Deck16

The original Deck16 was a toxic slime production facility. Little has changed.

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Praising the Harrow Deck

It's well-known that Paizo was hit hard by the "Diamond Comics issue". I've been hoping for a charity opportunity (donation drive or sale), but in lieu of that, I thought I might be able to motivate some people to buy a Paizo product they might otherwise not consider: the Harrow Deck. If I can convince one person to buy it, this'll be worth it.

Basically, Harrow is a Golarian version of real-world Tarot. Characters can buy the deck in-game, use it for divination, and even take an archetype for it.

Some time ago, I bought the physical deck because I wanted to support Paizo after getting a lot of mileage out of their "free rules" stance. (I own a lot of Humble Bundle PDFs, but still, the "free rules" stance is very useful.) It's also just a cool thing to have.

The physical deck comes with all the contents of the digital deck; I saw I had access to all the cards as image files.

I threw those images into Foundry and cooked up a rollable table with them. This allowed me to draw cards, show the card to players, but show the description only to me (which allows me to embellish as an NPC). Example images here, here, and here.

In my ongoing campaign, I introduced a Harrower: a gnome called Sadie Saffron-Timbers. She was to be major quest-giver, but she also gave the PCs some Harrow readings.

The Harrow deck (physical and digital versions both) come with instructions on how to do a Harrowing. You can also see several methods here. I used my rollable table in Foundry to pull the cards, along with whether they were misaligned. The players could see the really cool card art, but not the descriptive text, which I'd set up to be GM-only. This made doing a mystical-sounding reading very easy.

And like real Tarot, it's very easy to extrapolate meanings from what the cards say, as per cold reading and Barnum statements. Of course, this is all fodder for good roleplay. Skeptical PCs will scoff at the divination, while those more superstitious will hang on the reading. It can be a great way to coax out backstory: more than once the cards hit dead-on a PC's backstory, and their cold-sweat reaction prompted some revelatory role-play. (Of course the cards are wrong a lot too, but you don't remember those!)

I imagine it'd be even more fun in-person, where you can actually use the physical cards, shuffle them, lay them out, etc.

I'd encourage anyone who wants both:

an interesting side-scene in their ongoing campaign

to support Paizo as a company

to buy the Harrow deck (physical or digital) and do a Harrowing in your own game.

If you want my rollable table for Foundry, I have it available for import, but you will need to supply the card art from one of the above purchases yourself! Instructions here.

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I had a question about item identification in the Foundry system for Pathfinder 2e. A very dry, technical question I put into Google. The exact question itself isn't important.

As Google (and so many others) are wont to do in the present day, it gave me an AI answer. It wasn't best or most accurate answer, but what freaked me out was that it contained advice... from me ("D16_Nichevo on Reddit").

My advice was not useful to the problem I was trying to solve. But that's incidental. The weird thing is I got recommended my own advice. I can think of three possibilities:

I'm such a mover and shaker in the PF2e and Foundry communities that of course I get referenced for advice.

The AI knows I'm me, and does this on purpose.

It's a big coincidence based on the "luck" of the question. It'll never happen again in a lifetime of legitimate searches.

I figure it's a tiny dash of option 1 with a heaping helping of option 3.

Still, very odd thing to experience.

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Quick Review: The Boys

Bit hard to do a review of these series, sometimes, because by the time the final seasons come out I can barely remember what happened in the early seasons.

Also note: I know nothing of the comics that inspired it, or the spin-offs that spawned from it.

All that said... what did I think of The Boys?

I really enjoyed it.

For me, the characters were the main draw. A little cartoony, but suitably so given their comic book origins. Decent arcs and emotional moments. Great performances by the cast.

The political scheming and political satire is a close second. Very fitting for our times. The satire gets very heavy in later seasons but I don't mind that. As I mentioned there's silly satire, chilling satire, and sometimes satire that's both at once. While I like it, I can get why some might think it heavy-handed.

One thing that's not really fair to include in a review was the conservative outrage once they realised it was pastiching them. Fucking fantastic, but not really a quality of the show it and of itself.

The gory, violent, over-the-top violence, sex, and other graphic things suit a comic-book adaption. It's not "torture porn" stuff but rather it's silly, self-aware "shock-schlock". Often quite juvenile. Yet I liked it.

The show can be quite witty. With quips, with the satire, and with the aforementioned shock-schlock.

What wasn't so great was the meandering. The story spins its wheels. I think the show could've been improved with some shedding of "filler" episodes.

The plot's also a bit loose. Events feel like they're contrived to go in a certain story direction rather than being the natural and obvious result of character actions in a consistent setting. When and where one character confronts another character seems to hinge on fairly arbitrary "just so" reasons. Perhaps the worst sin here is how easy it seems to be to infiltrate what should be very secure locations... until it isn't.

It's not too egregious, though: even though the plot feels a bit arbitrary the writing is good enough to paper it over with an air of plausibility. Since this is a comic book movie, not a political thriller, I'm not too worried about this weakness.

People say the ending wasn't great. I was expecting some kind of Game of Thrones season 8 stuff. It's nothing anywhere near that bad. Yeah, it was a touch flat, a touch lower-budget. But it worked narratively and emotionally.

The Deep's podcast "Manhandled" is a great example of The Boys good aspects. It's pointed political satire. It's funny. I love the attention to detail on the set design. And (minor spoiler alert in this sentence) these characters' fates are grim, brutal, and poignantly grimy and devoid of meaning. Plot armour is rare in this show, and characters can and do get cut down without fulfilling an expected arc.

I think the biggest praise for this show was that I was quite hooked, wanting to play another episode at the end of each. I was engrossed even during the more meandering parts. There were moments when I laughed out loud, and moments that felt touching.

Basically, the "bad" things about The Boys aren't really a big problem for me, and its "good" things I found very impressive. So while I get the complaints, I personally will say:

My rating: Amazing ★★★★

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Freetime Checklist – 7 Jul 2026

I've been watching The Boys now that it's all wrapped up. I left off some years ago at the end of Season 3. Now I am part-way into the final season (Season 5).

(Minor spoilers follow.)

I've heard the ending is disappointing. It makes me wonder: will it do a Game of Thrones, and fall in a heap before the end? Or maybe it will do an Arcane, and just be quite different in its later incarnation, not really living up to how it started?

Neither of those has happened... so far. It does perhaps go a bit slow, with meandering sub-plots, but not disastrously so. It does feel a bit different, but that change feels more like a gradual shift than a radical reinvention. But I've not got to the end yet, so we'll see!

The Deep, at his most sycophantic, drives a Cybertruck. Because of course he does. Out of all the supes, he could the most easily escape all this by disappearing into the sea. The fact he doesn't, of course, is rather the point.

Bear in mind I've never read the comics. Judging entirely by the series here.

It's a show that's good enough that I want to watch the next episode right away. I think that's a good litmus test of quality. I am quite hooked by the story and by the characters.

I like the little touches. The characters are comic book characters, so it suits they're a little cartoony. MM and Frenchie here usually have very distinct fashions. But in this scene, they're making do with charity clothes. The sight of MM in a Britney top made me laugh.

I love the allusions to modern-day politics. Dim-witted conservatives may have missed that the show was satirising them. There's no way they're missing it now!

There's the silly references, like mention of Jewish space lasers. Then there's the darker references like the vilifying of victims for political gain: the protestor laser-eyed by Homelander is post-facto "found" to be a "pedophile", in our world it's "would-be assassin" and "domestic terrorist".

More of this satire, I say. Happy to see both kinds. Happy to see them mixed. Wish there were more shows like it. You can't have enough.

Speaking of mixed satire, the Vought camps mix the very grim idea of re-education camps with over-the-top faux-patriotism of corporate America. The grey-blue stripes are gone, replaced with red-white-and-blue superhero-themed sweats.

Looking forward to finishing the series, but a little nervous that the ending will disappoint!

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Freetime Checklist -- 29 Jun 2026

It's been a while since I did one of these. The Easter holidays came and went, and off the back of that, I had a run-in with the "The Big C" (not the TV show). No need to share details here. Suffice it to say I was not really in the mood to post. But recent news is that things seem okay on that front, as much as that can ever be known, and so I might get back into these posts.

Not sure if I want to keep it being a checklist or not. But I still like the original aim: a motivation to read more, watch more, play more.

Semi-recently I have been playing a little of Guild Wars Reforged. Read on for my thoughts on that.

I've always liked GW1 beaches.

I played GW1 before it was remastered, before it had any expansions, and quite enjoyed it. I did start to get a little tired of it as expansions came out, but that was an era of very considerable competition when it came to video game interest!

Coming back to it now, it is a very chill game. Easy pace, simple story, relaxing music. Mechanics that are simple to understand but have real depth. And unlike so many modern MMOs it's not a brain-dead cake walk: even in a "tutorial" area there are moments where one has to be careful.

The hi-res graphic support is nice. The terrain is actually detailed enough that frame rate drops are noticeable (though minor) in some scenes. Back in the day, computers could not just "brute force" render everything in GW1 like they can now. There was a rather ingenious level-of-detail trick where distant landmarks would appear as 2D textures until you got closer, at which point they'd turn 3D. Implemented really well. I get why that's gone with Reforged, but part of me misses it...

Will I play it a lot? Don't know. But this is what's nice about Guild Wars -- both of them (and hopefully future ones): it respects me as a consumer. I didn't need to re-buy it, I got Reforged by virtue of owning the original.

Guild Wars being "Reforged" doesn't feel like a cash grab. I'm not saying it was utterly selfless -- I'm sure it is modestly profitable with some new and returning players. My point is that it doesn't feel like a greedy cash grab, but more like an effort to keep the game running. Dusting it off and making sure it still can be played.

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Guild Wars 3 has been announced, officially, so it's time to make wild speculations from the scraps shown so far! 😁

I am a big fan of the Guild Wars series, so an announcement like this makes me both excited and nervous. I get worried about "what might go wrong" precisely because I love the franchise.

Writing my thoughts now will be interesting... we'll see if I was right or wrong in due time!

My first reaction was: "this doesn't feel like Guild Wars". But let's break that down.

Orr-igin St-Orr-y

The official site says:

Guild Wars 3 takes place more than a thousand years before the original game...

And...

Set in the enchanting frontier of Orr...

So, it's going to be completely different. Totally detached, really. Very few people, places, or things from GW2.

At first that made me sad. Because what I was mentally hoping for was a game just like Guild Wars 2, but with an engine revamp and some system improvements. More of the same, but modern.

Orr's changed, man.

But then I thought about it... a clean break is probably a good thing.

I thought about World of Warcraft and its expansions, where the constant escalation and expanding made a farce of setting and story. I don't want that!

I thought about the Halo series (not an MMO, but still) and how the fresh spin-offs like Reach and ODST were better than the tired old Master Chief sequels.

So overall I don't mind leaving the old stuff behind. Better to leave it at a good point than milk it until it is dry. (Assuming the lore is in a good state? I'm not caught up to all the GW2 expansions!)

I will miss many things about GW2, like being able to play as charr, but it's probably better this way. And besides, GW2 hopefully isn't going anywhere just as GW1 hasn't gone away.

This picture isn't really relevant but I just love it so I'm including it.

Very Col-Orr-ful

This trailer worries me a little with the environment. Also, the fact it's for consoles as well worries me.

This trailer has an odd "smell" about it that puts me off.

Firstly, the environment is super-saturated, colourful, very idyllic fantasy, with lots of exaggerated mountains and structures about. Characters and mounts also have that "shiny" high fantasy look. Nothing wrong with that inherently, lots of games go that style.

A random moment where I joined two other players in posing. Guild Wars 2 characters run the gamut from shiny to shabby. These ones are middle-of-the-road. Mine's the purple one, but I do like the looks the others have.

But it doesn't feel in the sprit of GW1 or of GW2, though. Those games had stunning, but mostly-realistic scenery. When epic fantasy elements were present, they didn't feel crowded in or overused. (When everything is epic, nothing is epic.)

I kind of don't want to explore this new Orr. I don't really feel interested in seeing what's on the other side of that mountain. Hard to explain why. It feels confected? Not my cup of tea, I guess.

I realise what I'm saying isn't totally fair. This is set in Orr, and GW2's Orr was crammed with epic architecture -- those big stone rings aren't wrong! But Orr in GW2 was (in vanilla) an end-game zone, the cumulation of the story and of levelling. You started in quaint rural farmland (or the other races' equivalents).

And GW2 does have some pretty crazy zones like Bloodstone Fen and Skywatch Archipelago. So it's not chalk and cheese, this GW3 Orr.

And trailers, obviously, don't always fully represent the final and full game.

Guild Wars 2's beauty is subtle, I think. Its places are special not so much because they stagger or stun, but because they're inspiring or cosy. They don't blow you away, they draw you in.

Con-sold Out. Con-sell Out?

(With puns, it's the thought that counts, right? 😓)

It's going to be on consoles! It's going to be dumbed down!

Maybe, maybe not. It's not like GW2 didn't have its foot in both action and RPG camps anyway.

The limited setting of "Orr only" seems a change from the wide expanses of Tyria.

This trailer smells like an Anthem, or Destiny to me. Alternatively, it may actually be aiming more for a feel like Amazon's New World, which I could potentially get behind.

We'll have to see.

And that goes for this whole thing: we'll have to see!

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Xbox Go Home

De-cluttering the house and was sorting through my library of console games.

Many of these will be taken to the charity shop today. Something compelled me to take a record of them before doing that.

After the jump, I explain which are going, which are staying, and I reminisce about the good old 360 days.

These have been sorted into three columns, as per the pictures.

Left: Games I'm going to keep, for sentimental reasons or because there's a slim chance maybe I'll play them. I probably won't, but hey, it's not like I can't charity them later. (The blank green case is Xbox Original San Andreas. And Mass Effect 3 got moved to the middle stack after I took the photo.)

Middle: Games I'm taking to the charity store.

Right: Games I'm taking to the charity store that used to belong to my dad. You can see he had a certain taste in genres! (The very top case is a DVD documentary, not a game.)

I'm old enough to be a kid that could have had an 8-bit NES, but my family household had a PC, not consoles. (My library of physical PC games is another matter entirely.)

I bought myself an original Xbox not long after getting my first job about a year after leaving high school. At first I played in a back room of the family home on small portable CRT TV. Bit of a rough setup but much fun was had.

Later I got an Xbox 360 and (lesser-used) PS3. Had a lot of fun with them. By then I had a place of my own, a proper big telly, and had a lot of fun with that, too. Single-player, of course, but also a lot of "couch co-op", especially the Halo series. A little bit of system-link and some online play too.

Yes, I suffered through the "red ring of death" and Microsoft's shitty warranty repair. I think in the end I bought and used two 360s.

I used to buy a lot of games from an online store called Play Asia. It still exists but think it may have shifted gears a little in the intervening years. You could buy games from Play Asia, usually from Hong Kong, much cheaper than locally, especially when the Australian dollar was strong. Their store was very clear about what game worked on what console vis-a-vis region locking and what languages it supported -- they knew who their customers were!

The version of GTA 4 Liberty City (see left column, near the bottom) I have was not even available locally -- Australia has the censored version. (Gaming classification has improved since then, though it's still imperfect.)

After that I never got another console. Mostly been a PC gamer.

I considered selling these games, but I've decided to donate them to a charity store. (I confirmed they accept games.) Firstly, it's low-effort. Secondly, I am totally happy for a good cause to profit.

[deck16]

Freetime Checklist – 27 Mar 2026

Leaving this report to very late in the week.

Last week’s plans:

✅ Read a book. I started Edge of Destiny. More on that below.

❌ Read a comic.

❌ Watch a movie.

✅ Start a new series. Started Season 2 of Mr Inbetween.

I'm going to let the checklist lapse over the Easter period. But I'll report back about freetime activities all the same, and carry on with the checklist afterward.

Not to be confused with Destiny's Edge, which is a whole other book, even though Edge of Destiny is about a group called Destiny's Edge. 😵‍💫

This series started with Ghosts of Ascalon. I've got all three of the "Guild Wars novels" and I plan to read them.

Now, if I remember correctly, Edge of Destiny is the generally agreed to be the worst of the three. Considering I wasn't exactly blown away by Ghosts of Ascalon I wasn't holding out much hope.

However I have been pleasantly surprised by the first two chapters.

Faolain had been all about questions, and Caithe had been all about answers. They were dear to each other and set out together to explore the world. But Caithe's spirit had grown straight and true like a young tree while Faolain's had grown twisted like a poison-ivy vine. When the pair encountered a great darkness, Caithe pulled back from it, while Faolain embraced it.

(I copied that from the Wiki. But I read something identical or close to it from the book, so I suspect it's originally from the book.)

That's a rich setup. Even a touch purple, perhaps. But it those are aren't hollow words of unrequited exposition. From there, the first chapter, short as it is, shows you the fucked-up relationship between Caithe and Faolain, between Dream and Nightmare.

The second chapter impressed as well.

So far I'm finding this book much better than Ghosts of Ascalon. Ghosts of Ascalon feels quite bland compared to this book's vividness.

Will the rest of the book hold up? Will it commit some horrible sin that wipes away this solid start? We'll see. I'll do a full review when done.

I also wonder if my tastes have been turned to mush by my off fascinations with franchise spin-offs. That is a real possibility. 😳

[deck16]

Freetime Checklist – 18 Mar 2026

Been doing a bit of work-on-the-side which has meant less time for gaming.

Last week's plans:

✅ VR gaming. Feeling a bit more confident my video card wouldn't blow up, I played a little more Boneworks.

✅ Any single-player game. I played more Dawnsbury Days.

❌ Start on a new book or comic, or watch a movie, or start on a new series. I downloaded stuff, but didn't watch yet.

This week's plans. Let's focus on what's been neglected:

⏹️ Read a book.

⏹️ Read a comic.

⏹️ Watch a movie.

⏹️ Start a new series.

Some thoughts on Boneworks after the jump.

I should've taken more screenshots, but when the headset is on one can't easily search for "how to take a screenshot with the VR controllers". I've looked it up since, so I'll know for next time.

I appreciate this little puzzle in Boneworks. One of its more easy ones. You could climb along the wall to the left using the lighter-grey "grab-able" tiles. Or you could do what I did and throw a flat loose piece over the gap like a bridge. It's quite eerie running across loose bridges in VR, I don't enjoy heights and VR really captures heights well. (Not that I'm complaining. I quite like how VR can make this sort of thing feel more real.)

I do enjoy how Boneworks save points are not too far apart. I really like to explore at a leisurely pace in VR, so I go slow. Bite-sized puzzles.

Since last time I played VR, I got a swivel office chair for my desk. This is nice in a sense, as I can swivel around myself rather than have to shunt my whole character using the controller. But on the downside I lose track of which way I'm facing and/or slowly wrap the cord around myself. It's an amusing issue rather than a serious one.

I do want to experiment with standing vs sitting. Sitting makes moving-without-moving less nauseating. I don't have a serious issue with VR nausea but it is less-weird zooming around in-game when seated in reality.

[deck16]

Freetime Checklist – 9 Mar 2026

Some computer-technical and work-related issues have kept me from my checklist for a bit, but I'm back.

Last week’s plans:

❌ VR gaming.

❌ More Foxhole.

✅✅ A single player game that’s not Songs of Syx. Double-check! I played Baldur's Gate 3, and I stated on Dawnsbury Days.

❌ Start on a new book or comic.

This week’s plans:

⏹️ VR gaming. I’ll keep this one on the list.

⏹️ More Songs of Syx, Dawnsbury Days, Baldur's Gate 3, or any other single-player game.

⏹️ Start on a new book or comic, or watch a movie, or start on a new series.

Some early thoughts on Dawnsbury Days after the jump.

Dawnsbury Days is an indie cRPG. But it is perhaps the first game to use the Pathfinder Second Edition rules. (Games like Kingmaker are First Edition.)

The story mode features four characters whose names, personalities, and voices are set. But you can customise them otherwise completely. Here's my all-elf team, based on various PF2e characters I have played in the more traditional game.

It's an indie game, and with its limited resources it has chosen to focus on combat. The "story mode" goes: cut-scene, combat, repeat; with occasional rests (short or full) at various points.

This game is really giving me Divinity Original Sin Tactician Mode vibes. Every fight feels like a puzzle and I don't mind losing and starting again. (I am playing on one of the harder difficulties.)

I am a PF2e GM and player of many years. But this game is teaching me new tricks because it's a fantastic sandbox to experiment in. It's the perfect tactics playground: try something, see how it goes, and then try something else.

Visualisation of the numbers makes understanding easier. As a PF2e player I know the rules, but seeing this kind of information brings better insight.

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Unreal Tournament 2004 is back!

It languished for a time, not even purchasable, as Epic Games concentrated on cash cow Fortnite.

But thanks to the folks at the OldUnreal community project it can be played again.

It should be obvious I'm a fan. (What's the domain name you're on?) Here's video of me revisiting a favourite level.

Install the game, freely and legally, by clicking here.

[deck16]

Freetime Checklist – 16 17 Feb 2026

Okay, I admit, I'm submitting this one day late. Got a bit distracted by other things in the weekend.

From last week:

✅ Foxhole. Played it. Sure, I played it on the "late day" but I played it!

❌ Play some game that is single-player and isn’t Songs of Syx.

❌ VR gaming. I figured better to play Foxhole while it's got the "new expansion buzz".

This week’s plans:

⏹️ VR gaming. I'll keep this one on the list.

⏹️ More Foxhole. It's fun! And it's very playable in short bursts.

⏹️ A single player game that's not Songs of Syx.

⏹️ Start on a new book or comic.

I'm starting to treat this checklist not so much as a "do it all" affair, but rather, a "try to get one, maybe two, items done". I don't see a problem with that: it's stopping that is a problem, not going slow.

Some quick thoughts on my Foxhole experience (not a euphemism) after the jump.

I played for about 2 hours and had a lot of fun. I have played before but not heaps.

Planes

The new planes were a constant presence in my game, but as mere rifleman they didn't really interact with me, friend or foe.

They fly now? Yep! That's the point of the recent expansion! An enemy Warden plane streaks by.

The one pictured above I think is an enemy plane, because that line is red. That line shows its altitude... in this case very low. That's useful because Foxhole is a top-down game, and elevation clues are important. As a rifleman mostly I just saw lines, saw shadows, and heard engines rather than seeing actual planes.

They fly slow. Slow enough that I'm fairly sure they'd stall if they were real. But not so slow that it looks farcical. I really do wonder what it's like to fly them, given Foxhole is a top-down game? Maybe one day I can be a rear gunner and get a sense for it.

Cog in the Machine

I've actually experienced very little of the "big boy" Foxhole game. I just potter around as a rifleman. I don't know if I'll ever have the time to get deeper into the game to get organised and do the "big boy" stuff.

This poor guy is the only chap I know for sure I killed. He had unlucky timing. I had just scavenged and reloaded a 9mm SMG as he came running across field and into my trench. Foxhole features chaotic battles and doesn't have kill notifications or such (as far as I know?) so more often than not an enemy's killer is ambiguous.

It's nice to know if ever I want to do more, there's a lot more to do. But for now I'm very happy playing for spectacle, and planes and boats and tanks and logistics support all add to that!

I did a few different things in my recent play session:

Rifleman. Stand in trenches, watch for enemies, push forward occasionally. Sometimes scavenge an SMG or grenades and get a bit more aggressive. I prefer go out with a minimalist kit and scavenge, rather than just load-up greedily at base. Reuse and recycle! ♻️

One-man mortar team. I could tell I was being useful when using flares at night to light up the enemy. I could see each flare working. But when the flares ran out I had to use explosive rounds, and I couldn't swap back to binocs fast enough to see my shells landing. I had no idea if I was being effective, so I didn't keep that up for long.

Manual labour. See further below.

That's me, next to the bleed-out counter. I bet you're wondering how a Colonial Legionary like me wound up spilling vital fluids on a muddy road somewhere in a made-up European WW2 facsimile? Well you shouldn't be, I said just above I was playing Foxhole. Pay attention! (This was my last death of the play-session.)

Multicultural

Foxhole has only one "instance" at the moment, and it's worldwide. Because of my time zone I saw a lot of East Asian players (I think mostly from China) and Russian players. It was quite busy, and that's likely because of the new-expansion buzz. I suspect the game is bigger in EU and America so I will have to try play when they're on to see how busy and wild it can get.

Yep. A big bump in players. Foxhole's doing well though... if SteamDB is to be believed this 9 Feb bump is the most concurrent players ever.

Now I'm a Foxhole novice, and I'm bad at high-reaction twitch-gaming generally. So take my opinion with a pinch of salt. But Foxhole doesn't suffer too badly from latency. Sure, you can see and notice it. But it didn't ruin my experience. As an Australian gamer, this is fantastic. We'll see if I change my mind on this with further play.

This Russian gent commandeered my services when I respawned in base. Calling me by name, he said, "grab a shovel and come with me". So I did, and I shovelled away for a bit. I had no idea what they were building. I wandered off when there they didn't supply more things for me to shovel at.

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Freetime Checklist – 9 Feb 2026

From last week:

❌ VR gaming.

✅ Finish my current book. I reviewed it, too. (And pictured above: two more characters from both book and game.)

❌ Play some game that is single-player and isn’t Songs of Syx.

It's nice to knock at least one thing off the list. 😥 A little progress is better than none.

For this week:

⏹️ Foxhole. That expansion should be out, it should be a good time to play.

⏹️ Play some game that is single-player and isn’t Songs of Syx.

⏹️ VR gaming. I want to keep this on the list. I saw a video about Blades and Sorcery recently and it's come a long way since I last looked at it!

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Good, Bad, Ugly: Ghosts of Ascalon

Ghosts of Ascalon is a tie-in novel to the Guild Wars video game series, of which I am a fan.

Goodreads gives it a 3.8 out of 5.

Why'd I read this book? A strange curiosity. I elaborate in this post.

Read on for what I think about the book itself.

Look, it's Dougal Keane! I 'member him! And look, it's Ember Doomforge, I 'member her!

The Good

Pre-established Setting. The book mentions people, places, and things I recognise from the game. That's quite cool. It's fun to enjoy works that are part of a familiar universe, that my characters have visited. Though I do admit this can be a cheap nostalgic buzz a la member berries.

Touching Moments. There are a handful of moments that carry emotional weight.

Decent Action. There are some engaging action scenes against a variety of fantasy foes.

Foefire's Heart features in the game. Here you can see the ghostly light rising from the deep pit, as in the book. Since the advent of the book, the charr have thoughtfully put safety fencing around the pit into the sunken city. You can get down there, and wander around catacombs that more-or-less match the book. What doesn't quite match, however, is the size and scope of the city. In the book, it's a big scary place. In the game, it's a mildly dangerous area at the back of a starting zone; the real scary ghosts live in the dungeons underneath. But I don't hold this against either game or novel, liberties must be taken sometimes.

The Bad

Lore Smuggling. Parents often smuggle vegetables in meals for fussy-eating children. Similarly, this book really wants to impart the broader lore of Guild Wars 2. It "smuggles" the lore into other things -- usually character conversations. This usually feels a bit ham-fisted, but I will admit, there are worse ways it can be done. Some of this lore is needed, but much of it is not, and could be omitted or left to a footnote or appendix section.

Pacing. The book's premise is that an unlikely crew have to perform a pretty epic heist. Awesome! But the set-up to this heist takes more than half of the book, with the real meat of it limited to maybe fifty pages at the back.

Mediocre. It feels harsh to list this under "bad". It's not "bad". But I must mention it to capture the overall feeling of this book. The book is passable. It's fine. It's okay. The writing is solid. It'll do on a boring train ride.

The most egregious example of "lore smuggling" is when the protagonist walks past a puppet show which is re-enacting some historic event. It's the fantasy book version of the TV in the background showing the news.

The Ugly

Nothing. There's nothing Ugly about Ghosts of Ascalon.

Conclusion

For Guild Wars fans? Rated Good ★★★☆ It's a solid fantasy book whose cross-over elements will likely give you some joy.

For everyone else? Rated Ordinary ★★☆☆ It's a solid fantasy book. You can pass some hours reading it. You won't love it, you won't hate it.

[deck16]

Freetime Checklist – 2 Feb 2026

From last week:

❌ VR gaming.

❌ Foxhole.

✅ Book reading.

Some progress is good progress!

This week's plans:

⏹️ VR gaming. I'll get to it eventually. I'm just a little nervous as my computer has been experiencing occasional overheats.

⏹️ Finish my current book. After the effort this week, I've only 75 pages to go.

🚫 Foxhole. The new Airborne patch is coming out Feb 9... surely that's a better time to play. It's off the list for now.

⏹️ Play some game that is single-player and isn't Songs of Syx.

Read on for my thoughts on the things I did do.

Ghosts of Ascalon

I'm reading Ghosts of Ascalon. I'll probably post a little review when done, so I won't get too deep into thoughts.

Why did I choose that book? It's not exactly regarded as peak literature or fiction. It is true I am a fan of the Guild Wars series; but that's just part of it.

I'm also have this occasional yet morbid fascination with:

Odd spin-off fiction.

Very mediocre and obscure fantasy.

Is it very mediocre? Yes, but it's mediocre in a decent way, not a dull way. It's "fine".

One fun thing about reading fiction from a broader setting is recognising the people, places, and things. The screenshot above is an example: I read about that very location in the novel and thought, "hang on, I remember a place like that". So I went there and took the screenshot above.

On reading the Wiki, I see that it's actually somewhere I must've been to more than just look at (I've looked at everything); I needed to go there as part of making my only decent weapon, the poor man's Ascended weapon Caladbolg.

It's also a stone's throw away from a Sentinel fortress I used in my Guild Wars Pathfinder campaign.

It's borderline member berries stuff but I do enjoy when things tie in like that.

I'm up to 1,400 citizens in my Songs of Syx game. Not exactly a diverse population, though...

Songs of Syx

Yeah, this game tickles my neurons. I've spent a good amount of time playing it.

It is a game that captures the duelling phenomena of economies of scale and diseconomies of scale.

In your quaint starting village of 20 people you really just need everyone to work on getting food and building homes. That's all you need.

When you get into the thousands of people, you need people being doctors, janitors, guards, soldiers, carpenters, diplomats, and so on. Fewer and fewer people -- proportionally -- can work on farms. But you do start to get productivity boosts like tools and nobility to offset this. I've not quite seen any other game like this capture that particular aspect so well.

In Dwarf Fortress nobility are a burden. In Songs of Syx they are peak civil servant overseers who provide massive multiplicative boosts to industry. I mean, look at them; some of them have gotten their faces (and presumably hands) dirty.

But judging by the city-size progression track, cities can get into the tens of thousands. So I'll see how I eventually handle that!

[deck16]

Freetime Checklist – 26 Jan 2026

Terrible progress for the previous checklist. I did none of it!

I have, however, been playing a lot of Total War: Warhammer 3. Which is good. It's an example of a game series I own but haven't played what it is due. (That series being Total War: Warhammer. I've played plenty of Total War more broadly.)

This upcoming week I'll try to right my checklist wrongs.

Pictured: Witch elves. (This is a picture of their tabletop version, obviously, not the video game version.) I'm playing as Crone Hellebron and so try to have a few in every army. They're very deadly in melee but also extremely fragile (their armour is as bad as it looks).

[deck16]

Freetime Checklist – 19 Jan 2026

Goals this week:

✅ More Guild Wars 2 story.

❌ VR gaming.

✅ Book/comic reading.

For next week:

⏹️ VR gaming. I remember being impressed by Dungeons of Eternity in the past, but it was an Oculus exclusive at the time. Not any more. I'll look into it, but whatever the case, I'll try to play some VR game.

⏹️ Foxhole. I've got it installed and noticed it in my games list. A new expansion is coming out soon, so that may actually be a better time to play, but I'll stick it in the list now anyway.

⏹️ Book reading. I read some comics (see below) but should get back to a "proper" book.

Read on for my thoughts on this week's things. I comment on comic art and cutscenes/story in Guild Wars 2 (and MMOs in general).

Pathfinder Comics

I like the Pathfinder TTRPG, and so I've been reading the Pathfinder Comics. I got a heap in a Humble Bundle, and I even have some physical ones from when they were cheap (10 AUD) on a book site sale.

I've read "Dark Waters Rising" and "Of Tooth and Claw". Both digital.

I will save deeper thoughts for a possible later review post. Just some observations for now.

Different artists have done different chapters/parts of the comics. I quite like seeing the different styles. I mean, take a look at these three takes on Valeros the fighter:

Yes. Valeros drinks a lot. The fact he gets a serious hangover with an Expert Fortitude Save speaks to some truly dedicated binge drinking!

Above, we've got two fairly "clean" styles and one "grotesque" one. I think I prefer the cleaner ones overall. That said, the "grotesque" one can really capture something. It's very evocative. Makes me think of Ren and Stimpy.

The comparison above is a little unfair because the "grotesque" one is meant to show him at his worst. I quite like the scene. After a heavy night of drinking Valeros tries to recruit a cleric for the party and the visuals are both striking and amusing.

Love the colours, especially contrasting the dirty browns of the previous drinking scene (and Valeros' vomit-face).

As a Pathfinder player and GM, I also appreciate how the comic makes a nod to many elements of play. It's subtle enough about it to not be obnoxious.

"Make a Perception check!" ... And... Uhm, actually, Kyra, you can't cast that spell now. Hold Person was rebranded to Paralyze from first to second edition rules and is no longer on the Divine spell list.

Guild Wars 2 Story

For a long time I've wanted to re-visit Living World Season 1 after they made it replayable. Because I didn't quite see all of it when it originally came out. Turns out my elementalist was part-way through so I carried on.

I made this guild logo as a joke. I like chickens. I use to have pet chickens. The joke is that this has a more salacious double-meaning. But I'm hesitant to show the cape in public, because people won't obviously know the joke's background. The idea of triggering bigots amuses me, but I also don't want people to get the wrong idea.

Stories in MMOs are quite difficult because unless you've got the big-boy money to make loads of rendered/animated cutscenes, you've basically only got voice.

I thought vanilla GW2 approached this in an elegant way with the "talking heads" cutscenes. They are basic, but have that quintessential artsy style (i.e. the backdrop). Imagination fills in the gaps.

In Living World Season 1 they start using in-engine cutscenes. Little people saying things as they walk from here to there. They did improve with this over time but at the start it's quite ropey.

Season 1 is a contrast to Season 4, and the Drizzlewood-era story, both of which I remember really enjoying.

Oh no! The representatives got zapped by a trap! To be fair to in-engine cutscenes, you can't really do this sort-of thing in a talking-heads cutscene.

The story segment I went through today was pretty typical. Watch some stuff happen, kill some mobs. Nothing you wouldn't do in some open world event. Again, they would improve on this, making story quests a bit more interesting. I suppose you can only do so much in an MMO.