Natalie Sims

Natalie Lauren Sims (born June 25, 1984), also known by her stage name Natalie Lauren and former stage name Suzy Rock, is a musician, songwriter, graphic designer and visual artist, writer, and music executive from Tulsa, Oklahoma. As a solo artist she performs within the Christian hip hop and R&B genres, having released a studio album, eight singles, three extended plays, and a mixtape as well as being featured on numerous songs by other artists. She also is a member of High Society Collective – along with Sho Baraka, Swoope, and J.R. – which released a studio album, "Circa MMXI: The Collective," in 2012. She released her first studio album, "Handle with Care", in 2020 through Rostrum Records. Five singles were released for the album: "Meditate" in 2019, and "Something Something", "Just Breathe", "Back to Love", and "Bra Off" in 2020.
As a songwriter, Sims' credits include the Iggy Azalea singles "Work", "Change Your Life", and "Bounce", and "I'll Find You" by Lecrae featuring Tori Kelly. She has written and performed extensively with her friend KB, with whom she also has partnered as an A&R executive. Other song-writing credits include compositions for Lecrae, Chris Brown, Sho Baraka, Christon Gray, Da' T.R.U.T.H., Tedashii, Casey J, Keke Palmer, and Jackie Hill-Perry, among others. Sims' visual art and graphic design credits include albums by Deitrick Haddon, Juanita Bynum, and Casey J.
Biography.
Birth–2009.
Natalie Lauren Sims was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma during 1984, and raised there as the daughter of Charles Sims, Jr. She started writing hip hop music, when she was 11, while she became a Christian at age 14. She began her hip-hop career in 2002. Sims relocated from Tampa to Atlanta, Georgia in 2007. In 2009, she met Iggy Azalea — who was still working under her birth name, Amethyst Kelly – and the two shared studio space with the producers FKi and Jon Jon Traxx. However, Sims and Azalea subsequently lost touch when Azalea moved to Los Angeles in 2010. In 2009, Sims, under the moniker Suzy Rock, released a mixtape entitled "So What". She also featured on the song "Runaway Train" by Rachel, from the album "Nothing W/O You".
2010–11.
In 2010, Sims collaborated on the Lecrae album "Rehab", featuring on the song "High", also featuring Sho Baraka, and co-wrote and provided backing vocals to the song "Killa." That same year, she designed the cover to Deitrick Haddon's soundtrack album "Blessed & Cursed" "- Voices of Unity", which included her song "So What". Sims also provided art direction for Juanita Bynum's album "More Passion" and creative design for "Thankful" by Myron Williams. In 2011, Sims wrote for and contributed vocals to "Blacklight" by Tedashii and "The Good Life" (2012) by Trip Lee, and featured on the song "Fantasy" from the latter album. She also featured on the single "Hello" from KB's forthcoming album "Weight & Glory" (2012), an album to which she also contributed some song-writing. She also featured on two songs by Pro, "Get In" from "PSA Vol. 2" and "Drink from His Cup" from "Dying to Live", the song "Survivor" by Da' T.R.U.T.H. from his album "The Whole Truth", the "Battle Song" by Lecrae from his album "," and Canon's song "Poppin' Off" from the album "Blind World." Additionally, that year Sims co-founded the hip hop group High Society, along with Sho Baraka, J.R., and Swoope. The group released its first single, "One Moment", on June 20, and a second single, "Devil", on October 31, 2011.
2012–13.
In 2012, Sims released a music and teaching series called "Dirty Little Secrets", and featured on Lecrae's mixtape "Church Clothes" and contributed song-writing to his album "Gravity", and provided graphic design for the Deitrick Haddon soundtrack from "A Beautiful Soul". High Society released its debut album, "Circa MMXI – The Collective", on January 17, and a third, non-album single, "Young Again", on February 14.
While scheduled to tour with Tedashii and KB, Sims was contacted by Shawna Peezy, the manager for Iggy Azalea, requesting that she fly to Wales to help Azalea write "The New Classic" (2014). Sims was initially hesitant to take the offer, as she would have to cut her tour short, and felt uncomfortable with the risqué content put out by Azalea. However, she then received a call from Sarah Stennett from the London-based management team Turn First Artists. Stennett explained that her company was trying to commercialize Azalea's image. Sims understood this to mean a less provocative and explicit approach, and, hoping to be a more positive influence on Azalea's content, abandoned the last four stops on her tour and flew over to Wales in December.
After a short break in the United States for Christmas, Sims flew to London for a second session. She later wrote of her experience that "Fresh out of a breakup and depressed I spent a month in London in a small 10X10 studio somedays writing and writing and writing… Eating cottage pie. The first song we finished was Work. Regardless of whether or not u like the content the song told Iggy’s true story of struggle sacrifice and hard work as an artist." Sims contributed to five songs that appeared on the album: "Work", "Bounce", "Change Your Life", "Just Askin'", and "New Bitch" – which had the working title "New Chick". "Work" sold over one million copies in the US and was certified platinum, while "Change Your Life" sold over 500,000 copies and was certified gold. Sims later expressed regret at the final product of her writing sessions with Azalea, stating that "I wasted an opportunity to make music that matters. Not on every song, but a few. I squandered three minutes and 45 seconds contributing to the over-saturation of materialism, image obsession and a whole bunch of random, pointless stuff."
In 2013, Sims dropped her stage name Suzy Rock, choosing instead to perform as Natalie Lauren. She appeared under the name Suzy Rock on "Chapter 7: Denzel" on "Talented 10th" by Sho Baraka, and as Natalie Lauren on a compilation album, "Gurl Code", specifically as a featured artist on the song "Made for This" by Butta P. "Gurl Code" was released on October 22, 2013, through Full Ride Music, a record label run by the rapper Thi'sl, and consisted of performances by various female Christian hip hop artists. In 2013, Natalie Lauren also began working with KB and the production team Cobra, which consists of Joseph Prielozny and Dirty Rice, on the EP "100". The four had previously worked together on the song "Open Letter (Battlefield)" from KB's album "Weight & Glory".
2014–2019.
Sims' work with KB and Cobra continued through 2014, when the four traveled to Cape Town, South Africa to record KB's second studio album, "Tomorrow We Live" (2015). She also signed a deal with Kobalt Music Group as a songwriter and partnered with Reach Records as a creative director of A&R. During the month of April in 2014, Sims launched a project called Red Eyes and Blue Skies, designed primarily as a cancer awareness project. A website was debuted, and an EP, "Red Eyes & Blue Skies", was released in two parts during Cancer Awareness Week, a national event in the United States. On October 23, 2014, Sims released her third EP, entitled "Cliff Notes", as a free download. It features a collection of love stories, some based on Sims' own life experiences. She also created webcast series Mic Mondays, in which she discusses various aspects of the music industry, for the website and art community Forth District. She also featured on and provided song-writing to Tedashii's "Below Paradise", Trip Lee's "Rise", Swoope's "Sinema", and Jackie Hill-Perry's "The Art of Joy", and co-wrote "SuperDave" for Christon Gray's "School of Roses" album. In 2015, Sims contributed to Chris Brown's "Royalty" album, co-writing the song "Blow It in the Wind", and co-wrote the Keke Palmer single "I Don't Belong to You". She and KB also announced that they are working as an A&R team, and that they are advising and producing for Joseph Solomon. In the fall of 2015, Sims appeared as a guest artist on the Queens United Tour, an all-female tour by V. Rose, HillaryJane, Jasmine Le'Shea and DJ KB. On October 30, 2015, Sims featured with Jackie Hill-Perry on the DJ KB song "Queens". On May 20, 2016, she featured on the album "It's Complicated" by Da' T.R.U.T.H., specifically on the songs "Mixed Signals" and "Perfectly Human". She co-wrote three songs for Lecrae's 2017 album "All Things Work Together" – "I'll Find You" featuring Tori Kelly, "Wish You the Best" featuring Verse Simmonds, and "Worth It" featuring Kierra Sheard and Jawan Harris. The single "I'll Find You" was certified platinum by the RIAA on February 26, 2020. In 2018, she featured on the track "Fall Away" by Jackie Hill-Perry on Hill-Perry's album "Crescendo".
2019–present.
In 2019, she appeared on the song "Catch 22" by Swoope on his EP "Two for One." That same year, on June 25, she released the single "Meditate" from her forthcoming album "Handle with Care", through Rostrum Records. The next single for the album, "Something Something", debuted on January 17, 2020. According to Lauren, the song was written for her mother and for anyone who is "unseen and tired." A music video for "Something Something" was shot in Sims' hometown of Tulsa, and was released on February 28, 2020. For years Lauren was based in Atlanta but in early 2020 returned to Tulsa to care for her parents. On June 18, 2020, she stated in a Facebook post: "I want my life to be a loving invitation that compels others to consider and explore God. This is a Safe Space to Be Yourself with all the layers, Joys, nuances, questions, pain, freedom that comes with being : Black, Christian, Doubtful, Broken, Creative, Woman, Bi/Queer, Questioning, Independent, Artist, Undecided, Conflicted and still becoming as I am. This isn’t a space with all answers or resolves but it is a space to explore yourself and your creator through the Arts, Music & Conversations within this Community."
A third single, "Just Breathe", was released on May 29, 2020. "Back to Love" followed on Juneteenth (June 19), 2020. Lauren described the song concept as "the first day of Black Summer where we are free to simply be happy and safe again in the homes of our people. The music is historic and full of sobering celebration and nostalgia." On July 1, 2020, a fifth single was released from the album, entitled "Bra Off". The point of the song, according to Lauren, is assert that women should not be subject to sexism, insult, assault, and sexualization when they do not wear a bra. It also calls on women to be content without "doing" and "simply exist bare as women." "Handle with Care" was released on July 17, 2020, through Rostrum Records. Sims said of the album: "There are so many communities I am a part of and love. The Black community, followers of Jesus, LGBTQ community all play a significant role in my life and I want my music to be in support and love of them all through the arts."


Richard Tucholka

Richard Tucholka (February 9, 1954 – April 27, 2017) was a writer, game designer and publisher, best known for his work in the creation of the role-playing games "Fringeworthy" and "".
Career.
In 1974, Richard Tucholka, a computer technician in Michigan, collaborated with Robert Sadler on a number of pieces of fiction. One of their stories was a post-apocalyptic adventure story called "The Morrow Project", about people who awake from cryogenic sleep 150 years after a nuclear holocaust. After completing two chapters, the two left the story in hiatus.
The following year, Tucholka was introduced to the "Dungeons & Dragons" role-playing game (RPG), and he quickly realized that "The Morrow Project" could become an RPG. Using the story's setting as source material, Tucholka created the game background, and he and Sadler approached Kevin Dockery to add military realism to the game. After playtesting it at a local Michigan games convention, Tucholka, Sadler and Dockery formed Timeline Ltd. in 1979 to publish the new RPG.
Almost immediately, Tucholka and Sadler left Timeline due to creative differences with Dockery and formed their own games company, Tacky Tack Games, based in Pontiac, Michigan. Their first product was the light-hearted microgame "Geriatric War", a fast-paced game where "characters battle over a few pension checks that survive the Social Security collapse of 2018".
Tucholka then created and published more serious RPGs such as "Fringeworthy", the first RPG about dimensional travel, "Bureau 13", the first horror RPG, and "", a space opera RPG. Given the more serious tone of these works, the company name was changed from Tacky Tack Games to the more professional-sounding Tri Tac Games in 1983.
Tucholka continued to create new games for Tri Tac, including "", "Hardwired Hinterland", "Monster Squash," "Pterroductyl," "The Viral Vegetable Wars," "Drive By," "War on High," "Escape From Westerville State," "Baby Boomer," "Duck Trooper," "Beach Bunny Bimbos with Blasters" and "HOLES". He also created supplements and adventure scenarios for other games, including "Invasion U.S.", "Cloistrs", "Rogue 417", "Weirdzone", "Hellsnight", "Haunts", "Starcharts", and the "DM's Book Of Nasty Tricks & Misfit Magic".
Tochulka was also a staff writer for "Stardate" and "Stardrive" small press magazines, and was the guest of honor at more than a dozen science fiction and games conventions.
Personal life.
Tucholka's hobbies included gardening, house restoration, reading, and B movies. He was a fan of science fiction, and his personal collection of SF novels numbered over 18,000. He died of cancer in 2017.
Awards.
Tucholka's creation "Bureau 13: Stalking the Night Fantastic" was voted Best Fantasy RPG of 1991 by the RPGA Network at Gen Con 1992.


William Travilla

William Travilla (March 22, 1920 – November 2, 1990), known professionally as Travilla, was an American costume designer for theatre, film, and television. He is perhaps best known for designing costumes for Marilyn Monroe in eight of her films.
Early life.
Travilla was born and raised in Los Angeles. During adolescence, became interested in art and enrolled at Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. When Travilla was sixteen, he began to frequent burlesque clubs in order to design the dancers' costumes. He sold pencil sketches of costume designs to the showgirls. After inheriting $5,000 from his grandfather, Travilla used the money to travel. He spent a year in the South Seas and Tahiti, an area which influenced his art work and designs. After being designated 4F due to flat feet, Travilla enrolled at Woodbury University where he studied fashion designing. He graduated in 1941.
Career.
Upon graduating from Woodbury, Travilla began working at Western Costume in Hollywood as ghost-sketcher for studio designers. After a stint at Western, Travilla took a job designing at Jack's of Hollywood. At Jack's, he was given assignments working for ice skater and actress Sonja Henie as well as for United Artists and Columbia Pictures.
Travilla began selling Tahiti-inspired paintings at the popular tiki bar Don The Beachcomber. Actress Ann Sheridan began collecting Travilla's work and, shortly thereafter, requested that Warner Bros. hire Travilla as her personal costume designer. His designs for Sheridan were featured in the 1947 film noir "Nora Prentiss". The film was a hit and Travilla was hired to design costumes for Sheridan in her next film, the 1948 Western "Silver River".
After work on several B movies, Travilla worked his way upward through the studio until he earned an Oscar in 1949 for the Errol Flynn swashbuckler "Adventures of Don Juan", and in 1951 designed the costumes in the now classic sci-fi tale of morality "The Day the Earth Stood Still". He then worked mainly at Twentieth Century-Fox, where his credits included Elia Kazan's "Viva Zapata!".
By 1952, Travilla had begun working with Marilyn Monroe and created the costumes for "Don't Bother to Knock" and "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes". He went on to design the costumes for several more of her films. Travilla created one of the most famous costumes in all of film – the pleated ivory cocktail dress Monroe wore in the 1955 film "The Seven Year Itch". Monroe is wearing it while standing on a New York City Subway ventilation grate; the dress rises up around her as a train passes below ground. Photographs of this scene have become synonymous with Monroe herself. The iconic dress, which was later purchased by actress Debbie Reynolds, sold for $4,600,000 (USD) during a 2011 auction.
Besides winning his first Oscar, Travilla was also nominated for the Academy Award for "How to Marry a Millionaire" in 1953, "There's No Business Like Show Business" in 1954 and "The Stripper" in 1963.
In the late 1970s, Travilla began working mainly in television. One of his most widely seen latter-day projects was the TV mini-series "The Thorn Birds" in 1983. Travilla was nominated for Emmy awards seven times for his work on television. In 1980, he won the Emmy for "Outstanding Costume Design for a Limited Series or a Special" for "The Scarlett O'Hara War", and in 1985 he won the Primetime Emmy Award for "Outstanding Costumes for a Series" for his work on the television show "Dallas". Travilla also designed several evening gowns for Lena Horne in the 1980s.
Personal life.
On August 19, 1944, Travilla married actress Dona Drake in Santa Monica, California. The couple had a daughter, Nia, in August 1951. Travilla and Drake separated in 1956 but remained legally married until Drake's death in 1989.
Death and legacy.
On November 2, 1990, Travilla died of lung cancer at Good Samaritan Medical Center in Los Angeles, California.
An exhibition of the personal collection of William Travilla began a world tour in 2008. The show began in England, then came to Los Angeles and in 2009 to Palm Springs, California. The collection includes gowns worn by Marilyn Monroe, Dorothy Dandridge, Dionne Warwick, Whitney Houston, Faye Dunaway, Judy Garland, Sharon Tate, Jane Russell, Betty Grable, Lana Turner, Diahann Carroll, Susan Hayward, Loretta Young, Joanne Woodward, Barbara Stanwyck and many other women in film and television, as well as his Oscar, patterns, sewing room artifacts and numerous original watercolor renderings of his costume designs.


List of Steins;Gate 0 episodes

 is a 2018 television anime series by White Fox, based on 5pb.'s video game of the same name. As a sequel to "Steins;Gate" and its 2011 anime adaptation, the series takes place in an alternate future to the original series' ending. Rintaro Okabe, who had become traumatised over his experiences time troubles, has chosen to stay in a world in which Kurisu Makise is dead. After meeting scientist Maho Hiyajo, Rintaro is introduced to an artificial intelligence based on Kurisu's memories from before her death.
The series aired in Japan between April 12 and September 27, 2018, with a bonus episode released on December 21, 2018. It was simulcast by Crunchyroll and Aniplus Asia, while an English dubbed version is being streamed by Funimation. The opening theme is by Kanako Itō, with "Amadeus" by Itō used for episode one. The ending theme for episodes 2-7,9-11 and 13 is "Last Game" by Zwei. Episode 8 featured an insert song "Lyra" by Zwei. The ending theme for episode 12 is "Hoshi no Kanaderu Uta" () performed by Megumi Han. The ending theme from episode 14-22 is "World-Line" by Asami Imai. The final episode featured an insert song "Gate of Steiner" by Eri Sasaki.


Zero Escape

Zero Escape, formerly released in Japan as , is a series of adventure games directed and written by Kotaro Uchikoshi. The first two entries in the series, "Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors" (2009) and "" (2012), were developed by Spike Chunsoft (formerly Chunsoft), while the third entry, "Zero Time Dilemma" (2016), was developed by Chime. "Zero Escape" is published by Spike Chunsoft in Japan, while Aksys Games and Rising Star Games have published the games for North America and Europe respectively.
Each game in the series follows a group of nine individuals, who are kidnapped and held captive by a person code-named "Zero", and are forced to play a game of life and death to escape. The gameplay is divided into two types of sections: Novel sections, where the story is presented, and Escape sections, where the player solves escape-the-room puzzles. In the first two games, the Novel sections are presented in a visual novel format, whereas the third uses animated cutscenes. The stories branch based on player choices, and include multiple endings.
In addition to Uchikoshi, the development team includes character designers Kinu Nishimura and Rui Tomono, and music composer Shinji Hosoe. The series was originally conceived when Chunsoft wanted Uchikoshi to write visual novels for a wider audience; he came up with the idea of combining the story with story-integrated puzzles. While "Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors" was initially planned as a stand-alone title, its success in North America led to the development of two sequels, intended to be paired as a set; however, as both "Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors" and "Virtue's Last Reward" were commercial failures in Japan, the third game was put on hold in 2014, only to resume the development for "Zero Time Dilemma" the following year, due to fan demand and the hiatus becoming big news. Critics have been positive to the series, praising its narrative for being experimental and for pushing boundaries for what can be done with video game narratives.
Titles.
Main games.
The series consists of three video games. The first two games were released in English by Aksys Games in North America, and the second game was released in English in Europe by Rising Star Games. The third game was released by Aksys Games in both North America and Europe for consoles, and by Spike Chunsoft worldwide for Microsoft Windows.
A bundle containing the first two games, titled "Zero Escape: The Nonary Games", was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in the West on March 24, 2017. In Japan, the Microsoft Windows version launched on March 25 and the console versions on April 13 the same year. The European PlayStation Vita version was released on December 15. The updated version of "Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors" has separate Adventure and Novel modes; the Adventure mode presents the character interactions similar to the top screen of the original game, while Novel mode uses the additional narration from the bottom screen. Both modes have animated characters and voice acting. The updated version also includes a story flowchart, similar to the other two games in the series, to help players with getting to the game's true ending. However, it does not include the additional story content that was part of the iOS version. The final puzzle, however, is different. The new version of "Virtue's Last Reward" is primarily based on the original PlayStation Vita version, but corrects some typographic errors.
Other media and appearances.
A novelization of the first game, titled "Kyokugen Dasshutsu 9 Jikan 9 Nin 9 no Tobira Alterna", was written by Kenji Kuroda and published by Kodansha in Japan in two volumes in 2010. An original video animation based on the beginning of the second game was made by Gonzo; it has been dubbed and released in English by Aksys Games. An untitled Flash game was made for "Virtue's Last Reward" and made available on the official Japanese developer website. An artbook featuring art from the first two games was published by SB Creative in 2012 in Japan; an artbook for the third game was released as a pre-order bonus in Japan, and is sold separately in the West. Music albums with the soundtracks of the first two games were released by Super Sweep on December 23, 2009 and April 19, 2012. Aksys is also considering releasing merchandise based on the third game.
Aksys and Spike Chunsoft worked with the Japanese puzzle event studio SCRAP to create "Real Zero Escape: Trust on Trial", a real-life room escape game based on the "Zero Escape" universe, which was held at SCRAP's studio in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles for several months, starting in April 2016. Players had to solve real-life escape-the-room puzzles in the spirit of the "Zero Escape" series within a limited amount of time.
Common elements.
Gameplay.
The gameplay of the series is divided into two types of segments: Novel sections – presented in a visual novel format in the first two games, and as computer animated cutscenes in the third – and Escape sections, which are escape-the-room scenarios. During the Novel sections, the player reads dialogue, occasionally inputting choices that change the course of the story. During the Escape sections, the player aims to find a way out of rooms by exploring the room and solving puzzles. The player can move around during these sections, and can pick up and combine items in order to open locks or get access to new items. Each room also includes more complex puzzles, such as sliding puzzles and mini-games, which can not be solved without finding clues in the room.
The games are non-linear: the first two games' stories branch depending on player choices, and lead to several different endings, with a final true ending that the player can only reach by playing through various different branches; the third game divides the story into chapters called "fragments", each representing a 90-minute period, which can be chosen from a "Floating Fragment" menu and played out of order. In the first game, the player has to start over from the beginning after completing each branch, replaying Escape sections; in the second game, the branches are represented by an interactive flowchart, allowing the player to jump to any point in the game that they have reached, and try different outcomes. This flowchart was also implemented in the iOS and "The Nonary Games" versions of the first game. In the third game, fragments are placed in a flowchart upon completion, indicating where they take place in the story.
Plot and themes.
The three "Zero Escape" games are narratively linked, with events of "Zero Time Dilemma" occurring between "999" and "Virtue's Last Reward". Each game in the series follows a group of nine people who get kidnapped by masked individuals who call themselves "Zero", and are locked inside a facility where they are forced to play a death game where the participants are locked inside rooms and have to solve puzzles in order to get out. In the first two games, the death game is referred to as the Nonary Game, while the one in the third game is called the Decision Game. The characters do not at first appear to have anything in common, but throughout the course of the games, it is revealed that each was chosen for a specific purpose, including connections to previous narrative elements from the other games in the series. The characters attempt to escape from the facility, to identify Zero, and to learn of Zero's goal.
The series has science fiction and horror elements, and philosophical and supernatural themes. A recurring theme is the concept of morphogenetic fields, which is explored in different ways in each game, and is the main theme of the first game. The second game focuses on game theory, specifically on the prisoner's dilemma. The third game's main theme is morality, and it is the game in the series with the largest focus on philosophy.
Development.
The first two "Zero Escape" titles were developed by Chunsoft, while the third was developed by Chime. The series is directed and written by Kotaro Uchikoshi, with music by Shinji Hosoe at Super Sweep. Character design was handled by Kinu Nishimura in the first two games, and by Rui Tomono in the third. The series was originally conceived when Chunsoft contacted Uchikoshi and asked him to write visual novels for them; they had found success in the genre, but wanted to create a new type of visual novels which could be received by a wider audience. Uchikoshi's idea for this was to combine puzzles with a story, in a way where puzzles are integrated into the story and includes clues, and need to be solved in order for the player to make progress. The inspiration for the first game was the question "where do mankind's inspirations come from?"; while researching it, Uchikoshi came across the theories of the English biochemist Rupert Sheldrake, and used them as the main theme. The game's setting was meant as a depiction of two of humanity's instinctive desires: the unconscious desire to return to one's mother's womb and shut oneself away, and the desire to escape and overcome one's current condition.
Uchikoshi had initially written "999" as a stand-alone game, but its positive reception led to its sequels' development. The tension present in its first sequel "Virtue's Last Reward" was deliberately toned down from that in "999", as the results of a survey indicated that some Japanese people had not bought "999" because it seemed "too scary". Uchikoshi stated that "Zero Time Dilemma", the second sequel set to be released in 2016, will "tone it up" in response to feedback from players who praised the sense of fear present in "999". The two sequels were specifically intended to be "paired as a set": the second game has a cliffhanger ending, while Uchikoshi intends for the third game to resolve all mysteries left from the second game, as well as all introduced in the third game. While he intends for the series to be a trilogy with a story that ends on the third game, he is open to "new incidents arriving" if fans still request it.
While the first game performed well enough in the West for Spike Chunsoft to decide to develop a sequel, both games were commercial failures in Japan. Because of this, the third game, which had originally been mentioned in 2012, was not approved by the management at the company. In February 2014, the development was put on hold indefinitely. Uchikoshi examined the possibility of financing the development through the use of crowdfunding on a website like Kickstarter, but felt that the idea would not be persuasive enough for it to meet the goal; he also sought out opportunities with executives and investors. As a response to the news of the game's hiatus, fans of the series created Operation Bluebird, an online campaign to raise awareness of the series and support the development. In July 2015, the development of the third game had been resumed; the game being put on hold becoming big news, and fans being vocal about wanting a third game, was what led to the game being reevaluated. With the third game, the development team wanted to renew the series' image in Japan; to do this, they used the English series title, "Zero Escape", instead of the "Kyokugen Dasshutsu" title that had been used for previous Japanese releases.
Writing.
For "Zero Escape", Uchikoshi conceived the storytelling as being gameplay; he said that while other games might consist of the player shooting people, with a story just there to enhance it, he thinks that the narrative of visual novels should be gameplay. As an example of this, the second game has players learn information and not being able to continue past certain points until they have inputted a solution; this was influenced by the 1994 video game "Kamaitachi no Yoru", and was intended to make the story get "under the skin" of players, and allow the player and the player character to understand the game world in tandem, and progress together. Among other influences for the series were writers Isaac Asimov and Kurt Vonnegut; Uchikoshi felt that 90% of any creative work consists of pieces from others' works, and that the remaining 10% is creativity, with the result being worthwhile hinging on how well a writer can incorporate their influences with their own ideas.
Uchikoshi prioritized storylines over characters, and used the feeling of discomfort as the foundation of the narrative. He first came up with a setting, and then made characters along with the drama and stories behind them. After this, he decided on the core of the game's story, and created a flowchart based on it, which became the "bone structure of the story". According to Uchikoshi, it did not matter that the setups of the games were far-fetched, as long as their internal logic worked; he said that as long as the story is interesting and immersive, implausible situations feel plausible to the player. On the other hand, he felt that if he had specifically tried to make it more plausible, by forcing explanations that justify the situations, the story would become boring and the implausible would look even more implausible. Instead, he chose to rely on players' imagination, saying that players can make things seem plausible in ways he had not even imagined himself. One thing he did to make the stories more believable was adding concepts such as Schrödinger's cat, which he felt added flavor and kept players wondering whether a particular concept could be the main idea of the game; he felt that when players wonder that, it makes the story feel more real, as they create the game world in their minds.
After deciding on the story and the main character, he would balance the characters, in terms of genders, personalities, and ages represented; when making character personalities, he used the Enneagram of Personality as reference, which classifies people into nine groups; the decision to do this came from the importance of the number "9" in the storyline of "999". An important thing to him when making characters was to create a mystery behind them, to make players curious about who the characters are and what their pasts are like. Another important element was the use of misdirection: by deliberately making certain characters seem like bad people, he would aim to get players to focus on them more, making it more difficult for them to see who the "real bad guy" is. He aimed to not give the player characters strong personalities, in order to make it easier for players to empathize with them. He chose to have the games be played from a first person perspective as he felt it makes for "a stronger impact" and is more interesting than a third person perspective; it was also used to limit the information that is available to the player in a realistic way, as the player only knows what they experience or are told. Because the player characters in most games can die many times, Uchikoshi felt that video game characters' deaths may be taken lightly, which he saw as a weak point in games. To combat this, he focused on trying to get players to want to keep the story alive, rather than trying to keep the player character alive; as a result of wanting to keep the story going, players would also avoid the death of their character.
When writing the stories, he started with their twist endings, and then worked his way back from that. He designed the flow of the story by using a spreadsheet, and wrote prototypes of potential outcomes of the different scenarios in the game; after this, he matched it with the flowchart he had made, and came up with the details of each story. As he wrote each scene, he imagined what the player might be thinking as they play through it, and decided what to write based on it; this was one of the most important things to him when writing. A key element to Uchikoshi when writing the outcomes of player decisions is that the importance of the decision usually is much greater after the player has made it, with the consequences only being revealed later on as the player learns more information; this was to maintain the high suspense level, and to avoid situations where choices end up not actually mattering. One big challenge for him was to maintain player interest through all branches; he tried to have each branch develop differently, as to avoid repetition and fatigue, and keep the player motivated. While he came up with the set-up, the setting, and the characters on his own, he had a sub-writer helping him with writing the second game, and two sub-writers for the third game. They would help with brainstorming ideas and finding what does not work so well and how to improve scenarios.
Puzzles.
The Escape sequences were made to appeal to the players' instinctive desires; Uchikoshi wanted the player to experience the instinctive pleasure of "I found it!". For the puzzles, Uchikoshi would think about the details within the overall story, and the gimmicks and props found in the game; after deciding on them, they were integrated with the puzzles. He would also use puzzle-related websites as reference. He did not handle puzzle design himself, instead leaving a lot of the direction to other staff, and checking it multiple times. Because of the puzzle–story integration, the development team tried to avoid situations where the player gets stuck due to being unable to solve a puzzle, by including hints that would appear if the player repeatedly clicked on items; as the player continues clicking, the hints get more obvious, to the point of almost revealing the solution outright. In the second game, a difficulty setting was added, with puzzles being easier to solve on lower settings.
While the first game was in 2D, the second game features 3D graphics; this change affected the puzzle creation, as the development team could choose to layer objects behind each other or have them all visible at once. As the second game was made with a worldwide release in mind, Japanese characters and references to Japanese culture were avoided in the puzzle design; the puzzles ended up using numbers a lot since they are internationally used symbols. For the iOS version of the first game, the puzzles were removed and replaced with new story sequences; this was done as the development team wanted to reach people who are not good at solving puzzles, or who do not play games at all and who might not have a game console. However, according to Uchikoshi, the staff felt that the game was incomplete without the puzzle sequences of the original version.
Localization.
The series is localized by Aksys Games; Chunsoft was first introduced to Aksys through Spike, when Chunsoft was looking for a company that could publish the first game in the United States. During Aksys' evaluation period of it, many people at the company did not believe in the game and turned it down; as many of the people who evaluate games at Aksys do not speak Japanese, it was difficult for them to determine whether a game was good or not. Eventually, they decided to localize it, which was considered a big risk for the company. They worked by the philosophy of keeping true to the spirit of the original Japanese version, opting to make dialogue sound like what a native speaker would say rather than strictly adhering to the Japanese wording. Ben Bateman, the editor of the first two games' localizations, did this by looking at the writing from a wider view, examining it line by line or scene by scene, rather than word by word or sentence by sentence, and thinking about how to convey the same idea in English. Most parts of the games that include a joke in the localization also have a joke in the Japanese versions, but a different one; Bateman did try to make similar types of jokes with similar contents and ideas. He was given mostly free rein in what he could change or add to the writing, as long as it did not disrupt the plot.
The biggest challenge with localizing the series was to keep track of everything, as the games feature branching paths, and the characters learn different things in different branches, affecting word choices and attitudes. While a lot of this had been taken care of by Spike Chunsoft, many parts of the game required different word choices in English depending on if a character knew of a particular thing or not; in these cases, the localization team had to track the story backwards. During the projects, Aksys Games would do email correspondence with Spike Chunsoft, to make sure that they conveyed the message of the games as intended. The title "Zero Escape" was decided on during the localization of the second game, when the localization team wanted to create a "branding umbrella" for both games. They chose the title based on what they thought defines the first two games and is common to both of them, concluding that it was the character Zero and how both games involve "a dangerous escape"; the title also has the double meaning of "you have zero chance to escape". The title was later used as part of the Japanese title for "Zero Time Dilemma", and replaced the previous Japanese title "Kyokugen Dasshutsu" for the re-release of "Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors" and "Virtue's Last Reward."
For the first game, a big challenge was getting the localization done in time; Nobara Nakayama, the game's translator, worked on it for 30 days, and the editing process took two months. Because of this, Bateman had to do most of the work "on the fly". Nakayama had started playing the game prior to starting work on the localization, but did not finish playing it until she was more than halfway through translating it; after learning that the plot hinged on a Japanese pun, they had to halt the localization, discuss it with Uchikoshi, come up with a solution, and go through the whole game to make sure that it still made sense. The second game took around three months to translate and four months to edit. A big challenge in localizing it was catching the several subtle hints to the game's ending that appear throughout the story. Unlike the previous two "Zero Escape" titles, the North American version of the third game was produced alongside the Japanese version.
Reception.
The "Zero Escape" series has been positively received by critics, with the first two games in the series attaining perfect scores in reviews from various publications. Uchikoshi noted how the positive reception of "999" in North America directly influenced the development of "Virtue's Last Reward". Meanwhile, the series has been a commercial failure in Japan, with the first two games underperforming; in their respective debut years in Japan, the first game sold 27,762 copies, and the second sold 14,023 copies across Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita. As of July 2018, the series has sold over 500,000 copies worldwide.
Several critics have praised the series' stories: Andy Goergen of Nintendo World Report commented on how "999" "truly expands what narrative video games can be capable of", and Christian Nutt at Gamasutra said that Uchikoshi is "pushing the boundaries of what video game narrative can be". Tony Ponce of Destructoid called "999" "one of the greatest videogame tales ever told", and a great example of how engaging and powerful narratives in video games can be. Bob Mackey of 1UP.com featured "999" on a list of "must-play" Nintendo DS visual novels, citing its story, themes and "zany narrative experimentation", and called "Virtue's Last Reward" "one of the biggest, boldest visual novels to ever hit America". Writers for "Famitsu" liked the tense story and the sense of accomplishment when solving puzzles in "999", and the intertwined story and flowchart system in "Virtue's Last Reward". Jason Schreier of Kotaku included both "999" and "Virtue's Last Reward" on a list of "must-play" visual novels worth playing even for people who do not like anime tropes. Schreier also wrote for "Wired", calling "999"'s narrative "innovative" and saying that he liked the game's ending and cast, but that he thought that some of the game's prose was "sloppy" and that there was no sense of real danger.
Reception of the games' puzzle sections has been more mixed. "Virtue's Last Reward" was featured on Gamasutra's and "Game Developer"'s jointly created list of the ten best games of 2012 for having storytelling as gameplay rather than aside from gameplay. Schreier disliked having to repeat puzzles in each playthrough of "999". Mike Manson of Nintendo Life and John McCaroll of RPGFan found problems with the controls used in the puzzle sections of "Virtue's Last Reward". Austin Boosinger of Adventure Gamers felt that while the puzzles in "Virtue's Last Reward" were thematically appropriate, he thought they were "relatively uninspired in their variety" and that not many of them were fun or engaging.


A. C. Cooper

A. C. Cooper is a British photographic company specialising in product, fine art and portrait photography established by the photographer Augustus Charles Cooper in 1918. The company was established at premises on Sandringham Park Road, West Hendon, London.
History.
A. C. Cooper was one of the first companies to focus on photographing artworks. A. C. Cooper has obtained three Royal Warrants. The company was 'famous for their photographic reproductions of Royal Academy pictures', and has photographed art on behalf of the Royal Society of Arts. Today, the company is based in both Colliers Wood, London, with studios on Bond Street, Mayfair.
Augustus Charles Cooper.
Augustus Charles Cooper was a photographer and the founder of A. C. Cooper. He was photographing actively in the twentieth century. His works include portrait photography held in the National Portrait Gallery collection in London, including portraits of NSW servicemen published in 1918–1919, a portrait of William Nicholson, and portraits of Winston Churchill. Cooper died in 1960.
Courtauld Connects Project.
Photographs contributed by A. C. Cooper to the Courtauld Institute of Art Conway Library are currently being digitised as part of the Courtauld Connects project.


David Crank

David Crank is an American production designer and art director. His production designer credits include Rian Johnson's "Knives Out" and Paul Greengrass's "News of the World" (for which he nabbed an Academy Award nomination for Best Production Design at the 93rd Academy Awards, as well as nominations for a BAFTA Award and Critics' Choice Movie Awards in the same category), plus art director credits on various films including Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln", Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood" and "The Master", and "Water for Elephants".
Education and personal life.
Crank grew up in Richmond, Virginia and graduated from William and Mary with a degree in studio art in 1982. He also received a Theatre Design MFA degree from Carnegie-Mellon.
Professional life.
Crank first began as a set designer in Richmond's local theaters and then started working in film as a set painter around 1990. He was the Art Director on three of Terrence Malick's films, including "The New World" (2005) and "The Tree of Life" (2011). Crank was on the production team that won the 2012 Satellite Award for Best Art Direction and Production Design for "Lincoln" (and was also nominated that same year for "The Master"). Crank's production design work on "Knives Out" was integral to the film's world, including the fact that he turned different locations into the film's main setting, the mansion of mystery author Harlan Thrombey.


Don Roberts (art director)

Don Roberts (November 16, 1934 - January 10, 1999) was an American television art director and production designer. He worked on Norman Lear's sitcoms, including, "All in the Family", "The Jeffersons", "Good Times", "One Day at a Time", "Archie Bunker's Place" and "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman". He also worked on "Three's Company" (and its spin-offs "The Ropers" and "Three's a Crowd").
Roberts started his career, as directing musicals for the Santa Monica Civic Light Opera. He also worked on "The Price Is Right" for 247 episodes from (1972-1973). His other credits includes, "Who's the Boss?", "Diff'rent Strokes", "227", "Married... with Children", "Gimme a Break!" and "The Famous Teddy Z". In 1977, Roberts was nominated for an Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Art Direction or Scenic Design For a Comedy Series. He died in January 1999 of a brain tumor at the Motion Picture & Television Fund in Woodland Hills, California, at the age of 64.


Caroline and Charles Todd

"Charles Todd" is a pen name used by the American authors Caroline and Charles Todd. This mother-and-son writing team lives in the eastern United States, in North Carolina and Delaware respectively.
The authors are best known for a series of novels, set in post World War I England. The books deal with the cases of Inspector Ian Rutledge, a veteran of the European campaigns who is attempting to pick up the pieces of his Scotland Yard career. However, he must keep his greatest burden a secret: suffering from shell shock, he lives with the constant, cynical, taunting voice of Hamish MacLeod, a young Scots soldier he was forced to execute on the battlefield for refusing an order.
They are also the authors of a series about Bess Crawford, a nurse serving in France during World War I.
Publications.
Featuring Inspector Ian Rutledge
Featuring Bess Crawford
Stand-alone Novels


Christian Gobrecht

Christian Gobrecht (December 23, 1785 – July 23, 1844) was the third Chief Engraver of the United States Mint from 1840 until his death in 1844. He was responsible for designing the famous "Seated Liberty" designs, which were in turn the direct inspiration for the design of the Trade Dollar. He also designed the Gobrecht Dollar, which was struck in small quantities from 1836 to 1838 and later inspired the Flying Eagle cent. He also designed the obverse sides for the Liberty head (aka Coronet Head) Quarter Eagle, Half Eagle, and Eagle gold coins, as well as the "braided hair" type Half cent and Large cent coins.
Early life and career.
Gobrecht was born on December 23, 1785, in Hanover, Pennsylvania, to Reverend John C. Gobrecht, who came to America from Germany in 1755, and Elizabeth Sands, with ancestry going back to 1642 in Plymouth Colony. After apprenticing in Manheim, Pennsylvania, he engraved ornamental clockworks in Baltimore, Maryland, until he moved to Philadelphia in 1811 to join Murray, Draper, Fairman, and Company, an engraving firm, around 1816. He invented a medal ruling machine in 1810, which he improved upon in 1817. In 1823, Mint Director Robert Patterson sought to engage Gobrecht as assistant director, but Gobrecht declined the position. Instead, in December, Gobrecht sought the position of chief engraver of the Mint, writing to President James Monroe. Instead, the position went to William Kneass.
In addition to his professional activities, Gobrecht was an inventor, inventing improvements to the camera lucida, a talking doll, a kind of melodeon, and the medal-ruling machine, which reproduces relief on a plain surface.
Chief engraver of the U.S. Mint.
There is extant documentation showing that Gobrecht worked for the Mint as early as 1823 immediately upon the death of the first chief engraver Robert Scot. This was only a temporary appointment until a new chief engraver William Kneass was hired in January 1824. He also engraved and sold letter and numeral punches to the Mint from this point forward and provided a pattern die to the United States Mint in 1826 (of which no examples exist). He became not an assistant but a "Second" engraver in September 1835 after Kneass suffered a debilitating stroke on August 27 of that year. After Kneass' stroke, most all pattern and die work was done by Gobrecht from then on, including the Gobrecht Dollars, which were minted briefly in small quantities from 1836 to 1839. Shortly after Kneass' death in 1840, Gobrecht was appointed Chief Engraver of the U.S. Mint on December 21, 1840. During his tenure as Chief Engraver of the Mint, Gobrecht produced perhaps what he is mainly known for, the Seated Liberty dollar, based on sketches by Thomas Sully, and Titian Peale. That design remained on U.S. coinage as late as 1891 Gobrecht died in July 1844; his place as chief engraver was taken by James B. Longacre.
Additionally to engraving for the Mint, he also produced embossing plaque for bookbinding.


Gian-Carlo Pascutto

Gian-Carlo Pascutto (born 1982) is a Belgian computer programmer. He is the author of chess engine Sjeng and Go software Leela, and the original author of the free and open-source Go software Leela Zero. Gian-Carlo also authored many core components of the foobar2000 media player.
He graduated from Hogeschool Gent in 2006, and has worked as a mobile platform engineer and manager at Mozilla Corporation since 2011.
Pascutto is a native of Ninove. He is married and has two children.


Paula Bauersmith

Paula Bauersmith (July 26, 1909 – August 6, 1987) was an American actress.
Biography.
Bauersmith was born in Oakmont, Pennsylvania to William Robinson Bauersmith and Susan (née Paul). She was educated in Waterbury, Connecticut and attended the Carnegie Institute of Technology where she trained for the stage. She married Barnett M. Warren; he died in 1953. The couple had two children.
She died of cancer at New York's Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Center on August 6, 1987. Her daughter Jennifer Warren became an actress, and her son Paul Warren became the dean of Boston University School of Education. Paula Bauersmith was also a regular contributor to the crossword puzzles in "New York Times".
Career.
Bauersmith first appeared on the stage in 1929 while attending the Carnegie Institute of Technology. She made her New York City theatre debut in October 1931 playing Carmen Bracegirdle in the original Broadway theatre production of "Lean Harvest" at what was then referred to as the Forrest Theatre.
During her theatrical career, which spanned more than three decades, she appeared in several other original Broadway productions, such as "Three-Cornered Moon" in 1933, "Bury the Dead" (1936), "Sail Away" (1961), and "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (1966). She also appeared on various theatrical television programs, such as "The United States Steel Hour" (1954), "Producers' Showcase" (1955) and a television production of "The Crucible" (1967).


Dan Levenson

Dan Levenson (born c. 1955) is an American old-time musician and storyteller. He sings and plays the five-string banjo, fiddle, and guitar, specializing in the music of Appalachia.
A long-time member of the Boiled Buzzards string band, he has released several recordings and an instructional video for the clawhammer banjo. He has also written two instructional books on clawhammer banjo, and writes for "Banjo Newsletter". Levenson was voted one of the United States's top ten clawhammer banjo players by "Banjo Newsletter" readers.
Levenson has won several competitions and travels the United States performing and leading workshops in playing the banjo.
Originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he lives in Tucson, Arizona.


Scott Rouse

Scott Rouse was the "D&D" Brand Manager at Wizards of the Coast, and part of the production staff for the fourth edition of "Dungeons & Dragons".
Career.
Scott Rouse and "D&D" Licensing Manager Linae Foster were the successors at Wizards of the Coast to Ryan Dancey, who created the Open Gaming License (OGL). On April 18, 2007, Wizards of the Coast announced that it would not be renewing Paizo Publishing's licenses for "Dragon" and "Dungeon" and Rouse stated, "Today the internet is where people go to get this kind of information. By moving to an online model we are using a delivery system that broadens our reach to fans around the world." Rouse and Foster worked on a new OGL to support the fourth edition of "Dungeons & Dragons" beginning in 2007, which became the Game System License by 2008. Rouse, the last remaining stated proponent of open gaming at Wizards, left the company on October 12, 2009.


Erik Mona

Erik Mona (born April 1974) is an American game designer who lives in Seattle, Washington.
Career.
Mona was the Managing Editor of issues 1 and 2 of the "Oerth Journal", an online publication devoted to the "World of Greyhawk" campaign setting, and the Editor-in-Chief from issues 2–7. In the 1990s, Mona had the opportunity to talk to designers like Robert Kuntz on the GreyTalk mailing list in 1990s, where Kuntz shared stories of the early Greyhawk days.
Mona became the head publisher of Paizo in April 2006. Mona served as the editor-in-chief of the "Dungeons & Dragons" role-playing game magazines "Dragon" beginning in 2004 and "Dungeon" from 2004 to 2006; at the time, both magazines were published by Paizo until the license through Wizards of the Coast expired in September 2007. Mona and other editors working at Paizo were fans of Greyhawk, and thus gave some attention to the setting in "Dragon" and "Dungeon" magazines while Paizo was publishing the magazines.
He has edited, authored, and co-authored several products for "D&D", including the "Living Greyhawk Gazetteer", "Faiths and Pantheons", "", "Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk" (a "solid hit")), "Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting", and "Armies of the Abyss". He maintained a blog called Lemuria Press and made his last post on Lemuria Press on December 25, 2012.


Michael Gray (game designer)

Michael Gray is an American game designer from rural Massachusetts known for his board game designs for Milton Bradley. He eventually became the Senior Director of Global Concept Acquisition for Hasbro's games division. Game reviewer Tom Vasel has called him "the wisest man in all of board gaming."
Gray is credited as the designer of over 25 board games or game items including two of the most popular board game for young teenage girls, "Mall Madness" and Electronic Dream Phone. Games that Gray has designed or co-designed include:


WRC 8

WRC 8, also known as WRC 8 FIA World Rally Championship, is the official game of the 2019 World Rally Championship. The game was developed by French developer Kylotonn and published on 10 September 2019 by Bigben Interactive for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. The game carries an official World Rally Championship esports licence.
Development and release.
"WRC 8" was revealed as the official game of the 2019 FIA World Rally Championship in February 2019. It features dynamic weather and an entirely redesigned career mode reminiscent of Codemasters' "Formula One" series. The game also sees the addition of new classic cars, much like its main rival, Codemasters’ "Colin McRae Rally/DiRT" series, including the Lancia Stratos and Renault Alpine. The game also offers more content than the previous game, with 102 special stages spread across the championship's 14 countries. The game was released to Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in September 2019, and was later ported to Nintendo Switch on 31 October.
Reception.
"WRC 8" received "generally favorable" reviews, according to video game review aggregator Metacritic, with reviewers praising the major improvements made to both the game's physics and graphics.
Martin Robinson of "Eurogamer" praised the ongoing evolution of the series, saying that "it's a significant year for the series, having taken a year away and returning from its break revitalised and refreshed. In fact, having personally only kept a watching brief on Kylotonn's tenure on the series since it signed up with WRC 5, it feels like a different series entirely".
Accolades.
The game was nominated for "Best Game" at the Pégases Awards 2020.


Norn Stones

The Norn Stones are fictional powerful magical items appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The Stones are depicted as being from Asgard, and are featured in the Marvel Universe.
Fictional history.
Karnilla once sent Loki some magic from the Norn stones.
Some time later, Morgan le Fay used the power of the Norn Stones and the Twilight Sword to restructure reality.
During the Dark Reign storyline, Loki wanted to use the Hood as an instrument in Norman Osborn's collapse, and takes the Hood and Madame Masque to Cuba and presents the Norn Stones to him, which gives the Hood a new power source. The Hood later reveals the Norn Stones to his Crime Syndicate and empowers them with the ability to find and kill the New Avengers. As Donyell Taylor and Tigra attack the Hood, he uses the Norn Stones to empower some of the cadets on his side.
During the Siege of Asgard, Tyr is seriously wounded by the Hood using the Norn stones. As the Void tore apart the New Avengers, Young Avengers and Secret Warriors, Loki began to repent, realizing that what had happened to Asgard was not what he wanted. He begged his father Odin to return to him the Norn Stones, which were taken away from the Hood and given to Loki. This deprived the Hood of all power, and Loki used this power, and the power the Hood had given to his gang, to revive the mortal and immortal heroes struck down by the Void and empower them to defeat the Sentry (fully possessed by the Void).
Other versions.
Ultimate Marvel.
The Ultimate Marvel version of Norn Stones are extensions of Odin's power. Loki decides to betray Asgard and steals the Norn Stones, killing Balder when he tries to interfere before fleeing Asgard. During World War II, Baron Zemo approaches Heinrich Himmler and asks for an army to invade Asgard. While Himmler is skeptical at first, Zemo shows him that he possesses the mythical Norn Stones. Himmler immediately approves Zemo's plan. Zemo then uses the stones to summon the Frost Giants, and the combined German and Frost Giant forces attack Asgard. Zemo then reveals himself to be Loki, finally making his move on his former home. The Asgardians are taken by surprise and slaughtered, leaving only Odin and Thor left. In anger, Odin pushes Loki into the World Tree, where he is locked in the Room With No Doors. In the modern era, in Germany, an old German veteran from World War II follows instructions given to him by Loki and uses the Norn Stones to free him from the Room With No Doors, for which Loki shows how he is thankful by killing him.


George Howard Monks

George Howard Monks (1853–1933) was born in Boston, Massachusetts. After graduation in Harvard medical school in 1880, he followed a 4-year internship in European medical centers during which he invented in 1883 the game Halma (ancient Greek for “jump”) derived from the British game Hoppity together with the mathematician Thomas Hill. Halma and the derived Chinese checkers knew great commercial success in the following years. He also invented a game called Basilinda. Monks began the practice of surgery in Boston in 1884 as he was appointed district physician of the Boston Dispensary and, later, visiting surgeon to the Carney Hospital. In 1890, he entered the Boston City Hospital and was promoted through various grades to surgeon-in-chief in 1910. From 1886 to 1926 Monks was connected with the Harvard Medical School (Department of Surgical Anatomy) but more importantly with Harvard Dental School where he was appointed Professor of Oral Surgery.


Erich Kettelhut

Erich Karl Heinrich Kettelhut (1 November 1893 – 13 March 1979) was a German production designer, art director and set decorator. Kettelhut is considered as one of the most important artists in the history of early German cinema, mainly for his set direction for "Die Nibelungen" (1924) and his design and visual effects for "Metropolis" (1927). His early career was defined by a working relationship with fellow designers Otto Hunte and Karl Vollbrecht, the trio working on many of Fritz Lang's early German films. Despite being best known for his iconic visuals on several of the most important films of German Expressionist cinema, he is also noted for a career spanning into the 1960s and his work on more light-hearted films and musicals.
Career.
Early career.
Kettelhut was born in Berlin in 1893. After leaving school, he received training at a craft school as a theatre artist. In 1909 he first met Otto Hunte, when they were placed in charge of art direction at the Aachen's Stadttheater. The two became long-time collaborators during their early cinema careers. From 1910 until 1912 Kettelhut studied at the College of Applied Arts in Berlin. This was followed by time spent as an apprentice in local theatres around Germany including a period as a scene painter at the Metropolitan Opera in Berlin and a role as the head of the design department in Mühlhausen. His role in theatre was interrupted when Kettelhut was called to serve at the Front in 1914. After being discharged at the end of the First World War his old colleagues, Hunte and Karl Vollbrecht, found Kettelhut employment at Martin Jacoby-Boy's design agency in Berlin. One of the firm's clients was MayFilms, the production company for film maker Joe May and was through these ties that Kettelhut first began his work within cinema.
Lang, Hunte and Vollbrecht, 1919–1926.
Kettelhut was first employed in cinema for May Film's 1919 production "Die Herrin der Welt" ("The Mistress of the World"), an eight-part epic of German cinema. Kettelhut was employed as a production designer on all eight parts and is also credited as a set decorator on the first part. It is on this film that he was re-united with Otto Hunte, to whom he worked as an assistant, and Karl Vollbrecht. Both of whom would work on many films with Kettelhut in the future. Also employed on "The Mistress of the World", but as a writer, was Fritz Lang. Kettelhut worked as an assistant to Jacoby-Boy on two further pictures in 1920, the first being "Das wandernde Bild" ("The Moving Image"), in which Kettelhut was first introduced to Lang who was directing the film. After producing designs on both parts of 1921's "The Indian Tomb", Kettelhut was hired to work on Lang's "Dr. Mabuse the Gambler" (1922), where he was reunited with Hunte and Vollbrecht.
In 1924, Kettelhut worked on one of his most important films, "Die Nibelungen". With Lang again as director, he reassembled the team of Hunte, Vollbrecht and Kettelhut, charged with designing the mythical world of Siegfried and the Nibelungen. Hunte was placed in charge of set design and construction, while Kettelhut and Vollbrecht assisted as set collaborators, though Kettelhut's speciality was in architectural designs and models. Kettelhut not only created the architectural feel of the film, designing the buildings such as the Icelandic castle surrounded by fire from Part I, but he was also heavily involved in designing more mechanical elements, most notably the life-sized dragon slayed by Siegfried. Shortly before his death, Kettelhut was persuaded to sell his original production drawings from "Die Nibelungen" to the Deutsche Kinemathek, and subsequently they have been shown as part of exhibitions in the museum of cinema in Berlin and the Centre Georges Pompidou in France. "Die Nibelungen" brought Kettelhut into a working relationship with cameraman Günther Rittau. The two worked together several times in the future, but their most impressive collaboration was on their next Fritz Lang film, "Metropolis" (1927). Lang kept faith with his old team and with Hunte as lead, Vollbrecht and Kettelhut were brought in to design the cityscape central to the sci-fi dystopia of the film. Kettelhut's drawing's originally featured a large Gothic cathedral style building amongst the skyscrapers, but this was rejected by Lang who had visions of a city which had rejected religion and instead had built a 'Tower of Babel'. Rittau and Kettelhut worked closely, not only to realise Lang's vision, but also on early special effects to bring the enormity of the city to life. Kettelhut's is credited with the positions of Art Direction and Art Department on "Metropolis", but also undertook several uncredited roles, including special effects, visual effects and technical consultant.
Hunte and Kettelhut's work during this period is often discussed as a shared output with the two men holding the same design ideology. When they were interviewed to discuss their creations, they would discuss the architectural or mechanical features of their design rather than the artistic. Unlike their contemporaries, Robert Herlth ("Faust") and Walter Reimann ("The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari"), Hunte and Kettelhut preferred to approach a challenge by looking at the economic restrictions and technical difficulties to ensure they did not hit problems at construction. Herlth and Reimann were more concerned with the look and artistic design and encouraged on-set improvisation to overcome technical issues.
After Lang, 1927–1932.
After "Metropolis", Kettelhut, Hunte and Vollbrecht went their own ways. This allowed Kettelhut to come to the fore as a designer, and from this point he was normally the lead designer in the films he worked on, mainly for UFA. One of Kettelhut's first solo projects was an uncredited role as art director for Walter Ruttmann's documentary "" ("Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis"). To maintain the integrity of the documentary, Kettelhut hid and sheltered the cameras around the city to allow them to capture the citizens of Berlin without interruption. In 1928 Kettelhut provided art direction for Paul Czinner's drama "Doña Juana", and "Ungarische Rhapsodie" a romantic film starring a young Dita Parlo.
Until 1932, Kettelhut continued to work with producer Erich Pommer, who had overseen previous ventures such as "Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler" and "Die Nibelungen". These included the 1929 silent melodrama "Asphalt" and a series of Lilian Harvey operettas ("Princesse! à vos ordres!", "The Love Waltz" and "Quick") and Hans Albers adventures ("Asphalt", "Bombs on Monte Carlo" and "F.P.1 antwortet nicht"). Kettelhut's work on "Asphalt", where he designed on set an entire street to allow long panning shots, harks to the work of Rochus Gliese, who achieved a similar feat on F. W. Murnau's (1927). Kettelhut's "Asphalt" street was a fully functioning 760-foot-long set that allowed for ten camera positions and whose "day-lighting" of 2,000 lamps consumed the electrical supply comparable to a small city. The street design was originally given to Herlth, but he resigned after falling out with the director; but Herlth's original vision influenced Kettelhut's final design.
During this time, the early days of cinema sound, many studios experimented with Multiple Language Versions (MLVs), taking a story and crew and shooting a film in two or more languages usually with a completely new cast. UFA experimented with MLVs, shooting many of its films in German, French and English, and this resulted in Kettelhut being hired to work on two or three films in quick succession. Examples of this involving Kettelhut include: "Bombs on Monte Carlo" (German), "Le capitaine Craddock" (French) and "Monte Carlo Madness" (English). Of the films Kettelhut contributed during this period, of note from a design context, is 1932's "F.P.1 antwortet nicht" (also shot as "I.F.1 ne répond plus" (French version) and "F.P.1" (English version)). This science-fiction film centered around a mid-Atlantic aircraft landing platform, which was designed by Kettelhut.
Work during Nazi Germany 1933–1945.
Kettelhut continued to find employment in Germany after the Nazis came to power. He found himself working with German directors such as Paul Martin, Reinhold Schünzel and Arthur Robison, producing mainly comedies for home-grown talent like Willy Fritsch. During this period Kettelhut was more often listed in his films as the production designer rather than art director. From 1937 he struck a strong professional relationship with director Georg Jacoby, and worked on a string of musicals with him, including "Gasparone" (1937), "Der Vorhang fällt" (1939), "Kora Terry" (1940) and "Frauen sind doch bessere Diplomaten" (1941). "Frauen sind doch bessere Diplomaten" (Women Are Better Diplomats) was a long shoot and went over budget, mainly due to problems with filming in the newly developed Agfacolor. With the end of the Second World War, Kettelhut left the film industry for five years. The release of Erich Engel's rom-com "Fahrt ins Glück" in 1948, for which Kettelhut worked as the production designer, was postponed. It was actually shot in 1944 but needed to wait four years until its premiere, in East Germany.
Later career 1946–1979.
Kettelhut returned to film in 1950, with the Carl Froelich comedy drama "Drei Mädchen spinnen". He continued to work throughout Germany, being employed by studios in Munich, Hamburg and Berlin. Kettelhut at first found himself designing sets for films similar to those he had been working on during the 1940s, with another Georg Jacoby musical "Sensation in San Remo" (1951), starring Marika Rökk. He also teamed up with actor Gustav Fröhlich, on one of Fröhlich's few forays into directing, the drama "Torreani". In 1954 he found work again with his former boss Erich Pommer who had returned from self-imposed exile in the United States. They made two final films together "Eine Liebesgeschichte" (1954) and "Kinder, Mütter und ein General" ("Children, Mother, and the General") which became one of the five pictures selected as best foreign film at the 1955 Golden Globe Awards.
In the mid-1950s, Kettelhut found himself in constant demand, working on three or four films a year. In 1955, as well as "Kinder, Mütter und ein General" he also acted as production designer on "Drei Mädels vom Rhein", "Drei Tage Mittelarrest" and "Eine Frau genügt nicht?". In the late 1950s, Kettelhut contributed outstanding design sets to two submarine dramas, the sympathetic anti-war tale "" ("Sharks and Little Fish") and the loose biographical film "U 47 – Kapitänleutnant Prien". Kettelhut's final outing on the big screen saw him reunited with Fritz Lang, in what would also be the director's final film, "The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse" (1960).
With his career in film behind him, Kettelhut found work in the emerging television industry. He provided art direction for the television movies "Geschichte einer Geschichte" (1963) "Das Feuerzeichen" (1965) and "Schwarzer Freitag" ("Black Friday") and the short lived 1963 television comedy series "Die merkwürdigen Erlebnisse des Hansjürgen Weidlich". He died in Hamburg, West Germany on the 13 March 1979 at the age of 86.
Awards and recognition.
In 1968 Kettelhut was awarded the 'Special Award for Outstanding Contributions to German Cinema' for his lifelong body of work at the annual German Film Awards (Deutscher Filmpreis).


David Rawlings

David Todd Rawlings (December 31, 1969) is an American guitarist, singer, and record producer. He is known for his partnership with singer and songwriter Gillian Welch. He and Welch were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 91st Academy Awards for "When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings" from "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs".
Life and career.
Rawlings attended the Berklee College of Music and studied with Lauren Passarelli. He produced albums by Gillian Welch, Willie Watson, Dawes, and Old Crow Medicine Show. He leads the Dave Rawlings Machine with Gillian Welch, Willie Watson, Paul Kowert, and Brittany Haas. John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin has been known to play mandolin with the band occasionally. Rawlings contributed to the albums "Cassadaga" by Bright Eyes, "Spooked" by Robyn Hitchcock, and "Heartbreaker" by Ryan Adams, with whom he wrote two songs, "To Be Young (Is to Be Sad, Is to Be High)" and "Touch, Feel and Lose". His vocal style has often been compared to that of Bob Dylan.
Recordings.
"A Friend of a Friend" (2009).
The Dave Rawlings Machine album "A Friend of a Friend" was released on November 17, 2009. Rawlings recorded the album in Nashville, and produced it himself. Gillian Welch is credited as a co-writer on five of the album's songs as well playing in the band with members of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Bright Eyes. The album features a medley of a Neil Young and Bright Eyes song, as well as songs Rawlings co-wrote with Ryan Adams and Old Crow Medicine Show. Morgan Nagler (of the band Whispertown) is credited with co-writing the song 'Sweet Tooth.'
"Nashville Obsolete" (2015).
In 2015 Dave Rawlings Machine released a second album, "Nashville Obsolete". The album was named to Rolling Stone's list of the top 40 country albums of 2016. In late 2016 Acony issued "Boots No 1: The Official Revival Bootleg", a deluxe version of the 1996 Welch album considered a "modern Americana classic" and the first collaboration for the duo.
"Poor David's Almanack" (2017).
"Poor David's Almanack", released on August 11, 2017 via Acony Records, is the eighth collaborative LP for Rawlings and Welch and the first under the name David Rawlings. In addition to Welch and Watson, the backup band includes Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show, and Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith of Dawes. The album was recorded with Ken Scott and Matt Andrews at the Rawlings/Welch duo's Woodland Sound Studios in Nashville. The album features an original woodcut piece by Gillian Welch on the cover and was notably the first vinyl release on Welch and Rawlings' Acony record label.
"Cumberland Gap" was used as the opening song to Guy Richie's 2020 film, "The Gentlemen".
Instrument.
Rawlings achieves his signature guitar sound flatpicking a small archtop guitar. The 1935 Epiphone Olympic that has been his primary instrument was a mid-priced guitar for its time, with a carved arched solid sprucewood top, carved arched solid mahogany back and mahogany sides. It sold for about $35 in 1935. The guitar's lower bout measures 13 5/8 inches wide, and it has three piece f-holes.
Rawlings "scavenged" the guitar from a friend's garage and is now hardly seen playing anything else. As he states, "I just picked it up. It was filthy, and it didn't have strings. You could just see the shape of it under the sawdust." Rawlings had a new one piece bridge made for it and brought it to a recording session for the Welch's first record. "As soon as I heard it through the microphone and through the speakers I was like, 'I love this guitar.'" he says.
Discography.
As guest.
With Ryan Adams
With Bright Eyes
With others


Etta Baker

Etta Baker (March 31, 1913 – September 23, 2006) was an American Piedmont blues guitarist and singer from North Carolina.
Early life and career.
She was born Etta Lucille Reid in Caldwell County, North Carolina, of African-American, Native American, and European-American heritage. Baker began playing guitar at the age of three. She was taught by her father, Boone Reid, a longtime player of the Piedmont blues on several instruments. He was her only musical instructor. She played both the 6-string and the 12-string acoustic guitar and the five-string banjo. Baker played the Piedmont blues for nearly ninety years.
The family moved to Keysville, Virginia, in 1916. There were eight Reid children, four girls and four boys. All but one survived into adulthood. Each of her siblings played instruments. Occasionally, Baker, her father, and her sister, Cora, would play together at dances on Saturday night. Boone Reid worked a series of jobs during the 1910s and 1920s, occasionally taking work in factories and shipyards in other states. The rest of the family lived with an uncle. By the time Etta Reid was fourteen, the entire family worked on a tobacco farm in southern Virginia, which meant that they were together. She dropped out of school after tenth grade.
Baker was first recorded in the summer of 1956, after she and her father happened across the folksinger Paul Clayton while visiting the Cone mansion, in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, near their home in Morganton. Baker's father asked Clayton to listen to his daughter playing her signature "One Dime Blues". Clayton was impressed and arrived at the Baker house with his tape recorder the next day, recording several songs. Clayton recorded five solo guitar pieces by Baker, which were released as part of the 1956 album "Instrumental Music of the Southern Appalachians", which was one of the first commercially released recordings of African American banjo music. Baker was not monetarily compensated for these early recordings. Only after working with the Music Maker label later in life was she able to get rights back for this music.
Baker has said that she gets inspiration for chords through her dreams, stating that it is "like putting a crossword puzzle together". Baker has influenced many well-known musical artists, including Bob Dylan, Taj Mahal, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd.
Etta married Lee Baker, a piano player, in 1936 after courting for six years. They had nine children, one of whom was killed in the Vietnam War in 1967, the same year her husband died. For a while after these deaths, she stopped playing, but found she missed the consolation the blues brought her. She last lived in Morganton, North Carolina, and died at the age of 93 in Fairfax, Virginia, while visiting a daughter who had suffered a stroke.
Awards and honors.
Baker received the North Carolina Folk Heritage Award from the North Carolina Arts Council in 1989, a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1991, and the North Carolina Award in 2003. She was nominated for several Blues Music Awards (formerly the W. C. Handy Blues Awards): in the Traditional Blues Female Artist category in 1987 and 1989, and her album "Railroad Bill" in the Acoustic Album category in 2000. Along with her sister, Cora Phillips, she received the Brown-Hudson Folklore Award from the North Carolina Folklore Society in 1982.


Fritz Maurischat

Fritz Maurischat (April 27, 1893 in Berlin – December 11, 1986) was a German production designer. He made his film debut in 1924. Over the next 38 years, he worked on over 70 films, all of them in his native Germany.
He earned an Oscar nomination in 1953 for his work on the film "Martin Luther", an American film about Martin Luther made in Germany. He is also noted as the Art Director for the 1943 Nazi propaganda film "Titanic".


Flag of Hesse

The civil flag of Hesse consists of a bicolor of a red top and a bottom white stripe, in the proportion 3:5. The state flag is similar, except it is defaced with the state coat of arms in the centre, and may only be used by government departments and services.
The colours red and white are based on that of the Ludovingian coat of arms, showing a lion with a ninefold horizontal white and red division. The coat of arms was inherited by the House of Hesse upon its split from the
Duchy of Thuringia in 1247, and the flag came into use in the early modern Landgraviate of Hesse; the modern Grand Duchy of Hesse used a flag with two red stripes, as did the People's State of Hesse until 1933.
The flag of Thuringia was introduced in 1920, with its formation out of the fragmented Thuringian states (the Duchy of Thuringia had been absorbed into Saxony in 1400), as the reverse of the flag of Hesse.
The civil flag of Hesse resembles that of Monaco's and, particularly, Indonesia's.
The Hessian Ministry of the Interior designated several offical flag days. On these days, the flag of Hesse (alongside with the Flag of the European Union and Germany) must be flown on all official buildings. These days include:
On the Commemoration Day for the Victums of National Socialms and on People's Mourning Day, flags are flown at half-mast. Additionally, flags must be flown on days to the election to the European Parliament, the Bundestag, the Hessian Landtag and municipial elections.


Element Magazine

Element Magazine is an Asian men's online magazine that focuses on fashion and lifestyle. Its coverage includes art, grooming, music, entertainment, social issues and travel. It is published bi-monthly in Singapore by Epic Media.
History.
"Element Magazine" has been described as the first alternative high-fashion and lifestyle men's journal with featured stories connected to the Asian LGBTQI community in particular, and it is launched and based in Singapore. The magazine was established by Noel Ng and Hiro Mizuhara in March 2013.
The decision to launch the magazine on digital platforms enabled the publishers to side-step Singapore's regulation of print media and meant it had no need to obtain a media license. It uses an Internet host server in the United States. Normative and positive depictions of gay people in mainstream media are currently banned in Singapore by the Media Development Authority (MDA). The magazine boasts an average digital circulation of more than 15,000 since its launch. It is also the organizer of Asia Pink Awards, a regional Awards event that celebrates those campaigning for LGBTQI acceptance in Asia
Editorial.
"Element Magazine" often promotes and features sexual health related contents and campaigns besides fashion and lifestyle. In 2013, it launched a visual campaign to promote HIV/AIDS awareness in World AIDS Day 2013.


Jose Garcia (game designer)

Jose Garcia is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games.
Career.
Daedalus Games began when Robin Laws approached Jose Garcia in 1993 with an idea for a Hong Kong Action Cinema RPG; Garcia liked the idea, but he made his own RPG "" his first priority; Daedalus published it in 1994 with Garcia as the main designer and developer, with Laws, Bruce Baugh, and Rob Heinsoo as additional authors. However, Garcia was also interested in promoting the setting that Laws was working on, which was first used as a basis of a collectible card game Daedalus published as "Shadowfist" (1995), and subsequently in Laws' "Feng Shui" RPG. When the CCG market crashed in 1997, the staff of Daedalus were laid off or quit, leaving Jose Garcia and his sister Maria as the only people working for the company. A few years later the company entered bankruptcy protection and sold off its intellectual properties, after which Garcia moved to Europe and left the gaming industry.


Douglas Niles

Douglas Niles (born December 1, 1954, in Brookfield, Wisconsin) is a fantasy author and game designer. Niles was one of the creators of the Dragonlance world and the author of the first three Forgotten Realms novels, the "Star Frontiers" space opera setting and the "Top Secret S/I" espionage role-playing game.
Early life and education.
Niles was born in Brookfield, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee, and his family moved to Nashotah, a small town to the north, when he was twelve years old. Niles developed an interest in heroic fantasy, as well as wargaming, and began writing short stories and making short films in high school. Niles attended the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, where he majored in speech and minored in English. While there, he met Chris Schroeder, whom he married three years later.
After graduation, Niles began teaching Speech and English at Clinton (Wis.) High School, about 30 miles away from Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. “One day, one of my students came up and said she had a note to get out of class that afternoon because she was going to be interviewed by "People" magazine. Her name was Heidi Gygax. I asked her why "People" wanted to interview her, and she told me that her father had invented the "Dungeons & Dragons" game. Well, I had heard of "D&D", but didn’t know that the designer lived so close to me. The next day, Heidi brought me a copy of the original "D&D Basic Set", and two days later, I got some friends together and played my first game. I was the DM.”
Career.
A few years later, one of the players in Niles' "D&D" campaign went to work for "Dragon" magazine. According to Niles, “One day, he told me that TSR was hiring editors, and I applied for a job. I took the editing test, which consisted of a 14 page manuscript I was supposed to mark up. I only found three things to change. . . and flunked the test. But TSR was also hiring game designers, and so, armed with a half-written novel and some notes from my campaign, I applied for a design job. I went through five interviews, and gradually convinced them that I could do the job.” Niles was hired by TSR in January 1982, as a game designer. “For the first few weeks I reviewed and critiqued outside submissions, and I wasn’t too good at it. I kept pestering my boss, Al Hammack, for a design assignment, and finally he gave me an old brief for a novice-level module, "Cult of the Reptile God", and told me to write it. I completed it in four weeks, and it was published. I don’t know whether they liked it because it was good, or because I did it in only four weeks.” Niles worked on more than just "D&D" for TSR, “In the summer of 1982, I designed my first game, the "Knight Hawks" rules for the "Star Frontiers" game, with much help from my editor, Steve Winter.”
Niles produced several modules for the "D&D" game, including "X3 Curse of Xanathon", "B5 Horror on the Hill", "CM1 Test of the Warlords", and "H1 Bloodstone Pass", and Dragonlance modules "DL2 Dragons of Flame", "DL6 Dragons of Ice", "DL9 Dragons of Deceit", and "DL11 Dragons of Glory". Niles is the designer of 1985's "", a grand strategic game. Niles worked on the "Battlesystem" Supplement, "Star Frontiers" modules "SF4 Mission to Alcazzar" and "SFKH1 Dramune Run", "Indiana Jones" module "IJ2 Raiders of the Lost Ark", the "World War II" Game, the "Sirocco" Strategy Game (with Zeb Cook), and the Endless Quest books "EQ #26 Tarzan and the Well of Slaves" and "Super EQ #3 Escape From Castle Quarras" for TSR. Tracy Hickman had gotten Harold Johnson, Jeff Grubb, Carl Smith, and Larry Elmore in on the idea of Dragonlance before Margaret Weis and Niles joined them. Niles authored the rulebook "Dungeoneer's Survival Guide" (1986). Niles had been working on a trilogy of Celtic-themed novels for TSR, Ltd., which were modified to become the first Forgotten Realms books, beginning with "Darkwalker on Moonshae" (1987). Niles also co-authored "The City of Greyhawk" boxed set with Carl Sargent, for which he designed the 96-page booklet "Greyhawk: Gem of the Flanaess". Niles and Paul Lidberg designed the board game "A Line in the Sand" (1991), which depicted the first US-Iraq War; it was one of the projects originating from TSR West, and was published the day the US bombing began thanks to Flint Dille's ability to convince the president of the company to make things move fast.
Niles has written numerous novels, mainly for the Dragonlance series. Niles is one of the most prolific Dragonlance authors, and in addition to "Wizard's Conclave", his Dragonlance titles include The Icewall Trilogy ("The Messenger", "The Golden Orb", "Winterheim"), "Emperor of Ansalon", "The Dragons", "The Puppet King", "Fistandantilus Reborn", "Flint the King" (with Mary Kirchoff), and "The Last Thane". He contributed nine novels to the Forgotten Realms line, including the Moonshae trilogy and two further trilogies in the Forgotten Realms. He has won both the H.G. Wells award and the Origins award for his work in developing adventure games. In 1990, he left TSR to write fantasy fiction.
Niles has written two World War II alternate history novels, "Fox on the Rhine" and "Fox at the Front" (co-authored with Michael Dobson). Released in hardcover by Forge, a division of TOR, "Fox" has been both a main selection of the Military Book Club and a Featured selection of the Science Fiction Book Club. Niles and Dobson also later wrote the World War II alternate history novel "MacArthur's War".
Niles has created two fantasy worlds in books published by Ace Fantasy. The Watershed Trilogy ("A Breach in the Watershed", "Darkenheight", "The War of Three Waters") was completed in the late 1990s, and it features a continent divided by mountains into three distinct basins: watersheds of pure, normal water; of magical liquid (Aura); and of vile, poisonous Darkblood. "Circle at Center", "Worldfall", and "The Goddess Worldweaver" form the Seven Circles Trilogy, which details a cosmos in which historical characters from Earth can be drawn into the realms of magic, through sorcery both deadly and erotic.
Niles has designed dozens of games for TSR, Inc. and SPI, including award-winning boardgames based on Tom Clancy's novels "The Hunt for Red October" and "Red Storm Rising", and has also created numerous historical military boardgames, including the massive games "European Theatre of Operations" and "Pacific Theatre of Operations".
Personal life.
Niles resides in Delavan, in the Wisconsin countryside, with his wife Christine and his son David. His daughter, Allison, served overseas as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. His hobbies include hiking, bicycling, playing the guitar, and spending time with his friends and family.
Bibliography.
Nonfiction.
• "A Noble Cause: American Battlefield Victories in Vietnam" ( 2015 )