Mogworld | Yahtzee Croshaw

Summary:

The first time Jim died, he was a magic student at a low quality school that got invaded by the barbarian school next door. He went to a place where he felt happy and content. Then he and a horde of others get brought back to life as zombies by a Lord Dreadgrave who employs them to protect his tower from adventurers. While Jim finds the work easy enough, he still keeps attempting to find ways to die again, even converting to almost every religion he can find out about and then killing himself. This routine gets thrown out, however, when Deleters come in and completely delete Dreadgrave, his tower, and all but three zombies from his horde. Jim, Meryl and the priest zombie must now figure out why the world is so messed up: Adventurers are getting hit with the Syndrome, normal people are unable to die, and Barry is following the word of Si-Mon and destroying everything.


Review:

I picked this book up because I enjoy Yahtzee's YouTube channel with my husband. I will say that it was very easy to read the entire book in Yahtzee's voice and greatly added to my enjoyment. I'm sorely tempted to buy the audio book, especially after hearing the sample, and I don't like audio books! It also really helped me to prepare for Yathzee's sense of humor. There were so many things in this book that made laugh. I've highlighted more passages from this book than any other in the past year.

"This was the second time I'd been asked to justify being afraid of gnolls, and I still couldn't fathom why. It was like being asked to explain why old people should wear clothing."

This book is high fantasy. You've got sorcerers, undead, clerics, adventurers, etc. At the same time, it's as much about high fantasy adventure as Sean of the Dead is about zombie movies. It's a delightful combination of strong story and satire. As much as this book made me laugh, it was the characters and the story that kept me from putting the book down. Each of the main protagonists is endearing in their own way. Though I will admit I may have liked Slippery John more if he didn't keep referring to himself in the third person. That got very annoying very quickly, but it was quite consistent with the character.

At the same time, I appreciated Yahtzee's less obvious jokes. At one point a character gets called out on saying the word "little" a lot: "Did you know you use the world 'little' an awful lot?" Then he proceeds to use words like "small", "tiny", "diminuitive", "miscroscopic" etc. When I picked up on what was going on, I laughed even harder! And there are so many jokes like this, ones where you really need to pay attention. They payoff is totally worth the focus required.

Yes, some of the big reveals were kinda predictable, but the story and the characters are so worth reading. And the ending was so satisfying! It wasn't the ending I thought I wanted until I read it. I happily give 5 hoots and have already added more of Yahtzee's books to my TBR!

               Hoot!Hoot!

               Hoot! Hoot!

                     Hoot!

Homeland: The Legend of Drizzt Book 1 | R. A. Salvatore

Summary:

Drizzt is a drow elf noble born with a strong, innocent heart, thrown into a world of corruption and backstabbing. The only true law of the kingdom of Menzoberranzan is "don't get caught." But Drizzt's heart longs for honor and admires bravery. How is he to survive Menzoberranzan?

Review:

I've been tempted to read Salvatore many times before but it was never a high priority for me. I picked up this book in an attempt to learn a little more about the world of Dungeons & Dragons. As it turns out, this is only a small segment of a much greater world and I have a LOT more reading ahead of me. The good news is, I am completely engaged in this series. I was looking for some high fantasy to break me out of my non-fiction streak and Homeland was a great choice. 

Finally I understand why my friend Catharciss completely geeked when she saw I was reading this. Salvatore is a talented author. The entire book is very fast paced but never did I feel I missed something nor did I feel there wasn't enough character development. As my husband can tell you, I was reading while dishing up my dinner because I needed to know the fate of my favorite character. 

Homeland was such an engaging read and for all the right reasons. The story was fairly simple, there were only a few surprises, but that's because the rules of Menzoberranzen are explained, not through an exposition dump so much as a battle scene that serves as the example. Kinda like a tutorial level where you learn as you go. 

I happily give Homeland 4.5 hoots. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've already bought the second book in the series and need to see how it goes.

             Hoot!Hoot!Hoot!

                Hoot! Hoo

Darkness Concealed by D. Emery Bunn

Once again I am left yelling at the author, demanding the sequel now even though the current book was only JUST published. Fortunately the digital copy I received came with the promise of a sequel and the author's website promised a trilogy. 

For all of my complaining, though, Bunn does something that few authors I have read lately have been able to do. He prepped me for the story to end so that I was accepting of it. Previous authors have ended their books in such ways and at such times that I felt I had missed something or I couldn't believe they ended their books there. Bunn, however, does a masterful job of leaving me wanting more, but also leaving me satisfied with the ending.  

Darkness Concealed is a book that could easily be a D&D campaign. I even posted a few jokes about that on twitter. But it really does work for this story. How else are you going to get a thief, a warrior, a scholar and a farmer to go on a quest? And what a quest it is! Find the source of the Darkening, a mysterious even that happens every 149 years when everything goes pitch black and terrifying creatures reign supreme, killing everyone they come across in terrible ways. 

I had so much fun reading this book! I'm disappointed in the fate of the Library of Antiquities, but this book is definitely the start of something awesome. At no point did I ever want to put this book down. I had some concerns about the character development, but that was mostly caused by empathizing with the characters and being able to notice the changes in the behaviors. 

Overall, I am happy to give Darkness Concealed 4.5 hoots out of 5 and happily encourage you to buy your own copy and help me cheer Bunn on to continue writing.

Hoot!Hoot!

Hoot!Hoot!

Hoo

***This book was provided in digital format, free of charge, from the author. This does not affect my review.

Talisman Review

Let me start out by saying that this was not my first time playing Talisman with my husband, Fluxxdog, and my brother-in-law, Veon'oss. In fact, we've played it so many times, we've acquired 6 expansion packs*. And there are still more to get. So, if at any point you find the gameplay too confusing or if you buy the game and it's more simple than you expected, remember that we used 6 expansions and 4 pages of house-rules.

The Board Set Up

So, to start out with, someone shuffles up the character cards and deals out three piles of three, face-down. We each choose which pile we want to and select our character from these. We hold onto the other character cards because, regardless of what ending is randomly chosen, until someone gets into the center of the board, if you die, you can come back as a new character. You have to drop all your stuff, objects, gold, followers, but you get the chance to pick them up as a new character. My first character is the Dervish. I chose this character to start because no one had played as him yet and I get a free sword and water bottle to start with. Fluxxdog will be playing as the Prophetess and Veon'oss will be playing as the Warlord.

My First Character

My First Character

Revealed Ending

To determine the ending, we first flip a "coin" to determine if the ending will be revealed or hidden. It came up "revealed" and then we had someone draw the ending at random. This time we have drawn an ending where, in order to win, you have to collect 13 fate and then get to the center of the board.

So, we roll to determine who goes first it comes up Veonoss. We play as normal for several hours. Whenever someone rolls a 1 for movement, they need to roll two dice, one to move the Werewolf, the other to move the Reaper. When you encounter the Werewolf or the Reaper, you have to roll a die for their respective charts and determine if you lose a life, get in a fight, become a werewolf, or get a prize. 

We generally roll die of different colors to differentiate Reaper and Werewolf movements.

I encounter the Werewolf! I rolled a 5 and sent him to Fluxxdog.

Sample Prize

Another aspect of gameplay that has picked up with the inclusion of the expansions is getting Warlock Quests for rewards other than the Talisman required to get to the center of the board. Because getting to the center requires getting through a lot of stuff that require a lot of stats, when you start out, getting a Talisman is not nearly as important as getting tools to survive. As such, we've went through a lot of Warlock Quests this round. Many of the quests may seem simple, i.e. Visit the City, but when you spend 15-30 minutes hanging around the City waiting for the die to roll in your favor, you see how tedious these quests can be.

Of course, when playing, you have to remember that it is advantageous to NOT pull punches. Fluxxdog is notorious for this! Apparently I got too powerful and he slammed with me a cursed follower:

I can now only move 1 space at a time.

I've got to go through 3 monsters to even get close to a bridge!

I ultimately decided that I was not going to get rid of this cursed followers and opted to die with dignity. I walked onto a space with death AND a face-down Nether card AND a dragon.**

Showdown.

Needless to say, I died in a blaze of glory and chose my next new character, the Leprechaun. I get to teleport if I roll a 6 and I get three gold whenever I visit the woods.

Character 2

On occasion we get a prize of teleporting on our next move. To help us remember that we're not rolling, we resort to "hiding" our die. 

Fluxxdog rolled a 6 for the Shrine

After a while the board and table start filling up with stuff:

Board after 2 smoke breaks for Veon'oss

All my things!

At some point I complete a Warlock Quest to get a Talisman. I felt I had enough fate and stats that I can make it.

Talisman Card

Unfortunately, Fluxxdog decides he wants the Talisman and hits me with a Toadify Spell. I am turned into a toad for three turns. I can only move one spot at a time, I have a strength and craft of just one, and I have to DROP ALL MY STUFF.***

Toad Character Card

Toad Character

Then I encounter a Nether card and get saddled with this:

My enemies get a bonus and I don't get rid of him until he takes a health.

After approximately five hours, we have to call it a night. It's late, Veon'oss has to work in the morning, and we're all on our last nerve because Veon'oss and I are tired and Fluxxdog, so close to winning, got turned into a toad by an enemy.

When we get back to playing, things go as expected. I get turned into a toad AGAIN. I attempted to use a Warlock Reward to turn Fluxxdog into a toad, and he countered with a curse to make my roll a 1 that would turn me into a toad.

Cursed by the Black Cat.

Fluxxdog gets back to the inner region and faces off with a Nether monster in order to progress to the center. Just to mess with him, I use a spell to bring the monster back to life so he has to wait an extra turn before he can win.

For the lols.

Fluxxdog does eventually win and the game is over. Now it's time to shuffle ALL THE CARDS.

All in all, Talisman is a lot of fun. If you can handle a board game that takes more time than Monopoly and is more cutthroat than Risk, this can be a lot of fun. There is a lot of strategy involved and timing is everything. It's pretty good for mental stimulation. I also recommend this as a workout for someone interested in D&D. It's a great introduction to building up stats, rolling for attacks, and seeing how alignments affect characters. This is also a great game for learning a friend's limits on not taking things personally and whether or not you are actually friends. Because of all of this, I am giving Talisman 4 Hoots.

Hoot!Hoot!

Hoot!Hoot!

*Expansion Packs Used: The Firelands, The Frostmarch, The Sacred Pool, The Blood Moon, The Reaper, The Nether Realm
**Sidenote: Don't let the calm tone fool you. I wanted to hit the man and hard.
***Fluxxdog indicates I get more of his aggressive nature than Veon'oss because I am the greater threat.