Cyth27

@Angelyxx @Unnameable I see the two of you recently joined the club, would you like to help us vote for our August read? 

BATTLEGROUNDS!!!!! 

And for anyone reading this that hasn't tried Battlegrounds yet, I thought I wouldn't like it or be any good at it. However, I played a few rounds just to see what it was all about and have become totally addicted! The point of BG isn't to not die, you will definitely die, it's to help your team accomplish goals and have crazy fun doing it! 

I am so ready for this!!!

I have been super in the mood for some good classic literature, although I am personally not an Austen fan (no idea why, but her books never clicked with me...maybe now that I'm older they will?), but would be willing to give P&P Zombies a try, just because it sounds really fun and it would also perhaps qualify for our desired sci-fi theme, right? lol

Otherwise, if people would like to go with other sci-fi novels, my vote for those:

1. Ender's Game

2. Fahrenheit 451

3. Slaughterhouse-Five

All of those have been on my to-read list since high school, but I still haven't gotten around to them. 

@gryphon_42 Oooh, that's interesting to hear about the audio version! I have a number of Audible credits, perhaps I should try next month's book through Audible instead.

I'm just finishing Earthsea and curious to hear about what you all think about the end. I'm having the same feeling as I did the first time around, but will wait to say until we get more readers to the finish line. I'm usually a slow reader, so I'm surprised how fast it went!

@ZEE88 I've read this before, but I had no idea it was put into a miniseries. I definitely enjoy watching film adaptations after reading, did you find the miniseries engaging?

Character Name: Ethiriya

    Race: Dunmer

    Gender: Female

    Age: 40

    Occupation: Healer, Thief, Formerly a traveling merchant

    Gear: Restoration Staff, Flame Staff, Light armor; prefers earth-toned gear

    Commonly carried items: Potions and alchemy plants; one set of casual robes; gear repair kit; lockpicks; a rock from her home in Valenwood.

    Combat Skills:

    1. Staves | Master | 3 points

    2. Dodge | Novice | 1 points

    Racial Skills:

    1. Conjuration | Adept | 1 point (+1 Racial)

    2. Restoration | Master | 2 points (+1 Racial)

    3. Illusion | Novice | 0 points (+1 Racial)

    4. Destruction | Adept | 1 point (+1 Racial)

    5. Alteration | Novice | 0 points (+1 Racial)

    6. Enchanting | Novice | 0 points (+1 Racial)

    Other Skills:

1. Alchemy | Adept | 2 points

    2. Medical Knowledge | Novice | 1 point

    3. Lockpicking | Adept | 2 points

    4. Merchant | Novice | 1 point

    5. Pickpocketing | Adept | 2 points

    6. Stealth | Adept | 2 points

    7. Beast Mastery | Novice | 1 point

    8. Tailoring | Novice | 1 point

    9. Tracking | Novice | 1 point

    Points Used: 21

    Points Available: 9

    Flaws:

    1. Shy / Like most Dunmer, she is very reserved in nature. Having been part of a traveling merchant caravan, she has never stayed in one place long enough to make friends, so she doesn’t see the point in much social interaction.

    2. Lost Loved One / Her best friend, a Bosmer she grew up with in Valenwood, joined the Dark Brotherhood a year ago. Enarytha had always been a skilled hunter, but Ethiriya never imagined her friend would become an assassin. Though she loved her friend, she could not support her new occupation and bloodlust. Staying in Valenwood became too painful because in every treetop she was reminded of Enarytha and the adventures they used to have together.

    3. Twisted Upbringing / Her father was an absent drunk, often away on business as a traveling merchant, and when he did come around he was belligerent and spending any money the family had. Her mother was a twisted ball of anxiety, always acting like the sky was falling at any minor inconvenience - this often left Ethiriya to take care of things herself. Worse than either of those things, her grandmother always liked to tell her the tale of how the Dunmer became the ‘changed ones,’ and were cursed by Azura forever. Her family, having lived in Valenwood since the first era, were rather racist against other Dunmer for the heresy the Chimer committed against the Daedric gods. This gave Ethiriya a twisted view of herself, making her ashamed of her red eyes and grey skin. And gave her a heavy feeling of being a cursed one.

    4. Aimless / Between losing her best friend and not being able to stand her family, Ethiriya decides to leave Valenwood, but isn’t sure of where to go or what to do. She doesn’t have much of an idea of where she’s going, only of where she doesn’t want to be.

Number of Flaws: 4

Character Name: Ethiriya Nirrandus

    Age: 40

    Race: Dunmer

    Alliance: None

    Home Region/Town: Haven/Elden Root, Grahtwood

    Character Background: Ethiriya had a unique upbringing being a Dunmer born and raised in Grahtwood, living among the Bosmer. Her ancestors, just like her current family, were Chimer traveling merchants. When Azura cursed the Chimer, changing them to the Dark Elves, her ancestors had been on their way to Grahtwood. The story of how they awoke one day to find themselves cursed “with skin like an alit and eyes like a fire atronach,” was passed down for generations; the ancient merchants settled in Grahtwood, angry with their traitorous brethren. She was raised to distrust other Dark Elves, though she never understood why. Her family always married other Dunmer. But they never did do any trading with them. When she would travel to the eastern reaches of Tamriel, it was always Skyrim or the Black Marsh. When she was about 20 years old and finally able to travel on business herself, though, she did take a detour through Deshaan and found the Dark Elves of Mournhold to be as off-putting and pretentious as the Altmer.

Being estranged from her own kind did leave her with a rather low self-image, though. It didn’t help that anytime a minor inconvenience happened, her mother would fall to the floor and beg Azura for mercy. Because anything that went wrong was obviously a result of the Dunmer curse. The constant dramatics of her family strained her relationship with them. She spent as much time as possible roaming the beach and forest of Haven, her hometown, with her best friend, Enarytha, hunting and gathering supplies for the family business. However, with the formation of the Dominion, her family was squeezed out of Haven by the Altmer settlers arriving in Grahtwood by the droves. Her family relocated to Elden Root to escape the pompous High Elves. While Ethiriya was glad for peace to have finally settled over Valenwood with the Dominion alliance, she and her family have no love for the Dominion itself because it meant increased trade and interaction with the Altmer.

    Skills/Profession: Ethiriya’s family owns a trading company there where they specialized in chitin and carved bone Bosmer artisan wares. Though merchants, they never have much money due to her father’s drinking and gambling habits; healing him after falling - or being thrown out - of more than one tree is how Ethiriya came to be proficient in healing and alchemy. That, and growing up during a time of turmoil for Valenwood, before the formation of the Aldmeri Dominion. Being a Dunmer and more in tune with magick, a local medicine woman traded lessons in healing and alchemy with Ethiriya in exchange for her help gathering supplies. Mending broken bones and arrow wounds was second nature to her, though she was still very much a student.  

Ethiriya also became quite the thief at a young age, always having to steal to keep food and necessities in the house with her father’s poor spending habits. Enarytha’s family were primarily hunters, but the prowess that came with hunting also suited them for thievery and banditry; with Ethiriya’s family being in business with Enarytha, she learned the trade of taking what you want, as well.

    Additional information: One year ago, Ethiriya and Enarytha had been on a trading expedition in the Gold Coast when they overheard some talk about the Dark Brotherhood. Enarytha’s interest was piqued and she began exploring ways to get an invitation to the organization. Ethiriya had pled with her not to join, but it was to no avail. She lost her best friend to the assassins.

I vote A Wizard of Earthsea! I love Ursula K. Le Guin. As soon as I found this club, that was the #1 author I thought of suggesting. She is an incredible fantasy and sci-fi writer. If you have not read her work, you absolutely should. Her writing is sophisticated without being overly challenging, and layered with themes without clogging up the novel with unnecessary chunks of description (*cough* Dickens *cough*). I think she would be an enjoyable read for multiple types of readers.

@DigitalMonk I came in right as most people were leaving, but @Aeoden and @Felipe stayed around with me and a couple others to have fun for another hour or so. We died many a valiant death, I got my first PVP kill , and we managed to take over some resources. 

When the big group was playing, they did take over a keep and claim it for the guild though! And did some good work defending, but I think not-so-great on the offensive? If I remember correctly. But I definitely had a ton of fun and can't wait for the next siege night!

I might be late, but I'll be there!

On ‎4‎/‎16‎/‎2018 at 5:33 AM, MoSteel said:

Does anyone have any useful build sites they use? I use deltiasgaming and sypherpk at the moment. Just curious if there are any others that are kept up to date.

@MoSteel I just started looking into builds for my newly made level 50 character. I found alcasthq.com to be pretty good, and I've had it suggested to me by others, too. Haven't heard of sypherpk yet, I'll have to check it out!