Shifting Gears: Metallic Glass

Solving the Mysteries of Metallic Glass

by David Chandler PhysOrg.com

-- Researchers at MIT and the National University of Singapore have made significant progress in understanding a class of materials that has resisted analysis for decades. Their findings could lead to the rapid discovery of a variety of useful new kinds of glass made of metallic alloys with potentially significant mechanical, chemical and magnetic applications.

The first examples of metallic alloys that could be made into glass were discovered back in the late 1950s and led to a flurry of research activity, but, despite intense study, so far nobody had solved the riddle of why some specific alloys could form glasses and others could not, or how to identify the promising candidates, said Carl. V. Thompson, the Stavros Salapatas Professor of Materials Science & Engineering and director of the Materials Processing Center at MIT. A report on the new work, which describes a way to systematically find the promising mixes from among dozens of candidates, was published last week in Science.

Glasses are solids whose structure is essentially that of a liquid, with atoms arranged randomly instead of in the ordered patterns of a crystal. Generally, they are produced by quickly cooling a material from a molten state, a process called quenching.

“It is very difficult to make glasses from metals compared to any other class of materials, such as semiconductors, ceramics and polymers,” Thompson said. Decades of effort by scientists around the world have focused on “understanding and on exploiting the remarkable properties of these materials, and on understanding why some alloy compositions can be made into glasses and others cannot,” he said.

They still haven’t solved that “why,” Thompson said. But this new work does “provide a very specific and quantitative new insight into the characteristics of liquid alloys that can most readily be quenched into the glassy state,” he said, and thus provides a much more rapid way of discovering new alloys that have the right properties.

The research was the result of a collaboration between Thompson and MIT post-doc Johannes A. Kalb with Professor Yi Li and graduate student Qiang Guo at the National University of Singapore, working together across thousands of miles of separation through the Singapore-MIT Alliance. Essentially, the work consisted of producing an array of different alloys with slightly varying proportions of two metals, each deposited on a separate microscopic finger of metal. Then, they analyzed the changes in density of each different mixture when the glass crystallized, and found that there were a few specific proportions that had significantly higher density than the others — and those particular alloys were the ones that could readily form glasses. Of three of these special proportions they found, two were already known glass-forming alloys, but the third was a new discovery.

The new work could even lead to a solution to the longstanding puzzle of why only certain alloys make glasses, he said. “I expect these new results, and the technique we developed to obtain them, will play a key, and hopefully decisive, role in solving the mystery of metallic glass formation.”

Such materials could have a variety of applications because of their unusual physical and magnetic properties, Thompson said. They are “soft” magnetically, meaning that it’s very easy to change the magnetic orientation of the material. This is a highly desirable characteristic for the cores of transformers, for example, which must switch their magnetic orientation dozens of times per second. Transformers made from metallic glasses could potentially greatly reduce the amount of electricity wasted as excess heat in conventional transformers, reducing the need for new generating plants.

In addition, these glasses are unusually hard mechanically and have a high degree of springiness (known technically as a high “elastic modulus”). This springiness could make them a useful material for some sports equipment such as golf clubs or tennis rackets, Thompson said. Although metallic glasses are relatively expensive, he said, for some people interested in the best-performing sports equipment, or in virtually unbreakable housings for cellphones, for example, “no expense is too high.”

The new research is a major accomplishment for the Singapore-MIT Alliance, Thompson said, and would not have been possible without the high-quality communications and collaboration tools it provides. Despite their physical separation, “Prof. Li and I have been working together now for almost ten years,” he said. “We routinely meet via video conferencing and have both been deeply involved in the co-supervision of the remarkable PhD student, Qiang Guo, who carried out this research.”

Thompson said he sees such collaborations as a significant example of a growing trend. “I think this and other accomplishments within the SMA program demonstrate that the future of research lies in technology-mediated collaborations among people with common interests and complementary capabilities, regardless of where the different parts of the team are located,” he said.

Provided by MIT

Gaming Journal: Bbbzzzzzzzzz, Or One the Day the Insects Will Rule the Earth!

Giant Insects Might Reign If Only There Was More Oxygen in the Air

PhysOrg.Com

The delicate lady bug in your garden could be frighteningly large if only there was a greater concentration of oxygen in the air, a new study concludes. The study adds support to the theory that some insects were much larger during the late Paleozoic period because they had a much richer oxygen supply, said the study’s lead author Alexander Kaiser.

The study, “No giants today: tracheal oxygen supply to the legs limits beetle size,’’ was presented at Comparative Physiology 2006: Integrating Diversity.

The Paleozoic period, about 300 million years ago, was a time of huge and abundant plant life and rather large insects -- dragonflies had two-and-a-half-foot wing spans, for example. The air’s oxygen content was 35% during this period, compared to the 21% we breathe now, Kaiser said. Researchers have speculated that the higher oxygen concentration allowed insects to grow much bigger.

Tubes carry oxygen

First, a bit of background: Insects don’t breathe like we do and don’t use blood to transport oxygen. They take in oxygen and expel carbon dioxide through holes in their bodies called spiracles. These holes connect to branching and interconnecting tubes, called tracheae, Kaiser explained.

Whereas humans have one trachea, insects have a whole tracheal system that transports oxygen to all areas of their bodies and removes carbon dioxide. As the insect grows, tracheal tubes get longer to reach central tissue, and get wider or more numerous to meet the additional oxygen demands of a larger body.

Insects can limit oxygen flow by closing their spiracles. In fact, one reason insects are so hardy is that they can close their spiracles and live off the oxygen they already have in their tracheae. Kaiser recalled a caterpillar that fell into a bucket of water in his lab. When the creature was discovered the next day, lab workers thought it had drowned. But when they removed its apparently lifeless little body from the water, they were surprised to see it crawl away.

Tracheae grow disproportionately

This experiment was designed to find out:

• how much room the tracheal system takes up in the bodies of different-sized beetles
• whether tracheal dimensions increase proportionately as the beetles get larger
• whether there is a limit to the size a beetle could grow in the current atmosphere

The researchers used x-ray images to compare the tracheal dimensions of four species of beetles, ranging in size from 3mm (Tribolium castaneum, about one-tenth of an inch) to about 3.5 cm (Eleodes obscura, about 1.5 inches). Beetles were not in existence during the Paleozoic period, but Kaiser’s team used the insect because they are much easier to maintain in the laboratory than dragonflies, which are quite difficult.

The study found that the tracheae of the larger beetles take up a greater proportion of their bodies, about 20% more, than the increase in their body size would predict, Kaiser said. This is because the tracheal system is not only becoming longer to reach longer limbs, but the tubes increase in diameter or number to take in more air to handle the additional oxygen demands.

The disproportionate increase in tracheal size reaches a critical point at the opening where the leg and body meet, the researchers found. This opening can get only so big, and limits the size of the trachea that runs through it. When tracheal size is limited, so is oxygen supply and so is growth, Kaiser explained.

Using the disproportional increases they observed among the beetles, the researchers calculated that beetles could not grow larger than about 15 centimeters. And this is the size of the largest beetle known: the Titanic longhorn beetle, Titanus giganteus, from South America, which grows 15-17 cm, Kaiser said.

And why wouldn’t the opening between the body and the leg limit insect size in the Paleozoic era, too? After all, dragonflies and some other insects back then had the same body architecture, but they were much bigger.

It is because when the oxygen concentration in the atmosphere is high, the insect needs smaller quantities of air to meet its oxygen demands. The tracheal diameter can be narrower and still deliver enough oxygen for a much larger insect, Kaiser concluded.

The research was carried out by Alexander Kaiser and Michael C. Quinlan of Midwestern University, Glendale, Arizona; J. Jake Socha and Wah-Keat Lee, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL; and Jaco Klok and Jon F. Harrison, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. Harrison is the principal investigator.

Source: American Physiological Society

Amalgam Creatures
Seigebeast
Ankheg/Purple Worm (Amalgam Template)

This horror as the name applies is bred to do what it does. Destroy non-insect fortifications.

Avolakia/Ankheg (Amalgam Template)

Ankheg Steeds – Plated carapace for better protection

Swam Drones – Twisted Lore

Shifting Gears: Free Will and the Parietal Cortex

Possible Site of Free Will Found in Brain
by Ewen Callaway

Source: New Scientist

Free will, or at least the place where we decide to act, is sited in a part of the brain called the parietal cortex, new research suggests. When a neurosurgeon electrically jolted this region in patients undergoing surgery, they felt a desire to, say, wiggle their finger, roll their tongue or move a limb. Stronger electrical pulses convinced patients they had actually performed these movements, although their bodies remained motionless.

"What it tells us is there are specific brain regions that are involved in the consciousness of your movement," says Angela Sirigu (pdf format), a neuroscientist at the CNRS Cognitive Neuroscience Centre in Bron, France, who led the study.

Brain Stimulation

Sirigu's team, including neurosurgeon Carmine Mottolese, performed the experiments on seven patients undergoing brain surgery to remove tumours. In all but one case, the cancers were located far from the parietal cortex and other areas that Mottolese stimulated. One patient's tumour sat near the parietal cortex, but did not interfere with the experiments, Sirigu says. And because the patients were awake during the surgery, they could answer questions.

"Did you move?" a researcher asked a 76-year-old man after lightly zapping a point on his parietal cortex.

"No. I had a desire to roll my tongue in my mouth," he responded.

After a stronger pulse to the parietal cortex, a 42-year-old man exclaimed: "My hand, my hand moved." Sirigu's team saw no signs of movement.

Action Loop

Sirigu's team also discovered that stimulating another brain area – the premotor cortex – provoked involuntary, unconscious movements in the same patients. The team's work points to two brain areas involved in the decision to move a limb and then execute the action. Sirigu speculates that the parietal cortex makes predictions about future movements and sends instructions to the premotor cortex, which returns the outcome of the movement to the parietal cortex. In day-to-day life, we rely on both brain regions to move about, she says. "You need both systems, the parietal and premotor cortex to generate intention and check whether this is followed through."

Ground Breaking

Patrick Haggard, a neuroscientist at University College London, says the experiment breaks ground because it pinpoints volition to a specific part of the brain, allowing scientists to experimentally control it.

"That's extremely interesting, because up to now it has been very difficult for neuroscientists to deal with the idea of intentions or wishes or will," he says.
However, Haggard says no one should be surprised that the experience of volition can be liked to specific brain areas. "I can't think of any way you can have conscious experience other than as a result of neurons in your brain firing."

Journal reference: Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.1169896)

Shifting Gears: Memory Scans

Brain Scans Can Read Memories

By Livescience Staff

Humans create memories of locations in physical or virtual space as they move around – and it all shows up on brain scans.

Researchers tracked brain activity related to "spatial memory" as volunteers moved about inside a virtual reality setup. Their new study challenges previous scientific thinking by showing that memories are recorded in regular patterns.

"Surprisingly, just by looking at the brain data we could predict exactly where they were in the virtual reality environment," said Eleanor Maguire, a neuroscientist at the University College London in the U.K. "In other words, we could 'read' their spatial memories."

Maguire and her colleagues focused on the hippocampus, or a small part of the brain that deals with navigation, memory recall and imagining future events. Neurons known as "place cells" activate in the hippocampus and inform people of where they are as they move around.

The researchers used an fMRI scanner to detect blood flow changes in the brain, and study the activity of the place cells as a volunteer controlled movement inside the virtual environment. They then ran the results through a computer algorithm developed by Demis Hassabis, another neuroscientist at University College London.

Earlier studies with rats had also focused on the hippocampus and measured activity at the level of dozens of neurons at most. But that research had suggested that the brain did not record memory in any sort of regular pattern – a trend that this latest study may overturn. Maguire and Hassabis examined thousands of neurons as opposed to just dozens, which allowed them to pick out broader patterns.

"By looking at activity over tens of thousands of neurons, we can see that there must be a functional structure – a pattern – to how these memories are encoded," Maguire said. "Otherwise, our experiment simply would not have been possible to do."

Mind-reading research has grown increasingly sophisticated over the years. Another recent study predicted people's preference for one of two drinks with 80 percent accuracy. And earlier findings showed that people's brains reflect abnormal activity up to half a minute before making errors.

The latest findings on memory could lead to many more studies that examine how actual memories end up encoded across our brain cells, Maguire said. She and Hassabis want to look beyond spatial memories to see if brain scans can pick up patterns in our memories of the past, as well as visions of the future. Such work could also have clinical implications for understanding diseases that attack memory.

"Understanding how we as humans record our memories is critical to helping us learn how information is processed in the hippocampus and how our memories are eroded by diseases such as Alzheimer's," added Demis Hassabis.

Gaming Journal: Of Worlds Unknown

What Am I going to say.

Right.

Avatar Press produced some eariler softcore smut in comic book format eariler in this decade under a running title called Jungle Fantasy. Interesting theme, if shallow on plot and character development. Seriously the short series produces serious eye candy for young adult males. It reminds me or Mike Grill's Warlord series DC published way backin the late 70's and early 80's when scinece fiction, (which owes George Lucas more favors than a deity owing his congregation), sheds its b-film pulp paper-esque themes and became a significant mainstream gold mine. I've always wanted to do a theme-based campaign around a lost world type scenario, but with strong elements of both science fiction and fantasy. Think of dinosaurs and primitive shamans mingling with ancient psuedo-Atlantean technology. The hay-day equipment waiting to be re-discovered. Old technology like cloning pods and maturation chambers, light-solid holographic transmitters, genetic engineering that can build extinct species from the floor up, disruptor rifles, and blasters. Machines that cna build modern mythical creatures or produce the proverbial "fire of the gods." Think of forgotten arcane lore waiting to be unearthed again. Ah sorcerers, slavers, warlords, gladiators, big game hunters, archeaologists, socialites, thieves, merchants and explorers all in one setting striving to do the best they can.

Cloning machines, bio-organic matter replicators, incubation chambers, artificial maturation envirnoments, imprinting and behaviorial nanotechnology, surgical droids, and ancient human races manipulating their very building blocks of life. Abandoned Nazi (an over used theme in my book) or Stalinist Communist research faculties still housing great unearthed secrets.

Yes, what fun.

What game mechanics would I select?

I had d20 Future in mind, but after downloading and skimming Reign of Discordia by Reality Deviations Publications and RPG Objects. Instead, I could switch to True20 by Green Ronin Games. A levelI think this system will work best and if I need stock monsters, especially dinosaurs, I can always barrow from other source books. The Menance Manial and GURPS: Dinosaurs are two books that spring to mind. A level-based system would do for a solid fantasy RPG, but I need something out more in a super-heroic genre. Green Ronin games, through their Mutants and Masterminds line of games has released a supplement called Warriors and Warlocks. I like the point based approach to super-heroics, and with a larger selection of based-stock creatures, I could easily assemble a campaign using this material. An added plus is the character templates M&M provides across several sourcebooks.

What can I use for technology? A mixture of archaic, modern, and lost science fiction seems to work best. Both D20 weapon's locker and d20 future could work but I would need a simple system for conversion. Not that it would be difficult to move one from the other. I believe Green Ronin provide that in the back of their own books. Again, I have old GURPS books, including Bio-Tech and Futures for those necessities. Weirdly enough, my old Gamma World books could be useful as well providing insight into eugenics, pure strain human, and altered human branches. Comic book source materials could include Jungle Fanatsy (again), Dynamite Press's Jungle Girl, and Mike Grell's the Warlord, the later as a more detailed realm if there ever was such a place.

More on this later.

The Realm would also be mutli-envirnomental enabling the world to host several thousand diverse species and cultures from earth's past and from other worlds as well.

I wonder if I could have shape changin monsters as well. Infernal sorcery would be the most obvious mechanic to initiate a metamorphosis. I do not believe technology or gentic engineering would do as any changes would be permanent and have the potenital to pass itself down to it descendents.

More on this later as I have other posts to, well, post.

Gaming Journal: Extra-Solar Super Earth

Extrasolar 'Super Earth' is First to have an Atmosphere

By Dan Vergano
USA TODAY

Astronomers Wednesday reported the discovery of the first known "Super Earth" with an atmosphere, a water world orbiting a nearby red-dwarf star.
The detection of the planet only a bit larger than Earth, reported in the journal Nature, raises hopes of upcoming star surveys spotting another planet like ours.

"The discovery itself is very exciting," says team leader David Charbonneau of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. "But what it says about looking for signs of life on other planets is even more exciting."

The planet, called GJ1214 b, orbits the red dwarf GJ1214 once every 1.6 days, which raises its atmospheric temperature to at least 250 degrees Fahrenheit. The star resides 42 light-years from Earth (about 247 trillion miles), close by astronomical standards.

Though GJ1214 b is 6.6 times heavier and 2.7 times wider than Earth, our iron-cored world is 21/2 times denser, which suggests the new discovery is made of water squeezed to high pressure by the planet's high gravity. "It probably has an extraordinarily deep ocean," astronomer Geoff Marcy of the University of California-Berkeley says in a commentary accompanying the report.

"This discovery helps to make the case that inner (Earth-like) planets are likely to have water and hence to be habitable by life as we know it," says planetary scientist Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Washington (D.C.).

The find comes as international teams this week detected two more "Super Earth" planets orbiting sun-like stars, one orbiting the star 23 Lib and the other circling 61 Virginis. Both of the planets, at least 7.5 and 5.3 times heavier than Earth, respectively, turned up in telescope searches that look for gravitational wobbles induced on stars by planets.

Charbonneau's team, however, is tracking about 2,000 red-dwarf stars, dim stars 40% to 8% the size of the sun, by looking for dips in starlight caused by planetary eclipses. The team uses eight amateur telescopes distributed worldwide. After only two months of tracking a few hundred stars last year, the team found a 52-minute starlight dip comes every 1.6 days from GJ1214, which gives away the planet's orbit.

The team is requesting a Hubble telescope analysis of the planet's atmosphere, possible because of its proximity. "To look for life elsewhere, we really have to look for the chemical signatures, like oxygen, that life would inevitably imprint on the atmosphere," Charbonneau says.

Shifting Gears - The Azure Star

STEREO's First View of the Sun

Loops of highly charged particles burst from the sun's surface in this image, taken on Dec. 4, 2006. Among the first images taken by STEREO, the image shows the sun's roiling surface and atmosphere at temperatures around one million Kelvin (1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit).

The charged particles, mostly extremely hot protons and electrons, create a strong magnetic field that pulls the particles into the loops seen here. Over time, magnetic stress builds in the sun's atmosphere until the energy is released in a massive explosion. The explosion sends a giant cloud of charged particles (a coronal mass ejection) and x-ray solar flares hurtling into space with a force comparable to a billion megaton nuclear bombs. When the charged particles and x-rays bombard the Earth, they can disrupt communications and power systems and are a threat to satellites and astronauts in space.

Understanding the difference between harmful and harmless coronal mass ejections is one of the biggest questions that scientists studying the face of the sun. Currently, scientists only see ejections in one dimension. To understand how solar storms travel through the solar systems, scientists need a three-dimensional view of the storms.

STEREO, launched on Oct. 25, 2006, consists of observation systems orbiting the sun in front of and behind the Earth. Just as our two eyes give us a three-dimensional view of the world, the views provided by each STEREO system can be combined to provide a three-dimensional view of the sun. Though the first STEREO images were taken in early December, the two systems won't be in position to give three dimensional images until April 2007.

Image credit: NASA
Source

Ye Olde Xoblob Shoppe - Magic Staff, or Two, or Three

Staff of Command

This device has three functions. The three functions are:

- Charm Animal 01 charge per 10 minutes use.
- Command Plants 01 charge for each 10 foot square area or 10 minutes of use.
- Influence: This power has the effect of providing a +4 insight bonus to Bluff and Diplomacy checks. The user can cast charm person at 11th level strength, or make a suggestion to any humanoid conversed with. The staff also enables the character to make use of mass charm enabling them to charm up to 22 hit dice of humanoids. Charm person and suggestion are applicable but once per day. Each use of suggestion or charm person draws 1 charge from the staff.
- Suppress Beath Weapon: 02 charges per 10 minutes use. Spell Compendium, Pg. 216.

Strong Enchantment; CL: 7th
Craft Staff, charm animal, command plants, suggestion, suppress breath weapon
Market Price: 30,800 GP
Cost: 15,400 GP + 1,232 XP

Satff of Curing

This device can be used but once per day on any person, and no function can be employed more than twice per day. Each function drains 1 charge. The staff of curing enables the wielder to make use of the following:

- remove disease
- remove blindness
- cure serious wounds
- lesser restoration

Moderate Necromancy; CL: 8th
Craft Staff, remove disease, remove blindness, cure serious wounds, greater restoration
Market Price: 33,600 Gp
Cost: 16,800 + 1,344 XP

Staff of Lightning

This staff has two functions that closely resemble arcane spells:

- Shock: As per the shock special abilities for weapons, except use of this function drains 1 charge per use.
- Lesser Orb of Electricity. 5d8 damage, Fortitude save (DC 14) for half damage (3 charges)
- Lightning Bolt: 6d6 damage, Reflex save (DC 14) for half damage. (2 charges)

Moderate Evocation; CL: 10th Caster Level: 11th
Craft Staff, orb of electricity-lesser, lightning bolt
Market Price: 28,000 GP
Cost: 14,000 GP + 1,120 XP

Shifting Gears - Cloaking Technology

Scientists Create Cloak of Partial InvisibilityBy Ker Than, LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 19 October 2006 10:10 am ET
Live Science

Scientists have created a cloaking device that can reroute certain wavelengths of light, forcing them around objects like water flowing around boulders in a stream. To creatures or machines that see only in microwave light, the cloaked object would appear nearly invisible.

"The microwaves come in and are swept around the cloak and reconstructed on the other side while avoiding the interior region," said study team member David Smith at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering. "So it looks as if they just passed through free space."

The device [image] only works in the microwave range of light, so cloaked objects are still visible to humans. Also, it only works in two dimensions and only for microwaves moving in a plane. A three-dimensional invisibility cloak would hide an object completely.The microwave cloak is also slightly reflective and casts a partial shadow.

Despite these shortcomings, however, the new device is "a very good achievement," said Ulf Leonhardt, a theorist at the University of St. Andrews in England who was not involved in the study.

"It's surprising that it's as simple as it is and that it works so well," Leonhardt said in a related news article about the work in the journal Science.

The achievement, reported online today by the journal, comes five months after the same team published a study detailing the precise mathematical specifications a needed to build such a cloaking device.

Metamaterials

The apparatus was made using "metamaterials," artificial materials engineered to have precisely patterned surfaces that interact with and manipulate light in novel ways.

Although called a cloak, the device is not something that can be worn. Rather, it consists of a series of concentric circles, made of copper rings and wires patterned onto sheets of fiberglass, and resembles a loosely coiled reel of film.

The patterns enable the manipulation of light, and the size of the patterns determines which wavelengths of light can be manipulated. Smaller patterns affect shorter the wavelengths. Microwaves have relatively long wavelengths and can be affected with metamaterials having relatively large patterns. Manipulating visible light, which has much shorter wavelengths, will require metamaterials with much finer patterns.

While making those finer patterns is possible with current nanomanufacturing technologies, the metals used to make the microwave cloak would behave differently with visible light, Smith said.

"They act very differently at optical wavelengths; they become very absorptive. A cloaked object would just become very opaque, rather than transparent," he told LiveScience.

But even if metamaterials are made that can deflect visible light, don't expect the kind of invisibility offered by Harry Potter's cloak or Star Trek cloaking devices any time soon.

Human eyes are sensitive to many different wavelengths of light, as evidenced by the rainbow of colors that we see, and it's still uncertain if metamaterials can deflect so many wavelengths simultaneously.

Still Useful

But even imperfect cloaking devices might be useful, the researchers say. Cloaks that deflect radio waves could render an object invisible to radar or improve cell phone receptions by rerouting signals around obstructions. They might also be used to protect people from penetrating and harmful radiation.

"If you knew that you had radiation of a certain bandwidth frequency, you could have it skirt around some region that you wanted shielded," Smith said.

The team says the next step is to create a cloak that works in three dimensions and to perfect the cloaking effect.

Cloaking Device Concept Moves Beyond Theory
By Diane Banegas, National Science Foundation
LiveScience

This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation.
Applied mathematician Graeme Milton dreams up new materials, develops mathematical formulas to describe them and leaves it to others to construct and demonstrate their novelties and usefulness in a laboratory.

While many of his theoretical musings are published in peer-reviewed journals, his research on a superlens with the ability to hide or “cloak” an object is too similar to cloaking devices portrayed in Star Trek and Harry Potter to stay buried in the annals of academia.

The concept of a superlens came originally from Sir John Pendry in 2000 — although Milton and his colleagues Nicolae Nicorovici and Ross McPhedran conducted closely related studies back in 1994 — and the concept has been studied extensively. Yet no one had realized the cloaking properties until they were discovered through the research by Milton’s team.

The concept of a superlens cloak is a long way from a workable device, but the integrity of the mathematical concept has sent some experimentalists into the laboratory to try and turn the theory into reality. So far, the groups working in this area are not ready to publish papers, but they’ve accomplished enough to keep trying.

“We’re along way off from the Star Trek device but some of the experimental results achieved so far are surprising and exciting,” Milton noted.

Milton pursues his research at the University of Utah where the math department has some of the best scientists in the nation for studying the mathematics of new materials.

While colleagues consider Milton among “the best in the world” with the mathematics of materials, he was not always so highly ranked. In fact, Milton, who was born in Sydney, Australia, came close to failing his sophomore year at Sydney University because he spent so much time reading about advanced subjects such as quantum mechanics and general relativity he failed to attend his regular classes, and eventually dropped out of school to spend a year hitchhiking through New Zealand.

He later returned to the university to buckle down and earn his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics, followed by a doctorate in physics at Cornell University. His love of the outdoors led him to accept the job in Utah – he does some of his best thinking while skiing, mountain biking, swimming and road biking.

The superlens theorized by Milton and Nicorovici cloaks a nearby object by making light behave in an unusual way. Instead of having a positive refractive index that makes light bend in the same way as it does when passing from air into a medium like glass or water, the superlens has a negative refractive index that in essence causes light to reverse and travel backwards. When an object is placed next to the superlens, the light bouncing off the object is canceled out by the light reflecting off the superlens, rendering the object invisible. Milton said the phenomenon, theorized by Milton and Nicorovici and confirmed by computer, is somewhat analogous to the noise cancellation headphones passengers wear on airplanes.

“At this point, experiments would be considered successful if they worked with a single frequency of light and cloaked a few specks of dust, and the object cloaked would need to be much smaller than the superlens,” said Milton. In spite of the challenge, a group of scientists is currently working to demonstrate the proof of principle. “They’ve made some progress, but they want to do some more work before they put their results in a paper,” he added.

Potential early uses for a cloaking device are varied. While stealth military devices are an obvious option, one approach is in medicine where the concept would allow certain electronic instruments to be used despite the presence of strong electromagnetic fields, such as those produced by hospital brain scanners. Milton and other researchers have also carried out related work that might prove capable of guiding the elastic shock waves of earthquakes around buildings.

While practical applications are fun to speculate about, mathematicians may appreciate the new math presented by the concept just as much.

“The findings will lead to a better understanding of partial differential equations, which will lead to a better understanding the propagation of sound, light, fluid and turbulence,” Milton said. The new math will also help scientists better understand the new field of metamaterials – a family of new materials with properties not seen in naturally occurring materials. “Existing laws don’t adequately describe materials with exotic microstructures that are associated with some metamaterials.”

Devising new materials is how Milton and his colleagues came across the superlens in the first place. A metamaterial’s properties are dictated by its internal structure rather than by its composition. His job requires him to discover or design new geometric structures and then develop mathematical formulas to prove their properties. He was working in his home country of Australia on a composite material composed of arrays of coated cylinders when he realized the cylinders could focus light in an unconventional way. That discovery eventually led to his mathematical model for the superlens cloak.

Cloaking Device a Reality? Only if You're Very Small
Levi Beckerson (Blog) - December 20, 2007 11:19 AM
DailyTech

The cloaked circle measures a mere 10 micrometers, but try to spot it next to an uncloaked circle. (Source: UMD)
Scientists at the University of Maryland demonstrate the first working visible light cloaking device.

Cloaking devices and technology have long been the fodder of science fiction, but researchers at the University of Maryland's James Clark School of Engineering have created a material that seems to fit the bill – at least in 2D. The device uses the properties of plasmons in its functionality.

Plasmons are electron waves which are generated when light strikes a metallic surface under controlled conditions. Plasmonics is a relatively new field though it promises to provide many beneficial scientific achievements.

The cloak itself is quite small, a mere 10 micrometers in width (PDF). The structure of the device is a simple thin layer of acrylic plastic with a pattern of concentric, two-dimensional rings atop a gold film. The ring pattern creates a negative refraction effect on visible light striking it, bending the plasmons around the object. While the light appears to have passed straight through the material, it has in fact gone around it.

Far from a usable cloaking system, the device only functions under specialized conditions and only in two dimensions. It is also not perfect invisibility as it only works on a limited range of the visual spectrum and suffers energy loss in the gold film. Three dimensional use of the material would be difficult because visible light would need to be controlled both magnetically and electronically.

Of a more practical purpose, the team has also used the unique properties of plasmons to develop a superlens microscopy technology which could augment existing conventional microscopes. The light bending techniques could allow a real view into nanoscale objects like DNA, viruses and proteins. The group believes they can still improve the superlens technology, bringing the resolution to an impressive 10 nanometers.

Plasmons could one day be employed in a variety of technology due to their unique properties. Since plasmons have very short wavelengths, they can be controlled with impressively small guide structures, much smaller than systems currently in use. As the waves are generated at optical frequencies, they could be used to carry impressive amounts of data in future computing systems.

Not surprisingly, the research has garnered attention from not only the scientific community, but government agencies and industries. One can only dream of the possible applications the military could have in mind for such a technology, less long advances that could be made on the optical computing frontier.

The Mathematics of Cloaking
General Science / Mathematics
Published: 12:26 EST, December 26, 2006
PhysOrg.com

The theorists who first created the mathematics that describe the behavior of the recently announced "invisibility cloak" have revealed a new analysis that may extend the current cloak's powers, enabling it to hide even actively radiating objects like a flashlight or cell phone.

Allan Greenleaf, professor of mathematics at the University of Rochester, working with colleagues around the globe, has announced a mathematical theory that predicts some strange goings on inside the cloak--and that what happens inside is crucial to the cloak's effectiveness.

In October, David R. Smith, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke University, led a team that used a circular cloaking device to successfully bend microwaves around a copper disk as if the disk were invisible. In 2003, however, Greenleaf and his colleagues had already developed the mathematics of invisibility.

"We were working on improving the mathematics behind tumor detection," says Greenleaf. "In the final section to one paper, we spelled out a worst-case scenario where a tumor could be undetectable. We then wrote a couple of additional articles describing when this could happen. At the time, we didn't think further about it because it seemed extremely unlikely that any tumor would be covered with the necessary material to be hidden that way."

This past summer, however, Greenleaf and his colleagues learned about a paper that researchers at Duke and Imperial College had published in the journal Science, which used nearly identical equations to give a theoretical proposal for a cloaking device. Once Greenleaf and his colleagues saw that their results could also be used to show how to "hide" an object, they decided to analyze and improve the proposed cloaking device, using the techniques they had developed in their earlier work. They knew that a crucial question would be: What was going on inside the cloaked region?

Smith, a physicist, gave a description of why the cloaking device should work. Greenleaf, as a mathematician, knew that to have any hope of extending and improving the cloaking, it was important to fully understand its mathematical underpinnings. Then, in October, Smith published another paper, describing how he and his team actually built a cloaking device. This made it even more crucial to carefully analyze the underlying structure.

Greenleaf and his collaborators used sophisticated mathematics to understand what must be happening inside the cloaked region. Everything seemed fine when they applied the Helmholtz equation, an equation widely used to solve problems involving the propagation of light. But when they used Maxwell's equations, which take the polarization of electromagnetic waves into account, difficulties came to light.

Maxwell's equations said that a simple copper disk like the one Smith used could be cloaked without a problem, but anything that emitted electromagnetic waves--a cell phone, a digital watch, or even a simple electric device like a flashlight--caused the behavior of the cloaking device to go seriously awry. The mathematics predicts that the size of the electromagnetic fields go to infinity at the surface of the cloaked region, possibly wrecking the invisibility.

Their analysis also revealed another surprise: a person trying to look out of the cloak would effectively be faced with a mirror in every direction. If you can imagine Harry Potter's own invisibility cloak working this way, and Harry turning on his flashlight to see, its light would shine right back at him, no matter where he pointed it.

Greenleaf's team determined that a more complicated phenomenon arises when using Maxwell's equations, leading to a "blow up" (an unexpected infinite behavior) of the electromagnetic fields. They determined that by inserting conductive linings, whose properties depend on the specific geometry of the cloak, this problem can be resolved. Alternatively, covering both the inside and outside surfaces of the cloaked region with carefully matched materials can also be used to bypass this problem.

"We should also keep in mind that, given the current technology, when we talk about invisibility, we're talking only about being invisible at just a narrow range of wavelengths," says Greenleaf. "For example, an object could be rendered invisible at just a specific wavelength of red; it would be visible in nearly every other color."

Smith's team at Duke is also working on improving their cloaking device. On Dec. 6, Smith and Greenleaf met for the first time and talked about Greenleaf's new math.

"Allan has been looking at the problem much more generally, and deriving the conditions for when true invisibility is or is not possible," says Smith. "We are very interested in what he and his colleagues come up with!"

Greenleaf and his coauthors are now working to confirm the relationship between their work and experiments. Some of the equations do not have solutions, so they are looking at what the physical consequences are, and whether a cloak's effectiveness would be compromised. Since any physical construction is only an approximation of the mathematical ideal that Greenleaf's team analyzes, Greenleaf says it would also be very interesting to understand the extent to which small errors in the construction degrade the cloaking effect.

For additional information, please see http://www.seas.rochester.edu/~gresh/math/math_113006.html

Source: University of Rochester

RPG Series 3.5 Revised - Galap-Dreidel

Galap-Dreidel, The Keymaster of the Ghost Tower

Once an archmage and cerebremancer of boundless power, Galap-Dreidel crafted the fabled Soul Gem to vanquish his enemies and expand his power over temporal mechanics. He extended his knowledge of planar enchantments and boundless energies by studying the limitless potentials of living souls (some would say incarnum). Scholars of ancient legend say his desire to covet the meteorite stone for himself was instrumental to his unrecorded demise. The Keymaster of the Ghost Tower thus grants binders the power to vanquish souls from their bodies, bend time and space to an astounding degree and open the limitless boundaries of the ethereal plane via psionics and magic

Vestige Level: 08
Binding DC: 32
Special Requirement: Yes

Legend: How Galap-Dreidel became a vestige is lost to the annals of antiquity. Galap-Dreidel as the proverbial “renascence man” of his era. The Keymaster, as legends tell, survived long past the length of short human years and even longer still to tutor and train many sorcerers, wizards, and psions in his obscene longevity. One academic archive houses a journal of the infamous tiefling sorcerer Acererack and within its yellowed pages it is written the demi-lich bested his former master over a dispute of power. Surviving journals and scant documented personal accounts retrieved by two expeditions that braved the perils of the Ghost Tower of Inverness confirm his hatred of corporeal undead. Could a necromancer have been systematic in his fall? Any opportunity to question his vestige by binders has called forth no new lore.

Special Requirement: If being vestiges of undeath weren’t enough, Galap-Dreidel dispises Acererack and Tenebrous for some other undisclosed reason. If the binder has made a pact with either vestige in the past 24 hours, then Galap-Dreidel refuses to answer the summons. If the binder has been “drained” of attributes, health, or acquired a negative level or more by an undead monster prior to the summons, Galap-Dreidel refuses to answer until a restoration spell or an arcane device of similar effect has been administered.

Manifestation: When called forth, a clockwise flowing soup of swirling primordial ethereal quasi-matter spills over the boundaries of the seal. Galap-Dreidel, counter-clockwise, swirls up and out of the whirlpool from the center of the seal to answer the pact. The binder sees a flowing draped vestige that appears phantasmal and wisped like a specter. His face is phased out and blurred in a state of constant flux, much like a displacer beast in motion. His facial features are difficult to focus on and always impossible to identify.

Sign: The binder’s eyes and their sockets are jet-black and appear hollow to anyone that looks at them. If one were to closely examine the binder’s open mouth, they would discover that it is jet-black and hollow, voided of teeth and tongue. The binder can see, speak, and taste normally however. The binder’s skin turns chalk white.

Influence: Galap-Dreidel considered undeath and necromancy abominations in the art that is wizardy. In any given conflict, Galap-Dreidel will order the binder and his accompanying party to attack the strongest undead first, then seconds strongest, and down the line in ranks of power.

Granted Abilities: The Keymaster’s abilities reflect his considerable mastery over living souls, time, and the ethereal plane.

The Cerebremancer’s Chrono-archive: the binder gains access to Galap-Dreidel’s knowledge of wizardry and psionics. Thus the binder gains two of the following competence bonuses or feat, or any two combination upon completion of the pact: Knowledge: Arcane +16, Knowledge: Engineering +15, Knowledge: History +14, Knowledge: the Planes +13, Knowledge: Psionics +12, Delay Spell, Quicken Spell or Craft Wondrous Item.

The Enmity of the Ethereal Soul: while bound to Galap-Dreidel, the binder is pushed slightly out of phase with the material plane. The binder thus gains limited access to the Ghost Template (Monster Manual I, pg. 116). He can use all three abilities - Draining Touch, Frightful Moan, and Horrific Gaze, every other round. He can use this ability in conjunction with his available psionic powers. Second, while bound to Galap-Dreidel, the binder gains a +08 resistance bonus to necromantic spells as if he were granted a protection from spells.

Silver in the Mind of Time: The binder has access to a formidable pool of psionic talents once bound to Galap-Dreidel. As a standard action, the binder can use Dimension Door – Psionic, Ethereal Jaunt, Light Beam, Precognition-Greater, Sensitivity to Psychic Impressions, Telekinetic Thrust, Temporal Acceleration, Touch of Health, and Time Hop. The binder is bequeathed a pool of 32 power points. If the binder already has a point pool then it adds 32 power points as a bonus.

The Touch of Impending Tomorrows and Other Yesterdays: While bound to Galap-Dreidel, the binder can bend the flow of time via touch once every five rounds. The binder can accelerate chronological decay in both organic and inorganic material or temporally “push” someone or something into a pocket of suspended time. In effect, he can disintegrate or use temporal stasis as a 16th sorcerer. The binder can stack his charisma modifier as a competence bonus against a specific target when using either of these powers. These abilities’ mechanics increase when the binder advances in level to a maximum at 20th level. These twin abilities can be used in conjunction with the feats provided above by Galap-Dreidel.

Capstone Granted Ability
You gain the following ability when you pass your binding check by ten or more.

Time’s Anchor: Any corporeal or incorporeal undead struck by the binder via touch or any weapon in his possession must make a will save vs. DC 25 or be expelled onto a triple-lapping boarder region where the ethereal, the prime material and the temporal planes intersect. Once there, the undead monster is effectively trapped for the number or rounds equaled to the binder’s level plus his charisma bonus. Magical items that modify a charisma bonus stack in terms of the length of shunt. Second, this particualr ability circumvents spell resistance. This unique ability is ghost-touched, thus primarily used against monsters and undead who carry the incorporeal type and subtypes.

© Jeffrey Williams, 2008.

Ye Olde Xoblob Shoppe - The Luck of Magic

Spell scrolls are nice but I also like other magical parchments and papers. Anyway, thanks to Tadask Nezerull for helping unintentionally flush out this magical item. Written in third edition revised mechanics and I expaned the spell's definition too. Tadask can be reached at the_dark_templar11111
@yahoo.com

Parchment of Three Blessings

This uncommon magical item appears to a simple, yet folded receipt of purchase. Somewhere within the list of purchases, there is short series of three sevens. On the back of the receipt is a stamp bearing the holy symbol of luck or good fortune [I.E. Bes, Alymaine, Desna, Hermod, Norebo, Tyche, Tymora, etc.]. When the parchment is torn in half [a free action], the magic contained in it is released. The magic of the parchment bequeaths the recipient a +3 luck bonus towards the next three die rolls. No consecutive order is needed. This bonus does not stack with other luck bonus granted from other spells or magical items.

Weak Enchantment, CL: 6th
Prerequisites: Craft Wondrous Item, Luck of the Draw
Market Price: 600 Gp
Cost: 300 Gp + 24 Exp

Luck of the Draw
Enchantment
Level: Bard 1, Cleric 2, Sorcerer/Wizard 2
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 Standard Action
Range: Personal
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

When this spell is cast, the caster gains a +1d8 Luck Bonus to any one Dice Roll on their next round. This bonus does not stack with other Luck bonuses granted from items such as a Luckstone, or a Staff of the Magi.

Material Component: A small, eight-colored wheel and a Needle.

Ye Olde Xoblob Shoppe - Weapons of Power

WEAPON SPECIAL ABILITIES

Direction: A weapon of direction typically appears to be a normal (or possibly magic) weapon of its type. Its magical properties make it function much as a find the path spell, however, empowering the weapon to show the direction of the desired way. Once per day the device can be tossed into the air; it will fall and point towards the desired way, and this process can be repeated 7 times during the next 70 minutes.

Caster Level: 11th
Prerequisites: Craft Magic Arms and Armor, find the path
Market Price: +3
Converted From: arrow of direction

Piercing: A piercing weapon is not actually hurled, as once per day, when the command word is spoken, the weapon launches itself. It has a range increment of 30 feet. The weapon attacks with a ranged attack bonus of +6, and inflicts normal damage. Only weapons with range or that can be thrown can be enchanted with this special ability.

Caster Level: 9th
Prerequisites: Craft Magic Arms and Armor, telekinesis
Market Price: +2 bonus
Converted From: javelin of piercing

Submission: A weapon of this nature appears unremarkable, exactly as any normal weapon of its type. The wielder of a weapon of submission causes any opponent struck to make a Will save (DC 15). If the opponent fails to save, he is affected as though by the spell emotions: despair for 2d4 rounds. Thereafter the creature is normal again.

Caster Level: 7th
Prerequisites: Craft Magic Arms and Armor, emotions
Market Price: +3 bonus
Converted From: trident of submission

Striking: This weapon's enhancement bonus may be increased by +3 twice per day, and by +6 once per day. This effect lasts for one attack, and for that attack the weapon acts as a weapon of it's raised enhancement, (thus overcoming DR and increasing both the attack roll and damage done.)

Caster Level: 5th
Prerequisites: Craft Magic Arms and Armor, greater magic weapon
Market Price: +2

RPG Series 3.5 Revised - Two for the Realms of the Profane

The Demon-Queen's Comestibles

Zuggtmoy, the Demon Queen of Fungi has briefly turned her attentions towards the cultivation of blight and fungi on foodstuffs. An experiment that harvests fungi grows on grains, breads, brews and other alcoholic beverages was her main research for a time. The spores of her labor fruited true and were cultivated again in the distillation of potions and elixirs. The infestation carries a sliver of her essence and when consumed they slowly but chaotically opens the untapped psionic potential in all sentient species. In essence, individuals become 1st level wilders with added charisma attribute bonus. The Demon Queen of Fungi is trying to enhance the properties of her concoctions so they imbue the applicant with the essence of the Abyss (I.E. fiendish template). Her method of distribution is clever, simplistic, and geared towards primitive tribes and isolated rural communities. She has taken step interest in humanoid (orcs, goblins, bugbears, etc.) tribes. Human and elven tribes with a naturalistic grasp of deities and evil are her second choice for indoctrination. In truth, she is cultivating barbarians, rangers, druids, and sorcerers and augmenting them with psionic abilities for a grand army on a scale large enough to push her hated foes, especially Juiblex, into the farthest corners of the Abyss. Some say the recently liberated Shami-Amourae has sided with the Fungi Queen to distribute the blight as a fashionable narcotic through cults and cells throughout the Prime Material Planes.

A Remnant of Murders

The divine remnants of Bhaal, The Faerunian God of Murder, have drifted through the Astral Planes for decades. Through unseen circumstance (although Githzerai rumors say sabotage), it has crashed onto Stygia, the Fifth Layer of the Nine Hells. This event has garnered the attention of several Dukes, Barons and Duchesses of the Nine Hells. The lost souls of murderers and the murdered lodged themselves into one of the most inhospitable regions of Stygia and now represent a significant act of serendipity in that region's history. Now the souls of old sacrifices and servants of Bhaal are up for grabs in the region's greatest salvage operation ever recorded. Levistus, Lord of the Fifth Layer, through lackeys and unwitting servants, plots a grand scheme to free himself from imprisonment and Glasya's involvement, not can say what it is, except she covets a soul of a special murderer, or even two.

RPG Series 3.5 Revised - The Graveyard of Dead Gods

The Astral Plane: The Divine, The Fallen, and The Graveyard of the Gods

From Wikipedia

The Astral Plane is the plane of thought, memory, and psychic energy; it is where gods go when they die or are forgotten (or, most likely, both). It is a barren place with only rare bits of solid matter; some creatures, such as the tyrannous githyanki, use the petrified corpses of dead gods as floating fortresses. The Astral Plane is unique in that it is infinitesimal instead of infinite; there is no space or time here, though both catch up with you when you leave. The souls of the newly dead from the Prime Material Plane pass through here on their way to the afterlife or Outer Planes.

The most common feature of the Astral Plane is the silver cords of travelers using an astral projection spell. These cords are the lifelines that keep travelers of the plane from becoming lost, stretching all the way back to the traveler's point of origin.

Note: Anubis remains his vigilant on the Astral Plane and maintains a network or Ur-Priests and Binders across the Prime Material Planes. His followers maintain constant vigilance on the those who would desecrate or exploit lost divinity.

The Harvester in the Sea of Endless Night

A nefarious organization with a secret agenda is harvesting the astral remnants of fallen deities and other discarded quasi-entities for nearly a century. In particular, one fallen and nearly forgotten deity, Erivatius, a long slumbering deity of death, aging, and time, has been "retrofitted" into a war vessel to transverse the vast dark expanse of the Negative Material Plane. Its crew, rumored by Githzerai, is searching for a lost citadel or the shard of a semi-active demi-plane lost in that expanse. It is widely rumored the destination they seek is partially shielded from the life-consuming negativity abundantly encompassing that region of the planar cosmos. What lies at their destination is a matter of speculation. Communiqués intercepted between informants of Graz'zt and the Union of Eclipses say something baleful is in motion. Rumors and fragments of a dark plot sired secretly in Thanatos and the abyssal Court of Orcus has the Prince of Tyrants nervous. Could another war is loom on the abyssal horizon between Orcus and Graz'zt and if so why does all intelligence point towards the advisor-vampire; a druid-heretic and necromancer called Iah-Dabo.

What the sources do not reveal is that the vampire-druid is collecting the remnants of forgotten deities and harnessing their divine energies for his nefarious purposes. His minions are salvaging their remnants, but targeting deities whose portfolios ascertain death, the dead, necromancy or any aspect joined or crosses into the philosophy of death across the astral plane. His minions have retrieved four such deities. They include:

- Amot, a shunned deity of destruction, annihilation, and dissolution, is a raving psychotic who dreams of cataclysms and violent disasters on a planetary scale or greater. Rightfully shunned by denizens of the Astral Plane, the remnant slumbers but more often jolts and shakes itself as if trying to awaken from a horrid nightmare or other sleep-induced prophecy. Even refrained by worshipped, the violent divinity of Amot stirs and awaits release.

- Beararak the Deviser - A lost deity of chronology, lost secrets and hidden knowledge was worshipped in an enchanted realm of sand, wind and natural elementals. He chronicled the histories of all lands and kept vital knowledge hidden until the day it could be utilized safely and wisely. He also archived and secured lore, artifacts, and dark secrets from those who would exploit their potential hazards. Jealousy, then murder at the hands of a rival deity lead to his downfall. Even adrift, he is revered as an oracle by denizens from all planes. Many whom seek out his vast archive of knowledge and lost histories, albeit in direct communion. All attempts to facilitate a dialogue with the fallen Sage-God have failed or produced scant clues to greater treasures. Even comatose in its own demise Beararak seems still guards many secrets.

- Valkiira the Angelic - A once-revered goddess of weaponry, skill, and the collector of the souls now slumbers endlessly on the Astral Plane. From dead warriros, it was her anointed task to act as a collector of souls on the battlefield and it was her task to deliver both the valiant and the cowardly to their final judgements. Courage and valor pleased Valkiira greatly but prolonged periods of peace, her lack of theological imagination ultimately lead to the abandonment of her faith. Her followers simply began to question an unwavering adherence to a simple doctrine. As the decades and centuries progressed, they explored alternatives to different after-lifes. Now regarded as an afterthought, Valkiira dreams of greatness and the fulfillment of otherworldly rewards again in service on a better world.

- Zhakautha the Devouring Maw - An abandoned deity of hunger, starvation, and knowledge via consumption was no more than a lesser power when the forces of light, justice, and law hunted and slaughtered his vampire-priests and cannibalistic followers to the last man. The god of raw flesh and ghouls eventually sought a means to bolster his status and thus battle his enemies as their numbers grew greater. The divine ritual was interrupted and Zhakautha's ascending form was consumed in the fiery cataclysmic finale. His remnants were shunted onto the Astral Plane were his boundless hunger is condemned never to be sated.

Other Remnants adrift on the Astral Plane

- Elif is half-awake on the Astral Plane. This deity did not abandon her loyal adherents nor did her followers abandon her. Elif is in a self-imposed exile after her actions inadvertently resulted in the tragic death of a cherished friend and fellow deity. Her followers lamented her decision and in a yearly ritual observance and devised a psychological strategy to bring her back into her rightful place in the divine fold. Elif is a benign goddess of expression, wilders, good favors, half-breeds, blood-endowed inheritance. Many nobles both mix-blooded and pure seek her blessing in the matters of inheritance and good fortune.

- Gilgeam once a vanquished deity of war, athleticism and urban civilization, was destroyed by his arch-nemesis Tiamat, The Queen of Chromatic Dragons. His destruction brought finality to his mad oppressive rule. It also paved the way and the progressive transformation of his earthly lands and other mortal holdings into a draconic theocracy rule by his adversary. Impotent in his masculinity and adrift in the Astral Plane, he dreams one day of rightful resurrection by his few faithful vanguards and the covert destruction of Tiamat.

- Hemidall was a once-stern deity of chivalry, guardians, defense, and the five senses. He existed as the embodiment of loyal and duty for its own sake. That was until he inflicted with madness from a cabal of entities from the Far Realms. In a state of maddened jealousy, Hemidall murdered his wife Heashera, who in turn was avenged by her follow deities. Captured, they pronounced judgement over Hemidall's actions and executed him. His church and many adherents were purged of any taint they may carry as to not effect the rest of the pantheon.

- Heashera, a goddess of music, romance, love and good health was murdered by her husband in a fit of jealous rage. Unable to accept the reality of his actions, Heashera has resisted any and all attempt to reinvigorate her divine status. Heashera wishes to be forgotten and away from Hemidall, the deity she once married and loved. An aspect of Heashera, worshipped as a wicked deity of sorrow, lost love and betrayal survives, but is a pale broken reflection broken of a once noble goddess. Kalil is wicked and mad but suffers bouts of melancholy depression only to explode in betrayed anger and homicidal rage.

- Ki is an ancient goddess and one of the first know deities to transcend the ethnic barriers separating human and elven folk. One of the first goddess of nature and agriculture, she was also one of the first deities of human civilization and beneficial co-existance with elven-folk. In time, the eventual neglect of the land drove her faithful away into the hands of deities whose influence lay in less empathetic concerns governing nature. With change in politics and theocracy, her worship waned among the internal cultures of human and elven alike.

- Moander was a disgusting god-thing of rot, decay, corruption, and disease. An old antagonist of the ancient elven-folk was the embodiment of corruption, rot, and loss of what the elven-folk hold dear: the abundant grow of nature, the trees, the fauna and all that is green and natural. Its was destroyed through the actions of a heroic warrior-bard who collected some of his divinity for his own transcendence. He released and consecrated tens of thousands of souls from this foul deity who deceived and tortured through the centuries. Lolth kept his cults living but uses the name and their agenda for her own purposes. Talona, Zuggtmoy and Juiblex have all collected pieces of Moander and like-wise use his divine energies to enhance their horrific standings in the lower planes. The remaining mass was disgorged from its profane realm in the Abyss and sent adrift on the Astral Plane. It is an island adrift in a weightless realm, a toxic hazard of filth bringing rot and corruption to githyanki, illithids and unwary astral travelers if there ever was such a thing.

- Ramman was once an ancient deity of war, courage, and self-sacrifice who clashed with Gruumsh and repelled his orcish warriors successfully for centuries. Until Gilgeam, his rival and once ally, in a fit of jealousy betrayed Ramman on the battlefield. Gruumsh seizing a tactical advantage mortally wounded Ramman. The war god never recovered from his grievous injury and in turn slowly wasted away. The numbers his followers dwindled away over the decades. They simply could not compete with the orc's bottomless avarice and higher breeding rates. The lower numbers took its toll, but not before Ramman shattered his enemy's forces single-handed while Gruumsh was occupied elsewhere. The staggering loss forced Gruumsh out of the lands of centuries to come. Ramman is now remembered lore as a heroic legend than a god.

- Sebek the Many Teeth was once a horrific god of consumption, floods, rivers, and reptiles until he was slain by a greater and rival deity of beasts and bloodlust. The rival and his faithful consumed his scaly flesh and meat in less than a day. Its savaged carcass now floats adrift on the Astral Plane as an gruesome yet ironic monument to this own hunger. Its open mouth symbolic is ever hungry for flesh of followers once again, yet it can not consume them.

- Serqet is an ancient progenitor goddess akin to the Sumerian pantheon. She was also associated with knowledge, magic and protection from poison. She was revered as a mother figure and the founder of the Amatat Empires. Her people flourished centuries and warred with horrors of the Far Realms. Their confrontations were successful until their Illithid allies rose from the depths the subterranean realms and blotted out the sun. The end was not swift for they exacted a terrible price. Her people were enslaved and sold as cattle, her empires collapsed economically and divided, scattered to the winds of history. Serqet's faith waned and she degenerated into a profane entity that became associated with demon-worship, scorpions, and other venomous creatures. She is now adrift the Astral Plane, a poisonous hazard dreaming of past glories.

- Tayshara is sad remnant that can befall even the greatest. A benign and near-forgotten goddess of divination, the moon, the stars, and night is tragic case of what happens when a deity places her proverbial eggs in one basket. Her faithful were destroyed in a stellar cataclysm when Atropus the Death-Moon devoured the life-essence of her world. Unable to stop the cataclysm, she gathered as many of her followers as she could and delivered them to another world. Of all the deities of the Astral Plane, Tayshara has the best opportunity of regenerating and shedding off her current existance. It is rumored she has sequestored several favored ones of her faith. If they canbe rejuvinated, she may rise from the enternal slumber.

RPG Series 3.5 Revised - Abyssal Bound Souls

Abyssal Bound Souls
Demons in particular service to a Demonic Lord, Demonic Prince, or Demonic Queen
From the Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss, Pg. 83.

I hit upon a fit of inspiration after looking at a picture from the Fiendish Codex I. I intend to use it as a way of differentiating lower class demons that are in the service a particular demon lord or demon queen. These lower demons take the characteristics of their patron, although not uniformly so. It is the nature of the Abyss after all.

A second version is in the works for Abyssal Bound Souls. This version will be based on Mortal templates.

Alkilith: Demogorgon - Disgusted by even the most savage of Demogorgon's legions, this demon-blob, when utilizing its own mass, spontaneously generates two heads when wishing to communicate to its intended victim or functionaries, or sometimes both.
Armanite: Graz'zt - All Armanites in the employ of Graz'zt are female. All are armored and like to kill demons and mortals alike. No males are known to exist in his Triple Realm.
Armanite: Orcus - All are helmed in the service of the Prince of Undead. Their faces are skeletal and void of flesh and muscle. Their eyes glow with a dark sinister light.
Arrow Demon: Ahazu - In addition to four-arms, all arrow demons in the service of Ahazu have bat-wings and share several physical and anatomical qualities related to a fury bat
Arrow Demon: Skekolah - All are pale white in color with two sets of solid pale blue eyes with one atop the other set. Their arrows are icicle-tipped weapons capable of puncturing the strongest enchantments.
Balor: Demogorgon - Baboon-headed generals, often have twin heads. They are next to each other, fused sideways to each other, or a second head in positioned on the Balor's chest or abdomen.
Balor: Skekolah - Those bound to the Prince of Arctic Waters are ice blue in color and emitted and aura of intense hateful cold. Frost and ice hang from their appendages.
Bloodfiend: Decca - All are battle scarred in the service of the Demon Queen of Ruin. Many wear the broken holy symbol of the temples they have ransacked and destroyed.
Bulezau: Graz'zt - Goat horned and hoved females, as all demonic thralls of Graz'zt, are women.
Chasme: Orcus - All chasme in the service of Orcus have puss-filled swollen sores amidst their bodies that spray and splatter their foul ichor and various times.
Dybbuk: Orcus - These monstrosities have the additional ability to Create Undead as per spell of any body they possess, or course they can do this after they leave its possession. Of course, they leave the body and seek refuge in another inhabited corpse. These creatures carry the motif of Orcus somewhere on their natural forms.
Glabrezu: Fraz-Urb'Luu - Fraz-Urb'luu cultivates many of his services from the discarded souls of rakshasas slain in combat by mortals. All of Fraz'Urb-Luu's Glabrezu possesses feline traits and characteristics (I.E. Cat-like eyes, skin stripes, fur, feline teeth, etc.)
Klurichir: Dagon - These demons in the service of Dagon have no wings, but can leap incredible distances and swim at amazing speeds. Gill slits can be found on the neck of this fearsome outsider and their teeth in both mouth are long and slender like that or carnivorous fish.
Lilitu: Fraz-Urb'Luu - Created by Fraz-Urb'Luu himself. These serve as his special agents in destroying mankind. All Lilitu are practiced sorcerers, illusionists, and shadow casters in his employ. Sadly, these creatures have no faces, save a fanged-filled circular maw. They mimic the face of some woman they have recently slain.
Marilith: Baphomet - All have horn protruding from their foreheads or temporal lobes. Scales are fur-covered.
Marilith: Decca - Scars and lashes of pain ring and writhe across their bodies. Their weapons and armaments are cultivated from the fallen heroes, holy champions, and other paladins across the multiverse. Then they are corrupted in secret rituals known only to Decca and her chosen priests.
Maralith: Obox-Ob - Instead of a serpentine lower torso, Maraliths in the service of Obox-Ob have the lower torso of an armored centipede or a scorpion. The female Maraliths are always larger than their male counterparts and their mariliths counterparts in the service of other demon lords.
Maurezhi: Orcus - all maurezhi, regardless of gender, grow all stark white goatees from their chin and their foreheads are sport long curved goat horns to make their allegiance to the Prince of the Undead.
Molydeus: Baphomet - are bull-headed as compared to being wolf-headed. Molydeus have the uncanny ability to navigate mazes, lairs, and obstacle courses with impeccable ease. Some double with the ranger ability to track over any terrains.
Molydeus: Demogorgon - All Molydeus in the service of Demogorgon have three heads. Twin heads of a Baboon-like creature, to indicate they are servants of the Prince of Demons and the third head for which is a snake or other serpentine animal. Almost all serpentine-like heads come from serpents and snakes indigenous to jungles and tropical climates. They are elite warriors in his service and show no mercy to the enemy.
Nalfeshnee: Ahazu - Although large and bloated, the Seizer makes sure his bureaucratic servants are as bat-like as possible. The Wings of a Nalfeshnee are twenty to thirty feet larger than their non-bounded counterparts.
Nalfeshnee: Zuggtmoy - all bureaucrats are crowned with a large singular mushroom ring. Demons, laughingly and erringly called them shroomheads. Nalfeshnee take pride in their service to the Queen of Fungi and often smashed the offender until it is bloodied senseless, or dead.
Sarrowsworn Demon: Pale Night - Ghost-like apparition with portion of its body that can be clearly seen through and other that can not.
Succubus: Baphomet - Have small bovine horns protruding from there foreheads. All have hooves instead of feet and thick hair growing from the length of their shinbones. All are trained warriors
Succubus: Decca - Cracks and fresh lashes cover the entire length of her body. Her palms have fanged mouths and her breath is hot as a forge.
Succubus: Lolth - Jet-black skin, red eyes, and stalk ivory hair. Many succubi of Lolth are profane beauties and appear in elegant spider silk garments that leave little to the imagination. Male Drow who have earned have a Succubus of Lolth at their beck and call earned the gracious favor from the Queen of Spiders.
Succubus: Obox-Ob - Insect like motifs, especially wings and eyes. Mouths are insect-like. Some succubi have tails with stingers-like appendages, or have stingers in their forearms, palms, or tongues.
Succubus: Orcus - Pale skinned, extremely lean to emaciated, gaunt features that can be concealed via illusion or metamorphic magics. All possess vampire fangs and are capable of draining blood. Succubus in the service of Orcus possess a ravenous appetite, especially for the taste of blood and souls
Succubus: Skekolah - All appears as stark white version of their counterparts with solid ice blue eyes. Their hair color ranges from blonde, to platinum blonde, to ivory white. They can produce coiled tentacles from the folds of their own flesh. Their breath is cold as an arctic wind.
Succubus: Zuggtmoy - Illusions of profane beauty hide the fungal scarred rotting appearance of these demonic thralls. Many succubi bound to Zuggtmoy are capable of sporing hallucinogenic spores from their lungs and wings as a defense mechanism. Some are capable of yellow or brown mold spores as a parting kiss.