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    Alexander Salkin

    @Alexander Salkin

    I'm an amateur writer most known for my contemporary fantasy series Desperate By Dusk. Currently, I am developing an upcoming science fiction story and content for Eye of the Sorceress which won 2nd place in Livetale's 2023 contest. I also run Dungeons and Dragons weekly! Come check out and support my work on Amazon!

    https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B07S5PYV79

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    Website www.facebook.com/AuthorAlexanderSalkin/ Location Ohio Age 46

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    Best posts made by Alexander Salkin

    • RE: Tell the Truth now!

      @SwampCreature Yep, had several small experiences. Bear with me.

      A. I was very young at the time. I was racing up the lawn at my grandmother's house after we all got out of the car from a shopping trip. While waiting for the adults, I was looking around at the grass by my grandmother's window to her room.

      I happened to notice two small holes there, about the width of a pretzel rod. They were side by side. I saw what looked like a hint of color just within the holes. Suddenly, a worm-like thing came out of each. One a pale sherbert orange and the other a milky blue. After a moment, they danced/wriggled aggressively in place, similar to how a disturbed caterpillar might. Then they rapidly retreated into the ground, leaving a layer of slime, respect of their colors, along the sides of each hole. To this day, I have no idea what in the world I was looking at, but they freaked me out at the time.

      B. Many years later, I was talking to my mother in my now late grandmother's house one night before bed. She then looked to a corner of the ceiling and said she saw a light. I didn't see anything at first, so I stared at that point. Suddenly, that corner of the ceiling flashed at me! It was a purplish white flash, like the kind you'd see in your eyes after having an old Polaroid camera take a shot of you head on. I'm unclear if she saw it a second time, but I think so. We both stayed in the same room that night out of anxiety, too weird.

      C. In my adolescent days, we used to visit the beaches in NJ often. This one isn't really spooky, just curious.

      At one beach with my then friend and his mother, he and I discovered a cluster of brightly colored mushrooms had washed up at the bay. They were stuck together by some white calcification and each had a different color... I want to say red, blue, and yellow. Anyway, his mother picks them up when we point it out to her and simply says they're 'sea mushrooms', like it was common knowledge.

      There's no such thing as far I can tell. There's marine fungi and even a rare mushroom that grows in fresh water, but I've seen no evidence for starkly colored salt water mushroom caps. Was it the component of some washed up toy maybe?

      Another time at Cape May NJ during the winter, I found several pieces of washed bright cobalt blue coral in little chunks. There is no coral that grows like that anywhere near that area. I have a friend who visits there yearly and he does a cursory look at that beach for it, but there's never anything. Could it have been a smashed up dyed blue decorative coral? Maybe, but why there? Why on the coast line instead of just trashed if someone didn't want it?

      D. In my teens, I used to hang out at the woods for a couple of hours at night by myself during summer break and during late autumn on weekends. I found it calming and I liked being outside away from noise and crowds which is hard to escape in NJ.

      So, I'm sitting there on a log in a spot I called The Basin, which was a small clearing in the woods with a few scattered trees sitting in a shallow depression that would collect with water when it rained, hence the name. It was around October. I was watching the dusky night sky and coming to appreciate the branches reaching up to the clouds, finding the perspective unique. I then noticed an occasional soft flashing nearby. I thought it was headlights reflecting at a weird angle from a road some hundred feet away, but no.

      The bark of a few specific sections of the trees in the basin were softly flickering with light. It wasn't like the other one I mentioned, it was a very dim light. But always the same few spots and with no discernable pattern in regards to time. I was a bit taken aback by it, wondering if it was St Elmo's Fire or something, but it was on the lateral sides of the tree and not the top. I remember the light flashes being very faint and I'm not sure if they had any particular color, only that those specific patches on the trees would make them and nowhere else. The effect persisted for a while before I decided to go home. I recall being more bemused than bothered by the sight.

      E. I once received a decorative glass globe with a fiddler crab sealed inside from my mother, who got it from a neighbor was moving out. I remember touching it and getting this awful dark enraged feeling from within it, like nothing I can compare it to. Still, I put it on a shelf in my room. For two nights straight, I was wracked with nightmares, which I am not otherwise prone to. I had this weird sensation that it was responsible and wanted to be cracked open. I handed it back on the third day, wanting nothing more to do with it. The nightmares immediately stopped.

      F. Back when cassettes were still a thing as CDs were coming out, I was going through my cassette collection, trying to sort out blanks from stuff I recorded FM or otherwise copied music on. Well, midway through one blank, a weird tinny voice starts up, sounding all evil and self amused for about ten seconds. It said something along the lines of, "Yessss, yessss... soon, very soon. nee hee hee Very sooooooon". I had no idea why this seemingly blank cassette had such a voice on it in the middle of nowhere! I played it for a few others who ultimately didn't know what to make of it. My mother wondered if it was me, but my voice is low and deep not high pitched and lilting. Creeped out, I threw the thing away, content to never hear it again.

      G. Fast forward to my mid 20's and I'm working overnight stock at a Home Depot. Me and some of the other workers were sitting on a bay entrance to the lumber aisle during break, just making idle talk. I commented to one guy, let's call him Gerry, that someone was coming in late for work that night. It was about 1 am. We saw a husky figure from the far end of the parking lot walking from where the road and grassy median next to the lot met. He looked like he was wearing a coat, but was otherwise indistinctive outside of his bustling casual pace. Well, on his apparent way to our building, he walks behind a light pole- and his form doesn't come back out the other side. He's way thicker in width at that distance than the pole and it didn't seem like he was doing to duck down or dart away suddenly. I asked Gerry if he saw what I did and he confirmed it. We didn't know what to think, but there's an old 1800's cemetery directly across the highway from that spot, so who knows.

      H. I may or may not have seen a UFO before, I'm not sure. I was in the mountains of NJ that night with my friend and we were star watching. I commented that one star looked like it was drifting away from the others, but I couldn't be certain and wrote it off. My friend then pointed it out to me again a few minutes later. It had definitely moved away from the others. It gradually went to the horizon over the next ten minutes, making peculiar wide swaying/dipping motions, like it was rocking back and forth as it flew away. We watched as it went over the horizon and out of sight. This was when drones were still in their infancy of being introduced, but the movement was really quite bizarre and inefficient.

      I. Back when I did janitorial work at a Board of Education building, the third floor, and occasionally the second, used to get weird after 9pm. The third floor would start manifesting shadow people once in a blue moon, whereas the second floor would occasionally have the sound of running footsteps in it when I was on the first floor and there was no one else in the office but me. Funny thing is, I used to run for exercise on the 2nd floor during my breaks, but never if I heard other footsteps up there before I went.

      J. One time while heading back home from a weekend visit to the shore, I was driving down a straight highway at night that I had been down dozens of times. This time, I needed to get gas. Not familiar with the exits, I found one advertising a station so I pulled off and fueled up. Nothing crazy about that. However, after my detour finished and I was on my way again on that straight highway, I found I was drastically closer to home suddenly without explanation, to the tune of an entire 15 minutes faster than I should have been, despite my stop off. That seems like the complete opposite result of what should have happened.

      K. Lastly, this one isn't mine, but my mother's incident. It took place during the late 50's-early 60's. She and her friend witnessed a massive black pyramid flying over their houses, with a blinking red light at each corner. It moved slowly and made no noise. Additionally, no one else seemed to be able to see it.


      My question is have you ever had an unplanned lucid dream that enlightened you to something?

      posted in General Discussion
      Alexander SalkinA
      Alexander Salkin
    • RE: DANGER!

      @Ezra I think in the modern era, vampires are probably the bigger threat as they're better at manipulating society by design. Also, I imagine they would be better at setting up long term power structures that suit them. They're quasi-immortal politicians with supernatural powers after a point. But maybe I've played too much Vampire the Masquerade back in the day (Gangrel for life!!).

      That said, I'd probably prefer to be a werewolf and make a national park or some similar expanse my home, periodically running amok like some cryptid.

      posted in General Discussion
      Alexander SalkinA
      Alexander Salkin
    • Forum navigation issue

      Hey, just wanted to let you know I've noticed some difficulty using the forum on my Android phone since the last update. Namely the various top buttons can be highlighted, but they don't click through or otherwise open. I included an example of the top left triple line sitting idle instead of it showing the recent threads area. I still navigate the main body of the posts individually, however.

      Screenshot_20230912-211404.png

      posted in Questions
      Alexander SalkinA
      Alexander Salkin
    • RE: Players trying to cheat in your sessions

      @Mariano I run all homebrew campaigns so no one's going to know what I'm necessarily planning next, but I do have one friend in my online group who definitely cheats his butt off when it comes to to hit rolls and ability checks. He's a part time coder and he uses a dice roller on his PC that I'm sure is loaded with bs numbers in his favor. Everyone else rolls dice on camera, but oh no... And yes, everyone knows about it. It's like an open secret.

      While he can have some main character syndrome going on, he's mainly just a power gamer. And at my experience at running these things, I know how to temper things discreetly if he leans too close to trying to one up other players.

      So why do I put up with it?

      For all his tough bravado in and out of game, he's had a hard life. He hides a severe anxiety problem by over compensating. Psychologically, the guy has a lot going on, from internal and external forces. I'm not ignorant of this.

      Generally speaking, as long as he doesn't cross the line of making the game unfun for others (and again, we know him pretty well), I'm okay if he wants to play something bigger than himself. Someone powerful, charming, cool, etc. He can roleplay reasonably well and he doesn't need to be perfect. But he needs a friend or even several. That's my group. We've known him for decades.

      When we get older, social quirks and dubious decisions that you might make regularly when you're younger become less charming and excusable. And older guys especially have trouble making new friends as men have families, which is often less time for hobbies and our peers potentially grow more aloof.

      There's been some dangerous unstable people out there where he lives in the last few years that started getting his attention. Making him feel big in all the wrong ways. You can imagine who they are. But if the rest of us, his old friends, can remind him of who he is and that he has a place with us like he always did, then yes... I will look the other way a little for the game and for him.

      I don't respect cheating at all. But if I can do this one little thing that might make his weekend and ease the fault lines in his soul, then I'll cop to having this motivation for the greater good. I always want to be a good a good gamemaster, but there's more to the gaming table than rules and rolling dice once you do it enough.

      I apologize for the long answer that might be off the rails for a response, but I wanted to offer my own perspective on this.

      posted in General Discussion
      Alexander SalkinA
      Alexander Salkin
    • RE: Earth, Water, Fire, Air... Which bender are you?

      Probably water. I grew up on the shore and I've always enjoyed that setting. Plus every bathtub becomes a jacuzzi when you're a water bender.

      posted in General Discussion
      Alexander SalkinA
      Alexander Salkin
    • You have the time, focus, and the inspiration...

      What creative project have you been dreaming of completing if you had all of these uninterrupted for the next several months?

      I've been itching to make a visual encyclopedia of an unexplored world full of life. I want to design and detail a scenario where live developed under different but relatable circumstances. I would make entries for not only the various critters that live on this world and how they associate with each other, but the 'lesser' forms of life, such as plant and insect equivalents, each with a simple illustration alongside an entry. Imagine a wildlife/nature handbook crossed with a less alien take on The Future Is Wild.

      posted in General Discussion
      Alexander SalkinA
      Alexander Salkin
    • RE: BOOKS!

      @Ezra It's a contemporary style modern sci-fi book, but I absolutely adore The Roadside Picnic. It's absolutely haunting and brilliant withn the explanation of it's own absurdity. This is one of those books that gave rise to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series of games, but that doesn't do justice to it.

      posted in General Discussion
      Alexander SalkinA
      Alexander Salkin
    • Does anyone else here enjoy cooking?

      I went most of my life being shooed out of kitchens or simply not knowing how to anything more complicated than stew. Even then, I just couldn't figure out flavor profiles.

      When I watched my then wife-to-be expand from baking to making dinners, however, I was happy to help with the prep work and I started to understand the nuances of spices, cooking methodology, and how to modify recipes. I've really come to enjoy cooking for us in the last several years as a result!

      Although I'm a lousy spectator for cooking shows, the actual act of making stuffed peppers, chicken scampi, and baked salmon is a pleasure. One day I'd like to tackle a Thanksgiving turkey.

      Do you cook and if so, what's your favorite meal to make?

      posted in General Discussion
      Alexander SalkinA
      Alexander Salkin
    • Competitors?

      I was going over the legal terms the other day and I got to the part about not sharing IP content with competitors, which is perfectly sensible. But it got me thinking... who and what are they defined as by your studio?

      I'm not entirely sure who is running a comparable project to the game's idea. It's not quite like something akin to Second Life, Utherverse, or a common rp forum. I figured I'd ask out of curiosity's sake.

      posted in Questions
      Alexander SalkinA
      Alexander Salkin
    • RE: That time the Dungeon Master ruined the campaign for you?

      It was a campaign that barely had two sessions before it collapsed. The DM was well intentioned, but needed way more experience. He was trying to run Strixhaven, which I was already not really a fan of in concept, but I went along with it with a few other players to give him a shot.

      He didn't understand how to keep things moving or interesting. It was so ploddingly dull and one could tell he hadn't really studied the module. Right in the beginning, he had us trying to do an easter egg hunt sort of challenge, but he didn't bother explaining the layout of the mage's school beyond a quick four-second description. He also dumped a metric ton of forgettable NPCs on us before anything even happened. I'm not sure we got far beyond the starting lobby in Strixhaven over several hours.

      We told him what was going on and he then switched to some brutally hard Darksouls type 3rd party module where we were to explore a haunted house. While I liked the concept, taking damage for no discernable reason and being given no clues during the mystery just made everything feel arbitrary and tedious. I don't think he's run since.

      posted in General Discussion
      Alexander SalkinA
      Alexander Salkin

    Latest posts made by Alexander Salkin

    • RE: SPOOKY SEASON SUBJECT: Horror Games

      @SwampCreature The one with the dog... that's part of the Clocktower series, I think? Unless you're referring to Rule of Rose.

      SIlent Hill 2 is legendary and for good reason. I got my start with that series with that one. It holds a dread ambiance like nothing else.

      If you like Fatal Frame, have you tried the DreadOut series? They're somewhat similar as I understand. I like DreadOut, but it's not balanced as well as it could be with some of the bosses.

      The most recent horror type game I've played is Withering Rooms. It's a survival title in a haunted mansion and while it has some Clock Tower elements, it's more of a focus on being a rogue-like style these days. It's not intensely scary or anything, but there's some good monster designs.

      Honestly, I can't think of any pure horror titles that have clicked for me in a while. I couldn't get into Amnesia and while FNAF is good for jump scares and dread, I never liked the controls, so I would just watch YT'ers play it.

      Come to think of it, the last really scary thing I played was the Silent Hill mod for Fallout 4. Coupled with a few other mods for fog and such, that was a genuinely nerve-wracking experience. Just trying to survive nights and having a real reason to be hyper-cautious in houses and streets (compared to the base game) truly brought out a terrifying style of gameplay.

      posted in General Discussion
      Alexander SalkinA
      Alexander Salkin
    • RE: Surprise!

      @Alexander-Salkin So, um, a quick errata to my last message. I have no sense of time whatsoever. According to my players, it hasn't been 9 or so games. It's been 21 sessions so far.

      Imma just go sit in the corner with my dunce cap now.

      posted in General Discussion
      Alexander SalkinA
      Alexander Salkin
    • RE: You are transported to the world of the last game you played. How do you do?

      @SwampCreature I'm playing the Shin Megami Tensei remaster of Nocturne. Yeah, I would do abysmal in that world. It's severely human unfriendly. The handful that exist eventually all follow some form of Reason, a spiritual manifesto that relates to them transcending into monsters with the aim of creating a new world. I doubt I'd survive that long to even have the chance.

      posted in General Discussion
      Alexander SalkinA
      Alexander Salkin
    • RE: Forum navigation issue

      @FlamingUnicron Looks good! Thank you!

      posted in Questions
      Alexander SalkinA
      Alexander Salkin
    • RE: Surprise!

      @mianngu I certainly hope they're happy, ha ha! But yeah, they're a great group. I think it's been going well, they're starting to see how the smaller indirect aspects of the campaign can lead to steps toward their ultimate goal and the deeper historical lore that explains the relevance of what's going on in the world of Tau. These things put a certain nuance on what's around them that can't be discerned at first glance. We've done around 8-10 sessions of EotS by now and it's been a lot of fun to explore the world with a new group like this. I've tried my best not to give them too much of a plot-hammered linear path, but just enough thread pieces for them to follow the tapestry, so to speak. Of course, nothing but quick reflexes can protect the heroes from a sudden wandering cat on-the-board attack. The heroes might be seeking magic, but Donut and Amira are there for attention and power loafing on the map.

      Ah, you've noticed my dice bag! I LOVE THAT THING. So, my old black/white spiderweb pattern dice bag (the usual pouch style, unlike the mushroom one) had seen a lot of campaigns over the years, but between the string tie becoming loose and the inevitable coffee stains that come from being at the game table, it was time to retire it. I visited a local punk rock flea market at the local club where I go dancing and I found the mushroom moon bag for sale by an indie vendor. It was one of those times where you walk by something and then immediately walk backward, fixated on something you just glanced at, you know?

      I'm not sure if the original purpose was to be a dice baggie, a small art material holder, or a pouch for reagants but I fell in love with the rustic pattern. It's just one of those things that spoke to me. It has a little zipper on top and it does a great job of keeping my myriad of dice in check. I think it only ran me about $10 which feels like a bargain.

      posted in General Discussion
      Alexander SalkinA
      Alexander Salkin
    • Forum navigation issue

      Hey, just wanted to let you know I've noticed some difficulty using the forum on my Android phone since the last update. Namely the various top buttons can be highlighted, but they don't click through or otherwise open. I included an example of the top left triple line sitting idle instead of it showing the recent threads area. I still navigate the main body of the posts individually, however.

      Screenshot_20230912-211404.png

      posted in Questions
      Alexander SalkinA
      Alexander Salkin
    • Surprise!

      So I showed up to run the usual EotS game for our weekly group at a friend's house and found the mood was rather subdued. I suspected that everyone was tired from Labor Day weekend and we might have a low-energy game. A shame, but that can happen. I readied myself to push on through regardless.

      One of the players comes in shortly after me hauling bags of groceries. A little unusual, but I figured he had food shopping to do and since he was running late, he just wanted to bring it all in.

      Nope! All of a sudden my players light up with "Congratulations"! They planned a little surprise for me after EotS made the final 3 and I had no idea!

      It's been a great day here and I just wanted to share the cheer from the EotS squad. From left to right, using their character names to protect the guilty, we have Clintovious (ranger) (with the fluffy CR20 cat threat known as Donut), Screech (cleric), Roan (paladin/warlock), Bramble (cleric), and Chad (bard). Not able to make it today was Shazz (artificer). I formed this group out of a local FB gaming group post that I made around (or just after, I don't remember which) the time I submitted Eye of the Sorceress for the contest. The last few months have been a wild ride with everything involved and I couldn't be happier.

      Included are bonus cat tax pictures of the local fuzzy mascots, Donut and Amira.

      IMG_20230903_134734735.jpg IMG_20230903_134717048~2.jpg IMG_20230903_151122769.jpg IMG_20230903_172446181.jpg IMG_20230903_134654947.jpg

      posted in General Discussion
      Alexander SalkinA
      Alexander Salkin
    • RE: Animal Companions

      @mianngu That's a crime!

      Have you not even been allowed to play the Drakewarden Ranger??

      posted in General Discussion
      Alexander SalkinA
      Alexander Salkin
    • RE: Starfield!

      @Mariano I loved Skyrim, no question. It's odd though, for as much hype as I've heard about Starfield, I really haven't seen much talk about the actual gameplay or story itself. I'm curious, but I know next to nothing of what it's even supposed to be about. I feel as though people are talking around it?

      posted in General Discussion
      Alexander SalkinA
      Alexander Salkin
    • RE: Which older video game would you remake?

      @SwampCreature Parasite Eve would be great for a proper remake. It had a really good atmosphere and felt fairly distinctive for it's time. Giving the designs updated visuals (and maybe improving that walk cycle) would be grand.

      Going old school and with unrealistic hopes, I'd love to see Ultima Exodus, Bubble Bobble, and Magic of Scherezade updated and expanded.

      Prototype would be really cool too.

      posted in General Discussion
      Alexander SalkinA
      Alexander Salkin
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