Coffee, Code, and Chronicles

Busy month of May following my A-to-Z Challenge 2025 reentry into blogging. June will likely prove to be as busy, but I'm hoping to restart more regular blogging and take opportunities to write and schedule. This may prove to be a better way for me to blog as I often start on something “more important," relatively, and then pass on firing up blogger. May highlights include: The dash to mid-year performance feedback—and I had a lot of requests!—and these take time. Trust me. Ever have to provide “ Opportunities" for a hi-performing colleague? Try it some time. We brewed our Summer blonde ale, Beached Blond (2025) , a couple of weeks ago. Kegged, chilled, and ready for the beach. Games, games, games! The Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (4e) game continues apace with a summer break, somewhat forced by personal matters, ahead. But I'll be back with a Niklos Tale soon. Finding the right game event for a narrative, while a challenge, shows that there's a lot of possibilities...

As always I enjoy the A to Z Challenge.  My first was in 2011. I won “an award” that year from another blog recognizing fan content to the Warhammer community. I participated annually for almost a decade. Each year building more content on that theme. One year I partnered with Ben Scerri in a cross posting effort. My first international effort. Ben is now a contributing writer for Cubicle 7, the licensee of the Warhammer property and publisher of the current edition of Warhammer FRP.  The A to Z Challenge “forces me” to blog. 😉 I’m a creative and I believe blogging and gaming contributes to my career in unique ways. It contributes to solving and evaluating problems in Software Architecture. Gaming contributes to my social skills and management of people. Try wrangling four to five players at a table and, as referee, watch a story arc meet the player’s goals for their characters. Challenges all around. After a two or three year break I’m glad to be back blogging and I’m gratef...

Zentrem and his wife, Suella, and daughter, Malora run a sweetshop in Nulb, a dirty, “ramshackle," village on the Imredys Run, a small river that is deep enough for trade traffic. Zentrem is a retired busker and carries himself with a jolly, round, and bearded grin that matches his profession of baking “cookies, pastries, and sweet cakes." This profession has contributed to the family's portly first impressions. Zentrem sells to any customer, but a great deal of his product is sold to the Waterside Hotel. Zentrem is also an accomplished poisoner. This skill is in demand by the management of the Waterside Hotel. Zentrem's skill has a reputation beyond Nulb with his poisoned sweetcakes rumored to be used in the heart of Greyhawk in Verbobonc and even in Dyvers, many hundreds of leagues away. His poison of choice is a Sleeping poison made from local berries. The management of the Waterside Hotel often uses his cakes to rob patrons. Zentrem's skill has deadly results ...

Ymir. E-mir? Yee-mir? The pronunciation is something of mystery in the Empire's colleges. Scholars debate the creature's very existence not just the name's sound. Many take the side that this creature is just a garden variety “abominable snowman," or Yeti. In fact, the Ymir is a distinct creature akin to the foul Beastman of the Empire’s dark, and often corrupted, forests. Yet those that have traveled the lands of Norsca write that the Ymir has a specific diet: human flesh. Contrast, the scholars will point out, the varied diet of a beastman horde. Norscian skalds tell travelers that Ymir is largely a solitary creature, mating briefly for “litter of whelps." If they speak any language, it is one of grunts and low moans. Standing taller than a human by a foot or two and weighing more than 21 stones, Ymir are covered in a thick, matted white fur—lending much to the debate of Yeti or not Yeti—fouled not just by excrement, but also frozen blut und fleisch  that is oft...

Xe'ddu has many names to mortals. As all daemons fail to grasp the purposes for which they are summoned, pulled to the material planes by rituals old and new, and often in service of Greater daemons or the Dark Prince and Lord of Pleasure and Excess, Slaanesh. The One of Whips, Holder of the Lash, Nine Tails, and many other names have been used in mortal rituals. These names are quite literal in that they recognize Xe'ddu's favored instrument in her service to Slaanesh: the whip.  She cares not what the mortals call her. Though she would never reveal her true name. For a mortal to know her true name would be to cede control on the mortal plane. And yet a mortal may bargain with Xe'ddu's masters to learn her true name. Such a bargain would carry a cost, but Xe'ddu knows that for the right sacrifice to her whips, perhaps a new cultist that imagines divine pleasure at the end of her untiring lashes, Xe'ddu may offer the name of other lesser daemons. Of course, ...

The Free Town of Übersreik sits astride the River Teufel in the Principality of Reikland in the Empire. Its high stone walls, the work of many dwarves from nearby holds in the Grey Mountains also serve as a defense from invasion through the Grey Lady Pass. Known for its master stone masons, Übersreik residents enjoy construction on stone foundations, but no landmark is more important than the bridge over the Teufel. The great stone bridge is a feat of Dwarven engineering unmatched in the Empire. The bridge is a major thoroughfare in the town, carrying trade north to Bögenhafen and Nuln to the south. The river is choked with boats and barges carrying quarried stone to Altdorf and ore south on the River Reik, via the Teufel, to the forges of Nuln. This trade results in great warehouse districts on the shores and docks of the river and the accompanying accommodations for guilds, trade unions, porters, sailors, boatmen, brothels, taverns, drug dens, and much more. Editor's Note This wa...