I.S.C.'s - May of 1998 News

May -1998

31st @10:57 A.M. CST:

Meeting: Awe yeah, we had one very "interesting" meeting last night in Palladium. I think I accidently got all my players as confused as hell and they probably think I'm some sort of wacko. Who knows... ;) The important thing is that they're still alive.. now if they only knew why they are alive. hehehe.. We'll get this thing sorted out yet ;) -Rehlman

Nutter Art: My man, Ron Nutter, has been at it again with his latest sketch called Archer. It looks like the archer has elvinish (is that a word?) features... K'traal is also an archer...who is an elf...who probably looks a lot like the picture... Coincidence? I think not ;) -Rehlman

30th @1:00 A.M. CST:

PF Webring: Thoth, the swank organizer of the Palladium Fantasy Webring sent out the statistics for the webring a few days ago. We have 18 sites on the ring now, and they're all pretty high quality so don't be afraid to use that ring down there. ;) -Rehlman

Netscape 4.05: I just noticed something, with the latest version of Netscape, Palladium's main page on their website looks perfect. If you have Netscape 3.0, you'll notice that the main lettering covers part of the PFRPG book picture. You can get the latest version of Netscape here if you like. A little trivia and a plug for you :) Netscape is currently used by roughly 56% of the internet community. MSIE is used by 36% with a mere 8% of the net using other browsers. Netscape's usage is drastically down from previous years because of the Bill Gates Control All Machine. Don't let the machine control you!! Use Netscape =)

Oh yeah, and if you check out Shawn's Palladium Website, in his guest book he has you list a real life person who would make a great Evil NPC. I signed it without looking at the entries first, and put Bill Gates. Then I looked at the other entries, you'd be surprised at how many times his name showed up :) -Rehlman

Chat: Here's a little excerpt from my chatting with Kevin Thorn... thought it was kinda funny ;)

[Rehlman:] "Bahh, about 95% of those Rifts pages are nothing but pretty colors, a few gimmicks, and some neato-nifty weapon that will incinerate the planet in a single shot."

[Kevin:] "Isn't that 95% of Rifts books?"

We love poking fun of Rifts, as if you couldn't tell =) -Rehlman

28th @6:32 P.M. CST:

Skraypers Ships!: The Skrayper's Book for both Heroes and Rifts shipped as of today! Check out what's all in it on the Upcoming Pallaidium Books page (which has also been updated from the news in the transcript). Also take a look at what was said about Skrayper's in the transcript below. -Rehlman

Wishing Well: The Wishing Well has 1 more wish added to it. -Rehlman

AOL Conference: I couldn't make the chat, but Shawn M. (also the writer of the Pirate section of the last Rifter) of the Listserver logged the entire chat session, so if you want to see the entire thing head on over to his awesome website. Otherwise, I pulled all the information pertaining to stuff you might care about and organized it for your viewing pleasure. (that's a lot of cutting and pasting) The words in [Brackets] are stuff I added to make it flow a bit better. Make sure you read it all, there's alot of good info in there! -Rehlman

PFRPG

ShawnM011: What about the Old Kingdom books?

MSiembieda: We've decided Western Empire will probably come out first. There's less rewriting involved

Paladin492: [... So] whats next on that roster?

MSiembieda: Western Empire then the Old Kingdoms

MSiembieda: We've also just accepted a submission for the Eastern Territory from Steve Edwards

MSiembieda: and Bill is working on the Baalgor Wastelands

MSiembieda: Bill also wants to work on the Land of the Damned

ShawnM011: Would anyone like to see a PFRPG book set in one of the past ages?

MSiembieda: That would be great, Kevin plans on doing the Elf-Dwarf wars and the time of a Thousand Magics

Ghoull: Sweet. Time to bring out the rune-powered atrocity machines and legions of elvish doom...

HEROES

Scotter238: skraypers?

MSiembieda: Before you ask Skraypers ships out of here on Thursday morning

MSiembieda: I think you guys will love Skraypers

MSiembieda: Skraypers is actually written with more HU in mind than Rifts

Scotter238: what about the three HU books?

MSiembieda: There being worked on. The Galaxy Guide is hopefully coming in soon then we'll go from there

Scotter238: i was thikning of two N&SS book ideas

MSiembieda: That would be great, we'd be interested in N&S stuff

ShawnM011: Would you be intertested in setting books for N&S?

MSiembieda: Yes

RIFTER

MSiembieda: We're wrapping up the contents of Rifter #3 and putting the overflow in #4

MSiembieda: Nope, it [Rifter #3] will be out July 15

MSiembieda: We still need Palladium Fantasy stuff for the Rifter

MSiembieda: We just sent out a mailing of posters to everyone who subscribe to the Rifter so keep your eyes on the mail box:)

MSiembieda: The [posters are the] Russia cover and the cover to Old Kingdom Mountains

COMPUTER

MSiembieda: I wanted to thank the guys from the list for backing me up today about the character generation program

MSiembieda: I'm trashing the whole idea. I don't want to deal with it now.

Paladin492: How come the computer games?

MSiembieda: We're waiting for updates, haven't heard anything lately:(

CONS

ShawnM011: I will try to be at Incon 98 to meet you.

Black Rift: Incon?

MSiembieda: That would be great, we're looking forward to Incon

MSiembieda: Incon is a con up in Spokane [Washington state] in October.

MSiembieda: Kevin's the guest of honor, I'm just along for the ride

ClanPhnx: Eventually, they'll come east, right? I hope.... =)

MSiembieda: Hopefully, find me a good local con and I'll see what I can do.

Black Rift: What about the midwest? I hate being 1,000 miles from everything

MSiembieda: We live in the midwest, we usually go to Marcon and sometimes Mid Ohio con

RIFTS MINI GAME

Ghoull: That reminds me. Any word on the Rifts mini game?

MSiembieda: Agents of Gaming have sent us the first batch of greens and they are BEAUTIFUL

MSiembieda: It should be out around Gen Con. I'll put a link to their web page on ours for ease of find

ODDS AND ENDS

-Next Books-

ShawnM011: In case I missed it what are the next four books to be coming out?

MSiembieda: Rifts Russia, Rifter #3, Magic of Russia, Western Empire

-Nick Fury-

MSiembieda: Streanko has to be having a fit because he wasn't giving credit

Black Rift: Nick Fury, from Marvel Comics?!

MSiembieda: He actually wrote Nick Fury for two years and created the Agents of Shield

*For more information on America online or the Online Gaming Forum, please call 1-800-827-6364*

26th @11:14 P.M. CST:

The Hunter: I updated the Hunter since he gained a level in our latest adventure, so go check him out. -Wallace

AOL Conference: Thanks goes to Midnght for relaying this off of the Dante list: -Rehlman

We'll be online with an AOL conference tonight at 9:00pm EST. Go to OGF conference center and then click on The Commons. See you there.

Maryann

Palladium

Forum Watch: In a recent message by Alex Bratton he stated that WebRPG is back to how it used to be and it will remain that way. In the message he also states that WebRPG was forced, as a business, to let go of some people in an effort to keep costs low which means that some of the sections that used to be there just won't make it anymore. Btw, he mentioned that they sometimes put in 90+ hour weeks into WebRPG. Now that's a sign of dedication. Best of luck to them in the future. -Rehlman

25th @11:30 P.M. CST:

Forum Watch: Well, it looks like the forum is back to it's old self once again minus some features that used to be there. Will it stay the like this? Probably not, I'm willing to bet this is temporary. I'm thinking they restored the old files to work out the bugs of the new script, because you just don't trash that much effort, do you?-Rehlman

Heroes Contacts: The Heroes Contacts section has been updated once again with the help of Ash. -Rehlman

AD&D: Lately I've been asking around about AD&D vs. Palladium. In my roleplaying career I've only briefly encountered AD&D, and I just want to know why everybody thinks it's better or worse then Palladium. I asked about it on the Palladium Forum and the AD&D forum, should be interesting to see how the thoughts on the forums compare. If you have anything to add, feel free to either E-mail me or put it up on one of the forums. -Rehlman

Upgrade: Well, I finally got Netscape Communicator 4.05. I tried to resist, but hell, you can't hold out forever ;) Anyway you can pick up Netscape 4.05 here. I don't really care for MSIE, so if you want it you'll have to find it. I'm sure Microsoft has the place you can download it from plastered somewhere within 5 feet of you ;) -Rehlman

24th @8:13 P.M. CST:

Heroes Meeting: Awe yeah!, we just had the sweetest Heroes meeting last night. We met up with some old "friends" and we managed to save half of Montana in the process. Neptune's going to be writing up all the lovin' from the past two Heroes meetings for all you people. He should have them done in a few days. -Rehlman

Palladium Exploits: I've managed to get another small part of the Palladium Exploits typed up. I'm beginning to see that light at the end of the tunnel. Soon I'll have the exploits fully typed :) But for now, check out what I have so far. -Rehlman

Coren: Ron Nutter let me use the picture of Coren...eh hem, the picture of the "Faith Defender" on her description page. Thanks goes out to Ron for his kindness. -Rehlman

A Whole New World: Linn and Joakim's PFRPG Website has unvealed just today an entirely new continent for adventuring around on. The continent is south of the main palladium continent and is a set of 5 main islands, with a lot of smaller islands surrounding it. For each of the islands a map and backround is presented as well as a backround for the entire continent which is pretty interesting. Definately worth a look. -Rehlman

22nd @12:24 A.M. CST:

Stuff: Yeah yeah, I know, the theme as of late is "Check out so and so's pages". Sorry bout that. Man, I am looking forward to summer... -Rehlman

Nutter Art: Awe Yeah!, Ron finished off the "Coren" picture in full color and renamed it to "Faith Defender". Quite fitting I think ;) It's looking really sweet. Go ahead and take a look! -Rehlman

Eastern Empire: Palladuim has given Steve Edwards the go ahead to write a source book for the Eastern Empire! The book will be called "The Domain of Man". The book is still in it's very early stages but according to Allison, who got a preview of the book, he already has some fancinating cities with adventures, new skills, new races, and a new type of magic. Thanks goes out to Allison for delivering the news on the PF Listserver. -Rehlman

Forum Progress: Adam Bratton, webmaster of WebRPG, has shown up yet again and let us in on some of the fixes that took place with the new format. The main fix is that your E-mail address won't show up with all your posts anymore. I really don't care, but I guess others did. Anyway, if you're still want to see changes done to the forum, you can go to the WebRPG Community : Discussion Groups : TownHall Forums System group. -Rehlman

20th @5:58 P.M. CST:

Forum Watch: The webmaster of the PF Townhall Forum speaks! It sounds like he's been taking some shit about the new way the Forum and the entire WebRPG has been redesigned. Here's what he had to say in his recent post: -Rehlman

Greetings WebRPG'rs,

I'd like to take a moment to tell you a bit about the changes happening here at WebRPG.

We have rolled out quite a few new features this week including our chat system, the Game Guild online store, the Crusader program and this new forum software. All of these changes are intended to improve life for the general WebRPG community.

To answer some questions about these new features, yes, the new forum software does require a UserID to post entries. Why? Well, this now allows us to add the many forum features we've been planning on that require knowing who the poster is. You'll soon start seeing new features like marking off the posts you've already read, subscribing to the forums you are most interested in, receiving posts via email, searching and sorting through postings, and new online gaming features for TIC and PBP users.

The only big change to the existing forums policy is on anonymity. Being that most of us are (hopefully) mature role players who take responsibility for our actions and given the need to keep track of user posts for the cool new features mentioned above, we have removed the option for posting completely anonymously. If you feel strongly about this issue, please drop us a note via email and let us know your thoughts on it.

In response to user feedback we have already tweaked things a bit: the default number of posts shown at a time is now 100 (BTW- you can change that using the menus at the bottom of the post list) and user email addresses are no longer shown in the user profiles.

The chat system now allows users to select an alias during a chat session -- a feature planned all along, but delayed due to a poorly timed computer crash for one of our developers late yesterday.

We appreciate your feedback and encourage it. Please let us know what you think of the new forum system and what would make it easier and more functional for you. Email your comments to comments@webrpg.com

Finally, let me assure you that we are NOT in the process of becoming the big, evil corporate gaming entity (there's enough of those to go around already). WebRPG is dedicated to our user community and we hope to receive your continued support as we grow.

Thank you,

Alex Bratton

President, WebRPG

19th @11:58 P.M. CST:

Dark Rider Story: The kickass writer you know as Ash wrote up part one of a story for Dark Rider pertaining to some of his "freelance work" that the other Heroes have absolutely no idea about. Ash's great writing makes this one a must read even if you normally don't pay attention to our Heroes happenings. Check out The Black Leather Turncoat!!! -Rehlman

Forum Watch: The PF Townhall Forum has a completely new design. It'll take some getting used to, but overall I think it's an improvment over the old layout. -Rehlman

Coren: Man, either this is some really, really, weird coincidence or Ron Nutter's used Coren's (my character) description and made a sketch of her. Either way, check out the latest sketch titled "Coren" over at Nutter's Art Domain! -Rehlman

18th @11:52 A.M. CST:

Stuff: Ok, sorry for the lack of updates on our part, but with school drawing to a close with-in the next week or so we both have a lot of stuff to do; work has also been taking it's toll. I try my best to make it here daily, and will continue to do so over the summer. But until I get through this grudge week, I wish you happy roleplaying. Rehlman, signing off...

Quotes: I finally got around to changing the quotes in the generator up above. This time we have quotes from Magic: The Gathering cards. Enjoy! -Rehlman

Banner: Neptune created the new banner that you see above. I think it's pretty sweet, and you know what all the old ones look like already ;) I'm just trying to add that little bit of variety you need in life every once in a while...Hehe ;) -Rehlman

15th @1:36 A.M. CST:

Adventuring: I got part of our Palladium Exploits typed up, check 'em out! -Rehlman

Humor (Non RPG): This has nothing to do with RPG's at all, but it has to be the funniest damn thing I ever read. Check out this story of an Interesting Dining Experience that I found over at the Shlonglor's Everything But Gaming site. -Rehlman

13th @11:44 P.M. CST:

Pictures: In my spare time I've been learning how to use the latest version of Paintshop. Hopefully I'll get to show off some of my works someday....Ah yes, even now I can hear the crowd groaning ;) -Rehlman

Check That: Instead of moving the Exploits around and splitting the adventure as I said I would do yesturday, I've decided to put my efforts towards a permanant solution to the problem. Heck, what's one more project when the list is a good 8 pages long already =) -Rehlman

News: Well, I have to cut the news short tonight, becuase, heck there really isn't all the much to report, and of course I'd never make up anything, never... ;) -Rehlman

12th @11:44 P.M. CST:

Heroes Adventures: I finally got the Heroes Exploits all caught up! Make sure to check them out, and please be patient with the load up time of the Exploits page, I'm going to fix that tomorrow night. Catch all of you kickass people later ;) -Rehlman

11th @10:20 P.M. CST:

Stuff: Well folks, I've been busy the last few days doing various things that you probably don't care about, but I'm here now and able to type with some sort of intellect and decent grammer (Yes, English never was one of my better subjects ;). Before I go on with the news, just want to let ya know that we've been getting some really great ideas, and I've even gotten some work done on a bunch of them. Hopefully I'll be getting a bit more time soon to get more done on them... Now...On with the News! ;) -Rehlman

Forum Watch: Ah yes, "Rest is for the meek" seems to be the ideology of the Townhall Forum. Posts have been going up in the forum left and right lately so much that I haven't even been able to keep up with them. There's a whole mob of new people over there so the endless cycle of rehashed subjects continues....That's ok though, there's always a new, more interesting answer to an old question, and there's also a bunch of new subjects there. Anyways, check out the forum! -Rehlman

Server: Thought of a really swank idea. All of us people who have PFRPG pages should find a main server that'll host for free or nearly nothing. It would be spiffed because we'd all be located in one central area, and not have to live under the rule of our current servers. I know I don't have much right to complain about Geocities because it's free, but those ads are just a wee bit annoying, and they don't except CGI, .exe files or a vast number of other file types. If anybody ever felt like setting up such a community of PFRPG webpages (hint...hint...Maryann ;) then let us know. I think it'd go over pretty big. -Rehlman

Graveyard: Hmm, we're getting submissions pretty regularly for a while there, then they just stopped. I'm pretty sure the graveyard script still works fine, but if you've sent in a character that hasn't been posted up yet, please E-mail us and let us know. Thanks! -Rehlman

10th @2:10 P.M. CST:

Mothers: Today is Mothers day, so make sure to treat your mother extra nice today =) -Wallace

Palladium: We had a cool Palladium FRPG meeting last night, and one of us will get it typed up soon. -Wallace

7th @8:15 P.M. CST:

Palladium Updates: What the...!?!? I almost had a heart attack when I went to the Palladium Books website today and found out it was updated...again! Being the sweet piece of love'n that Maryann is, she posted the old Robotech Lancers Adventure Book for you all to peruse. 100% free baby, that's the way it should be! -Rehlman

New Site: Another new site to add to the Palladium Fantasy ranks. I'm going to keep an eye on this one 'cus it's look'n pretty spiffed for how young it is. Go check out Sam's PFRPG 2nd Ed. Homepage! Btw, he's also the latest edition to the PF webring. Welcome aboard Sam and good luck in the future! -Rehlman

Alone!: I was checking my links the other night to make sure they're all current, and I went to Shawn's Rifts Page, and under his links section he wrote this for I.S.C.

"..... Interesting stuff and I can see that he is one of the few PFRPG gamers left ;-)."

I want to know what that means ;) Is it good? Bad? Who knows... Let's just set the record clear right now! ;) Us PFRPG players may not be as big in number as those Rifts roll playing fanatics, but baby, when it comes to playing, we're having the time of our lives 'cus we love this rock'n game! Someday, you all will also see the light, and we will welcome you with open arms to join us in some Midevil Role playing action! =) -Rehlman

Mother's Day: It's coming sooner than you think, and as a public service to provide you with the most RPG time you can manage, we over at I.S.C offer you the perfect mother's day gift for all those Mom's out there. It may sound cheesy now, but on Sunday morning it will look a whole lot better ;)

Ok, first go pick up some flowers at the local flower shop, rose's work fine. If you're on a lower budget, those dandelions in the backyard or your neighbors tulips also work ;)

Set them out in the morning with this sweet poem I found:

By: Julie Van Grinsven (leave that part out :)

What a fool I've been all these years, to never appreciate a mother so dear,

Bursting with kindness and unconditional love, my mother was surely sent from above,

Like an angel she guides me through life, she makes a great mother as well as a wife,

Her unselfish ways and tidy style, can surely get to me after awhile,

But one thing is sur, my mother is swell, she's a perfect role model and teaches me well,

I hope my mother knows I truly am proud, and I would be willing to admit it clearly and loud,

No poem or words could give her enough credit, but mom, I tried, I wrote, I said it,

To all the mothers - thanks for all you do, but for my mom especially, this day is for you,

Happy Mother Day.

If you're feeling really nice, write out the poem in longhand (looks better) and take your mom out for dinner :) -Rehlman

6th @6:55 P.M. CST:

Fonts: Being the swank guys that we are over here, we thought we'd let you in on a little secret. The Palladium Books Website uses a different font for the main title on there page then they do on the rest of the page. We have the fonts, and we're offering them to ya. Only one problem, over here in Geocities, they're anal about putting up .exe's, so I have to give it to you in .zip format. Which means that you'll have to unzip the file once you get it, if you don't have anything to unzip the file with, you can get Winzip here. The file contains 3 fonts, 2 for Palladium, and one other one just because it's really swank and we might use it eventually over here ;) -Rehlman

Here's the file: Fonts.zip

Stuff: Chaos has been reigning over at I.S.C. and we've spent the last few days picking up the shambles. Only now are we returning to our normal lives. (In other words, we've been busy ;) -Rehlman

Palladium Updates: Palladium released a press release today for the month of May. If you're a Robotech fan, go ahead and check it out, it has some release dates for ya, other than that we just found out that Scrayper's (for Heroes) release was pushed back five days and will now ship on May 27th. -Rehlman

Joke HtH's: Kevin "The Forum Moderator" Thorn has written up some spiffed Hand to Hand's on his website for all you swank people to check out. I personally like the 3 Stooges HtH ;) -Rehlman

Graveyard: It seems our html script needs some fine tuning, so if you sent a character and don't see it up with-in the next few days please send it again. On another note, please set aside your love for the caps lock when you submit something to us via form. Thanks =) -Rehlman

3rd @10:10 P.M. CST:

Graveyard: Caesar was added to the graveyard. -Rehlman

Wow, two updates in one night, what a deal! =)

Graveyard: Stonecold was added to the graveyard. -Wallace

2nd @7:44 P.M. CST:

Palladium Updates: According to Palladium they're re-releasing some of their old Robotech books, find out more about that over at the Palladium Books Website. -Rehlman

Meeting: We have a Heroe's meeting tonight so I'll have to cut the news short for now. I'll cya all around. -Rehlman

April of 1998

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