What's New

In love with a town called Toledo

¦ dialling in from workstation ¦

08:50 GMT, Thursday 28th May 2009.  Living in a bit of a whirlwind at the moment.  Time passing fast.  Lots getting done.  All good.  Went to Madrid and Toledo last weekend.  Great to spend time with my old friend Sharky, and Ramona’s brother, US Dave.  Also great to munch away on delicious tapas… a few favourites building up for me so I’m looking forward to going back for the food.  The highlight of the weekend was catching a high-speed train out of Madrid and going to the medieval town of Toledo.  OMG!!!! What an incredible place.  You cross a moat-like ravine via a narrow stone bridge, stepping onto an “island” of rock, surrounded by a river on three sides.  Passing through the first curtain wall you’re forced to zig zag between defended positions and ascend steeply, before reaching another curtain wall through into the town proper.  Impossibly narrow lanes winding and backtracking and confusing in a delicious demonstration of medieval cunning to fool invaders (and tourists).  It was a simply perfect day… despite the heavy rain during the morning… very friendly, not expensive.  Many photographs but I’m still working through a set of images I took back in March and April, so it’ll be a while before I have time to go through these ones.

I’ve finally started concluding some of the numerous Yellow Dawn supplements and bolt-on rules I’ve been fiddling about with for the past few months.  Just launched a collection of occult and mythos artefacts, and a separate system that allows characters to “analyse” them and attempt to disable the malevolent links that some artefacts create.

Whilst in Toledo, sitting in a café with a notebook and pen, I had an idea for creating a quick system to enhance the COOL and Anxiety system.  I’d been reading an article about how the brain chemistry of individual soldiers can influence what roles they are best suited do, and affect how they react to battlefield conditions and stresses.  I’ve come up with something called MADS: Morality, Anxiety, Depression and Stress.  It allows GMs to determine a unique profile for each character, potentially without their knowledge, so they won’t know how they react to these factors until they happen.  I should have it up on the site to download by end of the weekend.

I’m flying to Newcastle tonight.  A long weekend up there.  Jo flew up there Tuesday, almost directly after returning from Spain; she’s keeping my mum company and making sure she’s eating, following the end of her radiotherapy sessions.  Jo says she’s in very high spirits, which is great news.

Djr