He’s a wizard, the revolver is actually firing shrunken 16 inch HE shells.

HOW DO YOU YELL WITHOUT CAPSLOCK?

The main advantage of early guns wasn’t that they were more powerful, it’s that they were easy to use. You can train someone to fire a gun in a day, while it takes months of training just to get an archer strong enough to draw a bow.

Also the whole “the Europeans were dirty diseased peasants” thing isn’t accurate, and I have to say that IMO the right response to racist depictions of indigenous people as unwashed savages isn’t to just turn around and say “actually the stereotypes are correct it’s just that it’s about the Europeans this time”.

And Indigenous people had more advanced technoglogy than many give them credit for but "The Europeans were technologically behind indigenous people in nearly every way. " is just blatantly wrong.

I do think you’re right though that without smallpox and other diseases the Europeans wouldn’t have colonised the Americas, though there were several other major factors in it.

P.S. I’m not a historian, grain of salt, etc.

Oh neat. I watched the anime version a while ago, but I didn’t read the original. If I ever get back into the series I’ll check your community out.

ONE OF US! ONE OF US! ONE OF US!

The technology behind it isn’t new, but The Thought Emporium is a Youtuber who:

1: DIY-d a genetically modified virus to cure his own lactose intolerance (successfully)

2: Is currently working on a biological computer that runs on animal neurons.

3: Has livestreams where the viewers submit ideas (like making tomatoes spicy) and he designs DNA to accomplish it.

Also he helped shut down a scam health product that contained radioactive material which isn’t particularly futuristic (actually it reminds me of the “radiation is good for you” craze in the early 20th century) but I wanted to mention it anyways.

Cool, where did you find all those pixellated icons?

The contrast between the super slick minimalistic icons and the bright green Duolingo owl is absolutely hilarious.

I’ve never used Duolingo, what’s that widget for?

But you could be fire!

You can get the Basic Rules online for free, which are enough to get started. If you want to get deeper into D&D though you’ll have to buy the Player’s Handbook, and probably also Tasha’s Cauldron and Xanathar’s Guide.

Then you should figure out if you want to play online or in-person. It’s much easier to find people to play with online but they don’t have the “vibe” of in-person games.

To find a group, there are several Discord servers, including the official one; there’s also r/LFG, though I’m not sure if they’re participating in the blackout or not; and you can look on Roll20 for online games, though from what I’ve heard that’s not a good option. For in-person games I can’t really help you.

If you’re going to play online, you’ll have to pick a VTT- virtual table top. Roll20 is the most popular one, and is quite simple. Foundry is the best one, but costs money. I don’t know much about the rest.

I think that for a beginner, a “one-shot” is a good way to learn the game. Basically a one-shot is an adventure that you’re supposed to finish in one session, instead of a campaign that might take dozens of sessions over months. It lets you dip your toes in without too much commitment. I’m part of this discord server for one-shots that is pretty good.

Also, consider that D&D is far from the only TTRPG (Table Top RolePlaying Game) system out there. Pathfinder 2E is the main competitor to D&D, it’s a pretty similar D20 based system, but it’s rules are more comprehensive and it’s run by a much better company (D&D’s parent company has done a lot of shady shit, including charging 3rd party creators ridiculously high royalty fees, mistreating their staff, and sending Pinkerton mercenaries to threaten a Youtuber who leaked a new expansion.)

Oh and also all the rules for PF2 are available completely for free with no strings attatched on Archive of Nethys.

You can create communities on instances other than Beehaw. Beehaw has some restrictions which include not being able to downvote and not being able to make new communities, so yeah it’s an intentional decision on their part.