December 10th, 2006
In the later centuries of the Middle Ages siege engines were often employed to take down the walls of a medieval castle. But in the early centuries an attacking army often did not have the skill, resources, or time to build and use siege engines so they employed other very ingenious methods including biological warfare.
A Medieval Castle is a fortress built out of thousands of tons of stone and designed for maximum safety and security yet they were still taken and often by very devious means. Here were some of these simpler and less technological ways that castles were sieged.
Deception: Spies were used to infiltrate the castle. They could, at night, open the castle gates or wreak havoc on the interior defenses of the castle. The most famous case of this tactic is the Trojan Horse.
Treachery: Someone trusted within the power structure of the castle could give misleading information that would bring down the castle. He could for example report that there were many more troops sieging the castle than there actually were. This would induce the castle residents to either revolt or surrender out of fear.
Starvation: This was a method used but it often meant many months, sometimes even a year or more. The sieging army would station itself around the castle and not allow any form of commerce. Eventually the inhabitants would surrender due to imminent starvation.
Biological warfare: Yep that’s right. A sieging force could launch the remains of rotting corpses into the castle causing outbreaks of life-threatening illness.
Simple Storm: The sieging force could carry on an all out attack at various points of the castle. This overwhelming would hopefully break through in some places causing a collapse in defenses.
Tunneling: The sieging army would actually dig tunnels under the castle. The hope was not so much for an entry into the castle but for a way to collapse the castle defenses. It was because of this technique that many Medieval Castles had moats around them. A moat would cause the collapse and filling with water of any attempted tunnels.
Because the walls and fortifications of medieval castles were so well built an attacking army would often employ methods that didn’t directly attack them. Instead they found and used a host of other means to either attack the inhabitants or get them to surrender. It is partially due to this process that many medieval castles still stand to this day.
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December 9th, 2006
Somebody sent me a free 10-day trial to World Of Warcraft so i had to give it a whirl.
I downloaded all the sofware and updates yesterday and it took me about 4 hours! I just let it run in the background while I did other things. thank goodness for cable modem. If you are on a dial up this is probably not a game you want to play or let alone download!
A little about my first impressions: I played it for a couple of hours today
My first impression is that the graphics are just a tweak too youngling for me. I tend to like the darker and more realistic games but this game has a player subscriber base of 5 million ! So you can see in the graphics that they wanted to get a look that appealed to a very wide audience and this is true.
Gameplay: If you are familiar with online game then you are familiar with the system, it is pretty standard when it comes to choosing worlds, alliances, characters, skills etc. It is all very nicely done and the User Interface is clean and comprehensive. So big thumbs up for game play and interface.
Smoothness: Playing an online game on a saturday afternoon is a real tricky proposition because I am guessing this is the time when all the servers are at max capacity. But I had no problems at all! It ran smooth as silk!
Big Plus: I really love doing quests in games and my first impression playing this game just for one day is that it is very very quest oriented and that is great! Big thumbs up for that. It just makes the game much more enjoyable because instead of just grinding out the experience by farming the same creatures over and over you are working toward goals (quests)
All in all - I simply love the total involvement and immersion of online games. I have played quite a few of them from Ultima Online, to Shadowbane, Final Fantasy XI and even Runescape and Eternal Lands.
This is a game you can really get involved in! If you are looking to get yourself a christmas present then this game is a good choice - Beware though; after your initial trial period it will come to about $15 bucks a month which seems a bit steep to me.
If you want to take a peek at Warcraft you might want to check out my post on Southpark and Warcraft. Southpark did a wonderful parody with real game footage. Look in the Game categories of this blog or scroll down.
And about Warcraft: Amazon.com has got it cheap:
World of Warcraft
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December 8th, 2006
Conan - The Complete Quest (Conan The Barbarian/The Destroyer)
The Riddle of Steel - “Crom is strong! If I die, I have to go before him, and he will ask me, ‘What is the riddle of steel?’ If I don’t know it, he will cast me out of Valhalla and laugh at me.” ~Conan the Barbarian
The Name of Conan’s Sword is “The Atlantean”
The Conan Sword is of course wielded by Conan who is a character created by a writer named Robert E. Howard.
An interesting observation about the sword. It is very similar to a flamberge which was a two-handed sword from the middle ages and the unique thing about the flamberge was the wielder could hold it in the normal way and swing it with both hands much like it was a baseball bat. But the Flamberge had a special section above the crosspiece which was wrapped in leather. This allowed the wielder to choke up on it and swing it in tighter circles. The Atlantean has this same kind of structure. You can see in the picture from the movie above that conan’s left hand is on the choked up section. The atlantean didn’t have a leather wrapping here it was metal.
Conan Swords at Amazon.com
Official Conan The Barbarian Sword
Valor - Sword Conan Stainless Hilt 41.25″
When did the sword first appear?
Conan first appeared in the Magazine “Weird Tales” in 1932 in a story called “The Phoenix on the Sword”. And the sword made its first movie appearance in the movie Conan the Barbarian in 1982 with Arnold Schwarzenegger playing Conan. Here is a scene from the first movie with Conan doing a Kata with Atlaantean.
About the Movies:
Schwarzenegger made two Conan movies:
- Conan the Barbarian - Collector’s Edition
(1982)
- Conan the Destroyer
(1984) Other Conan works:
Conan the Adventurer 1997 TV Series
Conan Unchained: The making of Conan the Barbarian
Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Computer Game
Conan Books
The major portion of Conan stories appeared in Weird Tales magazines in the 1930’s
Conan the Barbarian
Author and creator Robert E. Howard
Conan the Barbarian was born in the land of Cimmeria in the world of Hyboria in the Hyborean age. Created by Robert E. Howard Conan made his first appearance in the story The Phoenix on the Sword published in Weird Tales in 1932.
Conan is famous for his physical stature and strength. He stood Six foot six and weighed two hundred pounds. He was an adventurer that traveled across the land of Hyboria encountering evil wizards, monsters and princesses. He eventually became the King of Aquilonia which was the most powerful kingdom in Hyboria.
Conan Books at AmazonConan stories published by Howard:
The Phoenix on the Sword (Dec 1932)
The Scarlet Citadel (Jan 1933)
The Tower of the Elephant (Mar 1933)
Black Colossus (Jun 1933)
Xuthal of the Dusk. Published in Weird Tales as The Slithering Shadow (Sep 1933)
The Pool of the Black One (Oct 1933)
Rogues in the House (Jan 1934)
Iron Shadows in the Moon. Published in Weird Tales as Shadows in the Moonlight (Apr 1934)
Queen of the Black Coast (May 1934)
The Devil in Iron (Aug 1934)
The People of the Black Circle (Sep/Oct/Nov 1934)
A Witch Shall be Born (Dec 1934)
Jewels of Gwahlur (Mar 1935)
Beyond the Black River (May/Jun 1935)
Shadows in Zamboula (Nov 1935)
The Hour of the Dragon (Dec 35/Jan/Feb/Mar/Apr 1936). Novel.
Red Nails (Jul/Aug/Sep 1936)
Conan Books -
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