Fours

Thought I'd get in on the fours, better late than never!

Jobs I have had:

1. Research assistant


2. Medical receptionist


3. Intranet administrator


4. Personal assistant

Movies I would watch over and over again:

1. LOTR (yes the whole trilogy)


2. The Craft


3. Dogma


4. Starship Troopers

Places I have lived:

1. Twickenham, southwest London


2. other end of Twickenham, southwest London


3. St Mary Cray, southeast London


4. Catford, southeast London

(See a pattern here?)

Four TV shows you love to watch:
As the wifey said, don't really watch TV per se, but
follow various shows on DVD:

1. Stargate SG1/Atlantis


2. Charmed


3. Smallville


4. Buffy/Angel

(Ok, so Buffy and Angel aren't actually showing new
episodes anymore, but...)

Four places I have been on vacation:

1. Edmonton, Canada


2. Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA


3. Prague, Czech Republic


4. San Francisco, California, USA

Have met other mudders in all but the last of these :)

Four of my favorite foods:

1. CHOCOLATE!


2. Pasta


3. Sausages, especially German ones


4. Pizza

Places I would rather be right now:
Back on vacation in Germany, where I just came from last night!

Woohoo!

All the Mozartians who haven’t already done so today, check out help
areas low – and look for a certain paladin god’s name.
(any non-Mozartians who are here, god only knows why – nothing to see
here, move it along…)

It gives me a strange feeling of fulfilment to finally have an
area in on Mozart. It’s been a long time. I’m sure at least some of the
people most likely to read this will sympathise.

There will be more areas to come. Maybe many more. What can I say,
I like to create. And I feel I “owe” Mozart a great deal. If I hadn’t
come back to Mozart after the mud I was co-running died, I’d never have
met wifey.

I owe a certain someone more than words can ever say for inspiring me to
come back to Mozart, way back in 1999, and then keeping me inspired to stick around, when I was going through a pretty rough time. So a huge shout out to Ange, my little sister in every way other than
blood. If not for you, I wouldn’t be the happily married little minotaur
I am today, if I’d even be around at all. I owe you more than I can ever
express, sis. Thank you.

Great thanks are also due to my wonderful wifey who allowed me the time
to work on the area (even if a lot of it was when she was asleep!).

Course, making more areas means having time to finish them, between
actually playing on the mud, and roleplaying with wifey, and doing all
the other fun things that occupy my time…

Wifey’s RP campaign is gradually approaching its climax after the best
part of three years. Wonder how she’ll cope with starting a new one at
level 1 again. Meanwhile I’m completely overhauling my extremely heavily
modified AD&D system, which has had so many changes slapped on it over
the last twenty years, before her next campaign. Small things like a
total rewrite of the magic system, rebalancing all the spells, adding
several thousand new ones, fun things like that.

Vacations upcoming, which are good and well needed. Off to Germany with
wifey for the long weekend coming up, to stay with my family there.
Then off to Spain for the second half of September to stay with wifey’s
parents. It’s nice to have free accommodation in so many countries!

Next year I do want to make it across the Atlantic Pond again, been a
long time since my last visit as Ange knows. And wifey has never been
across it yet! Which must be rectified. Course, that means money. And
that means probably no laptop for another year. Or else no more evening
classes in VBA and PHP and all the other fun things that help minotaurs
get better jobs. Priorities, priorities.

Enough for now. Maybe I’ll babble more tomorrow.

M

Origin of Muranog (5 of 5)

THE HISTORY OF THE MINOTAUR MURANOG – MASTERY

The Crusades ended late in the year 300 of the Fourth Era. Muranog,
finding no worthy enemies or challenges remained in his old haunts,
sought out new lands to traverse, new places to bring the Word of Caldyr.
In the aftermath of the Crusades, many old trade routes were opening up
again, no longer disrupted by the drow or the priests of the Four Orders
of Pain.

From travellers venturing to Nevrast from distant lands, Muranog heard
of the submerged realm of Castle Aquarius, and of the cursed land of the
Eternal Stalemate, where forces of Order and Chaos vied forever for
supremacy, trapped in unending parity. Venturing to these realms, he
found new foes to challenge, new forces to battle. In the Eternal
Stalemate, he made it his task to aid the forces of Order, who favoured
the law and justice that his lord Caldyr craved, against their nemesis
Chaos. In Aquarius, deep beneath the Graecian Ocean, he battled the
voracious jellyfish and other creatures of the depths, keeping the realm
safe for its less predatory denizens.

Several years have passed since the end of the Crusades. To this day,
Muranog the minotaur resides in Nevrast, but travels the realms both by
foot and by the powerful magics he has now learned, to aid the cause of
light and deny evil. Who knows where his journey will end…

Origin of Muranog (4 of 5)

THE HISTORY OF THE MINOTAUR MURANOG – THE CRUSADES

On returning home, Muranog found the Guildmasters in uncommonly grim
mood. From them and their acolytes, he heard that the evilly-aligned
priesthood of the Temple of Pain, some way to the east, were massing
their forces, preparing for an invasion of Nevrast. At the same time,
to the west, travellers spoke of drow and minotaurs staging raids out
of the western Portal to the Abyss, disrupting the trade routes and
pillaging caravans.

Muranog and other adventurers swiftly acted to preempt these dangers.
To the west, the minotaur militant cleric made many swift striking raids
against the encampments of the drow and the evil, abyssal minotaurs,
just beyond the Portal, throwing their vanguard into confusion and
disarray. To the east, Muranog and companions launched raid after raid
on the Temple of Pain, headquarters of the Red-Robed Priests and their
lesser brethren, breaking their might before they could launch their
invasion. Though the Crusades lasted several years, they were ultimately
successful in breaking the power of these evil forces, and preserving
the peace of Nevrast for another generation.

Through the Crusades, Muranog carried the word of Caldyr to new
places and peoples, and learned more from the other priests and mages he
encountered of the mysteries of the arcane and divine. His priestly
powers rose to new levels, as did his martial skills, honed in massed
battle against mystical foes. His goodly faith, tempered in the fire of
battling evil, became a fierce protectiveness of the innocent and the
helpless in the face of danger and adversity. Ever afterward he would
look back on the Crusades as the second great turning point in his life.

Origin of Muranog (3 of 5)

THE HISTORY OF THE MINOTAUR MURANOG – RAVEN’S BLUFF

Muranog was to spend the next three years based in Raven’s Bluff. The
rogues that plagued the alleys and footpaths of the city had grown bold,
stealing and killing where they pleased, while the mages of evil intent –
marked conveniently by their order’s black robes – walked the city
streets with impunity, daring the city guards to challenge them. By the
time Muranog left that walled city, in early 291, the rogues were a shadow
of their organisation’s former strength, and the black-robed mages had
admitted defeat and sued for peace, their eldritch powers no match for a
zealous priest’s power to dispel enemy magics. Studying under the
Raven’s Bluff Warrior Guildmaster, and various priests of Caldyr and
allied Powers, Muranog grew in strength and mastery both martial and
ecclesiastical, until he surpassed all that his teachers in the city
could impart. Their advice to him was to return north to Nevrast, to
seek for other trainers and greater knowledge of the mysteries of the
Heavens and the techniques of battle.

But back north, Nevrast was under threat from other directions.

Origin of Muranog (2 of 5)

THE HISTORY OF THE MINOTAUR MURANOG – ARRIVAL IN NEVRAST

On arrival in the great city of Nevrast, at the end of the year 287,
Muranog was vindicated to discover that here, among more cosmopolitan
folk, the name of Caldyr was known. Indeed, some elders and sages of the
city remembered Caldyr as a mortal, a paladin of humankind and protector
of the innocent, before he ascended to immortality. Other adventurers
based in the city – warriors and mages and priests – were the sons and
daughters of Caldyr’s own companions, some of these themselves now
ascended to the Heavens and the mantle of divinity.

Following the example of the God, Muranog presented himself before
the Nevrast Guild of Paladins and asked admittance. The Paladin Guards
and their Guildmaster readily applauded his strength, his stamina and
his courage. But in the tests of wisdom and reasoning, the minotaur
did not match up to his new deity, and the state of paladinhood remained
beyond him. Instead, he sought the aid of the Guilds of Warriors and of
Clerics, and here he met with more success, honing his martial skills
with the Warrior Guildmaster and learning more of his chosen God with
priests of Caldyr who served among the many orders that jointly ran the
Guild of Clerics.

In return for training, the Warrior Guildmaster of Nevrast, an enigmatic
human warrior whose true name was known to no mortal, asked no coin but
instead services. Of Muranog he asked that the minotaur travel southward
to the city of Raven’s Bluff, whose own Warrior Guildmaster had contacted
him to ask for aid, and seek to rid the city of the rogues and evil mages
that plagued its fair streets. Muranog, as befits an honourable warrior,
agreed at once.

Well, it's Saturday now, but here's a Friday Five anyway :) as ordered by Crys and Mimmy

1. How often do you (a) eat out, (b) cook for yourself or (c) otherwise forage for food?
a) usually once or twice a week, depends how lazy we feel and how soon after payday it is :) some of the places we eat at though, a decent meal costs less than the ingredients to cook at home - other places, can cost as much as a week's worth of food shopping.
b) Whenever wifey nags at me to cook, or I feel like cooking ;) in summer, less often, as it's often too hot to stand cooking for ages so we just forage (see c), in other seasons probably 2-4 times a week.
c) In summer we tend to have a lot of "futon picnics", often while watching a DVD, or else we munch snacks at keyboard while mudding. During the recent heatwave we were futon-picnicking almost every night, was just too damn hot to cook in our kitchen!

2. What's your favourite restaurant and why?That's easy - place called Yamas, our local Greek-Cypriot restaurant. Had our wedding reception there, and they did us proud, and charged about half of what we expected. We go every few weeks (though we went through a phase of going almost every week!) - they know us well there :)

3. What's your favourite food to prepare for yourself?Usually anything with pasta. Cooked a pasta concoction last night which consisted of fresh penne, bacon, two kinds of sausage, meatballs, mushrooms, red/yellow/orange peppers, chunky tomato sauce, garlic and herbs - one of wifey's favourites too. Sometimes do an alternate version without the tomato sauce and herbs but adding apple, brown sugar and honey, works really well. Can do a lot with baked macaroni too.

4. What one food gives you the strongest emotional reaction? Why?Probably chocolate, all the endorphins in that stuff :)

5. If you were stuck on a desert island for the rest of your life, what would you do with the coconuts?Gather enough of them to make into a raft (coconuts float, yes?) and escape!Not too sure what I'd use to hold them together...hrm...maybe palm leaves?

Meeee sleeeepy.

Been on mud all evening long just hanging out with Vesty, our friendly neighbourhood Collie Goddess. One of those evenings where I get nothing at all done, apart from posting on everyone's blog, but still have fun :)

Mooooo!

An example of what Muranog might look like :)

Colourful blogging...

Thought I'd get in on the colour-changing act, all that black was getting a bit much so here's the new blue moo.