007 Lists about James Bond: Top 3 Villains

I have been thinking about a few lists and if there is a series that I love and that lends itself so well to these kind of lists than James Bond. From the days when I was a kid, I remember watching for the action and the gadgets. Then as I grew up, the bond girls. Hummmm

Since the franchise has been running for over fifty years, it is great to look over the movies I loved - and hated - for decades.

So let's start...

Top 3 Villains

3- Jaws

There are few characters that marked my young imagination as much as Richard Kiel's interpretation of the steel-jawed killer known as Jaws.

From the unstoppable, relentless, merciless juggernaut he was in The Spy who loved me, I was just terrified. My brother and I would scare each other by mimicking him and his slow bite attack method.

He wasn't as awesome in Moonraker (then again who was?) but still his presence and appearance drew my interest immediately. I loved the fact that Bond always goes for the Kirk-punch to the jaw to remind himself of the steel teeth.

2- Goldfinger

I remember watching the movie that bore his name and being completely taken aghast by the deviousness of his plot at Fort Knox. That he used Pussy Gallore's Flying Circus wasn't lost on me.

His method of killing: by painting a woman with gold paint stuck to my imagination as particularly horrible.

The man who loves gold always left me with a soft spot as someone who is extremely ruthless in the pursuit of his one and only goal: gold.

Forever embedded in my mind as the pinnacle of greed, Auric Goldfinger is someone I love to hate every time he comes on TV.

1- Hans Blofeld

How can one think of 007 and not think of his arch-enemy of the early days: Ernst Blofeld! The man with the white cat is the archetype and living symbol of villainy. As the true mastermind of evil, Blofeld takes the cake: he has means and resources, is completely without mercy and seeks to advance the cause of Spectre.

He appears a number of times throughout the 60s and 70s, played by many different actors, though the actor that stuck most to my mind was You Only Live Twice's's Donald Pleasance.

The many actors that played him, like Bond himself, gave him a slightly different flavor. In a way, I think Blofeld, like Bond, is a codename that is passed on from person to person. Whereas he is always a little different, but remains the same.

JP

Job opportunity at First Ones Entertainment

There comes a time when a company grows to the point where someone realizes he can no longer do everything himself. My personal focus and main interest is an remains in the writing, editing and GMing of high quality RPG products. With my time getting shorter and shorter with the many classes I'm taking to improve myself

One element where I need help is on the side of publicity and social media. I know so much more can and should be done by FOE: getting the word out through various channels and gaming forums to get the name out there. I'm particularly interested in places like the EnWorld and Paizo's forums. I'm talking about the many Facebook group about RPGs. Google groups. Twitter. There are so many opportunities for FOE to reach people with our products.

I am looking for:

- Knowledge and mastery of social media: be able to promote and communicate effectively through these many channels

- Willing to GM FOE adventures in their area: at cons, game days, and others.

- Someone who has ideas and who is willing to contribute to the Legacies story line(s).

- Ability to say "No JP, this is NOT a good idea"

For these services, I offer:

- Free copies of FOE products, everything digital and hard copies of any physical book published by FOE.

- Fame and glory

- A small stipend (small is the operative word here)

- Writing slots (if you want to write something, it will happen)

- Adulation of millions

- A FoeLegacies.com email address

How to join the rank of the elite FOEs? Simply send an email to JP@FoeLegacies.com and let me know why you are interested in working for FOE.

JP

New iconics

For a while now, I have been thinking of adding new iconics to the group of six that has been adventuring through Saggakar for the past two years. I really like those guys, but wonder if I could add a few more to the mix for variety.

I think I may be creating two groups of adventurers and use one or the other regardless of the adventure. If someone has a preference, I could swap one for the other. I have yet to decide exactly which ones I want to add, so I created a Facebook Poll to see who you guys would want to see (or not see). Next step will be to commission art for them and get them ready to go.

I am quite excited about this and hope to have them ready by the time I will be in Louisville for Imaginarium at the start of October.

JP

Art just before the weekend

The final two pieces in this batch... More goodies from Irene's desk!

You may recognize the knight lady from a post I made last week. Well now she is back with a new hairdo. I did not like the previous one because it resembled Paizo's Seelah too much. This new one looks pretty good.

With her is a Scottish highlander-inspired character. I am amazed at how rugged that dude looks. Simple and very effective...

JP

A new map and a new map tool

So way back when, I backed a map making tool on Kickstarter called "Other World Mapper" (see the Campaign here, you may still get in while they are in Beta 5). For the first few iterations, I did nothing with it, just waited for the tool to mature and for my needs for it to increase. Well tonight, I decided to download, install and play with it a little.

WOW!

The tool is VERY, and I mean VERY intuitive and easy to use, unlike its main competitor, Campaign Cartographer. I quickly made a map, which I deleted and began to work on a better map than for the ArchDespotate than the one I have been using (a piece of paper with notes). The following map took me about an hour to do as I learned the controls and how to make things look the way I wanted. I really love the fact that it is extremely easy to connect things like rivers and roads (which I did not put here). Even putting two adjoining regions is super easy. I will be playing with this tool a lot more in the future.

I know my authors will be very happy to get this. I know I am... I even added a few more settlements since making this graphic for you guys. The map will be given for free to all those who purchased "The ArchDespotate of Faremh" book on DriveThru/RPGNow

Click on the map for a larger version.

JP

More gifts of art from Irene

More new characters rolling in! I am quite happy with these guys, AGAIN. Irene does it again!

JP

Art! New Art!

I just received the first draft of a series of illustrations from Irene. These characters are part of the new wave of characters for the Rhym project. They will also be used in Saggakar in some way or other... As usual her work is just great.

A few words on the characters represented: Juri the sorceress (of Chinese influence), the darkling monk (the smiling horned fellow), and Hanalyr the warrior. Hanalyr will get a new hairdo because she looks too much like Paizo's Seelah. I can't wait for what she will come up with.

JP

FOE launches Pillars of Oblivion

Year two of the Legacies Campaign has now started - for real! I have just released the two Gencon adventure through RpgNow/DriveThruRPG!

ToS 2-01 Fate of Zealot Randy's latest adventure. This one follows up on one the thread from his previous adventure, ToS 1-05 Path To Ambition. I must say that having run both, both of these are great fun, filled with intrigue and dark subplots, both are set in Onero: City of Sins.

For the first time, I have published an adventure for 5th Edition... This adventure is my own Fogs of Days Past which premiered at Gencon and will be running next at DragonCon in Atlanta GA. ToS2-02 Fogs of Days Past ToS2-52 Fogs of Days Past Fifth-edition adventures will hold the same number as the Pathfinder version, but number in the 50s. I can't say right now if every adventure will be ported to both system, depends on time and play numbers.

As an added bonus, the Campaign narratives are now available. Now I may have gone a bit overboard here, but the story of what happened at Gencon during "Dreams of Dust" required me to write not one, but TWO epilogues to complete the story! This one was a story I wanted to write from the first moment I began to write for Saggakar. You might recognize a few classic, non-Saggakar villains therein... Shows you how much you missed indeed! Year 2 Campaign Narratives.

If all that is not enough, everything is on sale... get them 25% off!

As usual thanks for your patronage and support!

JP

Slacking off report

Since coming back from Gencon, I have been bouncing on a number of things.

- I have been chugging along on the many classes I have been taking. From history to writing to business, a variety of topics I have been interested in and some I wish to expand or improve my skills in. I have been doing a lot. Lots of them. They are definitely eating a fair amount of my free time. However, I find that many of these topics have altered or fashioned some of my writing.

- I have been thinking about a number of non-Legacies things, namely the new L5R campaign and the end of the old one (Heroes of Rokugan 3 and 4).

- The Rhym project is chugging along, and we are moving forward. More details will be coming soon... I hope to have an email from Irene soon *wink* *wink*

- I need to get back to my Arcanis adventure. It's gnawing at me that it does not have the one wow-factor element I would like to give to it. The idea will come but I need to get back to it.

- I have been thinking about re-doing the FOE website. I really need to do it, but I need to find the time, which I've been sinking into other things.

- I have been working on a few Legacies work. One is an adventure I did not finish in time for Gencon, I currently call The Sorrowful Lady and one called Scene from a Memory. Both of those have outlines but need more work. I am also expecting a more complete outline by a new writer in my inbox.

- Since before Gencon, I have been helping Randy starting his new project. Sigh. He wants to write for himself... I just hope he will be okay still working for the pittance I can offer... Seriously, I expect we will be doing things together in the future.

- I have been neglecting this blog. A lot. Most of my work has been in my "JP On Writing" wherein I posted a number of essays on historical elements.

So this is why I have not been posting here as much as I have in days past. I cannot wait to post more stuff about Rhym, Saggakar and maybe others?

JP

Gencon 2016 AAR

Wednesday

Most of the day was spent at work, focusing on getting my release completed in time. Lucky for me, I have been cramming like crazy and from 4 to 5, I did nothing really: drank coffee, talked to my peers, and watched CNN (my office has it on a loop all the time).

Five o’clock and I drove on home, happy to be done and that I left without any bug to do (I was waiting on some to be tested, but no on-going work). Once at home, I packed what I had left to pack: some food, Florent’s stuff, some of my own junk pre-packed junk and the jitters.

This year again, my good friend Florent came over from Paris to see us with the two of us driving up to Indianapolis together. All along the road that took us up from Tennessee, through Kentucky and into Indiana. We talked about gaming mostly, about the situation in Paris, in Tennessee, here there and everywhere. I dropped him at his hotel in downtown Indy and headed to my own off outside the beltway.

Thursday

Got up early. Showered. And drove back to Indy. I parked under the Hyatt, as I did last year, found my game room tucked all the way in the back before getting my badge and convention paperwork.

I will admit to feeling quite nervous as this would be my first running of an adventure in/for 5e. I was so worried no one would show up.

But I worried for nothing. Everyone showed up and had a great time: the adventure flowed very well in 5e. Ka-ching! JOY!

My afternoon had no tickets and no one showed up. Oh well, I took the time to report my game and visited the dealer hall. I did not spend as much time there and actually walked around the place, making sure I knew where I would have to go in the coming slots.

Back to my table for 7pm, it was time to run Randy’s excellent “Fate of Zealots”. I know he had worries about the adventure he is a writer after all. I will admit I had some myself, but along different lines: worries about run time, about challenge, about DC numbers. However, I was very confident in one thing: it is a solid adventure. The choices are interesting and well-defined, making it a solid entry. It is particularly good for those who have either played the previous Onero adventures or those who own the Onero book. I am trying to swindle Randy into writing more stuff in the City of Sins…

Friday

Again, my first slot was running Saggakar using 5e. Again, the results and feedback were extremely positive. I will admit to some extremely… “Creative” solutions which made me chuckled and they chose of their own free will.

My afternoon was without sign ups, so I took the opportunity to head upstairs to the Rokugan room and played one of the adventures with my newly created Crab bushi. He was dumb, grumpy, rude, and wanted to hit things with his tetsubo. The adventure was clearly over his head so he walked around waiting for something to hit. He was disappointed. I will share my thoughts about this Rokugan thing in a later post. I had a good time is all I will say here.

The evening was back to more Pathfinder. The table had Daniel-M, with who we ruled over Tusmit back in the days. Yes it is now over a decade since I left Tusmit… He and I kept in touch through social media, but really it was great to catch up with him in person. The table created some interesting solutions to the problem at hand.

Saturday

This was my play-day. I took the opportunity to play the L5R finale, still with Hida (now Kobe) Kenji. Playing someone who is a major antisocial character (5 points) and obtuse (3 points) during a LARP was a challenge I thoroughly enjoyed. That I had not shaved in 3 days helped me look the part.

So Kenji who is a complete thug and brute is fascinated by origami, but like his player, has no talent for it. I spent time making some origami then showed it to people. Eventually the Jade Champion turned it into a minor nemuranai I went and showed everyone. It was a fun event, one I preferred over the Arcanis event, because of the many threads going on and the more active intervention of the NPCs.

In the afternoon, I attended the battle interactive part and now I finally got to use my tetsubo. Chris-H who had run me through a number of HoR3 adventures called me to his table and I gladly joined him. The first go-around resulted in my death and the defeat of my table. Lucky for us there was a “reset point” and we then kicked a lot of butts. The tetsubo smashed things left and right, it was great. We fought the battle of Oblivion’s Gate again. The table was very good and we were very good and we each took it in the face a few times, but dished it together. I can claim that I scored the final hit on the shadow dragon with my tetsubo. Splat. We win!

I then went and played an adventure of Adventure League, playing Baldman Game’s convention-only material. Seems there was a little muster snafu and we ended up being only 3 of us. Well things went as you’d expect, as our GM did not adapt much and we got our butts kik-didley-icked. The GM was good, but he needed to learn to scale for three players vs. six or seven. Oh well.

Sunday

Final day of the con! My voice had held thus far. I had but one game to run: the Saggakar special, Dreams of Dust. There was a lot of interesting lore in there, most of which I hope Chad got. I had to keep him from strangling that young kid sitting next to me… But otherwise things went well.

Then long drive home, and sleep.

Gencon 2016 was over. Time to start looking at 2017…

Live from Gencon

Hey guys this is JP live from gencon! I will be posting a few goodies "live"...

This is our new banner featuring ArchDespot Hellebora! We'll be at the Hyatt in the theory room. That's all the way passed Baldman Games and all the 5e goodness. All the way in the back! Come check us out.

I will have pix shortly.

JP