#373
Nov 23, 2025
Work
I changed teams at work this week, my old team is being relocated to the new Lisbon office so all the London members are being rotated out. For the time being I’m back on my previous team, the one I was on about two years ago, doing some more work on core money movement logic. It’s quite nice to get stuck back into some difficult technical stuff, things had slowed down quite a bit with the other team due to the rotation.
Books
This week I read:
The Magus by John Fowles
This was a weird book, I’m still not sure what happened. It was really good, it’s just hard to say what it was about or what the moral (if any) of it was: at first it seems to be about a man being inducted into some sort of mystical knowledge, of ghosts and other worlds; then it becomes an elaborate role-play as experimental treatment for mental disorders; then some sort of trick played on the poor suffering protagonist; then a cult of experimental psychologists; then back to an role-play, but one with the goal of freeing your mind; and I’m not sure if that’s all or if there are other layers I missed. The protagonist is a man adrift in society, who undergoes a profound experience which ought to change him, and he feels it has, but in the end… he acts like he did at the start. He was unable to grow.
Roleplaying Games
The Halls of Arden Vul
A pretty busy session this week! The players started out by finishing their exploration of the Forge of Zhorak, now that they had his ring that would open the secret door they found. Beyond the door lay the body of Zhorak where he starved to death, trapped by an apprentice trying to steal his secrets. The players put down the vengeful spirit of Zhorak and burned the body to stop it coming back. They explored around a little more, found some more treasure, then called it a day.
After that they resolved two long-standing plot threads.
Firstly, they healed the murderously insane rudishva, which was the last thing left before Triv-Lok could leave! That done, they escorted her and the rudishva to the shuttle bay, where to their surprise Kerbog Khan teleported in to join the group too! Triv-Lok and KK worked on final launch preparations, then they all piled into the shuttle. The party waved goodbye as they took off, blowing a hole through the cliff face (through the ankles of the colossus of Arden in fact), and headed to the stars… The players first met Triv-Lok in session 52, and this was session 119. Over a year of real time has passed, and 8 months of game time.
Secondly, they restored sanity to Lankios and learned his story: cursed by Ardenia Tessaeron for forsaking his responsibilities to his men and for being unable to render judgement in a case involving his friend and his unrequited love. He asked the players to go see the tombs of Kaitor and Guivrel and render judgement for him. The party, containing two clerics of Ardenia Tessaeron, of course agreed. Ultimately they decided Kaitor was guilty, which is one of the acceptable answers (different things happen depending on what they choose), and returned to Lankios to tell him their choice. The players first met Lankios in session 14, over two years ago!