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Mouse Guard is a series of comic books published bi-monthly since 2006. The creator, writer, and artist for the series is David Petersen. Mouse Guard takes place in a fictional world where humans are absent, and mice have developed a medieval society of their own. They live in well fortified towns and villages built in under rocks or in the hollows of trees. The world is full of dangers for the mice, with the wild, untamed lands between their towns populated by such monsters as snakes and owls. To defend themselves from such predators, the Mouse Guard was formed. These brave warrior mice act as pathfinders and escorts, protecting other mice as they journey between towns.
Mouse Guard: Fall 1152 collects the first six issues of the comic into a single volume. The story begins when three Guardsmice, Saxon, Kenzie and Lieam, go in search of a mouse peddler who attempted a journey alone but never arrived at his destination. This simple search and rescue mission quickly puts them on the trail of a dangerous conspiracy to destroy the Guard.
This series reads like a mix a classic storybook and an epic fantasy novel. While the content is appropriate for all ages, this is not a children’s book. While the main characters are mice, the story presents well developed characters and a fully realized fictional setting. This is a tale of heroics, where it’s easy to root for the good guys. The fact that they are simple mice makes their humanity that much more poignant.
The art is an interesting aspect of this book. The art is well done. It’s not too cartoon-y. The mice have fairly realistic proportions, they just tend to stand on two legs, dress in capes, and wield swords. The illustrations are done in full-color and are beautifully painted. It’s a nice departure from typical comic book art, be it American or manga styles.
Roleplaying
Because of my obsession with roleplaying games, I tend to absorb most material with an eye for what I could take from it and apply to gaming. Here are some ideas from Mouse Guard: Fall 1152.
Mouse Guard Setting: Interrestingly, there is actually an official Mouse Guard RPG available. It uses the system of game mechanics from the Burning Wheel RPG. I own Burning Wheel but have never played it. I’m not sure if I want to buy the official RPG, but it might be interesting to play in the Mouse Guard setting.
The Guard: One of the things that I like about Mouse Guard is the role that the Guard plays as protectors and pathfinders. I think this could be an interesting role for players in any setting. It would work great in just about any fantasy setting, but also in sci-fi as well. The idea of a group of people defending isolated bastions of safety in a dangerous world creates a neat sense of adventure and camaraderie.
A day late but not a dollar short! Here’s this week’s weekly world.
Here are the setting elements:
Setting: Space Colony
Tone: Swashbuckling
Things: Advanced Intelligence, Grudge
Tech Level: Low Magic
Place: River
And here are the plot elements:
Opposition: Warlord
Plot Action: Convince (Malignant) Advanced Intelligence
Plot Action: Duel (Healthy) Heist
Again, before you read further, I challenge you to take 10-20 minutes to develop these elements into a workable fictional setting and plot, and post your results in the comments below. After you’re done, you can come back and read my interpretation of these elements.
My Weekly World: Contact Station
In the distant future, an Earth space colony orbits the planet Jai’ju’bal where humans have discovered their first intergalactic neighbors. The Jai’juls are a primitive people. Their civilization is ancient, but a history of frequent warfare and natural disasters has prevented them from progressing beyond the iron age. Human scientists and diplomats prepare for first contact, having observed the Jai’buls for some time from a distance.
However, their plans for a peaceful introduction might be derailed when a xenoarcheologist decides to make an unapproved landing mission to Jai’ju’bal. His goal is to infiltrate an ancient temple built at the mouth of Jai’ju’bal’s largest river and steal valuable artifacts. Earth Force commanders discover the plot shortly after he leaves the space colony, and they dispatch a squad of daring space marines to intercept him before he can do any damage.
Things go awry when the presence of the humans in the ancient temple awakens an immortal alien warlord who had been imprisoned there. Lord Darkrul, a highly evolved Jai’jul mutant, possesses superior mental powers that the superstitious natives attribute to magic. Lord Darkrul begins again his campaign for world domination, seething with anger for the years he’s been imprisoned.
In an attempt to right their mistake, the human xenoarcheologist and space marines devise a plan to defeat the Jai’jul warlord. After evacuating the space colony, they convince Lord Darkul that a being of his power shouldn’t be content to rule from a terrestrial throne, but should rule from the heavens. They lure him to their space colony and then blow it up, destroying Darkul once and for all, and barely escaping in the process.
What do you think? Be sure to post your own take on the elements in the comments if you haven't already.
I had the idea to put together promotional images and brief descriptions of imaginary TV shows using the titles of popular shows already on TV. Hopefully you’ll get a laugh out of them.
Based in the 1950’s, American Idol is a pulp action serial about a team of adventuring archeologists searching for ancient treasures of the Native Americans. Follow their daring escapades as they delve through pueblo ruins and Amazon temples, facing danger at every turn. Can they outwit ancient traps and puzzles while racing to stay one step ahead of the soviets?
A spin-off from the original Star Trek series, Bones combines medical drama with science fiction. Join Dr. “Bones” McCoy as he travels the galaxy aboard the newly commissioned medical ship USS Reprieve, treating epidemics wherever they strike the Federation.
Step back in time to the medieval ages in Castle, the newest workplace sitcom on the air. If you think your boss is a tyrant, try being a knight for King Henry! Stress levels skyrocket when new yearly dragon-slaying quotas go into effect, and rumor has it that any underperformers will be sent off to the crusades.
Military action meets cute and fuzzy in Chuck, the new, zanny action-comedy about animals taking up arms against human oppression. Chuck the woodchuck has seen one too many trees plowed down for urban expansion, and decides to fight back as he leads a platoon of his furry friends into guerilla warfare. Chuck would!
Complete strangers take on home improvement projects together in the new reality TV game show House. Two teams of 6 people each move into separate houses. Both houses are old and dilapidated and the teams have just 1 month to completely remodel them. Tense drama and quirky antics mix with power tools and paintbrushes.
The History Channel original miniseries, How I Met Your Mother, explores the amazing true love stories of five couples that met during World War II. Dramatic reenactments supplement the touching tales told by the actual lovers and their friends and relatives.
Enter the highly competitive world of the professional chess tournament in Kings, the newest drama on NBC. Some of the smartest -and best looking- men and women from around the world vie for the championship, while they use their wits to manipulate events both on and off the chess board. Are you a pawn, or a king?
Four college kids set out for the adventure of their lives in Lost, a new coming of age dramedy on the CW. While attempting a great American road trip from
Survivor is a shocking new conspiracy thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat! 12 unsuspecting victims find themselves as the contestants in a deadly underground game where their lives are on the line. A mysterious organization sabotages their daily lives in every way imaginable, forcing them to fight for their very survival. The last man standing wins one hundred million dollars, but at what price?
Political and personal drama abounds in The Office. Michael Schrute has just been elected as the president of the
What do you think? Have a different take on a show title you would like to share?
Here’s a review of some of the things I’ve been learning while studying Japanese. I’m writing about them here as a refresher to me, and to share with anyone who might be interested in the language.
Mostly, I’ve been learning about Japanese grammar, starting with verbs. There are three kinds of verbs. Ichidan verbs all end in “ru”, and you conjugate them all the same way. Yodan verbs may end in different ways, including with “ru”, and you conjugate them differently depending on how they end. If a verb ends in “ru” it might be ichidan or yodan, and you just have to learn which it is through experience. The third kind of verb is irregular verbs. There are only a handful of them and they’re conjugated in ways that defy the normal laws of Japanese grammar. Sounds like English, huh?
To make an ichidan verb past-tense simply remove the “ru” at the end of it and add “ta”. For example, the word taberu, which means “to eat”, would become tabeta, which means “did eat”.
To make a yodan verb past-tense you remove the last syllable of the word to get the root, and then add a different ending depending on how the word originally ended. For example, with the word kiku, which means “to listen”, you remove the “ku” and add “ita”. This makes the word kiita, which means “did listen”. There is a handy chart in my Japanese grammar book that tells you how to change each ending for a yodan verb. I’ll transcribe it here:
“u” becomes “tta” “tsu” becomes “tta” “ru” becomes “tta”
“mu” becomes “nda” “nu” becomes “nda” “bu” becomes “nda”
“ku” becomes “ita” “gu” becomes “ida” “su” becomes “shita”
Fun fact: All ordinary present-tense verbs end with u.
Japanese also has a more formal version of verbs. To make an ichidan verb formal you remove the “ru” at the end and add “masu”. So the formal version of taberu would be tabemasu. To make a formal ichidan verb past-tense you remove the “su” at the end of “masu”, and add “shita” as if it were a yodan verb being made past-tense. So tabemasu would become tabemashita.
To make a yodan verb formal, you simply remove the last vowel from the word and add “imasu”. So kiku would become kikimasu. As with the ichidan formal, to make a yodan formal into a past-tense, you turn the last “su” into “shita”. So kikimasu becomes kikimashita.
Next, I’ve learned a little bit about particles. No indicates possession. O indicates that something is being acted upon. Example:
Japanese: Watashi no mizu o nonda
Literal English: I belonging to water was acted upon did drink
-or-
Japanese: Watashi no mizu o nonda
English: I drank my water.
Ka at the end of a statement makes it a question. Example:
Japanese: Watashi no mizu o nonda ka
English: I drank my water?
You can change any verb into a negative form by changing the ending as well. With an ichidan verb you drop the “ru” and add “nai”. So taberu (to eat) would become tabenai (not eat). With a yodan verb you drop the last vowel and add “anai”. So kiku (to listen) would become kikanai (not listen).
Now, to make an ichidan verb negative and past-tense you drop the “ru” and add “nakatta”. So taberu becomes tabenakatta. To make a yodan verb negative and past-tense you replace the last vowel with “anakatta”. For example, kiku becomes kikanakatta.
Making things a bit more complicated once again is the formal version of verbs. To make an ichidan verb formal and negative you drop the “ru” and add “masen”. So taberu becomes tabemasen. To make it formal, negative, and past-tense, you simply add “deshita” to the end of that. To say in a formal way that you didn’t eat would be tabemasen deshita.
To make a yodan verb formal and negative you drop the last vowel and add “imasen”. So kiku becomes kikimasen. Like ichidan, to make it formal, negative, and past-tense, you add “deshita”, making it kikimasen deshita.
Next is the gerund or –te form of a verb. This is easy to get and is used for a couple of things. To get the gerund form of a verb simply make it a normal past-tense verb, but change the last “a” to an “e”. So because taberu in past-tense would be tabeta, the gerund form is tabete. Because kiku in past-tense would be kiita, the gerund form is kiite.
One use of the gerund form is to make a polite request or command. For example:
Japanese: Watashi no mizu o nonde
English: Drink my water.
Another use of the gerund form is to list a sequence of actions in natural order. For example:
Japanese: Watashi wa shokuji o tabete deta
English: I ate a meal and left.
Changing the verb taberu (to eat) to its gerund form indicates that the following verb, deru (leave), is an action that follows.
The last thing I learned about in my lessons was a couple of irregular verbs and how to conjugate them.
One is suru which means “to do”. When changing this verb, for some reason the “ru” gets dropped and ignored completely, and the “su” is changed instead. Again, my grammar book has a nice chart to summarize how this verb changes, and I’ll transcribe some of that here.
Another irregular verb is kuru which means “to come”. Below is a similar chart as the one for suru, also copied from my grammar book.
Well, that’s pretty much everything I’ve covered so far. I’m looking forward to my next lesson.
In the Land of Women will be my first truly negative review on this blog. The premise for this drama sounded like it might have potential. The movie starts out with Carter Webb, a young man from Los Angeles, being dumped by his girlfriend. Wanting to get away from things, and learning that his grandmother thinks she’s dying, he travels to Michigan to care for the elderly woman. There he befriends the Hardwickes, a woman and her two daughters who live across the street. Their relationships move everyone involved to gain a new perspective on their lives.
So, that’s the basic premise, but the film fails to deliver. I was going to write a synopsis of the movie in a paragraph or two, but I changed my mind. It’s not worth writing. What happened? It really doesn’t matter. The characters are underdeveloped and generally unappealing. The family drama falls flat somehow, and most of the relationships that develop seem awkward or unrealistic. I don’t see how the main character makes any significant changes by the end of the story, or how he’s really affected by the things he experiences. It’s really hard to say what the movie was trying to convey. It did absolutely nothing for me. It wasn’t touching, or funny, or anything. It wasn’t horrible, it just wasn’t good. The only thing I really enjoyed was one scene where the teenage daughter of the family next door is painting in her basement. She paints a neat picture on this really big canvas. It was a very minor scene, but it made me want to paint again.
Roleplaying
Because of my obsession with roleplaying games, I tend to watch most movies and shows with an eye for what I could take from it and apply to gaming. Sadly, I found nothing inspiring about In the Land of Women.