The Four Treasures of the Tuatha Dé Danann

     I started a campaign last semester, more or less based on ancient Irish legends (though there is no real set time period - notably from the Iron Age up to the erasure of pre-christian Celtic religious culture that swiftly followed St. Patrick). I finally settled on making the over-arching goal of this campaign to be the adventurers acquiring the use of one or more of The Four Treasures of the Tuatha Dé Danann, which are:

• The Dagda's Cauldron
• The Spear of Lugh
• The Stone of Fál *
• The Sword of Light of Núadu

*Here it must be noted that I am substituting The Dagda's Club (The club was said to be able to kill nine men with one blow; but with the handle he could return the slain to life.) for The Stone of Fal, as it will probably not be featured in the campaign, given that I don't plan to make one of the characters into a king. 

     The main setting for the campaign is what is now County Kerry. The region is famous for it's beautiful scenery, and importantly to my campaign, covered with blanket bogs. The below map is the approximate area, with the (fictional) starting village of Tinuviel marked. 

 

     Thus far, the party has vanquished a covey of hags and is deliberating on whether or not to return the tribute from Tinuviel that the hags demanded. Said party currently consists of a Corpse-Crafter, a Duskblade, a Dragon Shaman, and a Bard (who is played by me as a quasi-DM-PC)

Note: I am using Ireland as the basis for, not the exact, setting. I am purposely putting in fictional places.

Katawa Shoujo: My Two Copper

Katawa Shoujo is an erotic game in the making. Now if you want, keep reading.

     KS is an erotic (There will be an option to dis-include the erotic content once the game is finished and released. There is also no erotic content in Act 1.) Dating Sim (which is a very popular genre, closely related to Visual Novels) in which the main characters all share a common trait - that of being disabled in some way. Now, at this point, I just about stopped reading about it and didn't want to give it a chance, but I figured that I had read worse, so I steeled myself for what I thought would be horrifyingly written with no sensitivity on the part of the writers. This impression wasn't helped by the name. 'Katawa' translates into English as 'disabled', but it's meaning in Japanese is much closer to 'cripple' and isn't considered polite. I'm not sure if this was an accident or not on the part of the development team, because they seem to be English speakers.

     I was very wrong. This is still in development, but unless anything goes horribly wrong, it looks like the disabilities of the characters are being handled in a responsible, mature manner. It seeks to not stigmatize, but instead show that these characters are every bit as capable, just sometimes needing emotional support or a slight consideration. The dialog is well-written and there is a fairly long prologue which seeks to establish a connection between the player and the player-character. The only fault I find with some of the characterization is that some of them are a bit stereotypic, though more in the inspirational sense, such as Emi Ibarazaki, the track star who has artificial legs. The art style is typical of Japanese VNs and draws heavily from anime and manga. I do enjoy some of the painted backgrounds.

     I find one of the most amazing things about this game to be that the idea came from 4chan (an infamous image board that caters to everything imaginable), which is considered by nearly all internet citizens as the cesspool of the internet. (Seriously, don't go there unless you know exactly which threads you want to read.) 4 Leaf Studios was the official development team formed there and then moved so that it severed all ties other than the nod to 4chan and the person who posted the original idea. The development team has since lost and gained many different members, but this is a completely amateur work. It is under creative commons license and Act 1, version 4 (The game has no erotic content yet, so it's more or less SafeForWork.) has recently been released, which mostly featured translations in more languages and corrections to the Chinese version.

     I'm not necessarily recommending this to my readers (all one of you), but it is interesting and worthwhile to take a look at and read about, given that this looks like it might be setting a good precedent in the hentai/erotica/pornography industry to treat the characters with respect and to not objectify them, whether or not the subject matter is considered fetishistic.

Also, a very succinct description of Rule 34, which is what probably started this whole thing (Acrotomophilia and Dysmorphophilia -related content is common on 4chan)