What happens after the World Ends? Is the Sea of Stars post apocalyptic? (RPG Blog Carnival)
Dec. 10th, 2025 09:46 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
seaofstarsrpg_feed
A new month, a new RPG Blog Carnival hosted this month by Advantage on Arcana and this month’s theme is The End Times and After.
From the point of view of many of the faiths of the Sea of Stars, the Gods War was the End Times, just not the end times they were expecting and planning for. The Armies of Order and the Hordes of Chaos had been plotting and planning to take the war to and end the threat of the other once and for all . . . Then the dragons came and wiped out the leadership of both factions. All their preparations came to naught; they had prepared for the wrong war.[1]
The other gods were no better prepared; even the gods whose portfolios included the hunting of dragons were not ready for the assault of the Empress and her flights of dragons. Though, to be fair, she had disrupted the orderly running of the god by her murder of the Weapon Maker, the Smith of Gods, some time before the attack,[2] preventing the gods from getting the weapons they were expecting. This caused both confusion and conflict among the gods, dividing them when they needed to be united against the initial attacks. Though they had tasked a lesser goddess with investigating what was then thought to be the mysterious disappearance of the God of Smiths, it was too late to reveal the truth before the attack began.[3]
When the gods were defeated, it was often reflected in their temples and holy places: eternal flames died, holy lights winked out, statues spontaneously wept, bled, or crumbled. Those watching the heavens could see, and occasionally hear, the great conflict above as the dragons carved their way through the gods and their servants. Occasionally, the body of one of the servants would fall to the Earth among the much more numerous dragon corpses that in some areas fell like rain. The slaughter was immense; thousands of dragons died, including all of the Empress’ children who had numbered in the hundreds.[4]
But, arguably, the true end of the world happened after the fall of the gods,
shortly afterward -the exact amount of time after the end of Gods War is disputed, somewhere between hours and weeks later- and has become known as the Sundering. The world tore itself apart, shattering into hundreds or thousands of islands, floating in space. The shock of the Sundering almost destroyed the Earthkine as their tie to the earth was so violently torn, though not quite completely severed. It still killed no small number of the Earthkine and left the survivors weakened. For them, it was very nearly the end of everything.
The next of the great powers to fall, were the giants, as they gathered to go to war against the dragons -their traditional enemies the gods having already been defeated- but the Sundering disrupted their mustering for war. Leading to their defeat on the Blasted Plain of Yotenschlachtfeld. The survivors were driven to the far edges of the Sea of Stars, to be hunted and harried, never to return to the center of power. For them, it was also close to the end of everything.
The Sundering itself wiped no small number of cities and civilizations off the face of the world, some lost coherence as they lost divine guidance, while still others dissolved and were reshaped by their new draconic rulers. To many, it seemed like the world was ending, but the world was just changed irrevocably and a new age -the age of Dragons- had begun.
Notes: Combining lots of bits and pieces of world lore into one coherent document.
[1] In fairness to the Law Lords, they had made plans in case they lost the war against the Hordes of Chaos, several of which have activated in the centuries following the Draconic Conquest.
[2] As told in the Legend of Betrayal’s Tear.
[3] Which I have started as a short story, that I need to find again, which has the Secretary of the Gods trying to work out what happened to the God of Smiths.
[4] The Empress brutally sacrificed her children as the initial shock wave of the assault on the Gods. One of her daughters did -in fact- survive having been cast down during the Gods War and buried in the Earth in a sort of magical stasis until recovered nearly a thousand years later.
Image the Fall of Babylon from the Wellcome Collection and used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.
Cash Action – DORK TOWER 10.12.25
Dec. 10th, 2025 06:00 amdorktower_feed
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Here We Pokémon Go Again, Part 46
Dec. 10th, 2025 09:00 pmnotalwaysworking_feedRead Here We Pokémon Go Again, Part 46
Back when Pokémon Go was really in swing, I made friends with another player whose job brought him to the mall most days. One day, he comes into my store, and I excitedly challenge him to a Pokémon battle.
Mirror-Imaging Your Way Through
Dec. 10th, 2025 03:48 pmin_the_pipeline_feedI found this to be an interesting paper, and it uses an idea that’s not always easy to realize. There are a lot of time when we’d like to be able to use small proteins and peptides as drugs, but they often have poor pharmacokinetics (absorption, membrane penetration, and most especially metabolic liability). In addition, some of these small-protein ideas can end up being immunogenic, since your body can react to them like the foreign substances they are, with your immune system taken them as signs of some sort of viral or bacterial attack.
As an aside, the current vogue for “peptides” (very loosely defined) among wellness types, bodybuilders, and other such groups is grimly amusing from a medicinal chemistry point of view. Most of these people have no actual idea of what they’re talking about, and “peptide” gets used as a synonym for “cool dietary supplement known to guru insiders” with no further thought. So asking someone if they take peptides just gets a blank stare from anyone who knows biochemistry, since your body is swimming with tens/hundreds of thousands of different short protein sequences that fit inside that name. And the number of different possible peptides, even reasonably short ones, is just beyond human comprehension. It’s not a very useful term when thrown around like this!
Anyway, what the new paper above is discussing is more in the “miniprotein” class - that is, long enough to fold itself into a defined three-dimensional structure. In this case, they’re about forty amino acids long. And the authors are looking to compare hit rates against a difficult target (PD-1/PD-L1) versus shorter sequences I blogged just the other day about a quick computational approach that came up empty against this one, and it’s really no wonder - that interface features two rather flat beta-sheet surfaces that don’t give small structures very much to grab on to, as far as anyone’s been able to see.
And they’re also interested in making these miniprotein candidates out of D-amino acids. Those are of course the mirror-image forms of the ones used normally in living systems, and the idea there is that a peptide or protein made out of such enantiomers will probably not be a substrate for hydrolase enzymes (and may be less immunogenic as well). But you’re not going to be able to take a sequence that you know binds to you target, synthesize it with all the amino acids flipped into the D stereochemistry, and expect it to bind. You’ve made a different compound entirely! So the D-proteins you get out of such a screening/synthesis exercise would not be expected to look much like sequences you’re seen before - you’re just using this non-natural stereochemistry to put the side chains and functional groups into the right position to hit the target, one way or another.
But how do you do that? There are, as mentioned, ridiculously huge numbers of potential protein candidates available, and the best ways to produce and evaluate huge mixed libraries of them rely on living-system-derived techniques like phage display (subject of the 2018 Chemistry Nobel, I might add). But the phages and bacteria you’d use for such library preparation are of course all using the good ol’ L amino acids that we’ve stuck with for a few billion years now. Well, here’s a way out: if you can go to the trouble of making a supply of your target protein (the one that you’re screening for binders to) as an all-D protein, then you can screen against whatever normal phage libraries you want. If you identify a binder, then all you have to do is synthesize that hit out of D amino acids so it can bind the natural L-protein target! This mirror-image screening was pioneered back in the 1990s and has been used in a number of applications since for people interested in D-protein screening hits.
Now, making any substantial sized protein out of all D amino acids is not enjoyable, but it’s gotten more feasible over the years with advances in organic-chemistry routes to protein synthesis. And that’s what this paper did, making a 146-amino acid construct of the PD-1 extracellular domain as the screening target. (It was assembled from seven shorter sequences by various chemical ligation reactions - not the work of a moment, but certainly doable if you have the time, skill, and patience. Oh, and the money. That too.
Most of the commercial screening libraries of various-length peptides didn’t yield much of interest. But their miniprotein library, which had been targeted towards a different purpose entirely (SUMO binding) from another project, actually yielded a micromolar binder. They used that sequence to prepare a new phage library with several hundred million proteins randomized around this one. The twenty or so best survivors from four successive rounds of screening and enrichment turned out to be pretty good when tested as individual compounds - many of them were sub-micromolar and one of them came in with an IC50 of 60 nanomolar (but was about a hundredfold less potent in the cell assay, which is certainly not unheard of either, unfortunately). NMR evidence seems to confirm direct binding to the PD-1 protein, albeit without many structural details.
This comes under the heading of “an interesting start”, and it certainly seems to demonstrate that miniproteins can be ligands for such difficult targets. Turning D proteins of any sort into drugs is something that hasn’t quite crossed the finish line yet, although there are two such candidates in clinical trials against other targets. It seems that the advantages of greater stability and lower immunogenicity can be realized with these things, although you certainly don’t want to take either one of those as given without proving it for yourself. There are though, an insane number of possible miniprotein scaffolds and designs, each of which can partake in the equally insane variety of protein sequences, so you’d have to think that there are drugs in there somewhere!
If You Want to Pitch Me, Maybe Talk to Me First
Dec. 10th, 2025 07:37 amcrosarth_feed
Talk to me first.
Now, that may seem obvious to most of you, but it apparently isn’t for everyone. And most people, in fact, do this. Like at said con, a guy came up to my table, saw that my banner said I was a podcaster, and talked to me about the fiction podcast he was working on. It was a great conversation, and while I haven’t checked out his show yet, I fully intend to give it a listen some time this week. He started out that interaction gauging my interest though, and letting me know who he was as a person. It was fun, it was nice, and he left me his card. All in all, a positive interaction.
But that’s not what all of these instances are like.
A while later, a different guy comes up to my table. I greet him, but am effectively ignored. Now, that happens, and while it’s a bit rude not to respond at all, nerds can be awkward so I’m used to it. After a few moments of looking at my stuff, he starts picking up my cards and putting them back down one by one. I have several different business cards (one for each comic, one for Nerd & Tie, and one that’s a general “me” card), so I’m not sure why he’s doing this. When he gets to a Peregrine Lake card though, he turns it over and says his first words to me in the two minutes or so he’s been at my table: he asks for a pen.
I hand it over, assuming he wants to note something about my stuff on a card, which has happened before. I mean, the card he’s picked is one for a website where there isn’t anything for sale on the table right now, so I just assumed it was the one thing up his alley. I’m under the impression that he’s going to jot something down and walk away with the card.
That is, in fact, not what happened.
Instead he writes out quite a bit more than I’m expecting him to, and Crysta and I are just sitting there in silence. Then, when he’s done, he hands me my own card. What he’s written down is a URL and some social media accounts, and he tells me he’s starting a creator collective of independent writers. He mentions having talked to some of the other authors at the con (there were a couple). I politely took the information, and told him I would check it out, and he walked away.
But here’s the thing, if he’d bothered to speak a word to me when he arrived, he might have asked me what my thoughts on a creator collective are. That’s when he’d learn I’m already a part of one. Like one of the cards he picked up and ignored was literally for it.
And we could talk about how he should probably have brought some sort of card or flier if his goal was to network, or how it’s difficult to convince me that you’d be a good advocate for my work when our interaction is this awkward, but that’s not the point. If he had started with a conversation, he would have learned my background in that space. And while I have no interest in changing affiliations, we could have talked about working together or I could have given advice on how to grow and promote.
It just would have required a god damn conversation.
I just want to feel like you see me as a human being, really. Take some time to find out my interest, figure out my vibe, and importantly let me figure out yours. It will be a better experience for both of us, trust me.
Also, remember, you can pre-order Buried Memories, the fourth book in my contemporary fantasy series the Mia Graves Saga, out December 15th 2025.
It's Wednesday?
Dec. 10th, 2025 01:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydamorehouseToday, Saint Paul is blanketed in snow. I note this as it applies to several things I want to talk about.
First, my car, which is in the shop. It has not, in fact, failed me in any serious way. But, Mason is taking his drivers' license test tomorrow and our car needs to pass inspection. One of the things it needs to have? Two working front lights. What does it NOT currently have? YOU GUESSED IT. I was almost not able to bring the car in today because firstly, Troy is booked up weeks in advance due to all the holiday driving/travel that people do. I was able to plead my case with him and we agreed that if I dropped my car off ASAP in the morning, he'd just pop that new light into it at some point in between the regular work. If he has time, he'll make things more profitable for himself by giving me an oil change (which I told him to feel free to do, because Troy prices very failrly and a single light change is going to cost me almost nothing.)
But secondly? The sky opened up and DUMPED snow on us. I don't know the official number of inches, but we crested at least 4 inches (10.16 cm for my metric friends) because Saint Paul declared a Snow Emergency.
For out of town people, a "Snow Emergency" isn't really an emergency as in "OH GOD EVERYTHING IS SHUT DOWN," but more, "Hey, Saint Paulies, time to move your car to one side of the street or the other so that the plows can come through!" It's also the day when snow emergency workers, like ticketers, go to work.
You may recall from previous episodes that last snow season (2024-March 2025), I worked as what Saint Paul Public Works colloquially referred to as "taggers." Our official title might have been "ticketers?" But, our job was to drive around the city and write out parking violation tickets, get cars towed, etc., so that the plows could come through and do their thing.
I am hired for the snow season (2025-26), however the job has changed. We are now "runners" and will be no longer writing tickets. That job is now in the hands of retired and reserve police officers. What does a runner do, you ask? Let me describe it and you can tell me if you think this job will be any fun. A runner will ride along with a police officer, brush the snow from license plates, and stick tickets in windows.
Yep.
There is a reason they did not interview me for this job, nor ask for a resume.
However, it feels like a job that really doesn't need to exist, doesn't it?
The saddest part is that I LOVED being a tagger. It's sad because everything I previously loved about that job, the police officers now do. I believe I wrote about this at length before, but basically the things I used to love about the job are all very silly. No one likes handing out parking tickets. However, there were some "fun" things that absolutely played into that part of every kid who used to make siren noises and run around pretending to be a cop. (And yeah, ACAB, but when I did this, I was 5 okay??) Like, in the old job we used to get to use the radio to call in vehicles in need of towing, etc, and we got to use a code that included our temporary badge number. RADIOS, y'all. They're just fun. Because you get to say, "Over." Or in our case, "Clear." Once trained, we got to go out, alone, in company car with heated seats and (sometimes!) heated steering wheels. We got to put on the flashing lights. We got to wear a safety vest. We got to learn the somewhat arcane process of handwriting tickets in those old booklets you sometimes see if you watch 1970s cop shows. DUMB STUFF. But, like, it made the job tolerable, you know?
But the fun part was never, ever: go out in the cold and stick the ticket on the windshield.
Is the pay good? I mean, it's OKAY. But the shifts are TEN HOURS. It's never less than that.
Also, speaking of ACAB? I'm not particularly thrilled at the idea of spending ten hours in a squad with a cop. What are we even going to talk about? The last ICE protest I went to? Because "say, were you there?" could get pretty awkward, pretty quickly.
By chance, I had to turn down this snow emergency. As noted, Mason has his big test tomorrow and I need to be available to drive him out to the test facility. I do not try to work the late shift because I'm pretty sure Saint Paul would not pay me for sleeping in the squad car, and I can not do 8pm to 5 am. I'm too old for that shift. Luckily, there's usually also a day shift.
I'll let you know what it's like when I finally do one, though. Maybe I'll be surprised and there will still be awesome things.
A Double Sale Double Cross
Dec. 10th, 2025 06:55 pmnotalwaysworking_feedRead A Double Sale Double Cross
Me: "Why is my raise so small? It's not even half of what I was promised."
Manager: "The store is still catching up, so we can't afford the raise we'd previously quoted. If the store continues on its upward track, you'll get your raise at your one-year evaluation."
Bundle of Holding: Magical Kitties
Dec. 10th, 2025 02:13 pmjames_davis_nicoll
Magical Kitties Save the Day, the all-ages introductory storytelling game from Atlas Games.
Bundle of Holding: Magical Kitties
Every day I'm shovelin' [^1]
Dec. 10th, 2025 09:49 ambrithistorianBy the time today ends I will have shoveled our driveway and ways at least four times over the course of two days. We're finally getting a new garage door and opener, having needed one for several years. We had to wait for a non-standard-sized door to be ordered[^2], then once it arrived, we scheduled the installation for yesterday. Then, the night of the day before yesterday, it started snowing.
Yesterday morning, I called the garage door company to see if they would need to reschedule because of the weather. The woman I spoke to sounded almost amused by the idea. Since then, I have shoveled:
- Yesterday morning, so I could get our vehicles out and the technician could get his truck to the garage.
- Yesterday evening, so the technician could get his truck out of the driveway and I could get our vehicles back in.
- Early this morning, so I could get our van out and go to the doctor. This included shoveling the huge piles that the snow plows had deposited at the end of the driveway.
- Later this morning, when I got back from the doctor, I had to shovel the rest of the driveway so we can play vehicle Tetris[^3] and the technician can finish the garage door.
It's currently snowing, but not as hard as yesterday, so I may or may not have to shovel again when the technician has to leave this evening. Plus, I'll have to shovel the end of the driveway again when the city plows the sidewalks, which may or may not happen today. So I guess this winter's definitely giving me my exercise!
[^1] If you recognized the musical reference in the title, I'd like to offer my sincere apologies. If you didn't, please don't go looking for it — I doubt you need an earworm, and I'd prefer that you not think ill of me.
[^2] Because of course our house required a non-standard-sized door.
[^3] Right now we're forbidden to park on the street, so that the plows can run. When the technician gets here, A. and I will have to back our vehicles out of the driveway, then he'll back his truck up the driveway to the garage, then we'll pull back into the driveway. Then we'll have to do the whole thing in reverse when he leaves.
Wednesday Writing
Dec. 10th, 2025 05:43 pmsharonlee_feedWednesday. Gloomy with intermittent snow. Warmer than yesterday, but not warm.
Rook joined me for my early sunlight and tea. Tali would like to join me, but she can’t figure it out yet. We’re all a Little Much for Tali, I fear.
Breakfast was oatmeal. Lunch will be store-bought spinach quiche and a side of soup. Oven heating for the quiche now. Did Session One of the PT homework.
Wrote a couple thousand new! words this morning. Which — one of the good things about the Write What You Know Method, beside racking up a lot of words early, is that, while you DO have to do a fair amount of timeline-wrasslin’, and build bridges, the bridge-building is mostly smooth, once you’ve figured out what the story is about.
Yes, I do keep saying that.
The plan for the remainder of the day after lunch is to do my duty the cats, take a short walk, and get back with the WIP. And do Session Two of the PT homework; I’ve come to like doing that after I’ve served up Happy Hour.
Tomorrow, I have PT early, a haircut scheduled mid-morning, and I really do need to get to the grocery. And probably the post office.
Meet ‘n Greet with the new Town Manager in the evening. I have a ticket. I’m starting to waffle on Do I Really Want To Go. It’ll probably come down to how’s the weather?
The cats are all back in Steve’s office, snuggling into warm spots. It goes without saying that they were a great deal of help during the morning writing session.
So! How’s everybody doing today?
Wednesday Writing
Dec. 10th, 2025 12:43 pmrolanniWednesday. Gloomy with intermittent snow. Warmer than yesterday, but not warm.
Rook joined me for my early sunlight and tea. Tali would like to join me, but she can't figure it out yet. We're all a Little Much for Tali, I fear.
Breakfast was oatmeal. Lunch will be store-bought spinach quiche and a side of soup. Oven heating for the quiche now. Did Session One of the PT homework.
Wrote a couple thousand new! words this morning. Which -- one of the good things about the Write What You Know Method, beside racking up a lot of words early, is that, while you DO have to do a fair amount of timeline-wrasslin', and build bridges, the bridge-building is mostly smooth, once you've figured out what the story is about.
Yes, I do keep saying that.
The plan for the remainder of the day after lunch is to do my duty the cats, take a short walk, and get back with the WIP. And do Session Two of the PT homework; I've come to like doing that after I've served up Happy Hour.
Tomorrow, I have PT early, a haircut scheduled mid-morning, and I really do need to get to the grocery. And probably the post office.
Meet 'n Greet with the new Town Manager in the evening. I have a ticket. I'm starting to waffle on Do I Really Want To Go. It'll probably come down to how's the weather?
The cats are all back in Steve's office, snuggling into warm spots. It goes without saying that they were a great deal of help during the morning writing session.
So! How's everybody doing today?
Not Built For The Digit-al Age
Dec. 10th, 2025 05:00 pmnotalwaysworking_feedRead Not Built For The Digit-al Age
Other Office: "7386."
Me: "Do you mean 07386?"
Other Office: "No, 7386."
Me: "It has to be five digits."
Other Office: "Yes, it is 7386."
Mom Is Update Intolerant
Dec. 10th, 2025 03:30 pmnotalwaysrelated_feed
Uncle: "I thought you were straight."
Sister-In-Law: "Nope. Bisexual."
Uncle: "Wait, did I know that already? Honey, did we know that?"
Aunt: "I don't think so."
2025.12.10
Dec. 10th, 2025 08:48 amlsandersonUS senator calls for insider trading inquiry over Trump donors buying $12m worth of shares
Co-chairs of LNG firm, who bought stock worth almost $12m each after meeting with Trump officials, deny wrongdoing
Nina Lakhani and Joseph Gedeon
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/dec/10/trump-donors-insider-trading-investigation-senate
Hindsight is always 20/20
Wrong voters, wrong message: progressives’ autopsy lays bare Kamala Harris failures
RootsAction report finds Harris courted moderates instead of working-class Democrats – and Gaza stance did not help
David Smith in Washington
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/10/kamala-harris-election-autopsy
Just 0.001% hold three times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds
Data from World Inequality Report also showed top 10% of income-earners earn more than the other 90%
Jon Henley
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2025/dec/10/just-0001-hold-three-times-the-wealth-of-poorest-half-of-humanity-report-finds
Tourists to US would have to reveal five years of social media activity under new Trump plan
Proposed plan would apply to tourists of all countries, including those not required to get a visa to visit the US
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/10/tourists-social-media-trump
Trump’s crackdown on factchecker visas will not protect free speech
Margaret Sullivan
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/09/trumps-fact-checker-visa-free-speech
Font of ‘wasteful’ diversity: Trump’s state department orders return to Times New Roman
Memo from Marco Rubio reportedly said cutting Calibri from official communication would ‘abolish yet another wasteful DEIA program’
Reuters
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/10/trump-times-new-roman-font-return-state-department
Gen-Zine: DIY publications find new life as form of resistance against Trump
an illustration of people making zines
People of all ages, from all regions, are making, printing and distributing zines on the streets, in libraries and at local gathering spots.
Zines have made a resurgence as communities seek to share information on everything from ICE raids to local elections
Mallory Carra
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/dec/10/zine-revival-organizing-social-media
Why has the price of silver hit a record high?
Osmond Chia
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62vn22523xo
Solving String Theory
Dec. 10th, 2025 02:30 pmnotalwaysfriendly_feed
I’m sitting on a park bench reading when a kite gets stuck in a tall oak tree. The owner, a guy in his twenties, stares up in horror like he’s just lost a family heirloom.
Kite Guy: "No, no, no, come on!"
His friends gather around and immediately start forming a rescue committee.
To The Warm Horizon by Choi Jin-Young (Translated by Soje)
Dec. 10th, 2025 08:54 amjames_davis_nicoll
Could safety from the global pandemic be found in desperate flight towards a land of banditry and violence?
To The Warm Horizon by Choi Jin-Young (Translated by Soje)
Felix Mendelssohn - Symphony No. 4 in A Major, Op. 90, MWV N16 "Italian": I. Allegro vivace
Dec. 10th, 2025 06:00 ammpr_daily_download_feedFelix Mendelssohn - Symphony No. 4 in A Major, Op. 90, MWV N16 “Italian”: I. Allegro vivace
Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra
Anthony Bramall
More info about today’s track: Naxos 9.00715
Courtesy of Naxos of America Inc.
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