#dod rpg

[owenstark]

"The Prince fought valiantly, they say. Prince Jon Stark sent away many of the people under his charge, his sword in one hand and his wolf at his other side. As he fought alongside men of house Stark they were set upon by traitors within his party. The young Prince took Horace Umber on in combat, killing the lordling. The fighting came to a stop when Little Hother Umber shouted as he held Lady Diana Blackwood of the Kingswood in his grip and then pointed toward Lady Manal II Manderly, Ser Nathan Flint, Ser Brandon Poole, Lord Ryon Forrester, and several others from prominent Northern houses who hold loyalty to House Stark.” 

The news takes those of the North in a strangle hold, devastated from the news of many of their people being taken and held as hostages. The brash Hother has taken to calling himself the true King of the North. When Owen sends a messenger in an attempt to parlay with Hother the response makes his point clear and there is no chance of conversation.

PRINCE JON STARK IS DEAD, HIS HEAD CUT OFF AND THE HEAD OF HIS DIREWOLF SEWN TO HIS BODY BEFORE HIS HORSE IS SENT THROUGH THE GATES OF WINTERFELL WITH THE DECEASED PRINCE ATTACHED TO THE SADDLE AND A NOT PINNED TO HIS CHEST. 

“I give you war.”

#theumbercause: dod rpg

[swedebeast]

Ad in the subways for the Swedish Drakar och Demoner/Dragonbane TTRPG - launching tomorrow.

#drakar och demoner #dod #dragonbane #ttrpg #swedish rpg #rpg

[danceofdragonsrphq]

dance of dragons is taking applications!

below are the key wanted connections from the kingdom of THE VALE, as well as some plot context and ideas applicants could build from. dance of dragons is currently looking for muns for the vale, including the small council: the hand, master of ships, master/mistress of whispers and archmaester of the vale.

in terms of plot, the kingdom of the vale has recently gotten a new queen: ravella arryn, who many whisper as cruel and mad. her husband, graham royce, was once known to be the most reliable man in the vale - perhaps some still view him as that, despite the label of kingslayer being attached to him considering it was he that butchered the resurrected late king rowan arryn after a red priestess was seen within the vale court. the late king’s daughter maddalena went missing en route to ironoaks, and her remains have only recently been found. some whisper of mountain clan attacks, however some no doubt suspect something much darker has taken place. nonetheless, it is the opportunity for the vale to start a reckoning: in an attempt to wipe out the stain of the mountain clans from their civilised society, once and for all. 

THE KINGDOM OF THE VALE: THE NIGHT’S COURT.

open lords and ladies of house belmore: open lord or lady of house belmore. you could take up the position of enemy of bastard lord domeric stone of the snakewood (for taking the master of coin position traditionally reserved for house belmore) otherwise, one could possibly pick up a traditional lady of the court who feels slighted she was not picked as the betrothed to lord axell royce, the king consort’s only brother

open lords and ladies of house grafton: ruling lord and lady of house grafton, including the master or mistress of ships. house grafton recently rebelled against the late king lord rowan arryn by siding with their treasonous cousin, isembard arryn. your character’s uncle was executed for treason - this suddenly made the character’s line responsible for gulltown. 

open lords and ladies of house hunter: open lords and ladies of house hunter, brother and sister to lord tristan hunter of longbow hall. house hunter have always been a prominent member of the falcon court, having advised the late lord alfrid arryn during the dance of dragons. your character could believe their older brother tristan is too conservative in his views, and perhaps feel some jealousy - do they want his small council position? 

lord upcliff of witch isle: ruling lord of witch isle and the only brother of lady yuna upcliff. the upcliffs have quite a sinister reputation and have been making a name for themselves in court since the coronation of queen ravella arryn. whilst rumours of their sinister nature only spread, could there perhaps be truth to it that is beyond yuna’s strange fascination with dark magic? (must be a japanese fc) 

open lords and ladies of house waynwood: the waynwoods of ironoaks were incredibly loyal to king rowan arryn, and have noticed the way in which the falcon court seems to have changed since the crowning of ravella arryn. there are whispers of the queen being mad, and considering the waynwoods were ready to ward the late king’s trueborn daughter when she went missing on route to ironoaks, perhaps they are highly suspicious of the queen and her court. 

open lords and ladies of house egen: brothers and sisters of yesenia egen, cousins to king consort graham royce through his mother also being an egen. house egen initially shamed themselves by speaking freely regarding a woman’s natural weakness too openly upon the crowning of queen ravella arryn, however now it seems the children of house egen are trying to make up for their impertinent father’s big mouth. what plots could they get dragged into in an attempt to prove their house worthy?

#game of thrones rpg #asoiaf rpg #got rpg #period rpg #dance of dragons rp #we love our goth weirdo court in dod hfdughu #wanted connection.

[preciouslandmermaid]

i think im gonna play a little pillars of eternity tonight

#blue rambles #i dod some inner child stuff in therapy today #and then took a walk and hten took a nap #so gaming feels right losing myself in a little RPG feels right

[puniper]

Hi I hope you are doing alright! I been a silent follower for a long time, but I suddenly remembered how you got me into the RPG maker game "OFF" pff. It was around the start of 2013 when I noticed you were making a lot of posts about OFF and I was getting all sad about going back to classes for college after winter break was coming to an end. I managed to play and finish the game back in my dorm room the day before my classes officially started. Later on I remembered how the fandom kind of grew and a lot of people started to draw OFF in Doodle or Die before they even made an official OFF room on that website (and how some people got upset about that too hehe). We've done some fun drawings back and forth a few times on DoD and some tumblr doodles I've done back then were seen by you too. Using those drawings to do silly stuff and interact with others made drawing feel much more fun for me during that time. IDK why I felt like sharing all that. I'm not too big into OFF stuff anymore after so much time has past, but I guess I just wanna say thanks! it was pretty fun and wholesome times back then~

Aw geez, anon, reading this actually made me smile because I also have fond memories of that specific timeframe haha, I remember it was around late 2012, early 2013 that this happened (almost 10 years ago what the fuck??), specifically the Doodle or Die sessions were some of the most fun I remember ever having in a fandom and would literally stay up until super late to play despite having college early the next day, there really was something magical during that small period of time when OFF was starting to get popular but it wasn't really quite popular yet (the game didn't explode in popularity until like mid 2013 i think) and the tags were p much just the same small circle of people you could keep track off

like you im not into it anymore but I do still remember those times fondly and i'm glad someone else shares that haha

[dorkstar987]

Mod complete. #hartke #hartkeamps #hartkesystems #peavey #peaveyelectronics #bugera #bbe #dod #finalfantasy #squareenix #finalfantasyvii #ffvii #ff7 #finalfantasyxiv #ffxiv #ff14 #ffxivstormblood #mmorpg #jrpg #rpg #music #musicislife #videogames #bass #bassguitar #bassguitaramp #bassamp #musicgear #punk #punkrock https://www.instagram.com/p/BskEqkehrtj/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1ukxkyfacbkj8

#hartke #hartkeamps #hartkesystems #peavey #peaveyelectronics #bugera #bbe #dod #finalfantasy #squareenix #finalfantasyvii #ffvii #ff7 #finalfantasyxiv #ffxiv #ff14 #ffxivstormblood #mmorpg #jrpg #rpg #music #musicislife #videogames #bass #bassguitar #bassguitaramp #bassamp #musicgear #punk #punkrock

[svartabergetart]

Döts halv alfen or death half elf. The underworld have more inhabitants. The death elfs underlings and half elfs. #halfelf #elf #death #cave #hiden #illustration #digitalart #sketchbookpro #sketchbookapp #darkfantasy #fantasyart #svartabergetart #jonfjell #instaart #artistoninstagram #rpg #dod (på/i Trollgrottan) https://www.instagram.com/p/CIVLZTxldAz/?igshid=148ehwqgknm7s

#halfelf #elf #death #cave #hiden #illustration #digitalart #sketchbookpro #sketchbookapp #darkfantasy #fantasyart #svartabergetart #jonfjell #instaart #artistoninstagram #rpg #dod

[skyfire85]

FLIGHTLINE: 193 - LOCKHEED XFC-130H CREDIBLE SPORT

-Line Drawing of the XFC-130H "Credible Sport" aircraft. | Illustration: Honey Badger

FLIGHTLINE: 193 - LOCKHEED XFC-130H CREDIBLE SPORT

Completed in just three weeks, the XFC-130H were a pair of transports modified for ultra-STOL performance for an ultimately aborted rescue mission.

PRELUDE

During the 1979 Iranian Revolution, fifty-two American diplomats and citizens were captured and held hostage by a group of Iranian students, who demanded the former Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. US President Jimmy Carter refused to extradite Pahlavi, who had fled to the US for cancer treatment after the revolution, and instead ordered the US military to free the hostages in an operation codenamed EAGLE CLAW. The plan called for eight USN RH-53D Sea Stallion helicopters to join three USAF EC-130E and three more MC-130E transports at a salt flat, designated DESERT ONE, southeast of Tehran. There members of Delta Force, the US Army Rangers and Detachment "A", Berlin Brigade would transfer to the helicopters for the flight to DESERT TWO, a location in the mountains closer to Tehran, where the groups would remain during the next day. The following evening, the Delta Force and Detachment A troops would board trucks driven by CIA agents to assault the US Embassy and Iranian Foreign Affairs buildings, where the hostages were being kept, while the Army Rangers would capture the abandoned Manzariyeh Air Base to allow two C-141 Starlifters to land and retrieve the hostages and US forces. Support for the operation would be provided by two USAF AC-130 Spectre gunships as well as aircraft from the carriers Coral Sea and Nimitz.

Operation Eagle Claw was launched on 24 April 1980, and almost immediately problems with the weather and with coordination between the various disparate groups surfaced. Only the two MC-130s successfully landed at Desert One, delivering teams of soldiers to monitor the nearby road and supplies to mark a landing strip for the helicopters and EC-130s. Almost immediately after the second group of transports, callsign Republic, arrived, the watch team was forced to detain an Iranian tour bus with 43 passengers and one driver. Shortly thereafter, a tanker truck and pickup later determined to be smuggling fuel attempted to bypass the roadblock and the tanker was subsequently destroyed with an RPG, killing the passenger while the driver escaped in the pickup. The Navy helicopters, callsign Bluebeard, meanwhile, were having equipment and weather issues, with one being forced to land due to a cracked rotor blade. The crew were picked up by another helo while the damaged RH-53 was left behind, but then the flight encountered a haboob, an intense dust storm being driven by winds from a collapsing thunderstorm or weather front. Electrical problems forced Bluebeard 5 to return to the Nimitz, while the remaining 6 helicopters finally arrived at Desert One 90 minutes behind schedule. The last chopper to arrive, Bluebeard 2, arrived with a broken hydraulic system, meaning it was unavailable to continue the mission. Eagle Claw called for a minimum of 6 RH-53s, and the mission commander was unwilling to proceed by reducing the size of the teams. Arguments between the various commands involved further delayed the mission, and finally after two hours and thirty minutes on the ground President Carter aborted the mission. While repositioning the RH-53s to allow them to refuel for the return trip to the carrier, Bluebeard 3 became engulfed in the dust cloud kicked up by its own rotors and drifted into the EC-130, callsign Republic 4, striking the EC-130s vertical tail with its main rotor. Eight servicemen died in the explosion and fire that followed, 5 from the EC-130 and 3 from the helicopter. It was decided at this point to abandon the remaining helos and fly out their crews on the EC-130s, with unsuccessful attempts being made to retrieve or destroy any classified documents, while fears of damage by explosions or shrapnel damaging the transports meant no attempt was made to destroy the RH-53s.

-Disposition of the aircraft just prior to the accident at Desert One. | Illustration: FOX 52

The stinging failure of Eagle Claw resulted in a shake-up of the US DOD, with the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) becoming operational on 16 April 1987, charged with overseeing coordination of the various special operations groups of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Additionally, the Army created the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) (Night Stalkers). with the goal of training Army pilots for low-level night time flying. Another outcome was the creation of the the Joint-service Vertical take-off/landing Experimental (JVX) program in 1981, which (eventually) culminated in the development of the Bell/Boeing V-22 Osprey.

SUPER STOL

Under the code name HONEY BADGER, the newly created Joint Test Directorate within the Office of Secretary of Defense's joint planning staff had been conducting a series of programs and exercises to develop and validate new capabilities for the DOD. A joint USAF-USN-Lockheed program, code named CREDIBLE SPORT, was established less than two weeks after Eagle Claw with the goal of modifying an existing C-130 to land within the Amjadien Stadium across the street from the US Embassy, from which the plane would extract the hostages and Delta Force members inserted to rescue them. The modified Hercules would then take off and head for a USN carrier, where it would land and off load its passengers. The C-130 was chosen as it was the fastest transport capable of landing on an unimproved surface, but the pitch inside Amjadien was only 500 feet long, too short for even the C-130. A contract was signed on 27 June 1980 with Lockheed-Georgia to produce an engineering study on the modifications needed, then to convert three C-130s, one to act as a test-bed and two XFC-130H aircraft to act as primary and secondary on the mission, all within 90 days. A fourth aircraft, an EC-130E Airborne Battlefield Command and Control Center (ABCCC), was used as a mockup of the interior spaces for training. Lockheed's report, delivered on 16 July, indicated that no fewer than fifty-eight standard JATO bottles would be needed to accomplish the mission, far more than was practical, and that an arresting system would not be able to stop the aircraft in the space available. The expertise of the US Navy's China Lake Weapons Station was then tapped for alternative rocket motors. Personnel from all three organizations then worked to modify the C-130's frame to mount the rockets, as well as to reinforce the structure to withstand the stresses produced. Along with the rocket mounts, extensions to the ventral fin filet and horizontal stabilizers were added, along with double-slotted flaps and extended ailerons, a tailhook for landing on the carrier, a bolt-on aerial refueling receptacle, and a new radome containing avionics taken from an MC-130E Combat Talon, including including a Terrain Following/Terrain Avoidance radar, defensive countermeasures, and a Doppler radar/GPS tie-in to the aircraft's inertial navigation system. The most obvious addition to the XFC-130H were the installation of 30 rockets in multiple sets: eight forward-pointed ASROC rocket motors mounted around the forward fuselage to stop the aircraft, eight downward-pointed Shrike rockets fuselage-mounted above the wheel wells to brake its descent, eight rearward-pointed MK-56 rockets (from the RIM-66 Standard missile) mounted on the lower rear fuselage for takeoff assist, two Shrikes mounted in pairs on wing pylons to correct yaw during takeoff transition, and two ASROCs mounted at the rear of the tail to prevent it from striking the ground from over-rotation.

-Line drawing of the modifications carried out on the XFC-130H. | Illustration: Honey Badger

Three C-130s, s/n 74-2065, 74-1683 and 74-1686 were modified by Lockheed and delivered to TAB 1, a disused auxiliary field at Eglin AFB in Florida, with -2065, the test-bed, flying first on 18 September. The first XFC-130, s/n -1683, arrived on 17 October, and between 19 October and 28 October a number of flight tests validated the configuration and abilities of the Credible Sport modifications.

A full system test with 1683 was then scheduled for the 29th. The takeoff proceeded flawlessly, setting a number of STO records. The Lockheed test crew aboard the aircraft judged that the computer coordinating the firing of the landing rockets was not calibrated properly, and decided to perform the landing under manual control. The upper pair of braking ASROC motors, mounted above the cockpit, could be ignited while the XFC was still airborne (specifically, at 20'), but that the lower pairs would only be fired after the aircraft was on the ground, with the descent-braking rockets being fired after the first pair. During the landing attempt the upper rockets fired successfully, but the flight engineer, blinded by the firings, thought the aircraft was on the runway and fired the lower set early. The descent-braking rockets did not fire at all. Some members of Lockheed test crew's members dispute this, asserting that the lower rockets fired themselves through an undetermined computer or electrical malfunction, which at the same time failed to fire the descent-braking rockets. In either case, the Herc's airspeed was immediately reduced to nearly zero, dropping it hard to the runway. The starboard wing broke between the third and fourth engines, spilling fuel which was then ignited, but a medical evacuation helicopter used its rotor wash to beat back the flames, and crash response teams extinguished the fire within eight seconds. The USAF and Lockheed crews escaped the wreckage with only minor injuries, but 1683 was a total loss. Crews salvaged what had escaped the fire, while the aircraft's fuselage was dismantled and buried on the air base to ensure security.

-A still from USAF film of the XFC-130H's test landing shows the moment that the first braking rocket fire. | Photo: USAF

-Wreckage of 1683 prior to salvaging. | Photo: USAF

The second XFC, s/n 74-1686, was nearly ready for flight, but the accident, as well as Carter's loss to Ronald Reagan in November, saw the cancellation of Credible Sport. The Algiers Accords of January 19th 1981 resulted in the American hostages being released on 20 January. 74-2065, the test bed aircraft, was returned to its original configuration and resumed regular airlift duties, while 74-1686 was stripped of its rockets, but not the other STOL modifications, and was sent to Robins AFB to act as the YMC-130 prototype under CREDIBLE SPORT II. Phase I testing ran from 24 August to 11 November 1981, and involved certifying minor aerodynamics changes, validating STOL performance and handling characteristics, as well as establishing safety margins. Phase II, which began on 15 June 1982 and ended in October, confirmed that the Combat Talon II design met all program goals and that the aircraft was ready for production. The USAF judged that the cost of returning the YMC-130 to standard configuration was more than it was worth, and 1686 was therefore placed on display at the Museum of Aviation at Robins AFB in Georgia from 1988 to 2018, after which it was transported to the Empire State Aerosciences Museum in NY. 74-2065, meanwhile, remains in service with the Air National Guard.

-74-1686, still showing some of the Credible Sport modifications, on display in Georgia. | Photo: Mike Egan

-74-2065 in 2012, flying regular missions. | Photo: Esa Kaihlanen

#airplane #airplanes #aircraft #Aviation #avgeek #coldwar #Cold War #cold war history #usaf #us navy #usmc #us army #army rangers #delta force #special ops #iran #iran hostage crisis #1979 #1980 #1981 #lockheed #c130 #c 130 #credible sport #stol #jimmy carter #ronald reagan #mc130 #Youtube

[malcreed-offical]

This is our new temp banner! Malcreed is a rp/story drive community surrounding the upcoming game Day of Dragons. If you want to check out our discord click here!

#day of dragons #DoD #roleplay #dragon #discord #dragons #rpg #malcreed

[lorebird]

Can I PLEASE hear your ideas for the wof rpg

OH I’m so sorry I missed this!! YES absolutely!! For anyone who doesn’t know, that’s in reference to this artwork :0 I’ve actually got 2 large ideas that would make for. Totally different types of games....

The first is what I had in mind with that screenshot redraw + the others I’ve planned, where you can play as the dragonets of destiny and follow the main story. The other would employ the same game mechanics as the first, but you’d be able to make your own characters and explore the world from that perspective! I had botw in mind for both ideas, but the first is closer to the more linear Zelda games, while the latter is even More open (being more like Minecraft, or maybe elder scrolls games, but I’m. Barely familiar with the latter. So idk if that’s a good comparison)

As far as specific mechanics, I had a couple ideas for combat! I thought it’d make for interesting gameplay to be able to switch out which dragonet you could play as. Everything would be easier when you’ve got all the dod working together, and it’d especially ramp up the difficulty during the brightest night section of the game, since Sunny’s on her own w fewer abilities. Also like....... you get to choose to play as your fav more often if you want........ pog

Speaking of abilities! Everyone’s got basic bite and scratch moves (bite does more damage but you have to be in closer, scratch does less damage but isn’t as risky to use) as well as special abilities like their fire/poison/what-have-you. Except for animus magic, if any animus characters would end up playable, bc uhhhhhhh animus magic my detested! But I think it’d also be fun to pick up weapons throughout the game! Like,,,, running around as Tsunami with the NightWing guards’ funky spears, or Sunny with RainWing blow darts, just stuff to make combat more interesting yknow? Plus you could get your own nifty weapons for your player characters in the more open world version! Handheld weapons could do more damage, but cost stamina to use since you’ve gotta have a limb or two free. I’d also wanna create my own kinds of weaponry, like metal to reinforce claws — small worldbuilding things I feel the books are lacking :0

Anyways, on the topic of stamina! I got the idea from the soulsborne games I grew up watching my brother play, which I am admittedly only familiar with on the surface level. But I thought that with the variety of dragons you have to play as, it’d be interesting to include stamina as a stat to change around along with speed and strength! I think Sand and IceWings would have the best stamina, being dragons that have to traverse large distances between settlements, along with maybe SkyWings? RainWings are on the lower end I feel, being specialized for agile flying rather than long-distance. It affects not only fighting, but also flight — wingbeats take stamina, though gliding does not, and dragons like MudWings have to actively fly more than, say, SkyWings. But idk how prevalent I’d want this to be bc flying in games is fuckin FUN a and I wouldn’t want that mechanic to get in the way. I feel like maybe it’d only become a big concern on large flights (incentivizing landing to rest and exploring a bit) as well as aerial battle

SO anyways..... as far as the story-oriented game. I kinda think it’d be rad as hell to have multiple endings. NOW HEAR ME OUT,,,,, I fuckin love stories that change as you play them and also uhhhh funny little exploration of storylines that don’t get to happen in the books! And...... it can tie into the open-world version

My vague idea for how the story-driven and open-world versions could coexist is that you gradually unlock free play elements as you progress the story. When you reach the SkyWing kingdom, for example, you unlock the ability to play as a SkyWing! But your range is limited to a small area and there’s only a few side quests to play, up until Scarlet is out of the way. Then, in the 2nd book portion, you unlock SeaWing free play! So on and so forth until eventually, you can explore the entire continent with any tribe you like. And here’s where it ties into multiple endings. Your free play characters can live in non-canon versions of the game, like say you put Blaze as queen during the story for for kicks and giggles — you get postgame content with that to experience in free play!! I imagine it like having a file for each world, and you get to choose which character to load in as when you start playing, whether story or original. Then you can switch at any time if you feel like doing smth different!

You can also start from any previously-reached point in the story on a new world, kinda like loading in Spore on the civilization stage rather than starting at cell? If you wanna make a world where like. Peril comes with the DoD. You can start a new world that automatically loads in the canon timeline right up before Peril parts ways in book 1! BAM new pal in need of therapy

Oh god this is so many words.......... ty for coming to my funny little dragon game ted talk

#wof #rambles #HRGTHGHFGJ MAN I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ALL THE TIME #I can’t remember if this was even all of it #BUT it’s all I can remember rn! tysm for enabling me /j

[artichuka]

It’s too many characters to do more than just a sketch of rn but in our latest session of the star wars RPG we became best friends with ex-senator Lott Dod after knocking him out, stealing his cash, rolling him into his carpet (which we kept afterwards) and putting him in a trunk, twice. 

#my art #star wars

[canmom]

been reading this guilty-pleasure isekai light novel series 蜘蛛ですが、何か？ (So I'm A Spider, So What?) and I'm finding it kinda interesting how, in its take on a pastiche of a generic fantasy world with some nihilistic twists, just how similar a place to dod in its takes on elements like the church whose beliefs relate to a terrible secret about the world, the way the prince of the human kingdom (not shown in the manga which got me into the series!) relates to his siblings and comrades, the scheming amoral elves... there's even a lot of plot beats like a character getting destroyed except for a magical decapitated head which co-occur in dod/nier. hell even outside the story, the creator is if anything even more cagey with her personal details than yoko taro.

I don't think there's any direct connection - both just use a collection of very familiar "default" setting elements as a canvas to pursue their particular thematic/emotional purpose. it's just especially underlined that 'rpg-style fantasy' has converged on this kind of 'meta-setting', which gets riffed on more or less consciously but now has a corpus far more extensive than the franchises within it, as if they're all fanfics of an original work which doesn't actually exist...

[swedebeast]

Vampire, from the Swedish RPG Drakar och Demoner.

#drakar och demoner #dod #art #swedish rpg #games #awesome #original content

[dandymeowth]

On the outskirts of the city, power lines sag and buzz, overloaded with electrons as the demand for air conditioning soars and the entire grid is pushed to the limit. In an Arizona heat wave, electricity is not a convenience, it is a tool for survival.

As the mercury rises, people die. The homeless cook to death on hot sidewalks. Older folks, their bodies unable to cope with the metabolic stress of extreme heat, suffer heart attacks and strokes. Hikers collapse from dehydration. As the climate warms, heat waves are growing longer, hotter, and more frequent. Since the 1960s, the average number of annual heat waves in 50 major American cities has tripled. They are also becoming more deadly. Last year, there were 181 heat-related deaths in Arizona’s Maricopa County, nearly three times the number from four years earlier. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, between 2004 and 2017, about a quarter of all weather-related deaths were caused by excessive heat, far more than other natural disasters such as hurricanes and tornadoes.

...........

“What will the Hurricane Katrina of extreme heat look like?” he wonders aloud as we sit in a cafe near the ASU campus. Katrina, which hit New Orleans in 2005, resulting in nearly 2,000 deaths and more than $100 billion in economic damage, demonstrated just how unprepared a city can be for extreme climate events.

“Hurricane Katrina caused a cascading failure of urban infrastructure in New Orleans that no one really predicted,” Chester explains. “Levees broke. People were stranded. Rescue operations failed. Extreme heat could lead to a similar cascading failure in Phoenix, exposing vulnerabilities and weaknesses in the region’s infrastructure that are difficult to foresee.”

In Chester’s view, a Phoenix heat catastrophe begins with a blackout.

..........

When the city goes dark, the order and convenience of modern life begin to fray. Without air conditioning, temperatures in homes and office buildings soar. (Ironically, new, energy-efficient buildings are tightly sealed, making them dangerous heat traps.) Traffic signals go out. Highways gridlock with people fleeing the city. Without power, gas pumps don’t work, leaving vehicles stranded with empty tanks. Water pipes crack from the heat, and water pumps fail, leaving people scrounging for fresh water. Hospitals overflow with people suffering from heat exhaustion and heatstroke. If there are wildfires, the air will become hazy and difficult to breathe. If a blackout during extreme heat continues for long, rioting, looting, and arson could begin.

And people will start dying. How many? “Katrina-like numbers,” Chester predicts. Which is to say, thousands. Chester describes all this coolly, as if a Phoenix heat apocalypse is a matter of fact, not hypothesis.

“How likely is this to happen?” I ask.

“It’s more a question of when,” Chester says, “not if.”

Extreme heat is the most direct, tangible, and deadly consequence of our hellbent consumption of fossil fuels. Rising carbon-dioxide levels in the atmosphere trap heat, which is fundamentally changing our climate system. “Think of the Earth’s temperature as a bell curve,” says Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann. “Climate change is shifting the bell curve toward the hotter end of the temperature scale, making extreme-heat events more likely.” As the temperature rises, ice sheets are melting, seas are rising, hurricanes are getting more intense, rainfall patterns are changing (witness the recent flooding in the Midwest). Drought and flooding inflict tremendous economic damage and create political chaos, but extreme heat is much more likely to kill you directly. The World Health Organization predicts heat stress linked to the climate crisis will cause 38,000 extra deaths a year worldwide between 2030 and 2050. A recent study published in Nature Climate Change found that by 2100, if emissions continue to grow, 74 percent of the world’s population will be exposed to heat waves hot enough to kill. “The more warming you have, the more heat waves you have,” says Michael Wehner, a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “The more heat waves you have, the more people die. It’s a pretty simple equation.”

.........

Extreme heat is already transforming our world in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Disney executives recently voiced concern that rising temperatures will significantly reduce the number of visits to their parks. In Germany, officials were forced to put a speed limit on the autobahn because of fears the road would buckle from heat. The U.S. military has already incurred as much as $1 billion in costs during the past decade — from lost work, retraining, and medical care — due to the health impacts of heat. The warming of the planet “will affect the Department of Defense’s ability to defend the nation and poses immediate risks to U.S. national security,” a recent DOD report said. Forests and soils are drying out, contributing to explosive and unprecedented wildfires. Habitation zones for plants and animals are changing, forcing them to adapt to a warmer world or die. A U.N. report found that 1 million species are at risk of extinction in the coming decades. Another study by researchers at MIT suggests that rising temperatures and humidity may make much of South Asia, including parts of India and Pakistan, too hot for human existence by the end of the century. As scientist Peter Gleick, co-founder of the Pacific Institute in California, told me, “There is a shocking, unreported, fundamental change coming to the habitability of many parts of the planet, including the USA.”

.................

But the greatest risk to human health may be in areas that are already hot, where temperature increases will strain habitability. In the U.S., the fastest-warming cities are in the Southwest. Las Vegas, El Paso, Tucson, and Phoenix have warmed the most, each by at least 4.3°F since 1970. Globally, many of the hottest cities are in India. In May, a deadly heat wave sent temperatures above 120°F in the north. The desert city of Churu recorded a high of 123°F, nearly breaking India’s record of 123.8°F, set in 2016. There were warnings not to go outside after 11 a.m. Authorities poured water on roads to keep them from melting. A 33-year-old man was reportedly beaten to death in a fight over water. The preliminary death toll in India for this summer’s heat wave is already more than 200, and that number is likely to grow.

How hot will it get? That depends largely on how far and how fast carbon-dioxide levels rise, which depends on how much fossil fuel the world continues to burn. The Paris Climate Agreement (which President Trump pulled the U.S. out of) aims to limit the warming to 3.6°F (2°C). Given the current trajectory of carbon pollution, hitting that target is all but impossible. Unless nations of the world take dramatic action soon, we are headed for a warming of at least 5.4°F (3°C) by the end of the century, making the Earth roughly as warm as it was 3 million years ago during the Pliocene era, long before Homo sapiens came along. “Human beings have literally never lived on a planet as hot as it is today,” says Wehner. A 5.4°F-warmer world would be radically different from the one we know now, with cities swamped by rising seas and epic droughts turning rainforests into deserts. The increased heat alone would kill significant numbers of people. A recent report from the University of Bristol estimated that with 5.4°F of warming, about 5,800 people could die each year in New York due to the heat, 2,500 could die in Los Angeles, and 2,300 in Miami. “The relationship between heat and mortality is clear,” Eunice Lo, a climate scientist at the University of Bristol and the lead author of the report, tells me. “The warmer the world becomes, the more people die.”

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The psychological impacts of extreme heat are obvious to anyone who’s ever felt cranky on a hot day. But the impacts go beyond crankiness. When temperatures rise, suicide rates can go up at a pace similar to the impact of economic recessions. Some aspects of higher cognition are impaired. School test scores decline, with one study showing decreases across five measures of cognitive function, including reaction times and working memory.

The link between heat and violence is particularly intriguing. “There is growing evidence of a psychological mechanism that is impacted by heat, although we can’t yet say exactly what that is,” says Solomon Hsiang, a professor of public policy at Berkeley. Some scientists speculate that higher temperatures impact neurotransmitters in the brain, resulting in lower levels of serotonin, which has been shown to lead to aggressive behavior. So rising heat may literally alter the chemistry in our brains. One study showed that police officers were more likely to fire on intruders during training exercises when it was hot. Andrew Shaver, a professor of political science at the University of California, Merced, analyzed data about conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq and found that attacks by insurgents involving RPGs and assault rifles increased with higher temperatures, while planned attacks did not. “During conflicts, higher temperatures seem to provoke more impulsive aggression,” Shaver says. One speculative paper projects that by 2099, due to rising heat, the U.S. could see an additional 22,000 murders, 180,000 rapes, 3.5 million assaults, and 3.76 million robberies, burglaries, and acts of larceny.

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A recent poll found that two-thirds of Arizonans accept that climate change is happening, but most elected officials in the state, including Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, are hardly climate activists. Arizona is one of the sunniest states in the nation, and yet only 6.5 percent of the state’s electricity comes from solar power. A statewide ballot initiative in 2018 to require 50 percent renewable power by 2030 was soundly defeated, in part because the parent company of Arizona Public Service, the big public utility in the state, spent more than $37 million on false and misleading arguments about how transitioning to renewable power would raise power bills and destroy the Arizona economy.

“We have a large number of elected officials who don’t believe in climate change, period,” says Stacey Champion, a longtime Phoenix energy and climate activist. “How do you get effective, data-driven policy if you have people pushing hard against it because they are batshit crazy, or they are afraid it will spook companies like Nike who want to come here?”

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Air conditioning is one of those paradoxical modern technologies that creates just as many problems as it solves. For one thing, it requires a lot of energy, most of which comes from fossil fuels. AC and fans already account for 10 percent of the world’s energy consumption. Globally, the number of air-conditioning units is expected to quadruple by 2050. Even accounting for modest growth in renewable power, the carbon emissions from all this new AC would result in a more than 0.9°F increase in global temperature by the year 2100.

Cheap air conditioning is like crack cocaine for modern civilization, keeping us addicted and putting off serious thinking about more creative (and less fossil-fuel-intensive) solutions. Air conditioning also creates a kind of extreme heat apartheid. If you’re rich, you have a big house with enough air conditioning to chill a martini. And if you are poor, like Leonor Juarez, a 46-year-old single mother whom I met on a recent July afternoon when the temperature was hovering around 115°F, you live in South Phoenix, where sidewalks are dirt and trees are few, and you hope you can squeeze enough money out of your paycheck to run the AC for a few hours on hot summer nights.

On hot days, Juarez’s small apartment feels like a cave. She has heavy purple curtains on the windows to block the sun. “I could not live here without air conditioning,” she tells me. Because she has poor credit, she doesn’t qualify for the usual monthly billing from Salt River Project, her utility. Instead, to pay for electricity and keep her AC running, SRP has given her a card reader that plugs into an outlet that she has to feed like a jukebox to keep the power on. Juarez turns on her AC only a few hours a day — still, her electric bill can run $500 a month during the summer, which is more than she pays for rent. To Juarez, who takes a bus five miles to a laundromat in the middle of the night because washing machines are discounted to 50 cents a load after 1 a.m., $500 is a tremendous amount of money.

She shows me the meter on the card reader: She has $49 worth of credit on it, enough for a few more days of power. And when that runs out? “I am in trouble,” she says bluntly. Juarez, who works as an in-home caretaker for the elderly, says she knows of several people who lived alone and died when they failed to pay their electric bills and tried to live without AC.

#climate change #global warming #classism #death #illness #heatstroke #heat stress #heat #environmentalism

[dodrpg-blog]

Así nació φοίνιξ ακαδημία, mejor conocida como “Akademeia Phoinix”, situada en la isla de Mykonos, en Grecia. Ante la vista del mundo, la academia era un espacio que enseñaba arte para chicos y chicas, pero por dentro, algunos chicos recibían instrucción de Admes y Gea, su esposa, con la intención de controlar los poderes que tenían. 

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[shovshur]

1990. USSR. Photo from last competition of reconnaissance teams, sf dod USSR.

Most interesting is tuning.

Suppressor.

Bipods.

Forward grip.

Optic sight pgo-7, from rpg-7.

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