What You Missed - Neden BBQ [Photos Edition]

 

Yay prizes

 

Plenty of combat tournaments

 

Keeping people hydrated, inebriated, and... fortunated?

 

Neden boys

 

Part of the tournaments of sobriety

 

Gotta have some gambling

 

The straight line battle

 

Disc golf, of course

Tuilli gets Knighted to the Knights of the Steward!

The new Number 2, Jean Baptiste

 

What You Missed - Neden BBQ

Written by: Emma "Irri" Sherman 

Traveling to Neden this past weekend was a chance to embrace great weather and greater friends. The day started with your standard barbeque foods, a lovely bar supplied by Ser Elizah (with some delicious mocktails that I thoroughly enjoyed), and some limited tournaments marshaled by Meatball. There were also hidden cashes of treasure hidden throughout the land which many bravely set out to find. For those uninterested in fighting, the Tournaments of Sobriety were there! I drank so much water, and got prizes for it!

As the sun set on the Castle, court was called. Murmur (Tulli) was Knighted into the Knights of the Steward. Lilly was squired to the Knights of the Steward. Bestie JB was made Neden’s Second by Sir Syruss.

Overall, it was a nice day to spend with friends.

Sincerely,

Initiate Irri

Word from the West - Ghost of CHANce: Fixing Chan

Organized by:  Brookelyn "Rowan" Gingras

Written by: John "Gordon" Rescigno

Discovered near the grounds of the Church of Aurora in Chimeron City is a piece of paper, cracked and broken but held together with jagged lines of red material, and painful to the touch.

“You must have missed a domino. I appreciate your meddling, and look forward to seeing you all again. Our time together in Darkvale was too short for my liking, and with my current power I’m sorry to say I won’t be able to host you as I would prefer.

Thank you for providing me a vessel to come into this new realm, though no doubt I will tire of it soon. In the meantime, I’m sure little Danny and I will be fast friends."

What You Missed - Ghost of CHANce: Fixing Chan

Written by: Alistair "Kasca" Gilmour

Long ago, Sir Chan Ottokar sacrificed himself to protect his friends and ensure Rexan’s defeat.  Nearly two years later, Adventurers of the Realms stepped up to venture into Gaol and recover the pieces of their fallen friend.

After Margaret opened a portal to Gaol, we found ourselves in Garm’s domain.  He was prepared for our arrival and put on display the soul we sought to reconstruct and the scales we had to balance.  Our objectives were clear: Purify Angelbane, cleanse Corruption with the Hammer of Justice, fight for the fragments of Chan, and balance the scales so that the purpose of his sacrifice would not be undone.

We set out to meet the Silver Legion, and the spirit of Darkvale confronted us along the way.  The angel, Chan, greeted us and reunited with his old friends.  After much discussion, the angel insisted on purifying Angelbane.  N was willing to surrender the cursed weapon, but there was a misunderstanding, and the Silver Legion took Angelbane by force.

Justari’s Red Knight met us after our unsuccessful return and warned us about the forces we were meddling with.  Chan’s soul bore the weight of many sins he committed during his life, and that weight had to be lifted before we could restore his soul.  There were twelve sins, and twelve noble adventurers stepped up to take them as their own.

Purifying Angelbane was not the only reason why we sought the Silver Legion.  We also needed a divine spark to reforge the Hammer of Justice.  We were hoping for Chan’s wings, but couldn’t negotiate for them, so we had to make do with what we had, and we split into two teams.

One team set out to fight for Chan’s identity as a Knight of the Crown, but Zula bois stood in their way.  Not even swords imbued with light were enough to fight the Infinite Dark, and the adventurers were forced to retreat.

Meanwhile, a smaller team of adventurers brought pieces of the Hammer of Justice to Hephaestus, the god of the forge, so that he could reforge it.  He requested embers to light his forge, and slime to glue the pieces together.  James Swift, determined to prove his devotion, collected so much slime from the bog that even Hephaestus was surprised!  With the forge lit and the hammer covered in slime, Hephaestus went to work and reforged it, then he used the hammer to cleanse Corruption.

The two teams reunited, adventurers set out to claim the Red Branch in Fae, but something was strange.  Upon entering the plane, everyone became fae, and the fae became even more fae.  They scrambled to avoid Wayland blades, eventually stealing the red branch and running.  Those who were less fortunate were rescued by a fae dragon who wanted to be their best friend forever and ever and ever…

We knew we had to confront Dionin’s Avatar, but before we did, we had to right one of Chan’s wrongs.  Margaret carried the skulls of the angels Chan had slain, and it was time to bring them back to life.  A great ritual was conducted, and we succeeded.  The angel Chan sought us out, and we told him our plans to confront Dionin’s Avatar.  If we were to bring Chan back as a mortal, both the angel of the Silver Legion and Dionin’s Avatar could exist no longer.  The angel understood and accepted the fact.

We set out to battle Dionin’s Avatar. The angel confronted him directly while the rest of us fought his minions.  It was a long, brutal battle made difficult by the Avatar’s resilience, but when it appeared we’d run out of time, all shining steel was granted Valor, and we made one final push and emerged victorious.

Our task wasn’t yet complete. We still needed to balance the scales.  We all scrambled and sacrificed parts of our souls to match the sacrifice that killed Chan in the first place.  Our time quickly ran out, and Garm shut himself in his office to check the scales.  He emerged to tell us we were successful and sent us away, but our balancing act wasn’t perfect, and a fragment of Rexan, the slain god, escaped into the Realms.

In due time, the Storyteller will use the fragments of Chan’s soul to create a new being named Amawar.  Before the book can be closed, the final chapter must be written, and that responsibility has fallen to me.

Why I Want To Go - Ashen Adventures

Written by: Greg "Daekara" Falconer

For several years now Ashenmark has throw a fascinating plot with fun mechanics and great encounters in a far off isle of Pacifica. With content that engaged the players from building their own town to fun little mini dungeons to help support the over arching quest there is constantly something to do to engage in some way. The staff is fun and provides both hilarious and dramatic moments. With this event being the finally you’ll get to see what adventures have worked towards and help take down Thea Dalma an encounter that will have stories told about it
for years to come. There are few spots left so you should pre reg now!

Introducing the Rhiassa Tube (W)!

by Jason "Aeston" Rosa

If you frequent the Realms Discord and have spent any time catching up on the #weapon-construction channel there isn't a lot I'm going to say that you don't already know. But in an attempt to keep the majority of the game properly informed, I would like to tell you all about the Rhiassa Tube (W).

As most of you know, the majority of manufacturers for the 5/8" foam that we use for weapons have stopped producing it. This has been a slow process as stock of the foam can still be found here or there but ultimately the situation is near it's breaking point. There are various solutions to this problem that have been pursued by people across the community with various ranges of success.

I would like to introduce you all to my attempt to address this problem, the Rhiassa Tube (W).

fig1. From left to right: A pool noodle, the current common Frost King Foam, Rhiassa Tube (W)

The Rhiassa tube W, simply stated, is a custom manufactured extrusion of polyethene foam. This is the same type of foam that is used in Frost King insulation. I located an oversees manufacturer in Asia that would produce this foam per specifications. The white material on the right in the above photo is a sample of that material.

I set out to verify that this new foam was at least equal in quality to Frost King. I'm going to run through some of the testing I did in this article. 

At the end I will talk about the ordering process. Scroll down to the bottom if you want to skip the science and get to the business.

First I thought it would be wise to take a close look at the size of the cells in the foam. Larger cells are an indication of a weaker material as there is less support for the structure of the foam internally.

fig2. Equally magnified, the cell structure of each material

The fact that the new material is white makes it a bit harder to see but it's clear that the cell size is smaller than a pool noodle and somewhat equivalent, if not a little smaller, than the Frost King foam.

In order to try and get an understanding of how it would hold up to compression, an indication of how long it would last in combat before it wore out, I used some woodworking clamps.

fig 3. The clamp I used to test compression

fig 4. The clamp placed on each material.

It is clear how much more the pool noodle compresses, and we already know through anecdotal evidence that pool noodles break down a lot quicker. The Rhiassa Tube (W) compresses to a degree that is comparable to the Frost King foam.

To further test compression and help predict how much the foam would hold up through use, I designed another compression test. I took a small ring of each foam and put a piece of bamboo in the center to simulate a core material. I placed it inside my workshop vice with the aim of popping as many cells as I could by squeezing it.

fig 5. The testing method used in this second compression test. Top-left: the rings of foam I tested. Top-right: marking the sides that would be squeezed with red marker and the bamboo core insert. Bottom-left: the degree to which each foam sample was compressed. Bottom-right: The foam cut into pieces for measuring with the clamp.

Once I had cut the foam down to work with more easily, I subjected it once again to the woodworking clamp. My assumption is that how much it compressed would give us an indication of how many cells broke and how well the foam would hold up to repeating stress in combat.

fig 6. The compression of the clamp on each material after being crushed in the vice.

In this test it seemed that the Rhiassa Tube (W) really showed its merit. It compressed the least and seems to have had the least number of cells be destroyed in the vice. It was a good indication that this new material would work for us.

Among the tests that I did was a simple mass measurement to make sure weapons made with this foam would be about the same weight as our current ones. Putting a 6" length of each type of foam on a scale I got the following results (in grams): 

So the Rhiassa Tube (W) does have a bit more mass. It is slightly more dense and that is probably what contributes to the smaller cell size and the better performance against compression. But I believe it's not so much extra weight as to make weapons too heavy. A standard single short that has 30" of foam on it would weigh 1 gram more than a sword make with Frost King.

In the next test I wanted to try compression over a longer period of time, so I set up a rig that would allow me to weigh down a sample of each tube and see how much it compressed over time. Two pounds of weight was set on top of each foam sample.

fig 7. The testing set up for sustained compression.

I ran the experiment for 24 hours to get an idea of how much the foam would compress over time and how much it would go back to its original shape after the compression experiment ended. The results are below.

Again, the new foam performed well. Much better than the pipe foam as it compressed less overall and also returned much more closer to its original diameter. It was a very similar performance to that of the Frost King foam.

I also wanted to try a puncture test, a measurement of how much abuse the material could take from incidental damage like hitting a stick when swung in the woods or catching the edge of some rigid armor. Things that happen more rarely but are still a part of the reality of combat.

I created a testing rig using a Philips head screwdriver to do the puncturing. It would allow me to measure how much weight would need to be added to the top of the screwdriver in order to move it into the foam a certain amount.

fig 8. The puncture test. Left: The screwdriver that was used. Center: The testing rig. Right: The red lines show how far the screwdriver would have to move for me to end the test and record the weight.

In the case of each type of foam the weight would, at first, cause the foam to compress. But for the screwdriver to move the full distance between the red lines shown in figure 8, the screwdriver did have to puncture through the foam's surface. The amount of weight needed to move the distance between the lines in shown in the table below.

As with every other test up until now the performance of the Rhiassa Tube (W) is much better than that of a pool noodle and comparable to that of Frost King. In this case in particular, anecdotal observation leads me to believe that the extrusion process of the white foam leads to a slightly more dense "skin" around its exterior which helped it perform better in this test.

I did one quick final test to gain some insight into the tensile strength of the foam. I placed a PVC core in each of them which I attached to a surface. On the other end I placed a different piece of PVC pipe and suspended two pounds of weight. I was endeavoring to see how much the foam between the two lengths of PVC would deform under the stress of the weight pulling down.

fig 9. The set up for the tensile strength test.

I measured how much bend there would be in each foam sample. My assumption is that less bend indicates a material that is more internally robust and deforms less due to stress. The results were as follows:

In this case the pool noodle performed better than expected, but in retrospect that is largely due to the larger internal diameter and greater wall thickness which would allow it to resist deformation to a greater extent. The Frost King foam and the Rhiassa Tube (W) however had virtually the same internal diameter and wall thickness and the Rhiassa Tube performed much better.

In conclusion, I feel confidant making the claim that the Rhiassa Tube (W) is not inferior to Frost King pipe foam and has the added advantage of not having a seam in it beyond all the tests mentioned above. I am confidant based on these results that we as a community should buy enough to be widely distributed and used, put through its paces in combat, and learn more over time. I think it's worth the investment given what it will solve.

The Part About Ordering

I have a purchase order all set up with the oversees manufacturer of the Rhiassa Tube (W). It is an order for their minimum of 1000 pieces which will be delivered directly to my door.

The price, including all tooling, shipping and handling, tariffs and taxes comes to more than $3 per 36" length of foam.

I'd like to not take on the entire financial burden of getting them over here myself, so I am asking other groups and individuals to pre-order foam in a bundle of at least 20 pieces. Anyone who is pre-ordering in that manner will be able to get their foam for $3/piece. The remainder that I purchase and store should be enough to last the Realms for a couple of seasons at least and I will distribute that to anyone who wants any amount of it for $4/piece.

The whole processes of manufacturing and shipping will take about 6 weeks so my hope is to order by the end of the month so we can get our foam in June.

If anyone is willing to be a part of the pre-order please send me a private message over social media or email me at jason.t.rosa@gmail.com

Thank you for reading along this far and I hope you are looking forward to the results of this endeavor as much as I am.

In service,

Jason

fig 10. Foamy, the mascot of Rhiassa Tube (W)

Introducing Saurian Sprint!

by Jason "Aeston" Rosa

Several years ago Rhiassa Games introduced to the Realms a brand new table game called Luck of the Lion, seen since then at several Feast of the Leviathan events and at the Clontarf Shuffle as well. The will behind that project was to introduce custom Realms-themed table games to the community to make the casino experience in our game more unique.

Now Rhiassa Games, with the kind cooperation of the Saurabian Casino and the Church of Tychasaurus, would like to introduce the next table game in that series.

Saurian Sprint!

Saurian Sprint is meant to capture the feel of being in Norlund watching the dinosaur races on a sunny day, a betting slip in your hand, hoping to take it all on the long odds of a dark hose (dino) coming from behind and winning big. It's a dynamic, interactive table game where anything can happen with the next roll of the dice.

Nine dinosaurs start lined up to race on the track on the left side of the board. That series of squares is meant to represent a 3-lap race track (with the final lap elongated to simulate how hard it is to bring it all home when exhaustion starts to set in).

The dealer rolls two six-sided dice and the result indicates which dinosaur then moves one space forward on its track. If the same result comes up twice in a row it could even result in some bonus movement for some of the dinosaurs. The dealer continues to roll the dice and move dinos forward until a first, second, and third place cross the finish line.

There are lots of ways to bet during Saurian Sprint!

In the center of the table are a series of red rectangles that are the prop bets. These are all bets that must be made before the race begins and are of all kinds, from betting on the specific place dinos will finish in to bets about which dinos will outpace other dinos.

To the right of all the prop bets are the place bets. These are bets about which dinosaurs will have crossed the finish line when the race is over. WIN means being the first dino to cross the finish line. PLACE means being the first or second dino to cross. SHOW means being the first, second, or third to cross.

The largest block of bets where you can see WIN, PLACE, and SHOW are all bets that must be made before the race starts, but you can also place bets during the middle of the race.

As the race develops and you can see which dinosaurs sprint out ahead, you can make further bets. While all dinosaurs are still on the first lap, you can make bets on which ones will WIN or PLACE. And as long as no dino has crossed onto the final lap, you make still make bets on which one will WIN. All these bets are further on the right side of the board.

A more thorough explanation of the rules and odds can be found on the Rhiassa web page at: http://rhiassa.com/games/gambling.html

Rhiassa games is proud to introduce this game to the Realms and have it premiere at this year's Clontarf Shuffle in a few weeks.

Special thanks to Pi Fisher for calculating all of the odds for this game and Carol Wohlmuth for painting the dinosaur minis.