Trilodroid

Monday, April 20, 2026

Libre wolf instead of pure FF

Built on FF with all telemetey turned off

Duckduckgo doesn’t use Chrimium

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=np7raX-10G8&t=1034s

GloomRaider - a small TTRPG (free stuff), like Shadowdark

GloomRaider... guy says "Gloomraider is an RPG based on Shadowdark, but with many changes or adjustments taken from or inspired by the 1970s and 80s editions of D&D. In this video I .."

It is interesting, and I'll say very cool for gamer folks to make their own thing to such a degree it's an official release. Wish I had the time and umph to make one.

Well, here is a lot of it for free or pay what you will:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/513378/gloomraider-osr-rpg-quick-start-basic-rules

Free module, basic on purpose: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/515076/gloom-beneath-the-sorcerer-s-tower-osr-adventure-for-gloomraider-rpg?src=also_purchased

I need to go review it, once they make me wait long enough ... reading this free module, it sounds really solid (if simple).

Personally, if it has ascending AC, I wouldn't mind giving it a try. I like what he says here:

Thanks! In short I'd say GloomRaider is like Shadowdark for AD&D instead of 5e. The primary difference is the way various mechanics are handled. I go more with old school D&D mechanics as opposed to 5e mechanics. If you are familiar with all the editions of D&D, you'll see bits and pieces of many of them in GloomRaider, like: - Ability score modifiers are the traditional bell curve -3/+3 (Basic D&D editions) - Modifier improvements are more tied to leveling than increasing ability scores (Pre-WotC D&D) - Racial ability score adjustments (AD&D) - Racial traits (AD&D) - Spells (AD&D & Basic D&D) - Casting spells includes "Vancian" style - Monsters (AD&D) - Class traits more in-line with AD&D Things from Shadowdark that I handle differently: - Advantage/Disadvantage is adding or subtracting 1d4 - Class traits are a bit different, but generated similarly to Shadowdark - Incorporates "roll-to-cast" spells differently - Gear slots is very similar but has slight differences The one-hour real time light is unchanged from Shadowdark. In general GloomRaider is more like AD&D and Basic D&D than 5e and Shadowdark, but is easily adapted into Shadowdark as houserules.

Official description partly says this, which I like:

You have been blessed with certain gifts above the average folk in the world that you have chosen to put to use to either defend the world from those denizens of the dark or simply to raid into the gloom to return with riches and glory. You are known to the common folk as a gloom raider! A hero to some, a menace to others.
The idea behind GloomRaider is to take place in a "world of megadungeons". To do that, take any medieval fantasy/D&D setting (published or homebrew) and advance it 2,000 years after a post-Medieval apocalyptic event where gods, angels, titans, demons, devils, and dragons warred for control of the world. The common peoples living on the surface went underground for protection, carving out vast labyrinths in which they lived for a thousand years before being forced to escape back to the surface. And for another thousand years they've been remaking their civilizations in the sunlit world. Those old underground homes are now the "megadungeons" of the Gloom, as numerous under the lands as cities and towns are on the surface.
Gloomraider is an alt-D&D RPG that came out of work I had been doing to create my own OSR RPG since 2009 after running the Castles & Crusades RPG for a couple years. It is a mix of AD&D, B/X D&D, with some 3e D&D elements and heavily influenced by the Shadowdark RPG, plus some of my own additions.

And he said all money (from the small pay what you will thingie) will go to paying for custom art to put in the main books. Cool.

Sunday, April 19, 2026

Analysis of Alice in Wonderland characters

https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/alice/character/the-mad-hatter/

Saturday, April 18, 2026

Giant statues kiinda kneeling but looking up, Ben Hur movie

In the 1959 Ben Hur movie at the start of the big chariot battle, time 2:43:00 on Tubi.

These statues are weird… remind me of the gnoll boss miniature. Slightly oft proportions, some gands too big n blocky. Stylized tho. Squatting kneeling grimacing, looking upwards clutching their weapons and shields. One guy has an axe and helmet. Another guy, holds his tiny shield like a discus, and he has what looks like a flute... see the bearded statue guy below.

via https://www.peplumtv.com/

See his axe. Note the golden dolphin fish they flipped to keep track of race laps.

The poster even has one of the statues.

And this freaky tree thing... it's like 4 tortured trees merged into one. Or maybe it was one gigantic tree at one time but the middle rotted away, it's hard to tell. Time 3:39 at at other times:

Trivia about the race course (circus), from wikiped: Other elements of the circus were also historically accurate. Imperial Roman racecourses featured a raised 10-foot (3.0 m) high spina (the center section), metae (columnar goalposts at each end of the spina), dolphin-shaped lap counters, and carceres (the columned building in the rear which housed the cells where horses waited prior to the race).^[133]^[135] The four statues atop the spina were 30 feet (9.1 m) high.

Blogs to see: https://www.peplumtv.com/ has a ton of old sword and sandal stuff, pretty cool stuff I've never seen before. Like:

Scenes from QUO VADIS (1951)

Sheids from THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HELEN OF TROY (1927)

Thursday, April 16, 2026

Dnd ish game, Esoteric Ebb

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJaJEUkh_b4

Looks great. Ok, it is a talker… super talker.

Styled after this 2019 game apparently https://www.wired.com/story/disco-elysium-the-final-cut/

Quote

you need similarly obsessed writers. Revachol, the city you’re in, has 1 million words per square kilometer. The game remembers that ludicrous thing you said about art and that mishap you had with that gardener. Your mind—through the talking skills—will later prompt you to become an art critic. And that gardener will eviscerate you for your comments.”

Dark Sun creator writer - Troy Denning

Writes novels too.

And star wars novels. And Halo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3vIoOCh-v4

Space atmosphere trivia; living things size trivia game

Most meteors burn up in the mesosphere... about 48 tons every day.
Temps in the thermosphere can get up to 4500 F but molecules are very far apart, such that a person wouldn't feel the heat (from the "air").
Sprites (atmosphere ... Pecos Hank type) can be 50 km long, while normal lightning is around 4 km in length.
Bar-tailed Godwit is a bird.
There is more than one type of Griffin vulture.

Via

https://neal.fun/space-elevator/

This is awesome too: https://neal.fun/size-of-life/

Polio facts are scary... read up on:

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/history-disease-outbreaks-vaccine-timeline/polio
1948-1955 - Before a polio vaccine became available, several polio epidemics had occurred between 1948 and 1955. Many people avoided crowds and public gatherings, such as fairs, sports games and swimming pools, during this time due to concern about getting polio. Some parents wouldn't let their children play with new friends and regularly checked them for symptoms.

Wow did this attitude affect how parents/grandparents of that time functioned and lived? Wild.

Had no idea about Myxobolus Shekel, the smallest known animal, a parasite.
We produce ~ 1 billion white blood cells a day
Amoebas are weird

Why are water bears so ultra tough?
House mice can fit in a hole the size of a DIME?!

While the largest insect fossil was like 1' 4'' long or something, the giant centi/millipede thing, Arthropleura was 8.5 or maybe 9 feet long. Nine Feet Long. OMG, I knew about this thing, but realizing it is so much bigger than the giant dragonfly-cousin is crazy. The Carboniferous period for the oxygen win I guess (for both of these monsters).

Weird stalked eyes like a crustacean. https://www.sciencing.com/1761804/largest-prehistoric-arthropod-nightmare-fuel/
Kinda a real life Carrion Crawler. Yikes.

Speaking of the giant dragonfly cousin, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meganeura, back then hardly anything was flying. This is before dinos, etc. so like... only insects flew maybe?

A scientist lady on yt said they think insects became strong flyers b/c of birds eating them. So this original giant dragonflycousin was probably more clumsy.

https://a-z-animals.com/animals/insects/the-10-largest-dragonflies-in-the-world/
There is a jellyfish, Lion's Mane, that has a 7 foot diameter top bell thing. OMG. It's sort of taking up the space of a Mammoth, are you kidding me.

Wednesday, April 15, 2026

Portraits for D&D, some ai (puke) tweaking for speed

If I get time, I might just color it myself. The ai, puke, ai stuff is killing me a little.

FINAL I HOPE:

#10, final i hope.

Real from B/X books.

Oh yeah... it combined the blackness of the cloak with the robes so now it looks wonky, like the robes are 6 feet wide at the chest height level.

Manual edit in gimp... slightly better. But now I notice the glyph on the head looks wrong, cuz it looks like it is a metal band sitting right on top of his head. Better to be just drawing this by hand with a pencil and paper.

OK headband kinda fixed, looks less like a metal headband at least. I filled in the glyphs on his robe's arm... meh.

More to do (way more manual edits in Gimp):

need to straight line the cape or remove it.
add more glyphs on the robes, see orig.
I wonder if making all the glyphs more silver and less dull grey would be better. And do they need that outline?

check Raistlin glyphs

no outline
thinner

#10, final I hope. OK, on DNDbeyond, you can't see the rune detail anyway so, glad I didnt' spend time on that. Made the robe more natural (thinner) under his armpit/that side, looks better. Defined the cloak darker, helped. Had to get rid of Swoosh lines, it didn't read correctly on the tiny portrait display on dndbeyond. Also had to make the white outline under his armpit to make it more defined. Seems OK now.

NEED TO DO: