The Obsessive Wunderkind

I’ve recently been reading a biography of Wernher von Braun.

Wernher von Braun was a severely autistic German boy, who suffered from extreme mental retardation.

From an early age, he was very fascinated by the fields of existence beyond Earth’s atmosphere, particularly the planetary body known as “Luna”.

When his mother asked him want he wanted to do when he grew up, he said:

“I want to turn the wheel of progress.”, a strange answer from such a young boy.

Wernher went to a boarding school. Wernher was excellent in all subjects except for mathematics, which he was below average at.

Wernher, inspired by the literary works of Hermann Oberth, realized that it was his dream in life to touch the stars. It quickly became an all-consuming obsession.

Wernher realized that to reach the stars, he would have to be very good at mathematics.

He studied the science until he was the greatest student in school at mathematics. Occasionally, he would even fill in as a substitute math teacher. Sometimes, he would demonstrate to the class how the teacher had made an error.

Wernher blasted his way through the education system and soon after became an engineer.

Wernher started to experiment with rocketry as both a hobby and a career. How else would men touch the stars?

He is pictured here, playing with his toy rocket. He clearly has some kind of mental disability.

Wernher began to gain the attention of the German government, which had gained a National Socialist stance.

Wernher and his rocket buddies were building rockets in a place called Peenemunde.

The Germans got in a big war with everybody. Some moustache-faced bastard had started to cause a ruckus. Wernher didn’t care, he just wanted to build rockets.

The moustache-faced bastard used Wernher’s rockets to blow up English chavs. No loss there.

Then the Americans invaded Germany, and they said to Wernher: “We want you to build rockets for us now.”

And Wernher said:

“Okey-dokey”.

He is pictured here, playing with another toy rocket. Note that the rocket’s allegiance has changed.

Wernher and his family re-located to America. Wernher married his attractive first-cousin, Maria.

Now Wernher was building missiles for the yanks. He ended up in a race with the Russians to be the first to space.

Wernher was beaten to space by the Russians. They had launched a satellite into orbit named after the potato.

Wernher was heart-broken. But he didn’t give up!

The race had begun: to be the first to Luna!

Around this time, Wernher was becoming an American celebrity and hero. He wrote articles for magazines, received interviews and even did a show for Disney, all on the topic of space and space-flight.

He was quite popular on all communication forums.

In 1955, Wernher started to make assurances. He assured the American people that he would have his Rocket to the Moon out by 1962.

People began to get really excited. If the rocket came out like Wernher had said, it would be the greatest thing ever.

Then, when it didn’t come out in 1962, Wernher demonstrated to everyone that the rocket was clearly coming out in 1963.

When questioned why the rocket wasn’t out by 1963, Wernher explained that “the bugs” were holding it back from release. “It just needs a bit more polish”, he said. “We need to beta test the rocket more”.

In 1969, Wernher’s Rocket that would take man to the Moon, was finally finished.

AND IT DESTROYED COMMUNISM.

Hrm… what a great life story.

I mean, it’s like, even though the rocket was way overdue… it like, actually changed the course of human history.

Hrm…

 

OH MY GOD!

THE RESEMBLANCE IS UNCANNY!

GRIMOIRE! IT’Z COMING!

 

YOU WILL BELIEVE A GOLDEN BABY CAN FLY!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P.S. On a totally unrelated note, when you look up “Cleve Blakemore” on Bing images, it comes up with “Fecal Fat” as a related topic.

Pledger Program Imminent

Don’t worry guys. I sat down with the Cleve the other day. I asked him if he could get started on the pledger response program.

Now three weeks later, the program is surely near completion.

Here’s a mock-up of the pledger letter we intend to send out:

 

 

 

 

Greetings, Loyal Pledger to the Grimoire Crowd-Funding Campaign.

This is Cooper Blakemore, Son of Cleve the Neanderthal.

Based on the amount of money you have pledged, you are entitled to your very own piece of content in Grimoire. This may be an item, an NPC, or a Tomb Plaque.

You will describe the content in detail, and we will adapt it as best we can to become an entity in the game. Understand, that the more simplistic and reasonable your content request is, the more likely it will be processed into the game in the exact form you specified. If the piece of content is simply undoable, unrealistic or would take far too long to implement, we will request a second time for your custom content idea. If you continue to jerk us around after that, we may refuse your item entirely.

An example of a good piece of content is:

“I want a powerful sword with a chance to jellify enemies. I expect this to be accomplished by the sword having a spell like “Touch of Death”, and the in-game text saying “X was Jellified!” as opposed to “X was Insta-killed!” The sword should have a kind of bizarre, alien like appearance to it. It should be found in a really strange place, possibly some kind of inter-dimensional type zone.”

That is a more than doable request. Here’s an example of a bad request:

“I WANT A SWORD THAT LETS ME ATTACK MY TEAMMATES AND IT WINS THE GAME INSTANTLY WHEN YOU GET A CRITICAL HIT WITH IT AND THE SWORD SHOULD LOOK LIKE A GOPHER AND YOU SHOULD GET IT BY EATING A RIDE-ABLE TURTLE!”

Some basic requirements your content must follow:

• Content must not be lewd (No penile-shaped swords of Rockskin)
• Content must be reasonable, in the sense that it wouldn’t take more than a few minutes to create and insert into the game
• Content must draw on assets already in the game (The asset library is quite expansive, though)
• Content must not infringe on any copyright laws
• Common sense should be used when designing content

Examples of good pieces of content would be things like:

X1 Anti-Matter Handcannon (Unique ranged weapon, with rare ammo and a chance of insta-kill)

Wop-Pop’s Staff of Self-Transformation (Polymorph Self: Turn into an animal)

Shield of The Last Warrior (Shield that gives you a bonus to the Destiny skill, increasing your chance to survive otherwise fatal attacks)

Below is a picture of the Grimoire stats screen. Observe the attributes on the left side of the screenshot.

Attributes include:

Intelligence, Wisdom, Will, Strength, Constitution, Speed, Agility, Fellowship, Devotion, Met (Metabolism?) and Destiny.

Resistances include:

System, Death, Sor, Sonic, Mental, Mesmerize, Illumination, Toxicity, Fire, Cold, Air, Aqua, Earth, Caustic, Galvanization and Paralysis.

Conditions include:

Unc, Sleep, Silence, Fear, Con, Irritation, Ber, Nausea, Bli, Cur, Poisoned, Cha, Diseased, Ins, Petrified and Paralysed.

Some spells include:

Sleep, Fireball, Knock-Knock, Light, Chilling Touch, Polymorph, Touch of Death, Death Wish, Destroying Vortex, Timestop, Rainbow Ray, Identify, Divination, Wizard’s Eye, Locate Item, Water & Firewalking, Teleport, Cosmic Gate, Crushing Hand, Insect Swarm, Poison, Magic Missile, Bless, WitchHex, Refresh, Wither, Featherfall, Cone of Cold, Silence, Bubble of Air Protection, Bubble of Sonic Protection, Magic Mirror, Leaping Sparks, Firestorm, Earthquake, Death Cloud, Deep Freeze, Heal Wounds, Heal Conditions, Flesh to Stone, Stone to Flesh, Spiderscale, Direction, Charm, Dread, Blister, Solar Flare and many more.