M51 And Then Some

M51 and then some

Galaxies are often far more than the stuff we see, even in the best of Hubble photo's, there are stars, dust and gas that stretch out at densities too low to be picked up in some of the most iconic images.

Here M51 is recorded over 255 Hours, collecting all the light and gas at far lower densities, revealing the structure of M51 and the merging galaxy, and how huge plumes of stars and dust and gas are being kicked out way beyond the apparent confines of the spiral galaxy itself.

This is the same situation around most galaxies, the halo area reaching out from the Milky Way so far, it's thought in some parts to potentially be interacting with Andromeda's halo, over 2.1 million light years away, albeit at a very low level (so far).

This animation without the filter because it fucked with the framerate for some reason (this isn't the intended look otherwise, but bleh)

I think we're finally finding the issue here, which is that dnd has pulled from so many different forms of media and archetypes, and often from different ones that are entirely different in set up and power scaling and magic and such. To simplify, we pulled wizards from things like myths and fancy magic users and the fighter is basically "well its medieval, gotta have a plate wearing sword guy" . And unless you set up a world to accomdate that, to either figure out the neccesarily limitations on magic to have a fighter make sense as being somewhat practical, or expand the magic (non-real elements) to include martial prowess and toughness, the fighter and the wizard basically come from different realities.

Anyway this is why wotc should publish more individual setting books with actual different rules that don't actually work together across settings. Because if you want different themes to your game world, the way players understand that is through the mechanics, and therefore how you define the theme. And if they want to have some big way it all works, they need to stop holding onto these fragments of tradition that say random things about how the rules should be, from earlier editions, that no longer actually work in the setting and world they're trying to build, but are just holdovers.

I doubt that will ever happen. But it would be nice, if they said "these rules are how greyhawk works, this is how eberron works, this is how the forgotten realms works." But at that point the ideal would be to have a different rpg for each one. Which won't happen.

I suppose a compromize could be to establish a firm setting, admit that the rules are unique to that setting and probably shouldnt be one to one ported elsewhere, and then make conversion kits galore for any kind of theme and setting, rather than trying to shoehorn them all into the original setting.

oh but as an aside: in terms of giving classes stuff to do outside their central domain of expertise, you don't really need to look for esoteric stuff for fighters, they've got, like, "being scary", "being beefy", "being good at smashing or moving things", "being athletic", and that's fine? Like if those aren't coming out as useful in a dungeon crawl, or if spellcasters are matching them just on the basis of some handwavey "magic can do anything!" explanation, maybe that's the problem and not that fighters need broader domains of built-in competence. those seem like things that should be useful and character-defining outside of fights, don't they?

Yes, regrettably, that wasn't me. That was Tolkien, or a shadow of him. An idea. The idea being if he ended up on Scadrial, like me. Though without my spaceship

HOID.

HOID IS ON PAGE AS I AM WRITING THIS POST HE CAME BACK AS ANOTHER INFORMANT THIS TIME IN FADREX CITY

ok but when he first got on page i was excited because i read his description as having white hair, and i know that his Yolin appearance has white hair. then, i thought it wasn't actually him, because he was also described as old.

then hoid mentioned spren and i knew it was him.

also skaa died really young pre-Collapse so his appearance might seem old to vin.

or he just Lightweaved himself to look older.

EDIT: IT WAS NOT HIM

i was talking about a character named Slowswift who i thought was Hoid, but Hoid himself is mentioned by name a page after but doesn't have screentime (at least in the part i'm at)

Welcome to Dragon of the Day, where I give you your daily dose of dragons. Here’s todays dragon. My favorite, Paarthurnax.

God I love Paarthurnax so much. I love that dulled golden color of his scales. I bet they’d be soft if I hugged him. Speaking of hugs, I bet being wrapped up by his wings would be nice…

Anyways, Paarthurnax is from the hit 2011 game, Skyrim. He does cool stuff like debate philosophy, teach you a new language, and get you to kill his brother. He is pretty epic, I give him a 10/10. Screw you Delphine for trying to make me kill him.

That’s all for today’s dragon. I would say come by tomorrow, but you probably shouldn’t.

Well, its not gonna be me, even when I finally do live up to my name.

All things aside, considering the sixth of the dusk sequel preview we got, I'm prone to say something new. Something we haven't seen before. Something that just pulls all the sides apart and it's just a big mess.

I feel like, though, there is a big bad that'll be around. It might be Odium, but considering stormlight, I don't think he'd still have the fused, after 10 books. Considering Kelsier, maybe, but I don't think he'd end up a bona fide big bad, just a meddler. Maybe a villain, definitely and antagonist, but I doubt the big bad.

We already have so many factions and I feel like we're just gonna keep adding onto that, especially as different groups leave planets in different ways, having different groups from different cultures on planets as well as different groups from the same culture on a planet to groups that are unified and from multiple planets.

I do think Kelsier is gonna last longer than Odium though. Hopefully I get the chance to punch him again.