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The Cursed: Copper Coronet

August 27, 2019, 5:20 am
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[Part of the Cursed story line]

At the docks district the squad is employed by the Shadow Thief guild to investigate a possible rebellion within their own ranks, and sure enough with the surprising assistance of Edwin, they find the splinter group which Catharina deals with solo. Invisibility lets her get past the guards, then the usual cloud kill and skull traps with an ice storm on top.

"Feel the backhand of Justice!"

Outside, Jaheira runs into an old enemy of hers, who curses her with some wasting disease before fleeing. The team gives chase, looking for clues at the Copper Coronet tavern where Minsc gets into a bar brawl and Raven discovers that the place is run by slavers! They slaughter the scum and free the slaves who take over the establishment. This also involves traipsing through kobold infested sewers to hit the nearby slaver base. Jaheira's curse giver is among them and his death lifts her curse.

Insight: Jaheira's stats drop by the day if you ignore the curse for too long, so don't do that.
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The Cursed: Graveyard Visit

August 28, 2019, 4:56 am
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[Part of the Cursed story line]

The team is invited to the graveyard by a mysterious woman, so they go during the day but still find the tombs teeming with undead and giant spiders. The spiders in particular have built a massive hive that connects a number of the deeper tombs in such a way that triggers my arachnophobia. Good thing the party has no such problems, since gassing them with cloud kill is pretty effective.

They do take a bit of damage down there so are forced to surface to regroup - finding that night has now fallen. A vampiress named Bodhi appears and tries to get the team to side with her against the Shadow Thieves and in return she will help find Imoen, all for the low price of 15,000 gold! This offer is turned down because vampires suck, and Bodhi leaves disappointed.

Bonus points for trying to charm the party.

On the way back to an inn the party comes across a man almost beaten to death in an alley way. At his request they carry him all the way to the docks where he is delivered to a large building which turns out to be the local Harper base. The necromancer Xzar, who was once believed dead but is better now, then appears and tasks the group with infiltrating the base to find out what they did with his buddy Montaron. Jaheira is unhappy that the group agrees to do this.

Insight: The tombs in the graveyard are painful. Lots of strong, draining undead and the lower levels are riddled with traps.
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The Cursed: Thief Lesson

August 29, 2019, 4:49 am
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[Part of the Cursed story line]

The mystery of Montaron is not much of a mystery. The Harpers killed him since he was spying on them for the Zhents, just like they kill Xzar when the team goes to report back to him. Jaheira decides to leave the team to work for this Harper branch, so Catharina finds a replacement in the somewhat crazy lady Hexxat at the Copper Coronet. Hexxat has a burning desire to revisit the graveyard so that's where they go.

They also kept his corpse in a chest. Nasty.

As a thief, she is much better than Raven at detecting traps (and she teaches him a bit) which is handy as she leads them down into one particular crypt and right to... the vampire that's mind controlling her. The vampire "Hexxat" kills her thrall and begins making demands of the party, which isn't really great for first impressions so Catharina and company just end up killing her too.

They hire the dwarf fighter Korgan nearby, who is hunting for a tome in one of the crypts but finds that his old crew have beaten him to it. These vagrants seem to also have raided the house of the collector who wanted the book, killing all inside so Catharina has no qualms in tracking them down and ending them in the same fashion.

Insight: Detect traps never turns on automatically for Raven as he is player generated, which is why Hexxat seemed to be so much better at finding them. Simply remembering to press that button makes him much more useful.
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The Cursed: Looking and Unseeing

August 30, 2019, 7:45 am
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[Part of the Cursed story line]

Having had enough of the Graveyard, the team heads into the Temple sewers next to hunt down a new cult forming below. An encounter with a well equipped band of brigands sees Minsc getting killed by a magical throwing axe which Korgan claims for himself before kicking Minsc's corpse down one of the many shit pipes. Taking his place is the paladin Keldorn, who is also looking for this mysterious cult down here.

Instead, the group finds the secret lair of a wizard who has enslaved the local actor Haer'Dalis. After rescuing the hapless actor the team goes deeper into the sewers and finds the base of the Unseeing Eye cult. It doesn't take much to learn that these self-blinding crazies worship a beholder who is looking for half of a powerful artifact, since it already has the first half.

The team finds it first in a long forgotten temple even further down before hopping into the beholder's lair to face the monster. There are a surprising number of undead servants here too, but most of the trouble comes from the random beholders and gauths (little beholders) in the area. Catharina makes use of all the summoning scrolls she has been hanging onto, letting her own skeles, efreeti and fire elemental handle all the dirty work. As for the Unseeing Eye, Korgan uses the assembled artifact (it's a plasma rifle) to almost one shot it, making it the easiest enemy in the entire place!

Beware of dwarves with plasma rifles!

Insight: Buying the Shield of Balduran at the Adventure Mart would have saved a lot of headaches here as it reflects beholder rays, but summoned fire elementals are a good fall back as they are immune to most of what the eye tyrants can throw.
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August 2019 Review

August 31, 2019, 12:37 am
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Wilhelm aka the Ancient Gaming Noob has an interesting Blaugust 2019 post about having review posts to better steer and refine his blog. Since I've already been doing a monthly "to do list" post routine I thought this would be a good time to add this data underneath and see how it goes. He does have way more experience at this than me after all! That also means I'll be doing these at the end of the months, rather than the beginning.

    End 2019 with less weight (0 kg from last month, running total: +5 kg)
    Make board game prototype (no progress)
    Complete web comic chapter 1 (worldbuilding planning)
    Clean out wardrobe (done)
    Clean the roof (no progress)

BACKLOG
Baldur's Gate 2 (done)
Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt
Enderal
Borderlands 2
Icewind Dale
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Neverwinter Online: Uprising (0/2)

Board games:
Zombicide: Black Plague Campaign (10/11)
London Dread Campaign (1/4)
Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage (0/13)

BLOG STATS

One Year Ago
I started the Masters of Eador story and participated in Blaugust where I gave some hints about myself.

Five Years Ago
I found a random knife in the garden and was watching some veryviolent and ultra gorymovies. I was also upset at Wizardry Online closing and enjoying Mabinogi's G18 and Neverwinter Online's Tyranny of Dragons.

Most Viewed Posts last Month
The Cursed: Another Detour
The Cursed: Iron Shortage
Neverwinter Online: The New Workshop is STUPID

Top 3 Search Terms last Month
two female skyrim adventures go into...
d&d candlekeep part 17
charrus kitchens

Kinda wish I could see what the rest of that first one is... for scientific reasons, naturally. :P
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The Cursed: Breaker of Prisons

September 1, 2019, 4:57 am
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[Part of the Cursed story line]

With the cult of the Unseeing Eye destroyed, the team decide to check up on Haer'Dalis and his theater troop - only to find them being abducted by inter-planar bounty hunters! The party follow into the planar prison, and defeat the demons in charge of it. Of course, most of the slaves actually die during this but the theater company is fine.

These two also made it out. They always do.

They opt to teleport on to Sigil, but Haer'Dalis returns with Catharina's team back to Athkatla in hopes of adventuring with her (specifically Lu Lingqi) one day. Keldorn, happy with recent events, invites them all to his house to meet his wife and daughters. This doesn't go so well as his wife is upset at the job hours he keeps and admits to having a relationship with another man! Distraught, Keldorn leaves to report this to the courts, leaving the party one member down again.

They decide to visit Jaheira at the docks and find a Harper inquisition waiting for them! Unwilling to be magically imprisoned for eternity the team slay all the Harpers present with the exclusion of Jaheira who wisely decided to side and rejoin with her old team. Having had enough of the city, the party decides to leave it to follow one of the many quest hooks outside but before doing so, they pay a quick trip to the adventure mart to gear up properly. At this point they had 94k gold anyway.

Insight: The Robe of Vecna at the Adventure Mart is very handy as it reduces spell casting time. Instant skull traps? Yes please!
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The Cursed: Troll Fort

September 2, 2019, 5:26 am
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[Part of the Cursed story line]

The closest stop outside Athkatla is the De'Arnise Keep, where the daughter of the household, Nalia De'Arnise was encamped outside with a few guards. The keep itself had fallen to troll and yuan-ti invaders, and she was trying to reclaim it.

Having had experience in sieges before, Catharina agrees to help. Much like Dragonspear Castle, there is a secret tunnel to access the fortress and unlike Dragonspear, the enemies here are weak and easily wiped out.

It was no hassle what so ever.

Nalia is thankful for the assistance, but now faces the reality that if she takes ownership of the now empty De'Arnise throne, she would be stuck to a previously arranged marriage to a douche bag. Catharina suggests a life of adventure instead, and directs her to the Copper Coronet to make her own group of explorers.

Insight: In case you forgot, you need fire or acid to finish a downed troll. Leave them long enough and they get back up at full health.
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The Cursed: Trading in Problems

September 3, 2019, 4:35 am
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[Part of the Cursed story line]

The next stop from the De'Arnise keep is the city of Trademeet which for some reason is under attack by wild animals. In addition to that, a number of djinn have set up camp outside and have basically stopped all trade to the city (through charm buying everything) until the rakshasa they are hunting is killed.

You have it backwards - the genies make the wishes and you are the slaves!

Because not enough is going on, a recovered Rasaad is spotted here as well - fighting and defeating others of his Sun Soul monk order. When questioned after, he claims that this is a ruse to infiltrate a new monk cult. They leave him to do that and go chat with the mayor who has a druid scapegoat locked up for trial.

This druid, Cernd, claims to also be investigating the animal attacks, and with a little diplomacy the team secure his release and in return he shows the way to the nearby druid grove, the likely source of these problems.

Insight: You won't be able to trade with anyone here other than the Djinn who have terrible prices. Sell your stuff back in the city before coming here!
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The Cursed: Druid Duel

September 4, 2019, 4:41 am
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[Part of the Cursed story line]

The druid grove is home to spiders, trolls, and druids being turned to the extremist shadow druid way by their new leader, Faldorn! It seems she survived that flamestrike after all. Fortunately, the druids chose leaders based on ritual duels so Cernd steps up.

To everyone's surprise, Cernd is actually a greater werewolf and rips Faldorn to pieces and subsequently staying to redirect the druids back to a more peaceful path.

It's like fighting a random tribesman only for him to turn into this.

More problematic is the rogue rakshasa who is found hiding nearby, as the team has no weapons capable of killing it. They retreat and opt for the other solution instead - killing all the djinn in Trademeet instead. This works out better, though it does leave Raven Skinnybastard petrified.

Since he's pretty safe here in that form (even used as decoration in town), the team take Rasaad to fill his spot.

Insight: Cernd's greater werewolf form is awesome, but he can't equip/use/cast anything while in that form.
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The Cursed: Got Rep

September 5, 2019, 4:41 am
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[Part of the Cursed story line]

After solving a few more minor issues at Trademeet, Korgan has had enough of the goody-two-shoes routine and leaves the party as they head on to the Umar Hills where people have reportedly gone missing.

Unimpressed dwarf is unimpressed.

While searching the woods, a band of Harpers comes for Jaheira but are convinced to stand down and leave. They also come across the criminal wanted by the Cowled Wizards, Valygar Corthala hiding in a remote cabin.

He claims innocence, saying he's only wanted for his blood which can open the mysterious planar sphere in the slums district of Athkatla. Lu Lingqi decides to give him the opportunity to prove it, and lets him join the team.

Insight: Reputation is a two edged sword. The high reputation my party had here caused Korgan to leave but also prevented the fight with the Harper group.
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The Cursed: Shadow Boxing

September 6, 2019, 3:11 am
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[Part of the Cursed story line]

The search for the missing folk leads to a dark, forgotten temple full of shadows (the enemy) which somehow Rasaad can still punch and kick to death. He's improved heaps! Inside they find the halfling Mazzy imprisoned and rescue her.

She info dumps that her team came here to be heroes too, but they all got caned by the shadow dragon further in. The dragon's master - a shade lord who was once imprisoned here, was saving her as his next "host".

Mazzy is sent back to her home in Trademeet while the team delves on through undead and traps which are very annoying without a thief! Eventually they reach the shadow dragon and literally kick its butt. The shade lord afterwards is laughable, being weaker than most of his minions.

Yes, Rasaad is kicking the shadow dragon to death!

With his destruction, light returns to this forest. Quest complete!

Insight: There's a wardstone that makes you invisible to the Shadow Dragon until you attack or interact with him, so use the time to prepare buffs, summons and traps!
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The Cursed: Planar Sphere

September 7, 2019, 4:59 am
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[Part of the Cursed story line]

With the Umar Hills safe, the team returns to the city and Jaheira is again accosted by Harpers. While violence is avoided once more, she does take the drastic step of quitting that organization! The group proceed to the Planar Sphere which Valygar does open. Inside they find misplaced Knights of Solamnia (from Dragonlance) who warn that this place (it's a space ship) is very dangerous.

Iron golems are dangerous even without weapons.

This is true, not so much for the cannibal halflings on board but for the numerous golems guarding the place. The large iron ones in particular are very tough as they are both weapon and magic resistant.

Insight: Iron Golems are towering menaces, but that also means they can't fit through man-sized doors. Use that to your advantage!
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The Cursed: Fuel my Heart

September 8, 2019, 4:50 am
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[Part of the Cursed story line]

The sphere is huge, and using broken golem bits Catharina assembles one of her own which helps in destroying a wandering beholder within. They finally reach the cockpit and find the lich that owns this thing waiting for them.

It is a tough fight but Catharina's pierce magic does the trick in lowering his defenses until his defeat by Valygar's blade. Of course, he had flown the sphere to hell during this time and in his dying breath laughs, saying they need demon hearts to power it up once more.

"Good thing he brought us to hell then," said Lu Lingqi. True enough, disembarking they found a good number of demons just waiting to be slain and have their hearts taken as fuel. Not too hard a task with invis scouting, cloud kill, and summoned sword spiders.

We have ignition!

Insight: While not poisonous, sword spiders are great summons as they attack very quickly. Anything not physical resistant is in big trouble against them, especially if they are hastened as well!
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The Cursed: Schools of Magic

September 9, 2019, 4:33 am
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[Part of the Cursed story line]

After a quick side trip to return the Knights of Solamnia, Valygar drives the sphere back to the Athkatla slums where it finally runs out of gas. At this point the cowled wizards show up and begrudgingly grant the Planar Sphere to Valygar, on the condition that they can use it as a school for apprentices.

Hmm, should have explored Krynn a bit more.

The team have no problem with that, and Catharina gets the first three students crafting a lowly magic items. From them she learns about a magic refuge in the Southern woods and so the team investigates and finds Neera there!

Her wild magic teleported her out of that bottomless chasm, and now she has created a refuge for other wild mages being hunted by the red wizards of Thay. The only problem is she forgot how to get in. Catharina decides to help her but soon finds this entire area is a wild magic zone, making the most regular spells go awry.

Insight: Bring health pots here. Casting heals will most likely not result in healing.
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The Cursed: Trapped in the Woods

September 10, 2019, 4:48 am
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[Part of the Cursed story line]

While the forest is home to low level enemies, it is laced with magical traps (thanks Neera) one of which transforms Valygar into a squirrel. Due to the wild magic zone, the casters can't dispel this and so abandon him to his tiny, furry fate.

Valygar isn't happy.

Trying to navigate this place without a rogue (trap detector) is terrible so the team returns first to the city where Jaheira is again approached by Harpers who warn her that her execution has been mandated and that attacks on the party are going to increase soon. 

While she ponders on that Elizabeth is swapped out (and goes deep in her cups) for the Yoshimo, who helped them escape the Irenicus dungeon at the start. With him detecting traps in the party the team easily reaches Neera's wild magic sanctuary and they begin helping out with the numerous fetch quests given by the inhabitants there.

Insight: Definitely bring a thief to the wild forest. Not only do you get XP from disabling traps, you also avoid the adverse effects of said traps! Poor, poor Valygar...
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The Cursed: Rewards of Diplomacy

September 11, 2019, 5:00 am
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[Part of the Cursed story line]

Returning after doing some tasks for the sanctuary, they find it destroyed! The lone survivor says they were discovered by Thayans and the others were captured and taken to the Thayan secret base in Athkatla. Humorously, this base is right beside Irenicus' starting dungeon - posing as a shop front.

Neera wants to go all terminator within, but Catharina calms her down enough so that the team can talk their way in, even buying supplies from said Thayans and reaching the back rooms which hold some angry gladiators and underpaid mercs.

With a few underhanded tactics, the mercs are made drunk and the gladiators freed. Having the support of both groups makes the red wizards easy prey, and the surviving wild mages are freed from their cages. For safety purposes they opt to split up again, with Neera remaining in the party.

Mord Swords are fantastic tanks!

Insight: Those Thayans have some really nice spells for sale, Mordenkainen's sword summon being one of them. Be sure to get it!
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The Cursed: Web of Connections

September 12, 2019, 4:38 am
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[Part of the Cursed story line]

Meanwhile in Thay...

Sir Erland and Party Girl spend some time meeting the other captives and it's clear that most are scum, even asking for gold (they were all given some to shop for equipment) to assist in each arena fight. One, a cleric named Timmoth Goodtree, even flatly refuses as he would rather spend his energy finding a way out. Not such a bad idea, but someone has to fight upstairs. Guess who.

The four prisoners they best get along with join the team permanently - Alias the warrior and her saurian companion Dragonbait as well as Shinordium the mage and his evil compatriot Arzang the sorcerer. For the first round against orcs, they also get the dwarven gladiator champion Symm Haximus who is the only fighter there voluntarily, for the pay and the glory. He has no interest in escape.

Symm sounds a bit like Crixus!

Round two is against Thayan gladiators and minotaurs, and the team picks the unliked wild mage Gerrod to assist. He is just happy to make friends and clearly wants out. The third round they are joined by Mercy the archer to kill lizardmen, and after the battle she agrees to keep an eye on the guard routines.

To face umber hulks in the fourth match they bring crazy Lea who is immune to their confusion due to her insanity. Unfortunately due to the same condition, they can't tell if she and her imaginary frenemy will assist in any escape attempt.

Insight: Web is very handy for these fights and the arenas are small enough to get some good coverage.
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The Cursed: Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting

September 13, 2019, 1:45 am
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[Part of the Cursed story line]

While in town, Rasaad finds a lead to the cult he was hoping to infiltrate so the team journeys to an abandoned amphitheater for the initiation. Unlike Neera, Rasaad is unable to play it cool which results in a massive battle against the evil monks.

He's much stronger in this game though.

Catharina gets to try out Mordenkainen's Sword (or as I call them Mord-swords) and finds they are fantastic! The floating blade easily cuts down foes while being totally immune to non magic damage itself. Basically doom for the unarmed monks. Especially fighting in cloud kill!

Luckily, a map to the cult base is found on one of the bodies but since the team is quite fatigued after the battle they opt to camp in the woods for the night. In the morning, Jaheira is gone - having left a note that she needs to try clear her name and more importantly, so that the party isn't a target for the Harpers.

She's so unreliable.

Insight: To make Mord-swords even better, cast haste on them. Haste just makes everything better! (Though in RP terms, everything hasted would be aging much quicker)
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The Cursed: Monkey Business

September 14, 2019, 4:47 am
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[Part of the Cursed story line]

Having been abandoned by Jaheira, the team recruits pretty boy paladin Anomen before heading to the evil cult temple in the mountains. Rasaad is immediately concerned, letting slip that he likes Catharina. She assures him the annoying paladin is not a threat.

The planned "infiltration" of the base again doesn't go smoothly as upon walking in Rasaad simply challenges everyone to combat (yay for lawful stupid). Turns out the entire cult was an elaborate ruse simply to weaken the Sun Soul monks by giving them something to defect to and to fight among each other.

Choke points are fun with AoE spells!

The real enemy - the Dark Moon monks, then attack in force and Rasaad and company opt to help the tricked cultists to defend themselves, resulting in an easy victory. The new cult is liquidated, with the members sheepishly returning to their old orders while Rasaad and Catharina have a romantic evening on the roof of the temple.

Insight: Practice at estimating the radius of your AoE spells. This game assumes you can throw fireballs and skull traps far enough back to hurt the charging enemy but not hit your own front line.
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Real Neat Questions

September 15, 2019, 5:19 am
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Roger, who Contains Moderate Peril, has left another question thing open for anyone to answer so... for a break from my usual postings, why not?

1. How do you explain your passion for games to those who don't "get it"?

I don't. Not aiming to convert anyone as it's just a hobby. If they push then I just retort with a hobby of theirs that I don't get. Such as drinking or smoking or going to the beach.

2. Do you have faith in your country’s political institutions?

Uh, I suppose I am indifferent, though there are much worse ones out there - such as the one led by a buffoon and that other mob that ignores what their citizens vote for.

3. Do you regret anything that you've written or said on a podcast?

Not really. I usually regret not doing a thing at all rather than doing it and failing miserably. The same goes for my posts.

4. Do you find common place social conventions, such as going for a drink after work, or inviting colleagues’ round to dinner, a pleasure or a chore? (Feel free to replace examples with something more appropriate to you if required).

I'm quite anti-social so I don't do any of those. I imagine that puts me in the "chore" category.

5. If you played games as a child, did your parents place any restrictions upon your pastime?

Yep! Mostly time based restrictions. Now that I'm all grown up I'm annoyed to find I still have time based restrictions! It's quite frustrating.

6. You are standing behind someone who is unaware of your presence. Armed only with a seven-inch filleting knife, what is the most efficient way to kill them?

What the hell Roger? That's rather dark! Provided the knife is sharp, multiple stabs from the side underneath the rib cage (or in the underarm, but that would be hard to pull off) with the blade towards the heart would be ideal for most people. Followed by running away to a safe distance to let the victim bleed out.

7. Do you consider video game ratings to be important?

Yes. As much as I'd like to play all the games there just isn't enough time to do so. Thus low rated games don't make it to my radar at all, unless there's something in particular that grabs my curiosity.

8. Do you ever find that your own personal values, principles and ethics put at odds with the wider gaming community?

Of course. The first to come to mind on what I term as "cheating" and my opinions on lock boxes.

9. Share a valuable lesson about life that you've learnt the hard way.

Impulse buying leads to disappointment. Always research first.

10. Is there a blogger or podcaster who has quit the scene or retired that you would like to see make a return?

I can't remember her name, but she was a deaf girl whose blog I came across in a Newbie Blogger Initiative years ago. I really liked how colorful she made everything. If you might know who this is please let me know! Also Missy Mojo and Ravalation!
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