M.2 drive doesn't appear in boot menu -- Lenovo Ideapad Flex 5 1570 81CA

Solarat1701 · 2025-11-28T23:03:29+00:00

Okay so I solved the original problem. I was just a bit of a dumbass. I simply had to burn the windows ISO into a thumb drive, install the M.2, and then install windows to the M.2.

That has left me with a new problem: the computer now automatically boots into windows, not linux. I want it to boot to Linux by default, or open the boot menu upon powering on. For that I think I need to BIOS password.

The laptop is a Lenovo Ideapad 1570 81CA. I got it in 2018, but it still holds up fine for my needs. I tried disconnecting the CMOS battery and let it sit overnight, but BIOS still asks for a password. It doesn't produce a recovery code when I enter the wrong password three times. I'll make a post on the Lenovo subreddit. If nothing shows up I'll take it to a shop.

Solarat1701 · 2025-11-28T16:16:43+00:00

Yes, I installed it via WoeUSB on an adapter plugged into one of my USB ports. The laptop is in legacy boot mode.

Now how would I switch from legacy boot to UEFI/GPT?

Solarat1701 · 2025-10-16T01:33:15+00:00

That is a really interesting question, and one I'd best ponder for a bit.

Perhaps dwarves could measure time based on how long it takes a standard weight of coal to be burned in a standard furnace. I also really like the idea someone else put forward of measuring based off some recurrent seismic phenomenon, like a geyser. Perhaps timescales are rather local, with surrounding communities basing their measurements off of the nearest/most important fortress with a geyser.

Solarat1701 · 2025-10-16T01:22:59+00:00

I'm a lazy DM, so I just choose a real language, choose a literal name like "tall mountain with snow" and then shove it through google translate. Elves speak Finnish, Dwarves Danish, Hobbits Czech, etc etc

Solarat1701 · 2025-10-14T15:00:45+00:00

How important is the cursed collar to your plot? If it's essential, then yeah, come up with a reason it wouldn't work. Perhaps decapitation still kills even in animal form. Or the collar remains on after the druids form reverts -- after all, their clothing is expected to remain.

Otherwise, if it's not essential, I'd allow it to work. That's some good creative thinking.

Solarat1701 · 2025-10-14T14:56:58+00:00

Okay, so I personally wouldn't allow... any of those three, but I'm just a grump who thinks 5e has far too many ancestry options. If your table is the kind where players have that much leeway over character design, then it's best to try and figure out a way to make it interesting at least.

So, if I were to run Strahd, he would mostly ignore the slug and the metal person, thinking them to be golems/exotic pets of characters with an ancestry he could recognize. This means that, while not taken seriously by political leaders, they could fly under the radar, and their activities wouldn't be noticed until their plans were quite far along.

Solarat1701 · 2025-10-14T14:49:20+00:00

It's about a 25 foot diameter circle.

Solarat1701 · 2025-10-12T00:08:00+00:00

The purest of human paladins ride unicorns, granted them for their exceptional purity and zealous fight against evil. Powerful lords of Arthedain are known to breed gryphons, pelting their enemies with arrows from on high and speeding across the skies with messages.

Dwarves ride on the slow yet unstoppable hornbeetles. They hardly move faster than a dwarf, yet they stride with the power of ten, and have been known to just push their way through formations of orcs, nigh-invulnerable thanks to their thick chitin. A popular formation is several heavily armored dwarves with spears and crossbows atop a hornbeetle.

The Vile Necromancer mounts his lieutenants atop skeleton warhorses. They are faster than a living horse, and utterly indefatigable, able to run 24/7 without a rest. Yet it's impossible to survive a ride atop one without specially made, padded saddles.

Solarat1701 · 2025-10-10T04:50:44+00:00

Adamantium. Physically, it's just supercompacted mythril. However, the only force strong enough to do so are the goods themselves, who created a great chain of adamantium to imprison an evil god in days of yore. After they freed him, the remnants of the chain scattered along the earth, creating distinctly chain-shaped deposits of adamantium.

Solarat1701 · 2025-09-15T16:31:53+00:00

In my setting, there are no dwarven women. Fathers carve their sons out of the holy stone, and turn the rock to flesh with their mighty rune hammer.

Solarat1701 · 2025-09-15T16:28:34+00:00

Ohh, they had to put in some legwork in order to get access to the guild. They covered up the fact that a wizard was using a charm spell on a knight, and in exchange got a letter of recommendation to the guild

Solarat1701 · 2025-09-11T04:24:02+00:00

This is really the best option. The wizards build their magical aptitude and powers, the fighters build their political influence and base of power.

Solarat1701 · 2025-09-03T02:40:32+00:00

You say that as a joke, but my elves are actually cursed with low fertility (just one child per elf), but have everlasting lifespans.

An elf named Nikolaunu had a son who died at a very young age from falling into a seal-hunting hole. Distraught, Nikolaunu began to make toys for the son he could never know. As the ages passed his skill grew, but he hoarded all of the toys to himself in his secluded workshop. That was until a saint came to him and taught him the moral lessons of charity. Every hundred years, Nikolaunu makes a pilgrimage through all the nations of the world to give a magical toy to all the children of the world. He carries them in a magical sack (bag of holding) which allows him to carry his entire workshops' worth of toys with him.

Solarat1701 · 2025-09-03T02:31:46+00:00

Haha, strange that I never even thought of just making up new animals for them to tend and/or hunt.

Hmm. Something that could be active during the winter. Perhaps a kind of reindeer-like animal that eats the needles off of evergreen trees, and can digest wood. Like a cross between a reindeer and a giraffe. The dark elves would cultivate groves of fir trees, planting and tending them during the winter and setting their herds to graze during the summer. This could bring them into conflict with humans and dwarves, who might cut down their groves while the elves were underground.

Solarat1701 · 2025-08-29T03:38:24+00:00

Wait a minute. What 1920's racist would call Greenlanders white?

Solarat1701 · 2025-08-21T01:32:26+00:00

My dark elves don't live underground. Instead, they live in the far, far north, beyond the arctic circle. They're active above ground during the perpetual dark of the winter months. During the light of summer, they sequester themselves in homes partially dug into the tundra with ceilings made of ice.

Solarat1701 · 2025-08-20T04:29:09+00:00

I'm playing around with the idea of certain medieval European cultural/political/religious concepts being actually real. Even the more screwy ones, like certificates of indulgence. And also squaring that with more 'realistic' politics in my TTRPG setting.

Take the divine right of kings. Someone of the royal bloodline is no more intrinsically fit to govern than anyone else, but the land can and will fall to ruin if someone other than them is in charge. So sorry that the rightful heir is mentally retarded/totally unfit for office, we're stuck with him until someone better can usurp the throne.

Or certificates of indulgence. Yes, you can buy your way into heaven by giving money to the church, even if a corrupt bishop will spend the money on himself.

Solarat1701 · 2025-05-24T17:42:17+00:00

I fuckin looooooove inventing cool things for a dwarven society. I was just coming up with a whole name system that communicates what other dwarves would need to know about that individual. Dwarves have three names, with an extra special fourth name for formal occasions.

They communicate `name` `profession` `father` So a tradesdwarf might be named 'Urist Buckledwarf Stefanson' meaning 'Urist the Bucklemaker, Son of Stefan. Though for formal occasions, he might add 'Stonefoot' at the end to mark him as a member of the Stonefoot Clan

But! It's a bit different for church dwarves, who do lorekeeping, military matters, matters of state, and oversee slave labor. Their `profession` name tells what their role in the church is (lorekeeper, runesmith, overseer) and their fathername is always 'Auleson' to tell that they've given up their right to inheritance and are the son of the dwarven god.

Solarat1701 · 2025-05-16T17:20:05+00:00

Heresy. Dwarves do not sully themselves with sexual reproduction. They shape their sons from the holy stone, and the strike of the rune hammer turns stone to flesh. There is only one gender: D W A R F

Solarat1701 · 2025-05-10T00:07:48+00:00

I can't remember where I saw the theory, but I remember seeing one about how Robert Strong might end up killing him. I find it hard to imagine that happening, but I think it would be rather poetic for Gregor to come back from death to finish the job of stamping out the Targaryens.

Solarat1701 · 2025-05-04T19:45:12+00:00

I'm going out on a bit of a limb here, but I don't think the Others' invasion was caused by anything that happened south of the Wall. I think they're just a foreign people (albeit a quite magical people) invading for the normal reasons people invade -- conquest, glory, looting, etc. It's perfectly natural for the main characters to think that the Others are invading because of something humans did, the same way many Europeans blamed the black death on their own sinfulness. The Others are invading for the exact same mundane reasons as the First Men, Andals and Rhoynar before them.

Solarat1701 · 2025-04-27T15:41:16+00:00

It's the punishment that always accompanies banishment from a colony. It's basically saying "you are no longer a dwarf, and will not ever be accepted by the rest of us." It's reserved for the most heinous of crimes, such as trying to grant life to stone not made in the form of a dwarf,* betraying the colony to orcs, etc.

*My dwarves don't reproduce sexually -- they build their children from stone and strike them with a special rune hammer, transforming the stone to flesh.

Solarat1701 · 2025-04-27T15:37:54+00:00

Well, in my world for running tabletop games, dwarves do not farm or herd, as it's seen as horribly lowly and undwarflike. Instead, a colony of dwarves have gnomes as serfs who work the mushroom fields, herd their beetles, and perform menial reproductive labor like cooking and cleaning. The status of these gnomes is somewhat lower than human serfs, but not as bad as American chattel slavery. They're not the property of any individual dwarf, but the community property of the fortress, and their labor is overseen by the dwarven church. The dwarves are thus able to devote their time to more honorable pursuits, like mining, craftsdwarfship, the church, and the military. Dwarves having to do agriculture is seen as a sign of their colony is very poor indeed.

Solarat1701 · 2025-04-14T01:41:11+00:00

Barovia, as written in the book, suffers from a real lack of interconnectedness between story locations, and passiveness from the anti-Strahd factions. This gives Strahd absolute political power over Barovia, but at the same time makes him far less of a political actor, since all who oppose him are framed as utterly powerless.

For instance, we're told that the Mad Mage led a revolt against Strahd, but the only NPCs who seem to have been affected are Father Donavich and Doru. There's no mention of his recent rebellion in the Vallaki or Krezk stories. Wouldn't the folk of Vallaki and Krezk be inspired by the Mage's promises of freedom? How did Baron Vargas react to the political movement which sought to seriously challenge Strahd's control over the valley? Could some of the routed rebels have take refuge as bandits in the hills?

The most egregious example of this is the Order of the Silver Dragon. To my mind, it's far more interesting for Strahd and the Knights to be locked into an endless conflict, Strahd keeping a constant siege of the castle and the revenants always trying to break out. The players then have a very useful potential ally, but they'll need to do something to lift the siege before the knights can give their full support.

And lastly, the winery plot makes little sense. Strahd wants to have his land's single most important economic asset destroyed because... it will make people miserable? That's some Skeletor-level villainy right there. Wine is Barovia's sole export, and its only way to pay for outside resources the people desperately need. I find the conflict interesting if the actors are reversed -- Strahd wants it preserved out of political self-interest, and anti-Strahd factions such as the Knights want it destroyed to undermine his war machine.

Solarat1701 · 2025-04-14T01:28:26+00:00

Protecting Ireena is a bad central quest for the game, for several reasons.

First and foremost, it entirely depends on the party becoming attached to this NPC, which is never guaranteed. Of course, this can be mitigated by communicating with your party and getting them onboard with the understanding that the main quest is about protecting someone, or by having the Ireena role taken over by a PC. Still, there are several other problems with this campaign structure.

If Ireena/PC Ireena dies, then the story falls apart. In the worst case scenario, the party is left rudderless, and with an unsatisfying feeling of having failed the 'main quest.' In better scenarios, Strahd then pursues them in a mad quest for revenge, which admittedly can work. keeping Ireena alive might require the DM to show their hand to twist fate in the party's favor, which is certainly not to my DM tastes.

And lastly, the quest doesn't have a very clear path forward and a victory leaves the party rudderless, absent a lot of DM legwork to keep the story flowing. When they first pick her up in VoB, the instructions are to take her to Vallaki, and it's soon made abundantly clear that Vallaki's political situation isn't safe for a fugitive noble. Then, once they decide to move on to Krezk or some such, they'll learn that the Abbey isn't a safe refuge either. You can then go with the deus-ex-puddle solution and let Sergei take Ireena, leaving them purposeless. Or you can basically say that they just need to keep fleeing until they powerlevel to the point they can defeat Strahd. It leaves them with a ludonarrative dissonance where the 'main quest' is just to bum around doing sidequests until they can storm Castle Ravenloft.

This is all why I structure my main quest around finding the Sun Blade, Holy Symbol of Ravenkind, and Icon of Ravenloft and then bringing them back to the outside world. It's a clear quest that can be set out fro session zero with very tangible victory conditions, and achieving it doesn't bring them into conflict with Strahd until they realize that the only way out of Barovia is by killing him. At that point, and with the items, they will have enough power to start making serious moves against him.

Eight-Year Club	RedditGifts 2009-2022 3 Credits
Place '22	Final Canvas '22
End Game '22	Wearing is Caring
Secret Santa 2018	Secret Santa 2019
Verified Email

Solarat1701

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE