Eldritch Mlems

In London, Bristol, Oxford, Liverpool and Birmingham, large, peaceful crowds gathered outside agencies and law firms specialising in immigration, which internet groups had listed as possible targets of far-right activity, according to Euronews.

In London, Bristol, Oxford, Liverpool and Birmingham, large, peaceful crowds gathered outside agencies and law firms specialising in immigration, which internet groups had listed as possible targets of far-right activity.

It was a vast change from the chaos that has erupted on streets throughout England and Belfast, Northern Ireland, since 30 July.

The head of London's Metropolitan Police Service said earlier Wednesday that officers were focused on protecting immigration lawyers and services. In addition to thousands of officers already deployed, about 1,300 specialist forces were on standby in case of serious trouble in London.

"We'll protect those people," Commissioner Mark Rowley said. "It is completely unacceptable, regardless of your political views, to intimidate any sector of lawful activity, and we will not let the immigration asylum system be intimidated."

A crowd of immigrant supporters quickly grew to several hundred in the London neighbourhood of North Finchley, finding themselves largely alone with several dozen police officers.

The crowd chanted, "Refugees welcome" and "London against racism". Some held signs saying, "Stop the far right", "Migration is not a crime" and "Finchley against Fascism".

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/1691982

Thursday is a reminder that the weekend is just around the corner. Time to compare beer prices in Europe!

Who would you like to drink your next beer with? And where?

The beer prices shown here refer to local draught 0.5 litre beer in a restaurant.

Source: Numbeo - as of August 2024

Archived link

European Commission spokesperson Peter Stano said on Aug. 7 that "Ukraine has the legal right to defend itself, including striking an aggressor on its territory," in comments to Suspilne in reference to the ongoing battles in Russia's Kursk Oblast.

"The EU continues to fully support Ukraine's legitimate right to defense against Russian aggression and its efforts to restore sovereignty and territorial integrity," Stano said.

Ukrainian forces crossed the border into Kursk Oblast on Aug. 6, resulting in clashes on Russian soil that were described by Russian President Vladimir Putin as "a large-scale provocation." Kyiv has not commented on the fighting in the area.

[...]

In response to the ongoing situation, U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said that Washington hasn't changed its policy of allowing Ukraine to use American-supplied weapons "to target imminent threats just across the border."

When Russia launched its intensified offensive against Kharkiv Oblast in May, a number of countries said they had lifted restrictions on the use of Western-provided weapons against military targets inside Russia.

cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/20064636

Thursday is a reminder that the weekend is just around the corner. Time to compare beer prices in Europe!

Who would you like to drink your next beer with? And where?

The beer prices shown here refer to local draught 0.5 litre beer in a restaurant.

Source: Numbeo - as of August 2024

Welcome back to Advent's Amazing Advice! The series where I take popular One-Shots, Adventures, Campaigns, etc. and fully prep them for both New and Busy DMs. This prep includes fully fleshed-out notes, music, ambiance, encounter sheets, handouts, battle maps, tweaks, and more so you can run the best sessions possible with the least stress possible!

Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk stems from The Lost Mine of Phandelver a classic and beloved starter set that many new DMs run. Even with this being the most recent release it still has an issue, the same as with many others...it doesn't describe the best way to transform the book's contents into an actual session. The Book-to-session conversion can be difficult between figuring out when things should happen, understanding motivations, and even organizing encounters.

Well, fortunately for you, 99% of that work is done! Only a few things are really left:

• Read the book, I know surprising, but it can be extremely confusing when you don't know where everything leads to.
• Consider the needs of your group. As you've heard or are about to hear a million times, every table is different. If you plan on combining this with a campaign, you'll have to make tweaks here and there.
• These notes aren't meant to be the end-all-be-all. Tweak to your heart's content, and don't consider any of what's written to be set in stone. For me having notes like this helps give me the confidence to go off the rails and follow along with what my players want. It helps me understand where things were meant to go and why. Having that understanding allows me to guide the players and create other new and interesting stories. These are all things that will come with experience, though, so don't freak out and enjoy the journey!

Without further ado:

Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk Act 1

• Part 1 - Intro and Cragmaw Hideout
• Part 2a - Phandalin
• Part 2b - Redbrand Hideout
• Part 3a - Reign of Iron
• Part 3b - Thundertree
• Part 3c - Cragmaw Castle
• Part 4 - Wave Echo Cave
• Part 5 - Side Quests

Included in my posts are:

• A Word document for each part of Act 1 for Phandelver and Below with detailed notes for running a perfect session including links to music tracks for ambiance and fights
• Special PDFs for every encounter. This includes all the enemies' stat blocks organized neatly along with an initiative tracker and a spot to mark HP.
• Additional PDFs for allies and commoners
• A variety of maps for each part of the campaign
• Spell lists for all relevant fights
• Handouts for various spell scrolls throughout the campaign
• A playlist for each section!

Over 5 dozen other Fully Prepped One-Shots, Adventures, and Campaigns: Click Here

Campaign Info: As of today, I've officially completed Act One of Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk! I've also compiled all of my prep for it in a single easy-to-access post which is available to all my Heroes and Legends. You can find it HERE!

I've discussed this on Discord as well as answered a few questions and thought I would clarify some information here; campaigns are super time intensive, so I have to choose wisely which ones I prep. The first half PaB:TSO is an updated version of The Lost Mine of Phandelver which I had already fully prepped; so, I thought I would go through all my prep and update it to match and help all those who are starting to run the campaign! I may one day prep the second half; however, I'm trying to focus on the more popular Campaigns such as Curse of Strahd, before I work on others.

With what I've released, you'll have a great kickstart through most of the campaign and there are plenty of helpful members both on Reddit and on my Discord that can guide you along the rest of the way! I hope that with what I've prepped so far you can have a truly Amazing campaign!!!

As always, if you see something you think I can improve, add, change, etc. please let me know. I want this to be an amazing resource for all DMs and plan to keep it constantly updated! If you'd like to support me, shape future releases, and get content early feel free to check out my Patreon!

Cheers,

Advent

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/20526356

Archived link

In February of this year, Hungary and China signed an agreement to cooperate on judicial and internal security matters — in essence, paving the way for Chinese-Hungarian joint police patrols and law enforcement cooperation on Hungarian soil.

Following the EU debate on China-Hungary law enforcement cooperation, a Chinese online media platform Tao News published an article saying that "the international police cooperation of Chinese police will become more and more extensive," while apparently adding the rhetorical question, "What else can the West… do except feel uncomfortable?"

"China seems unfazed by the discomfort its practices cause, but Europe should not be unfazed by it too", writes researcher Raina Nelson in an article for the Latvian Institute of International Affairs.

"Perhaps this discomfort can spark a necessary conversation on the future of international security cooperation, a cooperation that ensures peace, security, and liberty for all."

2024 has seen each month surpass its temperature record for the time of year, spawned the two hottest days on record and contributed to the intensification of hurricanes, heatwaves, and wildfires across the world – all signs that it will likely go down as the hottest year on record.

People who identify as LGBTQ can face major disparities and stigma when it comes to cancer care, often resulting in later-stage diagnoses and poorer outcomes than other patients.

Dr. Elizabeth Cathcart-Rake, an oncologist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, is determined to change that.

This summer, Cathcart-Rake and a team at Mayo launched Rainbows, a cancer clinic tailored to meeting the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, gender-diverse and intersex patients. Rainbows will initially focus on supporting patients with breast cancer, with the goal of eventually expanding to include other types of tumors already treated at Mayo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Constitution

Feral fuckin' megacats

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/26511521

So, if you're unaware, the basic math of PF2e's armour items assumes that for light and medium armour, (item bonus + dex cap) = 5, and for heavy armour, = 6. This means that as long as you can pick an armour that has a lower dex cap than your dex bonus, you are expected to be getting either 5 or 6 AC from your armour.

With all that said, there are a ton of armours out there that offer some kind of tradeoff, where that formula doesn't hold. For example, the Armoured Coat gives +4 AC between item bonus and dex cap, but it has the flexible trait which negates the check penalty to athletics and acrobatics checks. In my mind, that's a crazy tradeoff to make. The extra AC is so much more important.

At the end of the day though, I don't have the time to analyze the tradeoff offered by all of these "sub-optimal" armours. So yeah, I'd love to hear if anyone has experience with an armour item that yields less than 5 AC (or 6 for heavy armour) and yet the tradeoff was actually worth it for them.

Also on Kickstarter, and wrapping up in the next couple of days (ends on 9 August, at 6pm EDT/midnight UTC+0), is Legendary Game's Sea Monsters bestiary.

I grabbed their Mediterranean Monsters and Latin American Monsters books last month, and was really happy with both of those. They were thick softcovers with a lot of interesting legendary beasts, spirits, and faeries. And since I apparently just collect monster books now (BattleZoo and Viklander say 'hi'), I'm absolutely getting this one, too.

I was trawling Kickstarter again and came across another project supporting Pathfinder (this time both 1e and 2e): Lugon: Evolution & Magic.

It's a setting book that's adding some new races, classes, and spells, apparently with a focus on how magic interacts with or is derived from the ecosphere.

It has currently met its base funding goal, but it doesn't seem to have as much momentum as some of the other projects I've highlighted. Some of the stretch goals include extra spells, and "Mage guilds", which -- to my ear, at least -- sounds like some extra Wizard schools, something I know many Wizard players feel the game could use post-remaster.