On Distraction

It's almost a cliche to state that the state of technology is using the human condition aggressively against itself. Entire industries have popped up around the anxiety that technology seems to create in us; mindfulness, exercise, drugs, self help, community etcetera. All available from the convenient little black mirror in your hand.

I realised, oh, about a year ago, that I had been choking myself on the sweet syrup of the internet. I stopped, at first, with facebook. Then deleted twitter. I still clung onto one "social network"; reddit. I thought it couldn't be too bad, I was learning so much from it. And I was. 

Every day. 

All Day. 

Most hours of my day. 

And still I persisted. 

I tried starving myself. And yet I still grabbed whatever content I could from other websites. I had an entire list of relevant, slightly clickbait-y news websites I followed - io9, the verge, vice, kotaku, to name a few. I would spend hours in class combing through their newest "stories". I would go back to reddit because it had even more.

I realised that the only thing that was actually making me be addicted to all of these things is the very medium they're attached to: The Internet. Our greatest invention of our entire history - putting thousands of bits of information at our fingertips, and thousands of specialised interests and communities seconds away. A glorious invention that allowed us to simultaneously talk to everybody and change minds around the world. To find whatever we wanted, and see it in any light we wanted to, because on the internet, you are sure to have somebody agree with you. It allowed us to bring such information so quickly to people. We could spread a lie to millions and trick people to believing that they have full control of their own thoughts, of their desires, that they are impossible to fool. It allowed the greatest predators on the planet, our very organizations, to finally become people. Entities with millions of dollars and enough computerpower to bend the instincts of billions to their own goals.

We're living in the arse-end of history where corporations who supply us with so many goods figured out that they can use technology to leverage the sub-conscious of man to their own ends. We're slaves to our own desires, and those desires can be carefully curated on the dopamine highway of the web.

The internet has allowed us to believe that the words on a screen are actual people and that communities are active when they are, instead, manufactured.

Facebook gives you friendship without that which makes it worthwhile - actual people. Twitter gives you the arena of soundbites and arguments without acknowledging that a name can be both a person and not - making you effectively vie against the idea of a person, instead of the tone, growl and blat of a real one. Reddit makes you think that it's constant stream of facts are somehow improving you, by simulating an agora. Meanwhile you're fed the intellectual equivalent of corn syrup - through a mouthtube. Your brain cannot process the vast information it's confronted with.

For us to appreciate anything anymore, we need to learn that the internet is ours. 

We are the workers in a factory we're convinced is actually a spa, our instincts hardly our own.

On Dragons: Flint Giant

I created this bugger quite some time ago...

I don't quite like Giants in D&D, the vast mythology built up around what, at least in fairy tales, are stupid and hulking beasts who stomp on villagers and eat them. Sky Giant? Fire? Storm? They seem removed from what giants are, just a larger type of human.

You don't always want your characters to interact with other humans, because although elves have the nature love and the dwarves have the mining schtick (as neutral stereotypes go) giants really are nothing more than large, imperious humans with a bizarre family tree. It isn't that exciting.

Giants, at least in Tiroeth (tuh-row-eth) are the more low-fantasy type giant in the vein of Game of Thrones or the Biblical Goliath. Huge, angry, almost beast like creatures who live in a stone age reality and generally hate humans.

So, while reading about giants I started building in my mind a type of giant who would basically fling pieces of flint at the party. Not a huge monster, but big, who live in caves in the hills and tend Dire Goats, hairy horses or somesuch.

On Dragons: Rock Imp

I was exploring the veritable warren of caves surrounding the city of Arrix this afternoon when, in a small dark cave, water burbling nearby, I saw a small rock stand up in the firelight and I say! go for my shoe buckle!
The peculiar little beastie had a little beak it snapped at me and chirruped through while I was trying to shake it off. Finally I desisted and cut off my shoe buckle which it then tried to jam into the gaps of its rocky shell. 

- From the journal of the Natural Thaumaturge Aldéric d'Folquet

In planning a previous campaign in my homebrew world, Tiroeth (Tuh-row-eth), my characters had to, well, escape from a city being invaded by the elemental planes, more here. They had to go through the cave system outside the city, and this was just something I created on the spot when they were exploring a cavern. For the next couple of sessions it was a fun little creature to roleplay.

I ran it like a small fey who lives in cave systems and basically pilfers any shiny objects off the party. My groups PC managed to manipulate it by tying a rope to their shoe buckle and giving it to the Imp. It was perfectly content to go along with the party as long as it had access to the rope. Later on it began stealing coins and needles and jamming them in its rocky shell, very chuffed with itself.

One could use it in many ways; it could be the reason why trinkets are disappearing in a castle, or a way to find a treasure in a warren of tunnels (the Imps would be bedazzled in coins and jewels), or a way to give your group a quest, by having it appear with a dangerous - and very shiny - object.