Not an artist: Four items from Oracle of Seasons that are both keys and weapons.

Four items from Oracle of Seasons that are both keys and weapons.

Gnarled Key: The first key Link obtains in his travels through Holodrum is given to him by the Great Maku Tree after Link rudely wakes him up after winning the sword from the Hero’s Cave. The key opens the first dungeon, the Gnarled Root Dungeon, just north of Horon Village and Impa’s hut.

This weapon is a root of the world tree that grew around a rare piece of the world that was before. With the primal energies stored in the wood and stone, this weapon can bend and warp itself to match the users any whim, and it is the only offering the great bramble witch will accept to visit her well of knowledge. It is either part with the root, or raise it in violence.

Not an artist: Four items from Oracle of Season you can find in buddy comedies.

Four items from Oracle of Season you can find in buddy comedies.

Spring Banana: Oddly enough, this banana only grows during Spring near the peak of Mt.Cucco. The rare delicacy can only be reached by hitching a ride on the flying cuccos that give Mt. Cucco its name.

The bananas are given to Moosh, the flying panda, in exchange for his help in navigating the many pits and precipices of Mt. Cucco. Without Moosh’s help, Link would not be able to scale the mountain and reach the Dancing Dragon Dungeon.

Nothing can wreck a morning more than slipping on a banana peel and falling face-first into the cake for the party this afternoon. Nothing can make a worse first impression than having your new partner slip and fall on a banana peel you couldn’t quite get into the compost bin. Now the two of you are going to have to work together to find a replacement for the cake you ruined before anyone else finds out.

Pop culture remix: Use this Sword of Fire and Ice as a reminder that climate change is real

The Sword of Fire and Ice delicately balanced atop a world in peril.

Sword of Fire and Ice: This classic artifact from Magic the Gathering is one of the more iconic pieces that people who don’t even play, i.e. me, know about. My take on it also combine imagery from another game I don’t play but enjoy consuming the lore. DOTA 2’s Jakiro is a two headed drake possessing the destructive forces of fire in one head and ice in the other.

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Climate change is a real pressing issue and the effects of climate change are very obvious in the mega-droughts, super fires, and extreme polar vortexes that are making it almost impossible to live anywhere anymore. Climate change is also primarily caused by human action, and we have a responsibility to do our best to steer the climate in a responsible  and ethical way. 

Taxes in the U.S. right now is an excellent microcosm of what all of our realities will be when the climate disasters start coming into all of our communities.

Self-soothing with fantasy escapism is a great way to get by day-by-day, but we can’t just bury our heads in the sand and ignore the real impacts of climate change that are more and more visible every day.

Think how your actions will effect the world seven generations from now. Be excellent to everyone.

-Ceph

Holiday: Lantern for the Lunar New Year...a week late.

Red paper lantern for Lunar New Year

Lantern: Based on my very surface-level research, the iconic red paper lanterns displayed during Lunar New Year celebrations in China represent the bright hopeful wishes for the new year while channeling the luck and wealth attracting properties of the color red.

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I know that Lunar New Year was last Friday, February 12, 2021, but I had already written up my Mjolnir post for the 200th post on my blog and didn’t want to have to make any adjustments for my Valentine’s Day bow and arrow being the 200th post.

I’m often asked for what stats I give these items in my games. Usually, I use the cards to represent some item that already exists in the game’s rules, but I could see this lantern magically floating in a slow orbit around its owner. The lantern can be ignited or extinguished by speaking a code word. When the lantern is lit, the owner and all allies within the radius of the light can choose to reroll one d20 roll of their choice before the results are confirmed, taking the second result regardless of the result. A single individual can only take advantage of this reroll once per day.

I hope you are all trying to be as excellent as you can be for everyone in this new year.

-Ceph