No, said Aziraphale, it's ineffable.

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OSR: 1d50 Discount Spells

The names of these spells were generated by Janelle Shane 's very strange neural network . They are bargain-basement spells, the masterpiece...

“ 33. Stone of Death
R: touch T: self D: [sum] minutes
A grey stone skull the size of a walnut appears in your hand. If anyone voluntarily accepts the stone from you into their outstretched hand, they die. No Save. The stone will try and prevent this by any or all of the following methods:
1. Shouting “I am the Stone of Death. If you touch me you will die!” and other similar statements. The stone speaks all languages and can make animal alarm cries. It will contradict the caster’s lies.
2. Shaking violently, glowing an ominous red colour, pulsing, hissing, or twitching.
3. Emitting a noxious smell or a bone-chilling gust of air.
4. Any other amusing method the GM decides the stone can perform. It cannot fly, move significantly, or transform. “

ah ha ha this list, i am crying :’D

Enjoy this wild localization for the Switch’s Mystery Dungeon-style roguelike ⊟

It’s easy to miss what’s released on the Switch eShop with publishers putting out so many games on the platform lately! For instance, we received at least two old-school, turn-based, dungeon-crawling roguelike games in December, including the one shown above, DragonFangZ - The Rose & Dungeon of Time (the other is Yodanji, which looks oldddddddddd old-school).

I would’ve missed this one if NintenDaan and Gerjet hadn’t uploaded a half-hour of gameplay for Toydea’s DragonFangZ:

Yeah, the English translation makes some interesting choices here (instead of invisible potions, we have transparent potions, for example). Publishers, holler at us if you want your scripts punched up :P

If you want a traditional roguelike experience in the same vein as Shiren or the other Mystery Dungeon games, and if you don’t have a PS Vita that you can just play Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate on, pick up DragonFangZ for $24.99 on the Switch eShop.

Ten new applications for neural networks

lewisandquark

Neural networks are machine learning algorithms that are very good at solving tough problems - they’re used for language translation, facial recognition, and financial management. I, however, have been training them on silly datasets.

Here are some of my favorite experiments from the last year.

Naming guinea pigs

In a possible first for the field of machine learning, a neural network named rescue guinea pigs for the Portland Guinea Pig Rescue and Morris Animal Refuge. Some of the names they used, and some of them they did not.

Popchop
Fuzzable
Spockers
Trickles
Farter

Then I mixed the guinea pig names with the names of death metal bands, and got names such as:

Death Snifs
Fuzzy Night
Dark Darn

Naming kittens

Not to be outdone by the guinea pigs, AFK Cat Rescue of Huntsville, Alabama asked me to name some rescue kittens. Some of the names were great, and others not so much:

Mr. Tinkles
Retchion
Pish
Toot

Inventing magic spells

I trained a neural network twice on Dungeons and Dragons spells, and once on spells from Harry Potter. See if you can figure out which list is which.

Chorus of the dave
Song of the doom goom
Barking Sphere
Gland Growth
Hold Mouse

Hurder-gerping Charm
Regrowing hair to curse of the Bogies
Brechaim hedbivicus Doobers Spell
Fubbledory Charm
Squggly-wing fart

And please read these hilarious descriptions of neural network D&D spells.

Naming beers

The craft beer industry is running short on names, and expensive lawsuits result when two breweries use the same name. Now we have many more.

Dang River
Yamquak
Borb!
Snot Beard
Pimperdiginistic the Blacksmith with Cherry

And now there’s a real beer, first ever named by neural network: The Fine Stranger

Naming your next band

It helps if you like sharks.

Shark Gordon
The Shark Singers
The Shark Charles
Tony Shark

Or if you’re a metal band, there’s a special list just for you.

Inhuman Sand
Chaosrug
Stormgarden
Staggabash
Sun Damage Omen

Curing writer’s block

Need a title for your story?

Under the Daleks
Pirates: A Fight Dance Story
Batman and Flancles: The Fun Tree
The Star Wars: The Santa Contact
American Midnight: Swear Dragon

Or need a way to start it?

“I am forced to write to my neighbors about the beast.”
Her mother was packing by the black anthill.
The sun was probably for his wife.
Stop! I caused the Narguuse man who was new on Alabama, the screaming constipated eggs.

Assassination plots

It’s a really bad idea to follow the neural network’s cooking advice. Its cake recipes will also not result in cake.

1 cup cherry seeds
42 cup milk
Preheat oven to 3500 8 minutes.
Sprout clams; add vanilla.

Choosing your next Halloween costume

Fairy Batman? Sexy Pumpkin Pirate? Princess Shark? Professor Panda?

You may be the only one dressed this way at your next Halloween party.

Inventing new ponies

I trained a neural network to invent new My Little Ponies, but not all of them were presentable.

Raspberry Turd
Derdy Star
Starly Star
Blue Cuss

Inventing new paint colors

I trained a neural network to generate paint colors and name them. Then, with a larger dataset, I tried again and it did a bit better. But you may not see these as the next color of the year: