance and rules, history and mythology, economy and trade, magic and technology and conflict and tension. Multiple tables per each section expand out on this, along with the note that you are of course, allowed to add more. Heck - I could see possible even adding some of Traveller's government types here, though tis books has 20 types already. There are some interesting tables that can help spark the imagination. 

Chapter 5 covers continents. Just as realms are made up of one or more regions, continents are made up of one or more realms. It is like those Russian nesting dolls. In the case of mapping to Traveller, we probably have a balkanized world. The continents chapter incudes sections for geography, climate, global powers, lost civilizations, continental trade and cultural divisions. Multiple tables give all sorts of possible options, such as atmospheric rivers, glacial advances and retreats and so forth. 

Chapter 6 covers worlds. Which of course, are made up of one or more continents. Here we cover the solar system, celestial bodies, cosmic phenomena, divine and magical influence on the world level, and cultural influence that flavors the world. Interestingly for a fantasy world system, there are tables for the moons, the type of suns and how many, things that are more generic and fantasy based than our Traveller system generation. Of course, this book is for creating a fantasy world. But I can see a fair amount of overlap between the systems. 

Chapter 7 covers the planes. Our created world may live in one of a series of planes, such as the feywild with magic pretty much oozing out of everything. This is a short chapter of just a few pages and a short paragraph for each plane. Wondering if they are planning a Wondrous Planes books to expand on that :)

Chapter 8 covers pantheons. Creating your deities based on the planes, choosing forms, power source, abilities, motivations, methods, bonds, familiars, and relics. Then we have several pages going over existing pantheons: Greek, Norse and Slavic. A fairly short chapter with more general information than anything really specific. Of course, bringing in deities do not really need much more than what their attitude is and how they do things: they are gods so stats and things like that are useless and to me even counter productive.

Appendix Overview

Appendix A Environments. This is where each environments gets 10 or so pages with environment specific tables. Each of the 12 environments gets a few steps. Step one gives a type, an age, weather, characteristics, resources and local history. Some may have additional tables. Step 2 covers life: plants and animals, how many and what kinds of each, food chains, monsters, humanoid populations, traffic and dangers. This is the real meat of the book to be honest and is also the largest section. I'll give an example in the next few posts of creating a region as this post is already longer than I normally do. 

Appendix B is a brief overview of mapmaking. Those who read this blog know I love maps. This is a pretty short chapter covering some really basic map making, breaking it down to 4 steps: sketch, outline, detail and shading. Obviously, this is for the old-school (and still my favorite despite just how many map making programs do I have again?!) pencil on paper map drawing. It covers various ideas for drawing a variety of things, mostly using the 1-point perspective if I remember my high school art classes from almost 5 decades ago. 

Appendix C covers iconic regions. It is a set of pre-generated regions, one per environment. It is a good place to see what the end product could be, and is just over a single page per region. 

Appendix D gives iconic characters. There is a d12 table that could be useful for NPCs with archetypes, and gives their strengths, weaknesses and goals. Then we get a few characters with their role and archetype, along with a couple paragraphs to help define them. 

Appendix E gives some iconic landmark examples. This helps give you some ideas on how to use those tables to give a more nuanced and in-game perspective on the landmarks you have rolled up. 

Appendix F are iconic settlements. Which, if you have the Wondrous Settlements book is a short rehash of that albeit with different settlements. Basically 1 page or so summaries of a few settlements ranging from outposts to major cities.

Appendix G are iconic destinations. A dozen destination examples. I did a quick run-through 5 years ago (!) for that book here.

Summary

Yes, another book on world building. It is pretty detailed, has a lot of tables that, like Traveller, can be expanded on and at least give a spark to creativity. As with generating characters, random stuff I think helps me from creating the same old thing every time. 

Is it a useful book? I think that really depends on how often you create new worlds and regions. Most of my fantasy games, regardless of the actual game, are on the same world. It just happens to be a very large world with a lot of space. Cidri (the Fantasy Trip world) is several times larger than Earth, and my little fantasy world sits on it someplace. As does the Dolmenwood forest, which I'll be running next on our Saturday games (and yes, I owe the players the last game Corsair recap, and that will cover why we are switching games).

For players, it is not something they need unless they want to read up on things like that. Or write and would like some inspiration. For GMs, if you are running sandbox games, I think it is a good tool though to be honest, a bit more limited due to the tables. Yes, there are d20 tables with d4 options. That does give 40 possible things often. And used as the start of something I think it can be a good springboard. As much as I dislike the idea, you can also ask AI to generate a lot of this for you, and it may come up with really interesting things as well. I buy books like this as I prefer the human touch. There are also a LOT of on-line tables and generators created by people that are probably just as useful. 

There are also some appendices I don't think need to be there - the iconic characters, settlements and destinations are covered in their other books. I know this book is sort of the capstone of their other books, but those sorts of things are available all over the place. I've backed far too many Kickstarters for NPCs, settings and so on. Some of which I've actually used but mostly, not. But that fault lies with me honestly. 

In the end, I do recommend the book because it does give more options and may create a really unique setting to play in. It is a tool I think that can be useful. And of course, I do like books!

I'll have an example run through at some point using the book.

Traveller System Update 30 - Orbits Part 1

I decided to next calculate the year (orbital period) for the planets in our system. Asked AI and realized I may need to add a bit more to some of the tables. But that is easy, and adding the orbital period is not hard. As it is a calculated field, I may just generate it on the fly as needed vs saving it.

To get the math formulas to work, I added some scripts to my theme's HTML. And yes, AI gave me the answers to that after a couple false starts. MathJax-script is the javascript library behind that.

I've added a new table that incorporates the stellar data such as luminosity, mass and so on. Then realized there more tables on the next page. And we also need the orbits table that indicates the AU and distance. But I figured 8+ hours of work mostly in .NET (a good bit of Rails review to see what I screwed up in translating the code, and yes, *think* I found it) an hour or so getting the basic table up if not functional is a good step. The stellar type and size need to be drop downs to save off the correct foreign keys. Not sure when I'll get back to this - running the Corsairs game this weekend and while I spent almost an hour doing some brainstorming, I still need to work on some more details. But some progress at least! I should be able to add the other table and data fields possibly this weekend. And the generated code for the controller and views is technically not AI but a scaffolded process that a number of frameworks have to help with the basic grunt work for those things. All I do is select the model and it will create the controller and views for me. And as I (finally!) thought to use the DisplayName tag in the models, the labels are much nicer than the field names.

AI response to me asking how to calculate the period. Despite having the book sitting right next to me. I worry I am outsourcing my thinking now.

You picked a good rabbit hole here—Book 6 is quietly pretty crunchy under the hood.

1. Get the orbital radius from the orbit number

In Book 6: Scouts, look up the radius \(a\) in AU for the given orbit number.

2. Get the star’s mass

Look up \(M_\star\) for that star (in units of \(M_\odot\)).

3. Use the Kepler-style Traveller formula

Book 6 uses Kepler’s third law:

$$P_{\text{years}} = \sqrt{\dfrac{a^3}{M_\star}}$$

4. Convert to days

$$P_{\text{days}} = P_{\text{years}} \times 365$$

---

5. Worked example (Orbit 5)

If \(a = 2.8\text{ AU}\) and \(M_\star = 1.0\):

$$P_{\text{years}} = \sqrt{\dfrac{2.8^3}{1.0}} \approx 4.69\text{ years}$$

$$P_{\text{days}} \approx 1710\text{ days}$$