Showing posts with label Star Wars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Star Wars. Show all posts

Tuesday, 12 August 2014

FATE STAR WARS on paper!

    I just received the printed version of the FATE STAR WARS book, translated in Italian language by MAMMUT RPG . Both the translation and the final physical result are quite satisfying.

    When I want to print a book from PDF (or another digital format) to paper, I use YouCanPrint services .

    You can build an estimate directly from the website, and the final costs are always quite good, if you print in Black&White. For most of the books I printed so far, the shipping costs have always been higher than the book itself, because YouCanPrinte uses SDA Courier instead of taking advantage of the lower costs Itialian Post Office can offer for books delivery.

    Preparation times aren't incredibly fast, because they prepare a draft of the final product you need to approve before they proceed with print and delivery. All of this took around 3 weeks, if you answer quickly to their mails.

    They publish your books, too, as eBook or paper: the one YOU write, I mean :), taking charge of everything is legally needed.

    I'm quite satisfied by this print-on-demand service, and I strongly reccomend it to anyone who needs somthing similar.







   

Saturday, 9 August 2014

Spigen Nexus 5 Hybrid Back Covers (Part 1 of ... boh??)

    If you are the lucky owner of a Nexus 5 smartphone like me, you are perhaps using a Spigen Nexus 5 Hybrid cover. The feature I like most of this cover (which is overall quite good, even if a bit big in size, vote 7/8) is the possibility to put an image as a cover for the back side of your phone. You just have to find a suitable one, use a template to "build" it in the right way, print it out and cut it.

    I've played quite alot with this, creating some very ugly covers, but today I camed out with a couple of good ones (I think, at least), mostly thanks to the beautiful arts by Ale Giorgini. My favorite is the one on the right, which is Star Wars themed, but the others are cool, too.

    I'm going to share them with you all, along with the template to build your own, as you can see by the picture attached to this post. To gain the printable versions, just right-click on the picture you want to download and choose "Save Picture as...", or whichever option your browser uses for this purpose.

    I suggest to print these pictures on some kind of photo paper, which is more solid and resistant than common paper. You cna easily use a scissor to cut out the longest edges, but you should switch to a cutter when taking care of the camera hole, which don't need to be perfect, as the edges are somehow hidden by the cover borders themself.

Have fun, artists ;) .
The Big Lebowski
Indiana Jones
Spigen Nexus 5
Hybrid Template

Friday, 8 August 2014

A Small Anecdote

    Before last Christmas, between October and November 2013, I finally decided to give a deeper try to Star Wars: The Old Republic (the MMORPG from Bioware / EA), which I played in its early days, with little enthusiasm.

    This time I decided to pull out the 12 euros needed to play "full powered" for a whole month. After createing my human Jedi Guardian with thriving joy, I went into the Galaxy of the Old Republic, loving the experience alot.

    Massive amount of quests (many of which quite funny and interesting, though, in the end, they always resolves around the usual take quest - go clik/kill - report), several instances (trying to learn how to tank all those enemies with ranged weapons!) and a lots of hilarious PvP (funny!). All of this without joining a clan, enjoying the freedom to explore the game with my times and some privacy. So, I often used the public chat for help or a talk here and there.

    During one of the many breaks, wasting time on the Republican orbital fleet, a bloody discussion on God, religion and similar dangerous arguments exploded in the public chat. After spending a few minutes reading the verbal confrontation, I decided to intrude with a "joke". So I wrote, perhaps in favor of one of the factions, but not on purpose, the following sentence: "I find your lack of faith disturbing"... The result? A sudden shift to general laughter, and a burst of Star Wars quoting by everyone, with the addition of the almost instantaneous dissipation of the controversial discussion (and including a good amount of private messages from amused strangers).

    Moral: You can solve most arguments in life with a good and solid Star Wars quote :) . Darth Vader Approves!

Thursday, 31 July 2014

Star Wars Galaxy Map (7025x4967 resolution)

    After some time, a constant search and a bit of GIMP, I was finally able to put my fan hands on a good map of the Star Wars Galaxy. It seems to be one of the more accurate you can stumble upon. It have a very good resolution of 7025x4967, so it's quite suitable to be printed as a nice poster.

    Personally I'm going to make it into a big panel, which will be positioned between a cool Yoda poster and a complete and beautiful Middle Earth map.

    I really hope Disney will build an "official" Star Wars map, in the future, and that it will be sold as the ones of many other fiction settings are. For now, I'll just stick on this hand made one.

    As usual, may the Force bi with you.

    P.S.: Just click on the above thumbnail to reach the full-sized map, stored on GDrive. You'll be able to download the over 9mb JPG file from there.

Tuesday, 24 December 2013

May the Christmas be with you!

    So, Christmas has arrived. This month has been tough, in my shop. Despite the business does not shine because of the general crisis that harass Italy, keep open every day is stressful and demanding. I 'm looking forward to spending a few days in total relaxation!

    With the start of the new year, my new apartment will be ready, and I will then proceed to move in. I hope such operation will be quick and painless. I will also need a trip to Ikea to buy some furniture to fill the new rooms, as the new house is much bigger than previous one :D!

    The PS4 is proving to be a great console: quick and agile, although you can clearly see that it is still raw in the operating system, and plagued by some major technical problems. For example, I have not received two trophies for what I have met the requirements: I'll be forced to replay a large piece of the related game in order to conquer my 34th Platinum :/ .

    Assassin 's Creed 4 is really an impressive title, both from the technical point of view and for the fun it provides. The pirate's life is a dream, and the game manages to well convey the feeling of piloting a ship and boarding others! Now I really want to see inFamous: Second Son!

    I managed to convince my family to have a vegetarian Christmas (if not vegan), and tomorrow will be a pleasure to eat at a table not laden with pieces of the corpses of creatures born and lived in suffering! Truly a wonderful gift!

    Well , I hope to publish soon something more interesting than this post: I have in mind an article for additional tips on how to defeat the Legendary Ships of AC4 ( the official guide does not help enough, imho) and a new hook story for Star Wars - Edge of the Empire: Star Wars and the Raiders of the Lost Ark!

    Well, May the Christmas Be With You and Han Claus brings you a Millenium Falcon full of beautiful gifts : D!

    Oh, by the way, Chuck wanna wish you the best of things, too ;) (see the video!).

Thursday, 14 November 2013

The Je'daii Code

"There is no ignorance; there is knowledge.
There is no fear; there is power.
I am the heart of the Force.
I am the revealing fire of light.
I am the mystery of darkness
In balance with chaos and harmony,
Immortal in the Force."

Wednesday, 13 November 2013

Know the Force

The Sith Code and The Jedi Path
    Ahhhhh. My knowledge is now complete! I finally gathered the main tomes of both the Light and the Dark Side users of the Force!

    The two books that you see in the photos are a wonderful addition to the collection of any Star Wars geek.

The Sith Code - Interior 1
    These are two beautiful editions, exquisitely crafted in all aspects (especially the visual one, thanks to the high quality paper used and the impressive graphical layout), that contains a collection of informations about the two opposed orders of Force users: the Jedi and the Sith.

The Jedi Path - Interior 1
    The two volumes encompass many interesting details on the history, philosophy, the way to act, to fight, the creation of lightsabers, the use of the force of these two distinct factions.

The Jedi Path - Interior 2
    The constant references to some of the most important characters of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, from Darth Revan to Bane, Yoda or Anakin, make them a source of deepening absolutely necessary for every lover of the two main orders of Force Users, that forge the fate of the galaxy by thousands of years!
The Sith Code - Interior 2

     You can find both these books on Amazon.com, for the honest price of $17,00 / €15,00 . There is a rarer, cooler and much more expensive special edition, called Vault Edition that comprises a bunch of nice gadgets in addition to the books. Pity it doesn't exists in Italian (for now....!!)

Monday, 11 November 2013

Heroes of Water - A Star Wars: Edge of the Empire Adventure Hook

    Here is my first attempt to a complete adventure for Star Wars: Edge of the Empire. This is only the general synopsis of the story, but neverthless a strong track of how the events should go, so everyone can adapt it to his group style with few effort. In the future I'll probably write down a complete list of Acts, and Scenes, but this will happen after I play the adventure with my own group!

    This adventure is completely inspired by the movie A Dark Truth, which addresses the issue of the exploitation of South America's water reserve.

Heroes of Water - Synopsis

    On a small planet, a galactic company is trying to conclude the exploitation of a precious and delicious reserve of water (or any other valuable resources, as it fits better to your campaign! This can sounds like Hutt stuff, too, right?). To do this, the company had started a systemtic extermination of the local population, unleashing a wave of disease through water and food supply, and then using a local militia, backed by the Imperial troops, to complete the massacre.

    One of the leaders of the company who still has some moral sense, kept in the dark about this businness, suddenly become aware of these atrocities and decides to hire a group of unknown "adventurers " to go take a look and bring back evidences and/or survivors of this wickedness, promising a large sum of credits as reward.

    This good-hearted leader is watched by another manager and his assistant security officer, who hires a murderer to spy on him, and, where appropriate, to remove any proof of their plan that leaves the planet.

    The adventurers must find a way to land on the planet, which is kept at a low techonological level by those who control its economy, probably in secret or with alternate identities, in order to avoid military control. There they find small villages and towns scattered in an area covered with dense jungles, heavily patrolled by local militia and Imperial troops that do what they want to the locals, commanded by a ruthless warlord who "works" with the company.

    Here they should meet or find a contact able to guide them on the unknown territory. Eventually they will come across a group of rebels survivors, hidden in the jungle, which is lead by a local hero who guided more than a past rebellion and possesses evidences of what is going on.

    Shortly after this meeting, the hidden camp is detected and attacked by the military, and the characters must first escape enemy's overwhelming numerical superiority. During the flight, however, the local hero decides that he can not leave his people to die at the hands of the military, and entrusts the documentation which proves what happens to his wife, to go back and fight the military. The adventurers must then decide whether to help him or leave him to his fate, bringing his wife to safety with the evidence of misdeeds.

    They will have to find a way to leave the planet, probably searching help from the rebellious population (which should be much easier if the local hero is still with them) and reach the manager who hired them, in order to conclude the "deal".

    At some point during or after this final reunion, all of them are attacked by a strong opposite force deployed by the rival manager and his assistant, supported by the murderer hired earlier, in an effort to eliminate all the proofs. The murderer, however, discovers to have some sort of sympathy for the cause of the rebels and of these daring adventurers, and decides to turn against his employers, providing an unexpected and important support to the group, informing them, after the fight, if he is able to do so, about the identity of the responsible for the attack.

    The story may end up in the best way, with the presentation of the evidences and a fair investigation by the Board of Directors of the company; perhaps, instead, echonomical interests will win over morality and everything will be covered up again, leaving the heroes with a dry mouth; maybe the armed wing of the Empire will intervene and prevail over the forces of the adventurers, neutralizing their efforts and maintaining the status quo; perhaps the Rebel Alliance itself may become aware of the events, taking action to try to restore one of the many wrongs of the galaxy.

    The possibilities are many: choose your turn and have fun :-) !

Tuesday, 5 November 2013

Escape from Mos Shuuta

Beginner's Set
    I finally got to try the new Star Wars: Edge of the Empire game! I used the Beginner 's Kit to introduce both me to game mastering, and players to the new mechanics.

    The adventure was extremely linear, but still fun and full of Star War's flavor. In just 3 hours we cleared the plot, which included fierce firefights with blasters, raging Wookies with huge axes and risky meetings resolved with talk and wits!

    The system proved to be entertaining , immediate, dynamic and fluid, even if I was wrong to understand one of the main rules for the interpretation of the results of the dice, which made ​​it all too easy to overcome checks (both for me and for the players)!

    Pre-generated characters are more powerful than those created with the core rulebook, but this was not an issue at all. The characters have chosen the Twi'lek Bounty Hunter, the Human Smuggler and the Wookie Hired Gun, leaving out the Droid Colonist.

    I'm really curious to see which group will jump out of the standard creation procedure and I 'm looking forward to finishing the basic manual to create my first adventure!

    May the Force be with you all!

Thursday, 10 October 2013

It's been a while, in a galaxy far far away!

    It's a while I don't post here! All my GURPS works has stopped since I begun to play Pathfinder as a player. At the moment I'm preparing some adventures using the Star Wars Saga Rules. This set of rules is based on the d20, which I don't like very much at all, but my actual game group is very comfortable with this system, so I'm disposed to give it a try. It's always Star Wars, after all, and what matter most is the setting and the mood, not the rules :) ! It's possible we'll try the new Star Wars: Edge of the Empire game, published by FantasyFlight Games, but I need to buy the core rulebook first, which is quite expensive here in Italy.

    I'm videogaming like hell in the latter times. I platinated 25 games so far, this year, most of them in the second half of the year. I rarely replay old games, but this new hunger for Platinums made me willing to go back to each game I own for Ps3 which don't have many online trophies, At the moment I'm playing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 on PS3 and Soul Sacrifice on PSVita (great game btw!), while Amazon just shipped Beyond: Two Souls.

    Winter is coming, here, and it bears dark days, so pleasant to spend on a sofa with my animals and a good book or videogame. In a few months I'm moving to a new house, much bigger than the actual one, and I'm going to buy an enormous,  monstrously comfortable sofa :D !

    May the Force be with you all!!