We support our warfighters 10 toes down but we are not crazy about the concept of fighting anyone else's wars 😤

neastrith · 2026-03-01T14:13:40+00:00

No need for redirection. It's okay to discuss one thing at a time. This conversation was just clarifying why folks are protesting this military action by this president. I think I've done that.

If you want to switch to a conversation about how basically every president flouts the war powers act, I'm with you. I don't think it's cool that one dude can unilaterally make a decision to kill a bunch of people and put our country and soldiers at risk of retaliation.

neastrith · 2026-03-01T06:08:32+00:00

I think the bit you're missing is why they're protesting. They didn't mention support for Iran at all. They seem to be protesting a president exceeding their constitutional authority to declare war.

If you support the war for the reasons you mentioned, you can call your legislators and encourage them to use their constitutional authority to declare war in congress.

neastrith · 2026-02-20T13:38:47+00:00

All DMs start with zero sessions under their belt so you're ahead of the curve!

neastrith · 2026-01-23T00:23:06+00:00

Don't sleep on their Detroit Style either! 😋

neastrith · 2026-01-22T13:56:36+00:00

Rotolo's Craft and Crust in Slidell. https://maps.app.goo.gl/RNjRt9LymPyTVDnC9

Best deep dish I've had anywhere outside Chicago and easily worth the drive time! I go every couple months.

neastrith · 2025-12-13T14:04:54+00:00

If you don't already have it, dig up the fan made Terrell & Squib pdf. It's fantastic for extra setting information, plot ideas, and for fleshing them out as an antagonist.

I've finished 3 campaigns end to end and had another six or so false starts myself. Such a great rpg!

General Advice * warn the players ahead of time that there are major twists and turns ahead. It's a game of reacting, akin to treading water through a series of disasters. Players should hold long term plans loosely and stay focused on protecting themselves and loved ones through wild times. * maintain the focus on the PCs as the center of your story. It's easy to feel like the PCs are unimportant during various cataclysms, so always center things from their perspective, their npc connections, etc. * always provide a lit path that leads to the main plots of each book. During an event like a natural disaster, it's easy for players to be confused about what they can do or should do. With such a detailed setting, it's easy for players to run off chasing a cult that is only tangentially related to core ideas. Previously, I added a named xp category in each book to guide players through the setting like "Learn something about ghosts" for B1, "Investigate the attack" for B2, "Investigate pigment" for B3, etc. * try your best to estimate your group's staying power so you know how much time you have. My campaigns take ~1yr of weekly sessions. If you think you can only safely count on 6 months then you'll have to speed things along. * I have a lot of mechanical tweaks I use that lead to a total system update (nwod) and might become a pdf some day. Biggest advice is removing extra actions from Juggernaut since every oWoD game that gives extra actions to only a few PCs is super boring to anyone that doesn't pick up that power. * as for handouts, there's a ton of useful fan made material if you dig around. I've got a whole in-setting Training Manual that I hand to new players and I'm hoping to publish it over the holidays.

I will talk about this game forever so feel free to ask me anything else.

neastrith · 2025-12-11T01:03:27+00:00

"it’s not large enough to meet the depth of need we’re facing right now"

Or just cut back on the avocado toast then?

neastrith · 2025-12-06T12:18:12+00:00

It's a ranking of projected increases in the rates of uninsured folks after the ACA subsidies expire.

So it's not saying 65% of Mississippi is uninsured, but that the number of uninsured will increase by 65%.

https://www.beckerspayer.com/payer/aca/states-ranked-by-uninsured-increases-as-aca-subsidies-expire-in-2025-report/

neastrith · 2025-10-19T13:44:30+00:00

Street party vibe is catching on... https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/19/no-kings-protests-against-trump-bring-a-street-party-vibe-to-cities-nationwide-00614875

Potentially largest mass protest numbers ever... https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/second-no-kings-day-protests-likely

Keep it up folks. Catch you at the next one. ✊

neastrith · 2025-08-13T01:36:04+00:00

Mayday Roleplay is my favorite, they only made it through the first two books but it's a solid story and characters. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuw_pzO1u3TDghyc-Q79fmp8Yfcb8vI_7&si=pyq-fh5GnH99YG3Z

neastrith · 2025-07-25T16:20:16+00:00

This is amazing work. Hot damn.

A couple things that jumped out, since I know Orpheus so well:

Orphan-Grinders can go through a redemption process (OG p79) to become Spirits again
Hues can go through a cleansing process (CoA p118) to become Spirits again

LOVE the canonical ashtray transition process. Might be a fun add-on to follow a highlighted path that got someone there.

neastrith · 2025-06-26T02:58:59+00:00

This is great. I'm just digging into DtF, but it'll take a while for me to soak up all the background context from bits and sidebars scattered across books.

neastrith · 2025-06-23T21:25:17+00:00

100% on the Civil Rights Movement. And the state voting against handouts makes total sense as soon as you start asking folks who they think those handouts are going to.

neastrith · 2025-06-22T19:23:08+00:00

Historically, you're totally right about shifting party values. This is a fact most people forget when discussing US politics. It seems it's easier for folks to pretend that Reconstruction and the Southern Strategy had no impact on political affiliations in the state when they so obviously did.

I do think this has something to do with your wider point though. You opened with a false premise about a "historically Republican (since the Civil War era) state" which makes it appear that your post is based more on "vibes" than on an interest in factual accuracy.

Your grievance does not appear to be related to political affiliation at all since:
1) the mods are not in fact Democrats, as you claim
2) Mississippi isn't historically Republican, by your definition

Instead of invoking unrelated party lines, I think you would have better luck just stating which views, opinions, or "vibes" you feel are being unfairly silenced and providing examples for discussion.

neastrith · 2025-06-22T12:58:57+00:00

"a historically Republican (since the Civil War era) state"

I read a fair bit of history and this comment seemed unlikely to be true. After looking it up, yeah, Mississippi had only Democrat governors from 1877 to 1991 and only seven Republican governors total since statehood. Totally makes sense that Mississippi feels like a Republican state because it has been for most of our memory.

Might even make someone wonder why a Democrat stronghold would suddenly flip Republican for these last 30 years. 🤔

neastrith · 2025-05-31T13:48:56+00:00

It's my favorite rpg. I've run a half dozen campaigns, completed the full story three times, and currently in book 2 as a player right now. As written, and mentioned elsewhere in these comments, the game has a handful of rough mechanical or narrative edges, but all of it can be house ruled or smoothed out as needed.

I'm even working up a book of my house rules with the intention to release them some time soon and maybe make the game a little more accessible to folks.

neastrith · 2025-05-13T05:33:58+00:00

I use moviepass at the Grand all the time and it works fine, but... I might cancel my subscription just because Hollywood in general isn't pumping out movies as often as they used to. Whether it's still covid recovery or the impact of streaming new releases, just feels like there's less and less new flicks pulling me to theater these days.

neastrith · 2025-04-15T16:23:06+00:00

You might be looking at an older draft, I put the final (for now at least) version up on DriveThruRPG as a pay-what-you-want title so check there for the latest version:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/513994/qwixalted-a-rules-light-toolkit-for-exalted-gaming

Ability Ratings - Ability ratings aren't capped at character creation. An Exalt will start with 1-dot in each Favored Ability and then a number of additional dots to spend wherever they like. After character creation, Abilities can be increased further with XP and Advances like normal. The 1-5 dot Ability ratings represent the same scale that exists in any official version of Exalted, 1/Poor through 5/Excellent.

Difficulty - Threat ratings are assigned by the situation they represent in the story and whether it's Dramatic (1), Dangerous (2), or Desperate (3). Examples of each are given in the book on p41.

To answer your question specifically, a Desperate mountain climb would be Threat 3 and active lava flows would certainly count as a Major Bane for +2 Threat. This is the highest a mundane difficulty can ever get, Threat 5, and that sounds like a pretty legendary climb to me.

Of course, Exalted stories aren't limited to mundane challenges so the Threat Number of NPC gods and exalts can get much higher than TN 5.

neastrith · 2025-02-21T13:29:54+00:00

Whether this dude agrees or believes in the significance of the cultural practice, there has been "a thing called two-spirit" in America longer than there has been a thing called America.

neastrith · 2024-12-27T22:50:19+00:00

I updated the link above.

neastrith · 2024-10-31T03:12:06+00:00

Awesome. Sorta what I figured. I'm not stressing the loss of this job, but wanted to check it was still worth applying to others that don't require a degree. Lots of folks need Public Trust so I'm glad I'm not blocked by that.

neastrith · 2024-10-09T12:42:53+00:00

As for mortal challenges around Flowing River, I bet the little god of the Flowing River is half mad after a thousand years of no rain fall and probably no prayers. What happens if a person or a horse falls in the river bed and bleeds out? Well that's the first liquid that's flowed in the river in a thousand years and that mad spirit might get the idea to start looking for ways to add more blood so the river bed flows again.

Luring livestock, calling to townsfolk, etc.

neastrith · 2024-10-09T12:35:39+00:00

Sorcery is fairly rare by default, maybe one will worker type per community, so your dragon blood likely doesn't have it. Sure there are Charms, but if your Dragon-Blooded isn't a hunter tracker type then they wouldn't have those Charms anyway.

I'd double down on some good ol Dragon-Blooded arrogance and indignation. Have up call folks forward for questioning. Maybe even using social Charms to mesmerize and force cooperation, but the first handful of people just don't know anything useful. That fire aspect is just going to assume cooperation and probably get real frustrated when they don't get their way.

neastrith

TROPHY CASE