Author: Leon

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Creative Pursuits D&D Poems

Rhymes for Spells

When a wizard casts a spell, he utters a few words, perhaps a lone “abracadabra”, but more dramatically, a rhyming couplet or even an entire poem, as in “Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble…” Here are a few rhymes for spells of the first level.

Charm Person

By this wink and by this smile,
My new friend I do beguile.

Darkness

Ebon cloak of obscurity
Descend on eyes that none may see.

Detect Magic

Cosmic forces arcane and divine
Illuminate thyself with pale outline.

Floating Disc

Invisible porter, hand like a plate,
Remain at my side and hold my weight.

Hold Portal

Portal, hatch, door, and gate,
Let no intruder infiltrate.

Light

Eternal light that shines from high
Illuminate as bright as sky.

Magic Missile

Missiles, missiles, one, two three,
Strike my foes unerringly.

Magic Mouth

Listen and watch, mouthy illusion.
Deliver my words upon instrusion.

Protection from Evil

Within this circle I am secure.
Summoned evil must abjure.

Read Languages

Jargon, gibberish, and obscure babble,
Decipher prose from scribble-scrabble.

Shield

Stop the arrow, stop the sword,
Magic shield, be my ward.

Sleep

Count the sheep of endless number.
Resign yourself to peaceful slumber.

Ventriloquism

I send my words without a trace
To speak as from another place.

Update: see more Rhymes for Spells.

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News PHP Professional

WordPress After 20 Years

Twenty years ago, WordPress was released. A couple of months after that, the third edition of Core PHP Programming was published. I recognized the potential of PHP in 1997, and I found a switch to WordPress in 2003 to be “an interesting idea that would encourage me to write more content more often“. Today and for a long time, most of the Web has run on WordPress and PHP (and MySQL). I recall justifying PHP over Perl (or any number of other platforms that have come and gone). I recall justifying WordPress over other CMSs. Today, it’s hard to argue against either given the long track record of performance.

The primary argument I hear is that these tools aren’t fashionable. Well, it’s usually spoken like, “it doesn’t feel modern”. Yeah, WordPress is boring, as in, no one will think you’re crazy for picking it to build your marketing site. It is a completely reasonable choice for the typical site, and if you can’t find a plugin to cover some unusual feature you need, it’s easy to create one because the whole stack is open source.

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Creative Pursuits D&D

Halflings are Full People

I doubt hobbits worry about being half as important as big people.

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Creative Pursuits D&D

What Happens Right After Your PC Dies

You roll up a character, he strolls out of the shadows and gives a weak excuse for why he’s taking all the dead guy’s equipment. To save time, just erase the stats and leave the rest of the character sheet alone.

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Creative Pursuits D&D

RPG Characters Don’t Need Long Backstories

Let how you got to second level be your “backstory”. This game is about telling a story of what happened at the table, not what happened in the novel you’ll never finish.