Month: April 2009

RPG character sheets: addendum + YouTube finds

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It figures that within an hour of writing my last post, I discovered the Scan to OCR feature on my scanner, and it works really well, though it’s a bit time-consuming. So…just ignore my question in the previous post. (But still do read the post, as there’s another question there that I hope some of you may be able to answer!)

I’ve scanned the cover, the introduction/information pages, and character sheets 1-6. They are available here, as hi-res scans. (I must say, these character designs are kind of cheesy…)

It will be a while since I can put together the text and images into a PDF. But at least I can start to get the files up for those of you who want to look through them. With any luck, I can scan a few a night.

I am so anxious to work on this site. I have so many updates to put up, but I really want to clean up the code and possibly redesign the site all over again before adding to the content clutter. (Though maybe at some point I can at least update the copyright date to say 2009. Good grief.) I’ve put a fair amount of time into trying to organize the content more logically, reduce some sections and introduce some new ones. But I’m juggling several projects at work and have plenty of other stuff going on, and before long I have to start preparing to move to Pittsburgh. Hopefully I can find some time this summer before the move to get some good work done, finally!

EDITED TO ADD: while scanning more pages, I started browsing YouTube and made some pretty awesome PoDW finds:

PoDW theme, on guitar and violin – wow! Some intonation issues, but this is a great effort, and the arrangement is actually very folksy and pretty! I’m assuming the musicians are Romanian, since they use the Romanian show title. Wow…I am so happy to have stumbled across this little gem.

Japanese opening theme music – I can’t stop cracking up. This is so bad it’s great. (I believe I’d linked to this a while ago, but it’s been a while!)

PoDW opening in Russian. I love coming across clips of the show in other languages.

Soul Caliber 4: PoDW mods – someone created Ren, Ioz, and Tula with the Soul Caliber 4 character editor (as well as characters from other shows/series). The PoDW bit starts around 3:15. Pretty cool!

Call for help: episode credits, RPG transcription

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Hello! I’m still alive…just busy, as always. (I am still behind on my e-mail–sorry!) I come to you with two requests, one from a fan and one from me (also a fan, but…you know what I mean).

 
 

The first request…

Jeffrey is wondering…do any of you have the original end credits for episodes 1 and 3? How about the original end credits for the Fox run of the show?

This is a trickier question than it seems. Many of you know of those seals that appear in the background of episodes 1-5 (the same seals that run down the sides of this website layout):

1. The Quest: an octopus (the seal of Octopon)
2. Dishonor: the island with the moon overhead (the Island of the Pale Warriors/Atani?)
3. Break-Up: a crown, wings, and shackles (symbolizing Pandawa)
4. Betrayal: a woman’s face, half revealing the skull (symbolizing Tula’s betrayal)
5. Victory: three human hands and one monkeybird hand forming a peace symbol

However, on the Boomerang airings of the show, and some (all?) of Cartoon Network’s airings as well, the credits that appear with The Quest are actually the credits for Dishonor–the island crest is visible in the background. And the credits that appear with Break-Up are those of Betrayal, with the woman seal in the background. (I never realized this mistake till he kindly pointed this out. I am astonished to have not seen this mistake(?) before.)

Do any of you have any video clips, DVDs, VHS tapes, etc. that have the proper credits for The Quest and Break-Up? How about the credits from the original Fox run? Jeffrey is eager to access the original credits for each episode (and now I am, too!). Please do let me know if you can help out.

 
 

Next, my request…

After long last, I have finally started to complete work on the digital copies of the PoDW RPG module and World Book. Many people have asked me about these over the years, and I just couldn’t start working on them for one reason or another. I am truly sorry about that. But now that I’ve gotten into grad school for the fall, I feel more of a sense of urgency to update this site before I most likely drop off the face of the earth for 2 years. As it is, the next 3 months before I move and start school are going to be extremely busy.

It turns out the World Book has a lot of gaping holes in it that I (in my RPG-ignorant state when I typed it up years ago) figured people could just make up as they went along, but I finally see how helpful it would have been to have all those stats and additional info I’d cut out. I will be posting the full version in PDF format some time soon…it’s not a huge undertaking but it is time-consuming.

As for the character sheets, there are 105 of them, and this is where my request comes in. Would you be willing to help type them? I have a scanner, and I can scan the pages in, but they will be image files and very large (way too large to generate a PDF from), and the thought of transcribing over 100 images fills me with dread. That’s precisely why I haven’t attempted this before–it’s a ton of work for one person to do and I just haven’t had the time to start on it.

What I propose is this: I will start scanning the images and put them in a directory and post the link here. If you would be so kind as to volunteer to type up one or a few pages, comment on the thread in question with the pages you are doing, and e-mail me your transcriptions, with the page name/number in the e-mail title. I will compile them into a PDF (and eventually create a standard HTML version, too), and in the meantime, the images are also accessible to everyone.

It’s rare that I put out a call for help like this, but this is something dozens of people have asked for, and I feel horrible for holding out on you guys. I have always prided myself on putting every bit of media and information I receive on the site, but over the last couple of years it’s all been piling up. It would mean a lot to me and to many other interested fans if you could take a few minutes and help out. 🙂

 
 

As always, thank you for sticking with me and supporting the site. This show is now officially 18 years old, and you guys are just as awesome and supportive as ever, and I can’t thank you enough for that.