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I bought the Book of Many Things and as with many rpg books I haven't so much read it as flicked through and got distracted by specific sections repeatedly.

Harrowhall, the castle setting you get if you draw the Throne card, actually really annoys me.

For one, they say Keep to mean a whole castle with an outer wall and a courtyard. The Keep is the bit in the middle, not the whole thing. That's what the word means.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep

For another, the art work, the map, and the description, are not a good match for each other. ( Read more... )

It's sloppy, is all, just a lack of joined up thinking, and I don't know if it is keywording correctly for a DnD 5e product but in Pathfinder it is implying game mechanical features the map does not provide.

The map annoys me too. The shape of the castle is not one that you would design for a defensive structure.
( Read more... )


I do like the size of the library. Even using Stronghold Builder Guide units there's room for 12 stronghold spaces in there, at least. That's room for 24 to 36 book lots, which is at least 8 comprehensive book lots for +4s in those rules, maybe 12. Which is all the knowledges covered. Only six master lots at 6 book lots space for +6 each in SBG terms. But the description says it covers all sorts, so a +4 may be implied by space constraints. Though you can also argue 15 stronghold spaces for even more Knowledges covered.
1, 3, 6 book lots for +2 +4 +6.
The description does mention speculative fiction though. Personal experience says you can fill a lot of shelves with spec fic.

In Pathfinder terms though a Book Repository is 4 to 12 squares, and there are... four times as many four square sections as there are stronghold spaces. Even 12 squares is smaller than the 16 squares in a Space. +3 to all Knowledges and a Magical Repository made of the previous owner's specialist collection is therefore supported by the text. With shelves a plenty to spare. Four squares does only mean shelves down the outside of a 10 foot corridor, the drawings only make it look like the shelves are five foot deep. All these ten foot gaps are so Large beings can browse without squeezing. Which is polite and accessible.
A +3 bonus is between the +2 one lot and +4 3 lots so I guess it has to be 2 book lots. Meaning you'd need 3 of it to be +6 sized. Meaning it would fit in the 12 squares not the 4.
... I am getting deja vu and probably wrote this down earlier.

All these bonuses are for one hour of study though. The number of books has to be pretty limited to get exactly the relevant stuff in one hour. And/Or theres an excellent card catalogue.

... or there's not much to know so it's easy to be brilliant...

Also Harrowhall states the whole group and bonus help together can find a specific book in 10 minutes.
I think maybe this is incompatible with the one hour knowledge, or maybe the book was mis shelved or deliberately concealed.


The Harrowhall also has an Observatory ( Read more... )

Also, there are big windows in the chapel and the throne room.
Or, bonus doors with bonus expensive vandalism.

Wait the Throne Room is on the ground floor and states its ceilings are 20 feet tall.
How? There's no gap above it, and the intro says rooms in Harrowhall have ten foot ceilings.
There's no steps down into the Throne Room, there's no steps up in the area above it.
This is a geometrically impossible feature that redesigns the whole ground floor of Harrowhall in contradiction to the written description.

I mean it helps for the illustration but it's explicitly said two contradictory things here.



I've been writing this for over an hour now and it's just me grouching about things no one else is reading.

But it is Sloppy. Three components of one physical description and the writing can't agree with the writing let alone the map and illustrations.

In a hardback fully illustrated in color Book I would hope for better.

Two more episodes of Constantine, before and after midnight, and I know I am going to be watching these again for details, but not in a plot way. John remains fascinating, everything else remains mostly okay with a side of horror only mentions the evil bits and is therefore bad with race.

I do like the recurring bit where John hands out his business cards and they're like deeply skeptical of the 'master of the dark arts' bit. Like okay, exorcism and demons, but they look at him and are not going to believe he has a BA, or possibly even a high school diploma.

I quite liked 'Jackass of all trades' as a description. Because how he does magic is going to piss off literally every tradition and they're right to call him on it, but also, he's right to say it works. Appropriation vs asking what it's all actually for.

John is fascinating and sympathetic and clearly not always right, and I like that in a story. Enough of a bastard to make more work for himself, arrogant and bad at listening but he tries when prompted, and so sure it has to be him that does the work, because who else is there? Only he keeps asking.

Legends is one answer, ish.

I want to see how this story plays out and the episode count isn't giving me optimism on that, but I'm not even reading the episode descriptions so I shall find out as I watch.


Tumblr has provided me many stills of John's tattoos but delightfully there are even more opportunities to see them.

Is good to watch so far.

Have watched first disc of Constantine.
Want to watch them all in a row but unfortunately then I will have watched them.

The theology of the horror story is still deeply screwed
but
I can entirely believe the character John Constantine believes the things that lead him to choose as he does.

Also if anyone turned up preaching happy shiny forgiveness better way to him he would be *angry* angry.
Where were the alternatives when he was looking?
... in Legends of Tomorrow, sometimes, maybe, but not here on his own show.

The way horror tragedy constructs the story to lock the ever so sympathetic main character into
Hard Choices
is a great big Thing.

Of course there should be a better way, but then we wouldn't be in this genre, so you get a story that believes in the Fall but is at best equivocal about redemption.

Interesting enough stories, compelling as ever character.