Tar Valon

Welcome to HARRY POTTER HANGMAN! If you haven't met me before, I suppose you can call me Nearly Headless Nick...though, I really prefer Sir Nicholas. I suppose you're wondering what a ghost like me is doing hosting an event called "hangman" when I was CLEARLY done in by a dull axe to the neck. Well...I can't really tell you. I simply received an invitation to host this event from an anonymous member of the Blue Ajah. It seemed to be codified in some way, but she seemed nice enough, so here I am. This game is rather simple. You'll start off with a series of blanks with mysterious letters missing. For every letter that you guess correctly, you will receive ONE POINT. …

Welcome to the Blue & Yellow Ajah's HP Week 2014 Owl Post! This is a very easy and fun activity. Each post counts as one Owl Post. The first person writes a letter or message and the following post is a message from someone else to the previous person. For example: (Owl Post #1) Harry, I love you! Have you thought any further about getting that hippogriff tattoo we talked about? Ginny --------------------------------- (Owl Post #2) Ginny, I love you more. As for the tattoo, we’ll talk about it some more. I’m not keen about it but if I’m going to get a tattoo, I’d rather it be a hippogriff than a basilisk, like Ron suggested. Harry ---------------------…

Red Ajah Cultural Exchange Month Dragonmount is a gathering place of people from all over the world. Each carrying with them a wealth of traditional and historical riches and quirkiness. The Red Ajah reflects the vast diversity in culture in that it houses a wide variety of different cultures through its members and we would like to share that diversity with the rest of you. We also would love to hear and read from you and your experiences with various cultures throughout the world. All of August we hope to engage you in an exchange of cultural tidbits, interesting discussions and fun(ny) annecdotes.

Some will be for laughs, some will be much more serious... First Serious Discussion Topic: Simple, really - Did J.K. Rowling fail at simple world building?? I would take it deeper, and ask if the Wizards were just evil, but let's put the onus on the Author. Magic - Healing, Transmutation, Travel... I understand that the series was written for children, but some world consistency should be necessary: If a Wizard can regrow bones in a day, can they cure AIDS? Cancer? Why do they hoard this "technology"? Muggles don't believe, so market it under some psuedo-scientific babel, and make the world a better place. Can't use Transmutation to create food... che…

The Blues annual Harry Potter week is coming up very soon and this year we've decided to open up signups for HP themed mafia game in advance. The game will be starting on the 27th and will be ran here on the Tar Valon board. Its a 15 player advanced game with an epic theme and even epicer scenes. and it will be ran by none other than myself and Xthrax ^_^ so come one and come all and be apart of one of the most magical and memorable games on DM! note: the Amarylin does request that this thread be limited just to signing up for the game and conversation be at a minimum :) Rules Rules Important: Mother has spoken Regardless of your status here at th…

I recall the days when pluto was still a planet. Alas, it has since been demoted to dwarf planet. What are our feelings about this?

Hello everyone! Have you ever stopped and wondered "Gee, I wonder... If I was a planet, which would I be?" WELL NOW YOU CAN FIND OUT !!! I have included two quizzes to see if you get the same planet on both or are having a bit of a planetary identity crisis? Quizzes are here and here Will you be the planet you were thinking of? Will you be Mars? Will you be Venus? Will Pluto be an option? Find out who you are in our DM Milky Way and share your results with us all !

There have been a plethora of movies and shows related to space. To name a few: Star Trek (all of them) Stargate Star Wars Alien (sort of) There are also others like Apollo 13 which are meant to be a little more realistic and not sci-fi. A few prompting questions What do you think of these shows? Have you watched any of them? Which were your favorites? What did you think of the technology? The aliens? Do you mind that some of them are totally unrealistic? Any shows or movies that I missed that you want to discuss? Have at it!

All throughout the Sci-Fi world we come into contact with many different types of sentient beings. Some walk on two legs and are very humanoid. Others may slide on the ground like are worm. Some look relatively "normal" whereas others are more scary looking. So here we are - to discuss aliens. Some starting questions: 1. Do you have a favorite species of alien from any science fiction series? 2. If you were an alien, what kind would you be? 3. What comes to mind when you think of aliens?

Hey what is a pirate's favorite restaurant? Arrrrrrrrrrby's Alright! Now that I have you attention, here we are to discuss some pirates. First I'd like to know...who are some of your favorite pirates and why. This is discussion is for real life pirates as opposed to fictional ones that will be discussed in another thread.

So you're a pirate and need to find some treasure...I mean...what's the point if you have none. Here's your map! You can ask me questions and I'll give you clues to find the treasure (please use only yes or no questions). Some may be real places, and some may be fictional. I'll tell you at the beginning which one. If you guess it right, you get a point. The person with the first post wins. Most points at the end wins the game! Alright the first one is a real place! Pieces of Eight Bela - 1 Kaylee - 3 Elgee - 1

Guess the Produce Game The Gray Ajah Presents Midsummer Festival - Come Picnic With Us! Welcome to the Gray Ajahs' Midsummer Festival Guess the Produce Game. The rules are simple. Come in, take a seat and have some food and drink. I will post a portion of a pic of a fruit or vegetable and you have to guess it. Now these are not your ordinary everyday fruits and veggies. So get your thinking cap on and show off your produce savvy!!! So let's get started with this lovely selection; 1.)

Ahhhh, it's that time of year again. Where the days are long and totally disrupt your sense of time (Really? Is it after 7:30 at "night" already? It's still bright and sunshiny out!). And where the Gray Ajah brings us the Midsummer Festival! Summer's full of lots of nice fun things, and one of the lovely things to do when it's nice and warm and sunny out is to have a nice picnic! So, what does picnic mean for you guys? Do you prefer the back yard or to head out to the park or the woods somewhere? Do you bring everything all ready or do you pack the BBQ and charcoal? Do you remember any particularly fun picnics that you'd like to share? This thread is for you to di…

Hello everybody, welcome to the Midsummer Festival! As this year we have a picnic theme I thought I would talk about picnic preparation: mainly all those cool picnic tools and utensils that you can find! The first thing you need of course is a picnic basket or hamper. We recently bought this one: link to page: http://www.homebase.co.uk/en/homebaseuk/4-person-picnic-basket-245704 Its four person, has real plates, salt and pepper shakers as well as a corkscrew, glasses cutlery and napkins. And there is plenty of room inside it for yummy food as well. I also really like these two

Welcome to the Cuen'd'eren Pirate Event! Here we are going to talk about fictional pirates. I'm going to post some previous questions and through the event I'll be adding more. 1. Your top 5 fictional pirates: Who are they? Why do you like them? 2. Do you have any favourite pirate-themed movie, book, TV show, videogame...? 3. Do you remember any scene (from pirate themed books, movies, tv shows, videogames...) that made you burst into laughter?

Welcome to the Gray Ajah Midsummer Festival!!! I am Cairos Sedai and I am the offical chef of the Gray Ajah! This week we will be having a DM picnic discussion on favorite food and drinks for a picnic. You can be simple or complex with the recipes. The scene is ready for a lovely picnic! We are out in a big open park with green grass and bright blue skies. The blankets are on the grass all laid out in all 7 colors for each Ajah. Please provide your favorite food and drink recipe for a picnic!!! I'll start off! Pesto Chicken Rolls Season and grill chicken cutlets. Brush lavash or any other wrap-type bread with pesto; layer with the chicken, sun-dried tomatoes and …

Welcome To The Gray Ajah's Midsummer Festival : The Sunny Summer Picnic Post It's that time of year again where the Gray Ajah has the midsummer festival , please come join us in a little spammy thread and post what you like to eat or anything about picnics! .

Choose your pirate name and name your ship! There are two ways to choose your pirate name: using this quiz or choosing one yourself. And only one way to choose your ship name: picking one. 1. Pirate Name Quiz. 2. Pirate Name of your choice (explain why you chose it). 3. Ship Name of your choice (explain why you chose it).

When the sun is shining and the days are warm it is the perfect time to grab your family and friends, a hamper and some food and find an outdoor spot to set up a picnic! You are invited to join the Gray Ajah in celebration of all thing picnic: Gudrean runs our 'Guess the produce game' Cairos talks food and drink Elaevia finds those must-have picnic accessories Amarande talks all things picnic or join KassidyRose for picnic spam! Our event only lasts a week but hopefully you will be inspired to picnic all summer long!

Round 1: Rhea Key RTE - WINNER Kronos

Thanks to our participants for their amazing job! Congratulations to the winners: Winner for Painting category: Chaelca! Congratulations! Winner for Movie category: Mashiara! Congratulations! Winner for Architecture category: Chaelca! Congratulations! And our Special Award for "Most Creative Use of Architectural Medium" goes to Mashiara! Congratulations!

I think this one is pretty self explanatory! I will post a work of art by a famous artist and you will try to guess who it is. Please let someone else guess before guessing again, Art may be paintings, sculpture, or other! You will earn a point for each correct answer. The person with the most points wins a prize! Key - 1 point Kat - 2 points RTE - 1 point Chae - 4 points Elgee - 5 points (1 from Snarly ) WINNER!!! Kuka - 1 point Ithi- 2 points Here we go! #1 Edgar Degas (1834-1917) - Place de la Concorde #2 Claude Monet (1840-1926) Twilight, Venice #3 Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) The Lion #4 Salvador Dali (1904-1989) - The …

The definition of art is “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture”. The definition of unconventional is "not based on or conforming to what is generally done or believed". This string is about a marriage of the two (probably obvious by the title ). We all know that painting, drawing, and sculptures are forms of art. Dancing and photography are also nearly unanimously considered art. It is not rare for an excellent writer or filmmaker to be considered an artist. But what about those who think outside of the box? Those who don't want to express themselves in the "given" ma…

And we're back! This will be your opportunity to vote for the work you like best. Each artist was given different masterpieces and each artist used their talent, imagination, creativity and perception to mimic the work they were given. We have 3 categories that you will be voting on: Mimic a Painting, Mimic a Movie, and Mimic Architecture. We only had two brave artists participate this year so, in each category, we will first show Option A Assigned, Option A Submitted, Option B Assigned, Option B Submitted. You will choose the option you like best for each category. For the Mimic a Painting category, the artist was able to choose to mimic the entire wor…

Welcome to the White and Blue Ajah's Month of the Greats “Mimic the Greats” activity! It's time to dust off your artistic talents (or try to discover them in the first place!). The lovely and talented Kukaso and I will be hosting this activity and we’re both new to it so please be patient if we find we need to work out any kinks! The point of this activity is to try to mimic Greats in the Arts. You will sign up in this thread and we will forward to you via PM the greats (and their work) that you are to mimic. We will be sending the PMs no earlier than May 22, which is when this event starts. All PMs will go out at the same time so as to level the playing field…

Do you want to play a game of skill and deduction? Then sign up for Love Letter! It's an easy card game where the objective is to be the last person with a card in your hand—or in the case of multiple people having cards, be the one with the highest ranking card. Only 4 players can play at once (but we can have multiple rounds if there's a ton of interest). There are 16 cards in the deck, powers outlined below, with the rank in parenthesis: 1 Princess (8): You lose if you discard this 1 Countess (7): Discard if you have the Prince or King 2 Handmaiden (6): Protects you for one round if discarded 1 King (5): Switch hands with another player 2 Pr…

This week's focus will be "GREATS IN ART" and I will highlight a different artist each day for 5 days. Please engage with the artwork - discuss whether you like or appreciate the artists' works, how they contribute to what we define as art and which painting would you choose as your favorite. MONET Oscar-Claude Monet (1840-1926) is a famous French painter and one of the founders of the Impressionism movement along with his friends Renoir, Sisley and Bazille. Monet rejected the traditional approach to landscape painting and instead of copying old masters he had been learning from his friends and the nature itself. Monet observed variations of color and ligh…

Ladies and Gentlemen, It is I, Key. Once again I have found myself with one foot in the present and one foot in 'the Other Realm'. The Greats have begun clamoring – what? - Oh, excuse me, George Carlin is hounding me about my missed opportunity to call it 'the Great Beyond'. Jeez. As I was saying, the Greats are eager to share their knowledge, expertise, and opinions (especially opinions) with you all. During this week of the Month of the Greats, you shall have the ability to ask a Great for some advice, giving you a glimpse into his or her brain and possibly aiding you in a decision. I will be your guide, dear participants, and a wild ride it will be if my f…

In our modern times, there is some debate as to what constitutes art. Paintings, of course. Literature, definitely. But when the idea of media—most specifically, cinema—is brought up, many dismiss it as not being worthy of art. There are arguments on both sides, but less now that the medium has developed so much. It's difficult to remember that film as a medium is only a little over 100 years old. And compared to painting/drawing, which can be dated to 40,000 years ago (in the El Castillo cave in Spain), it's easy to see why film is not held with the same sort of reverence. However, that fact—of film being new—can help its claim to being called art. Jeremy …

There’s so much art out in the world, but is it really art. The definition of art is “The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture”. Lets add some more though… photography, architecture, graffiti, acting and digital art. There are many more! There are several ways you could go about defining art. I could tell you that art plays a large part in making our lives infinitely rich. Imagine, just for a minute, a world without art! (You may think "So what?" but please consider the impact that lack of graphics would have on your favorite video game.) Art stimulates different parts of o…