Do Practical Jokers Plague the Grand Duke?

A few days ago, a large package arrived by courier at gates of Krankenstadt Palace. Upon examination, it was found to be for Grand Duke Irwin-Amadeus II from the Graf Maurice von Hirschbock of distant Stagonia. Graf Maurice presented Irwin-Amadeus with a costume lobster claw, to replace the missing left claw of the original costume.

Unfortunately, Irwin-Amadeus now wears his costume with TWO (yes, that’s correct, TWO) right-handed claws. Stollenian ministers and advisors are concerned that this apparent mistake -- some openly suggest that a practical joke has been played on Stollen and its ruler— will only cause Irwin-Amadeus to lose the slight grip he has left on reality even more quickly than has been the case in recent weeks.

Given the serious nature of the current situation developing just over the frontier in the Electorate of Zichenau, and the need for rapid, informed decisions, those around our Grand Duke are troubled to say the least. For his part, Irwin-Amadeus seems terribly pleased with his replacement claw and sends his deepest gratitude to the Graf von Hirschbock.

Stollenian ministers and advisors are not as thrilled however. Since recent summer weather has been quite warm here in the Grand Duchy of Stollen, the atmosphere surrounding Irwin-Amadeus II in his lobster costume has become, to put it delicately, fetid. There is even talk in the palace of forcibly marching the Grand Duke at the end of a three meter pole into one of the fountains in the palace formal garden for a good soak and scrub down.

Of course, that cat has yet to be belled! However, a certain source in the palace reveals that the job may fall to the ultra-proper and reserved Minister of War, Herr Heinrich-Schatzi von Pelznikkel. Offiering his comments on the circulating rumor, the Prussian ambassador to the Grand Duchy of Stollen, the jovial Herr Heinz von dem Salat, chuckled, shook his head, and said, "Now that I would like to see!"

Others closer to the Grand Duke have stressed that this piece of gossip is just that -- gossip. Keep in mind that practical jokers may be behind this bit of information too. If Herr von Pelznikkel has, in fact, been informed that he is to bathe the Grand Duke publicly, he has yet to issue a public statement about it. We at Die Krankenstadt Tageblat do, though, have a difficult time picturing Herr von Pelznikkel engaged in washing down the stiflingly ripe Grand Duke Irwin-Amadeus! As more details unfold in this developing story, you can read about them right here.

-- Katrina Bettina von Heffelfinger, Die Krankenstadt Tageblat

And We're Off!!!

Arrrgh! Gotta go back into camera settings on my iPhone to bring all of the frame into focus. Blast! Painting is underway on the 60 or so Minden Austrians, which are slated to become my version of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment of AWI renown. More or less indistinguishable from Austrians of the era really, right down to the red facings and turnbacks, but the eventual flags (already in my files) will set them apart. I went ahead and based-coated all of them over a couple of days lthe last week of August, using a mix of light gray and white acrylic gesso, before next applying my usual basic alkyd oil flesh tone to the faces and hands. In a day or two, I'll hit that with Army Painter Flesh Wash to tone things down a bit and bring some definition to the faces and hands. As usual, the plan is to focus on about 20 figures at a time, splitting the regiment roughly into thirds along with the color party and regimental staff. Depending on ...

Sunday Morning Coffee with AI. . .

A rmed with a second cup of fresh, strong coffee, I messed around a bit this morning with artlist.io using its image to image function in an attempt to convert my hand-drawn map from September 2006 to something that more resembles an old map from the mid-18th century. And just like my experiments with Ninja AI in June, the results are mixed. The above map is pretty good, but Artlist keeps fouling up the place names and has trouble putting a faint overlay of hexes across the entire area. Hexes, admittedly, are not likely to be found on any genuine maps from the era in question, but there we are. Frankly, I prefer the appearance of the Ninja map, but there were problems getting it to correct its errors. Grrrr. As is the case with so much having to do with the various AI's out there now, the output generated is a direct result of the prompts entered. For text alone, and when you develop a lengthy, highly detailed prompt, it is...

Continued Regional Map Revisions. . .

F ooled around a bit more with the revised map just before and after dinner this evening, using the Fotor app to reinsert missing text . I also removed a few other things using the 'Magic Eraser' function, which works surprisingly well. Now, we're getting somewhere. I just have to figure out how to ensure that the text is all a uniform font style and maybe figure out a way to add a few bunches of trees to suggest forested areas, Ninja AI is not always entirely cooperative to the tune of "I'm sorry Dave. I can't do that." -- Stokes

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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