#maptools

Commuting in Poland

The city of Flint is the most advanced metropolis in the nation of Risur; having been selected as the central location for the push towards industrialization almost forty years previously. King Aodhan initially wanted the nation's capitol to serve this role, but entrenched interests among powerful nobility opposed it, and the King didn't have the political clout at the time to overrule them. Flint was an obvious second choice, given it's location and willingness of its governor, Roland Stanfield.

In early spring of the year five hundred AOV (After Our Victory), the royal shipyards in Flint had completed Risur's first warship powered solely by steam. The King himself was coming to the launching ceremony. The team from the Royal Homeland Constabulary had been assigned to run security for the event.

After a few weeks of exhaustive work, canvassing the docks, going over the area, and coordinating with local police; the day of the event arrived. Persephonie and Mareth left the RHC offices by carriage with their files, picking up the rest of the team on the way, and arrived at Royal Square by three PM.

Sergeant Baker of the Flint Police and his, quite frankly, magnificent moustache (as determined by general consensus of the players) were awaiting them. He'd gathered a squad of Flint police officers, and all were put at the command of the team.

Za Ritchi took the lead with the local police; Persephonie might have been the team leader but Ritchi had a knack for organization. While the police officers were naturally nervous around the  Drake, cousins to the long extinct Dragons of Ber, his association with the RHC was known to them.

He quickly briefed the police and summarized the group's findings of the past few weeks of investigations. There were four separate groups who might have reason to disrupt the launching. Dockers, local works and union members fed up with poor working conditions. Primalists and followers of the old Druidic faith who opposed the industrialization of Flint and Risur. Terrorists working with Gale, a Fey saboteur who had been targeting industrialist and factories around the city. And finally, Yerasol War Veterans from the third and fourth Yerasol Wars who had plenty of reason to despise the Tiefling designer of the ship.

With the information dispersed amongst the police officer, the RHC team and the local cops began their assignment. There were over a thousand people packed into the square; with even more crowding in from adjoining streets. There was less than half an hour before the checkpoints to Fleet square would be dropped; and any potential threats had to be dealt with by then.

Splitting up, the constables went to work.

Mechanics and Conversion Notes

This scene is the start of a skill challenge in the original module. Since this was definitely one of my favourite mechanics from Fourth Edition, I kept it more or less intact in Fantasy Craft; and just changed the skills and target numbers. The opening task of the challenge was to properly brief the police officers (necessitating a Tactics skill challenge), which provided some information, and would make the police more effective during later parts of the challenge.

Zeitgeist, the Gear of Revolution, is one of the best RPG adventure paths I've ever read (published by ENPublishing: http://zeitgeistadventurepath.com/). It has interesting combats, a detailed world, a fascinating story-line, a number of unique subsystems and plenty of opportunities for RP. I've run it once before, but that campaign ended early, during the fifth module.

The world of this campaign is a Steampunk fantasy one. The players are members of the Royal Homeland Constabulary (sort of a combination of Scotland Yard and the MI-6) in the nation of Risur; a nation with a strong magical and druidic tradition, closely connected to the Fey courts, that has recently begun to embrace industrialization and technology in some of its cities. Naturally, this has not occurred without its detractors and opponents among the more traditionally minded.

Across the sea lies the nation of Danor, enemy to Risur for the past few centuries. Founded after the Great Malice five centuries back, Danor exists in a massive dead magic zone; and has had to rely on technology instead of magic. The point of contention between these two nations has long been the Yerasol Archipelago, a chain of islands to the west with great strategic value and natural resources.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rhr1ph6zov6bpqj/Lanjyr.jpg

However, despite the last conflict being just seven years ago, a strained peace has risen between the two nations as prominent officials on both side push for peace over war, proposing treaties and sharing of territory in the Archipelago, as opposed to one side takes all. Naturally, much like the rise of technology in Risur, this has met with opposition in certain quarters. People invested in their hatred on both sides.

Still, with the support of the King of Risur... peace seems likely in the near future.

First things first, the cast of players! I have six players, and a seventh will be joining at the next session.

Za Ritchi is a tall drake, with pale white scales. His wings are slightly tattered on the end, but still easily strong enough to carry him in flight. His eyes are formless black, with glowing green dots peering out. A cloak surrounds his body, revealing only pieces of him. His teeth, and face, are seen. Might are the horns on his head, as well as his fearsome claws. A music box hangs from his neck. His attitude seems cool, and calm. Calculating, and intelligent. An aura of magick surrounds him, for that and his body is all he shall need for weapons. Ritchi is a Drake Mage. Kaleigh is an Aasimar, and a self styled angel of vengeance. She very rarely, if at all, takes off her dried-blood-brown hood, or the face-guard beneath, keeping any physical traits neatly hidden away. She's known to be fair, but somewhat indifferent. And carries a nice sized, black metal and crimson-wrapped warhammer on her back, crystal blue scales emblazoned into the sides of the head. The robe-like hood and coat are integrated into studded leather armour, stained black, whether through use or through style is unknown. Kaleigh is an Aasimar (Human with the Angelic Legacy species feat) Soldier. Mitzi is, well. Mitzi. She's an islander, in both mannerism and dress. She looks like she belongs in the sea far more than she does on her feet, what with the fins across her body and the patches of scales on exposed skin. She seems a bit skittish, but she has a long rifle on her, one well kept and well used, by the looks of it. Mitzi is a Genasai (Human with the Elemental Legacy species feat) Scout Persephonie is a striking human swindler. She has odd cyan colored eyes that almost seem without whites. Her hair is an odd auburn color that seems to change color in bright (dark red) or dim light (brownish blonde). Her voice is almost lyric, even when she uses a mocking tone. She favors wearing wearing open flowing official clothes, with sandals. She has many ear piercings and likes short hair styles that emphasize her neck and shoulders. When not wearing her official clothes, she wears close fitting gowns of various colors and styles, but always the most intricate of fashion available to her. Even in 'plain' clothes she still arranges and styles them to look alluring and beautiful. It is very rare that she doesn't have a pleasant and friendly look on her face. Her fingers and hands are meticulously painted with various runic or floral designs or she wears gloves. She does this for the simple matter that her hands are heavily scarred around the knuckles and fingers so she hides them. Persephonie is a Human Emissary, and the team leader. Tahlia is a tanned skinned wood elf she wears a brown cloak and hood under which is unkempt long green hair, her clothes underneath are a mixture of greens and browns, she looks like she'd be much more at home in a forest. What jewelry she has loks more like polished bone than jewels or stones. She doesn't look skittish or unwelcoming but her eyes dart and keeps an eye on the people she doesn't know. Tahlia is a Wood Elf (Elf with the Hard Nation species feat) Priest. Mareth is an Elven woman, 6'3" in height. She has long, shiny black hair which she wears parted in the middle, straightened, with the ends meticulously trimmed to taper gradually to a point halfway between her ankles. Her build is slender and lithe, with just enough muscle tone to be considered fit, but she definitely relies more on her agility than on brute force. She wears a long purple dress of thick cotton, which reaches just above her knees in front, and an inch above the floor in back. An open, long-sleeved jacket of black leather, adorned with polished steel studs, is worn over the bodice of said dress, and her legs are clad in thick, knee-high boots of the same black leather, minus the studs. She usually stands near Persephone with her arms folded beneath her bosom, watching events unfold with the sort of casual, aloof detachment befitting of an observer. At her left hip hangs a long, thin scabbard which houses a razor-sharp fencing blade, and at her right hip is a pouch of strange, esoteric items for which a non-magician could see no purpose. Mareth is a High Elf Mage.

Aside from our seventh player, that concludes the cast. Next time, I'll go into the first session.

I found this cool program called map-tools that allows people to play table top RPG's online and I was wondering if any of my followers would want to get a game going online since I know so many people that want to play but they so far away or we don't see each other that often.  If you are interested just shoot me a message and I will try to get back to you. 

Here is the link to the program: http://www.rptools.net/index.php?page=tools

Here is a link to the tutorials: http://www.rptoolstutorials.net/?page_id=12

Well, to be specific, I mean measuring district compactness (a very interesting subject, see these three articles for starters). There are myriad ways of measuring the "oddness" of a shape, including a comparison of the area of the district to its circumcircle, the moment of inertia of the shape, the probability that a path connecting two random points will pass through the polygon, etc.

In today's Gist, I use the spatstat package to convert Congressional district shapefiles to owin objects, which can be very persnickety -- meaning that for our present purposes I have just skipped over districts with overlapping polygons or other owin conversion obstacles. However, spatstat lets us do neat things with owin objects, including the calculation of the area and perimeter of polygons, which I use to compute and then plot a simple Area / Perimeter ratio measure of district compactness.

As you can see in the guilty-pleasure Spectral palette choropleth below (click it for a larger view), the least compact districts are unsurprisingly typically found in high-population-density areas. Also, you can use this map to find your way from Greensboro to Charlotte, via I-85.