The Queue: You now have access to the new Bing!

I don’t know what I did to my computer for it to threaten me like this.

I was going to use a header image of the Titans from WoW because of Zuel’s question but the picture of BT from Titanfall 2 came up so there you go, my new headcanon is that the Titans from WoW look like the Titans from Titanfall. 

I mean, if you look at actual real world mythological systems/religions, this happened so often that the people involved straight up admitted they were doing it. One example is the coming of the Hyksos people to Bronze Age Egypt — they decided that when they took over the Upper Kingdom that Set, a god who had a role in as the protector of Ra’s solar barge, was the same as their own god Hadar and so worshipped him as their chief deity. Later, the Greek people would adopt many of the trappings of Egyptian religion — stories of the Olympian gods hiding in Egypt in animal form from Typhon were based on the various sacred animals of the Egyptian deities.

That doesn’t even address the whole ‘this religion and this other religion both date back to this older form that an earlier group of people both societies descend from/were influenced by believed in’ which we see so much that we developed a whole field of study that tracks these common origins to give us clues about how culture spread in a pre-writing era of humanity.

I mean, the name Zeus derives from the same root as the word Deus and there are so many different but similar storm gods across ancient Europe and Asia — gods like Hadar, the Vedic deity Indra, Perun from Slavic myth (connected to ancient Indo-European sources), Taru/Tarhunna from the Hittites of Hattusa, these all relate to Zeus (who is derived from the original god of the ancient Mycenaean people, a form of Poseidon with titles that eventually because the separate gods Zeus and Hades) and of course Donar/Thor whose similarities to Perun are notable.

Frankly, human beings were such prolific thieves from other related cultures and their mythologies that the story of Moses is likely stolen from the myths of the nearly mythical king Sargon of Akkad — both were thrown into a river in a basket, both washed up near people of royal station who raised them. And while most of us probably have heard the story of Noah from the original Hebrew religious texts which became incorporated into the Christian Bible, it is almost certainly cribbed from the story of Utnapishtim as related in the epic of Gilgamesh, which itself derives from earlier myths from multiple cultures including the Akkadians, Sumerians and Babylonians and which influenced many Greek myths as well.

So basically, it’s pretty de rigueur to ‘borrow’ specific gods and even whole pantheons and myths from others. It’s how they spread. Even Jack Kirby did it with his Fourth World stories — he specifically blows up Asgard in the first issue and says that the death of the ‘old gods’ created his ‘New Gods’ who borrow heavily from modern themes but also embody familiar roles to any student of comparative mythology.

Cory, I live in the same city as you. I’m actually hurt you didn’t think to give me your stuff. I like stuff.

We’re not actually sure! Although research is ongoing, much of what the brain does while we sleep is still contested and there are plenty of theories on the subject. Activation synthesis theory argues that (and I’m paraphrasing a lot here) that the brain essentially goes into ‘testing/debug mode’ while we sleep, the brain as a whole going into what’s called ‘global deactiviation’ and then being ‘booted up’ to some degree during REM sleep.

So in essence, your dreams are you brain running defrag on various portions of itself while you sleep and your poor consciousness trying to make sense of them while it’s in a state of partial or total global deactivation. You forget them upon waking up potentially because they never actually took place in the portion of your brain that stores memory in the first place. But that’s just one theory among many.

I like nicely worded letters.

“Hello, all. I really wanted to say thank you for all the memories I have of this guild and for allowing me to be a part of it. I’m heading off server to raid with some friends, and I hope everyone here has a great time in the game and that I’ll get to hang out with you in the future. Take care, and make sure to drink enough water. Staying hydrated is important.”

Then maybe make them sandwiches? People seem to like sandwiches.

Did you forget The Death and Return of Superman, or are you just wrong?

I do think the Demiplane builder is a work in progress, so you may want to come back later and check to see if it’s added more functionality. I tend to default to Pathbuilder, especially the 2e version online. I’m currently playing around with Wanderer’s Guide (I regretfully agree with your assessment) and while I don’t personally use it much, Hero Lab Online is a lot of people’s choice.

I think for right now Pathbuilder 2e is the best option if you’re a more experienced player, while Demiplane’s builder is a lot easier to pick up and play. There really aren’t a lot of other options, I don’t think, except that you could always use Roll20’s character sheets and just do the math yourself but yeesh I ain’t recommending that.

So that’s the Queue for today. Take care, hug your loved ones. Be nice and ask Liz lots of questions. Maybe ask her about how Season 2 in Diablo 4 is going.