Picture History of the American Civil War (read for fun)

Believe it or not this is not another book that I kept from a college class. It's actually a gift from my mom because she knows I am a history buff. Anyway, it is a general history of the American Civil War from its background to Lincoln's assassination. As the title indicates it is composed predominantly pictures instead of text.

Each chapter has five or so pages that give an overview of the chapter itself, and the rest of the chapter is filled with relevant pictures alongside a couple paragraphs going into a little more detail on the subjects from the overview. For instance, the chapter relating to the Battle of Gettysburg will have pictures taken from early cameras of the battlefield and the military camps, more modern pictures of the area as it is now, maps showing the routes taken by the armies, and one more thing.

It is a drawing of the battles and how they progressed. Just one image for the major moments in a given battle that lasts two days or more. One is supposed to follow the numbers to follow the events. It is an interesting concept, but I found it confusing. Maybe I wasn't reading it right.

It is a mostly chronological account focusing on the land armies and their leaders but a few chapters divert from this. There is a chapter focusing on the naval battles and there is one for the political battles fought by diplomats at home and abroad. There is one for the common soldier on both sides and the kind of live he lived.

It is a fun book that does more than list dry facts. There is such a force of personality in the prose that one can imagine Bruce Catton lecturing on the subjects.

Trickster Eric Novels gives "American Heritage Picture History of the American Civil War" a A+

Click here to read my next book review (for fun): Who Sang the First Song

Click here to read my previous book review (for fun): My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom - volume 1

Brian Wilkerson is a independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).

His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback

Paladin as Party Healer (D&D Stories)

I've been playing Paladin recently in my regular D&D group. It's quite a change from my previous (and current, it's complicated) character of Fighter - Eldritch Knight. Both of them are primarily melee classes with limited magical ability but my experience with the former has been the opposite of a melee class. Due to the lack of a cleric, my paladin has become the party's heal bot.

In our first major battle, my paladin spent more time keeping our wizard alive then fighting. Likewise, his biggest contribution in the second (due to poor attack rolls) was again healing the wizard. In the third battle he was again on healing duty but this time it was the monk who fell unconscious because the wizard was elsewhere. It was initially frustrating but then I realized how perfectly it fell in line with my character's backstory.

See, he is a dwarf with the guild artisan background and a serious competitive drive. It drove him to sabotage the works of his fellow guild members in order to make his own wares appear superior. This mean-spirited cheating eventually got him into serious trouble with the guild and he became a paladin to atone for it, vowing to channel this competitiveness into doing good as a team player. Thus, a supporting role is perfect for him.

He started the first and third battles by casting Bless on himself and two other party members and then moved around performing Lay on Hands and Cure Wounds as needed. On one occasion, he helped the monk flank an enemy. On another he helped the druid use the Pack Tactics of her direwolf Wild-Shape. At fourth level, I'm planning on him taking the Menacing feat to boost his spell modifier and frighten foes out of attacking the party in the first place.

I've rolled terribly for attacks in all three sessions of this campaign so far. It got to the point where I changed dice. I still didn't hit anything but it doesn't matter. The party needs a dedicated healer more.

Update:
Several sessions later, my dwarf paladin is STILL rolling poorly for attacks; just attacks. He is level 4 now and he has landed fewer attacks than his level.


Brian Wilkerson is a independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).
His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.

How real life can influence the campaign (D&D stories)

What I like about Dungeons and Dragons is that it is communal story-telling. Everyone contributes to the story and how the campaign's narrative plays out. Usually this is through their characters, but the players themselves can also work interesting changes by just their presence or absence.

See, I'm one of those players that isn't satisfied with ignoring a character whose player didn't show up for the session. I want to know what happened to them; where did they go, what are they doing, etc. So the DM at the time provided a good reason, such as eating bad mushrooms or getting drunk after a victory. That sort of thing provided fun flavor. However, the truly interesting thing happened after I became the campaign's DM.

To set the stage, the party had been trying to free a large group of people who had been enslaved by a hobgoblin army. These people were toiling away in a gold mine near the hobgoblin war camp. In the course of gathering allies for a raid on the camp, the party exited a Lost-World style plane through an arcane portal (long story) and decided to use this magical device to spirit the slaves away.

Two players dropped out at this time so we decided that their characters would stay on the other side and prepare a camp for the slaves to rest after their flight: preparing simple spears, gathering food, etc.

As it happened, the main army had departed the camp and the camp itself had fallen into decay, disorganized and lacking in discipline. This allowed the party to sneak into the mine because the goblin guards were sleeping. The bard decided to cast Leomond's Tiny Hut to block the entrance. We would use the portal device to free the slaves by opening the portal inside the mine.

This is it. This is the moment that I have been building up to. 

 The Free-the-Slaves arc took five weeks to complete, and over each of those weeks a new player came by for that week only (with one exception). So each week the session would start with the party running into another adventurer who was trying to free the slaves by themselves. It started to get ridiculous at how poor the security for the mine was when so many people could independently sneak in. One character gave the impression that he had wandered in and had no idea where he was.

We all had a good laugh about this. One player even joked that the party had done a better job securing the mine than its hobgoblin owners. That was true.

The story was written so that security would be lax at this point in time. However, nothing I could have done would have underscored this plot point as thoroughly and hilariously as this string of new one-time players. Adding them as NPCs would have been pointless and lame. It was the real-life consequence that made it memorable.


Brian Wilkerson is a independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).

His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.