Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Glupinickname 11-01-06, 03:39 PM	...and all this and more as written by Jules Verne! From Wikipedia's entry about Verne's novel "Facing the Flag" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facing_the_Flag): "Thomas Roch is a genius French inventor, who came up with the idea of the Fulgurator, a weapon "whose action upon the atmospheric strata was so terrific that any construction, warship or floating battery, within a zone of twelve thousand square yards, would be blown to atoms", so that "the state which acquired it would become absolute master of earth and ocean". For all of the above, however, there is nothing to show but Roch's own word, backed by no experimental proof whatever, and he demands to have huge sums delivered to him before making any details known and certainly before any tests were made of the weapon's feasibility." (...) In the process, Roch increasingly loses his sanity, becoming - as depicted by Verne - more and more bitter, magalomanic and paranoid - until the US Government finally tucks him away at a luxurious asylum in New Bern, North Carolina, where he had spent eighteen months at the start of the book and looks likely to spend the rest of his life. (...) "Kar Karaje is a pirate of Malay origin who started his career closer to his homeland, in the islands of the Western Pacific - with a band which he had collected during a sojourn at one of the Australian gold rushes (where, evidently, he failed to strike gold, and turned to other means of getting rich). His heterogeneous crew of audacious rouges, drawn from "escaped convicts, military and naval deserters, and the scum of Europe", includes Malays like himself, Arabs and "Levantines", Europeans of various nationalities (An Irishman, an Italian and a Greek are explicitly mentioned), and even some Australian Aborigines. " (...) "Karraje hears of Roch and his invention, takes it seriously and decides to gain possession of it. Actually, his aim is rather modest -not to gain world mastery, but just to make his hide-out impregnable. He and his men successfully kidnap Roch from his American asylum and bring him to their hide-out, the desolate island of Back Cup in the Bahamas, where a wide cavern accessible solely by submarine has been made into a well-equipped pirate base, with its own electrical generating station - completely unknown to the rest of the world." Man! and I never even *heard* about this novel untill today! Why do they always stop publishing the best stuff?! This is an Eberron adventure practically all written out! So! Any ideas? Comments! :)
goblin_pride 11-01-06, 04:13 PM	Man! and I never even *heard* about this novel untill today! Why do they always stop publishing the best stuff?! This is an Eberron adventure practically all written out! So! Any ideas? Comments! :) Jules Verne's Atomic bomb? you never heard of it? Oh man, I wish I could send you a couple of his books. Verne is the Victorian sci-fi king, everything he wrote could easily be used for Eberron, with just a slight tweaking.
Glupinickname 11-01-06, 04:28 PM	Jules Verne's Atomic bomb? you never heard of it? Oh man, I wish I could send you a couple of his books. Verne is the Victorian sci-fi king, everything he wrote could easily be used for Eberron, with just a slight tweaking. Well, of course I heard about his books and read a bunch of it, but this is one of those novels that just never got translated on Croatian. Voyage to the Moon, Begaumi's Millions, 20000 Leagues Under the Sea, etc, all got translated but this one didn't. That's a crying shame if you ask me. :(
goblin_pride 11-01-06, 04:38 PM	Well, of course I heard about his books and read a bunch of it, but this is one of those novels that just never got translated on Croatian. Voyage to the Moon, Begaumi's Millions, 20000 Leagues Under the Sea, etc, all got translated but this one didn't. That's a crying shame if you ask me. :( I completely forgot about that, sorry if my post sounded a bit demeaning. Hopefully you can find a copy of them on the 'net somewhere. They are really good books considering when they were written.
Glupinickname 11-01-06, 06:06 PM	I completely forgot about that, sorry if my post sounded a bit demeaning. No problem. It's ok. :) Hopefully you can find a copy of them on the 'net somewhere. They are really good books considering when they were written. Actually, I think I saw a link to a free on-line edition on the Wikipedia's entry. :)
DoveArrow 11-01-06, 06:36 PM	Verne is the Victorian sci-fi king Personally, I like HG Wells a whole lot better.
ChaoticGood 11-03-06, 12:34 PM	Verne and Wells are both great inspiration for Eberron adventures, but to be honest, I'd never heard of this particular novel either. Thanks for the heads-up!