Best printers for Home

Best Mixer Grinder

Best wired Earphones

Best 43 Inch TV in India

Best Wi Fi Routers

Best Home Theatre in India

Smart Watch under 5000

Best Laptops for Education

Best Laptop for Students

<ul class="summary-list"><li>My family recently visited <keyword id="20054308" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="Ireland" source="keywords">Ireland</keyword> to celebrate my son's third birthday.</li><li>It's the perfect country to visit with a toddler.</li></ul>Many families dream of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/best-places-to-go-in-europe-travel-planner-favorite-destinations-2024-10">traveling around Europe</a> because it's a great continent for kids. I've been to every country in Europe (except Russia), and in my opinion, one of these countries provides the ideal destination for toddlers: Ireland. I recently went with my own 3-year-old, and we had an amazing time.<br /><br />As soon as our ferry docked in Dublin, my son seemed amazed. My partner and I organized the trip to celebrate his third birthday, and I shouldn't have been surprised he was enjoying himself, as nowhere is quite as magical as Ireland.<br /><br />    <div type="image" title="Jennifer Sizeland's son running on a beach in Ireland." height="1536" width="2048" msid="114281848" hostid="261"></div><h2>The coast acts as a wonderful base for a family trip</h2>An <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/best-under-the-radar-places-in-ireland-2022-4">ideal way to see Ireland</a> as a family is to stay in a cottage or caravan near the coast, which can act as your base for exploring the surrounding areas by car, bike, or <keyword id="19919009" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="public-transport" source="keywords">public transport</keyword>. This was what we decided to do and was a great choice; Ireland's roads are quieter than much of the rest of Europe, as it is sparsely populated, aside from its main cities. Even though you should take the usual precautions, it felt safe and people are very welcoming, especially to children.<br /><br />If you want to learn about Ireland's tangible history without the kids getting bored, there are so many beautifully preserved castles and estates with sprawling gardens to get lost in. The famous <keyword id="23623420" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Blarney-Castle" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Blarney Castle" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="Blarney Castle">Blarney Castle</keyword> (home of the Blarney stone) is especially intriguing with a rock close, a poison garden, and a waterfall all hidden around its vast grounds.<br /><br />My son enjoyed playing hide-and-seek among the vast avenues adorned with sculptures and giant plants. There is also the John F. Kennedy Arboretum, a huge parkland and tree collection dedicated to the former president.<br /><br />    <div type="image" title="Jennifer Sizeland's son running in a marsh in Ireland, the sky is cloudy and blue." height="2213" width="2950" msid="114281854" hostid="261"></div><h2>Public transportation is great in Ireland, and wildlife is everywhere</h2>There are many ways to explore Ireland with its excellent <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/taking-public-transportation-solo-backpacking-europe-2023-9">public transport system</a>, which includes buses, trams, ferries, boats, and trains that little ones will love riding. If you want to extend your overland trip, you can take ferries from the east and southern coasts of Ireland to France, England, Wales, and the Isle of Man to avoid the hassle of flying. You might even see a dolphin or a whale in the Irish Sea if you're lucky.<br /><br />Seals also haul out on the beaches and rocks along the coast, so it's fun to try to spot them. My son loved visiting the Seal Rescue Center in County Wexford, where we saw baby seals being nursed back to health. The abundance of countryside means that there is wildlife everywhere, including seabirds, deer, and otters.<br /><br /><h2>It's not hard to get food for even the pickiest eaters</h2>It also means that there are plenty of farms, so it's easy to find fresh local produce wherever you go. While my <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/your-kids-may-not-grow-out-of-picky-eaters-study-2020-5">toddler is a picky eater</a>, the basics in Ireland, like bread, butter, and meat, are all delicious, and he loved the sandwiches and stews.<br /><br />As sustainability is also important there, many towns and cities have zero-waste stores and discounts for people who bring their own coffee cups. Much like any parent with a young child, I'm trying to leave a better world for him, which was much easier to do in Ireland than most places I've visited.<br /><br /><h2>There's just something magical about the country</h2>While these are all reasons enough to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/long-flight-with-toddlers-snacks-entertainment-2024-2">visit Ireland with a toddler</a>, perhaps the best incentive is the mythology behind this emerald isle. From fairies to leprechauns, there is a tale to capture the imagination of every child. The books about mermaids were a particular hit with mine.<br /><br />Museums, visitor centers, and gift shops often sell storybooks, postcards, toys, and trinkets that bring these legends to life in a way that children can bring home with them. There are so many waterfalls, toadstools, coves, and fairy pools to discover all around the country that even as an adult, I believe the stories to be true.<br /><br /><em>Correction: October 16, 2024</em><strong><em> </em></strong><em>— An earlier version of this story misstated where the ferries depart from. They are available on the east and southern coasts, not the west coast.</em><br />

I've traveled to 86 countries and Ireland is the best place I've visited to bring a toddler on vacation

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Critical Role recently released "Candela Obscura," a gothic horror roleplaying game.</li><li>At the helm of the game's new live-play iteration is main cast member Liam O'Brien.</li></ul><p class="p1">In October, Critical Role, a crew of eight self-professed "nerdy-ass voice actors," played their long-running "Dungeons &amp; Dragons" game at a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/critical-role-wembley-live-show-nerd-heaven-2023-10">sold-out Wembley Arena</a>.</p><p class="p1">So talking to Liam O'Brien, one of the eight cofounders of Critical Role, feels a lot like sitting across from the nerd world version of a One Direction member. If the gang's regular game master Matthew Mercer is their bright-eyed band leader, think of O'Brien as the brooding, poetic one — the one who writes the sad songs that'll break your heart.</p><p class="p1">These qualities make O'Brien ideal for stepping into the game master role for "Candela Obscura," Critical Role's new gothic horror game, and he's leaning hard into the tragedy.</p><p class="p1">"I think I've gotten myself a reputation in our company for being good with the bizarre and the horrific, and I've been looking forward to this," O'Brien said.</p><p class="p1">It's also one of the more punishing gaming systems he's played in, O'Brien told me during our video call. That made for some "pretty brutal, and pretty perfect" moments in-game, he says, especially because he was trying very hard to kill his players — though that hasn't happened in-game. <em>Yet.</em></p><p class="p1">And while Critical Role's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/twitch-channel-critical-role-was-top-earning-channel-in-leak-2021-10">1.3 million fans on Twitch</a> have watched them stream their games live for over 1,300 hours, "Candela Obscura" bears little resemblance to "D&amp;D," <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/critical-role-dungeons-dragons-sold-out-live-show-wembley-arena-2023-9">the game that made them nerd-famous</a>.</p><p class="p1">Released in November by the company's publishing arm, Darrington Press, Candela Obscura is set in the Fairelands, a fantasy world similar to post-WWI Europe, with the trappings of eldritch horror, art nouveau, and Victorian-era aesthetics and symbolism. Picture a Victorian "X-Files," or "Ghostbusters" if it was set during the Great Depression.</p><p class="p1">Instead of rolling 20-sided dice and casting reality-bending spells as they would in "D&amp;D," player-characters are<em> </em>far from superhuman. Each adventuring party comprises human investigators trying to solve mysteries and unravel nefarious plots. And every failed gambit results in player-characters taking wounds and racking up scars — with a tragic death awaiting anyone who tangles too long with darkness.</p><p class="p1">O'Brien has spent most of his time in "D&amp;D" games as a player — a budding adventurer on a hero's journey. Mercer, the team's designated game master, is the one who crafts the narrative and controls how the story develops.</p><p class="p1">Now, O'Brien is taking his turn in the game master chair, and getting to unleash his inner chaos gremlin on the cast's Twitch stream.</p><p class="p1">"This is just a fun playground to be in," O'Brien said. "With all the games we play, I really like characters that are stuck between a rock and a hard place because it makes interesting things happen."</p><h2>Make it Victorian</h2><p>With the "Circle of the Crimson Mirror" — the latest chapter in Critical Role's live-play broadcasts — O'Brien got to wreak some havoc as game master and push his players to the limits of fear.</p><p class="p1">While the main cast of Critical Role usually hangs out around the table in T-shirts and hoodies on Thursday night, the live-action role-play version of "Candela Obscura" looks more like a full-scale theater production. O'Brien's four players — Taliesin Jaffe, Imari Williams, Aimee Carrero, and Alexander Ward — are in full costume.</p><div type="image" title="An on-set photo of the cast of the latest installment of Critical Role's Candela Obscura — Liam O'Brien, Imari Williams, Taliesin Jaffe, Alexander Ward, and Aimee Carrero." height="900" width="1200" msid="109147615" hostid="261"></div><p class="p1">"This game of 'Candela' is unlike anything I've ever done before because it's so involved," O'Brien told me, crediting the production crew who helped piece the set together. "Everyone is roleplaying as a Victorian at the table, the set, the lighting — it's like weaving magic around us."</p><p class="p1">The first episode of the three-part series on February 29 involved a maritime sojourn to an island that O'Brien says was inspired, in part, by his trips to Ireland.</p><p class="p1">The second episode, which aired on March 28, saw O'Brien drawing on his experience as a young actor in the New York theater circuit, with threads of inspiration ranging from Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" to the work of the Irish playwright Martin McDonagh.</p><p class="p1">"You can find the monstrous both in the literal monstrous in these stories, but also, we're exploring the nature of humanity and our deep, deep flaws — and the things that we will do for power," he added.</p><div type="image" title="An on-set photo of Critical Role's Liam O'Brien. He's wearing a dark green Cardigan and a striped, button-down shirt." height="810" width="1080" msid="109147616" hostid="261"></div><p class="p1">As for the last installment of the "Crimson Mirror" series scheduled to air on April 25, O'Brien said things are about to get intense.</p><p class="p1">"I always prefer complicated narratively satisfying endings to a neat little happy ending," O'Brien told me.</p><p class="p1">"I went into this game with a mindset of how I would run it," he added. "But the characters surprised me, and the story we ended up telling is not where I saw things going — and I think it's all the better for it."</p><h2>The long game</h2><p>Spenser Starke and Rowan Hall, the lead designers and cowriters of the "Candela Obscura" game at Darrington Press, told me they worked on the rulebook for 11 months, writing the lore and ironing out the game mechanics with multiple rounds of playtesting. Since August, multiple game masters — including Mercer, Starke, and Aabria Iyengar of "Dimension 20" fame — have run their iterations of "Candela Obscura" and helped flesh out the game's background lore.</p><p>"We wanted to make 'Candela Obscura' accessible to pick up for people, from experienced players to those who have never played role-playing games before," Starke said.</p><div type="image" title="A wide angle shot of the basic and deluxe editions of the &quot;Candela Obscura&quot; core rulebook." height="1499" width="2000" msid="109147618" hostid="261"></div><p>He said "Candela Obscura" is best described as an investigative paranormal horror game based on simple mechanics. People who want to play the game don't have to memorize "200 pages of<strong> </strong>lore," he explained.</p><p class="p2">"It's designed as a scaffolding rather than an entire metropolis," he told me. "It is a place where you can get the bones of what you need to be able to make the game work for your table, have enough of a foundation that you know where you are, what things look like, and that you can build your play space with your group collaboratively."</p><div type="image" title="A snapshot of the &quot;Candela Obscura&quot; core rulebook, showing a map of a part of the Fairelands, the world the game is set in." height="1499" width="2000" msid="109147619" hostid="261"></div><p>Hall, who wrote the mythology and lore for "Candela Obscura," said she thought of the rulebook as an ode to Mary Shelley and "Frankenstein," and their take on a world where regular people can "face the demons of this world, and make a difference."</p><p class="p2">"This game is very unlike games where you're leveling up to God mode," Hall added. "The longer you play, the more likely you are to die. And so it is a story about regular people facing insurmountable odds and choosing to get up and face them again every day."</p><h2>A different kind of fun</h2><p class="p1">Critical Role is certainly about telling big stories, but it's also about the big gaming business. The company is now a key part of a larger industry where major players like Hasbro's Wizards of the Coast rake in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.wargamer.com/dnd/wizards-of-the-coast-hasbro-revenue-q3-2023">hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue from tabletop gaming</a>.</p><p class="p1">Now, the Critical Role team is angling for a big chunk of that pie, and building <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/critical-role-launches-daggerheart-disruptor-dungeons-and-dragons-2024-3">a gaming and animation business empire that should make Hasbro very afraid</a>.</p><p class="p1">The team is juggling the "Candela Obscura" rollout, an open beta for their new game "Daggerheart," and not one <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUZv9PdfpzE">but two</a> Amazon-backed animated series based on their "D&amp;D" campaigns. The 2019 Kickstarter campaign to create their animated series <a target="_blank" href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/criticalrole/critical-role-the-legend-of-vox-machina-animated-s">raised more than $11.3 million</a>, a fundraising run so successful it <a target="_blank" href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/6/20952407/amazon-critical-role-animated-show-prime-exclusive-vox-machina-twitch">compelled Amazon to back them</a>.</p><div type="image" title="The cast of Critical Role" height="1280" width="1920" msid="109147620" hostid="261"></div><p class="p1">I asked O'Brien why he thinks the fan base remains so invested in their work.</p><p class="p1">"At the start of CR, we just gave a very simple way for many people to see how much fun sitting at a table and playing 'Dungeons and Dragons' is," he said.</p><p class="p1">But there are so many ways of enjoying games, not just "the Critical Role way," he added. And what his crew wants to continue doing is to "make things that we love, in the hopes that other people will love it."</p><p class="p1">"We're using some of our own systems now," he said. "And we're showing people a different kind of fun."</p>

Critical Role's heartbreak prince helped make 'Dungeons & Dragons' cool. Now he's coming for the gothic horror gaming scene.

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/179/colorful-colossuses-and-changing-hues/?category=planets_saturn">NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute</a></span></p><p class="caption">Saturn's largest moon, Titan, passes the planet undergoing seasonal changes in this natural color view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>Twenty new <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ocean-saturn-moon-enceladus-building-blocks-life-amino-acids-2019-10">moons orbiting Saturn</a> were discovered, bringing the planet's total up to 82 moons.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/saturn">Saturn</a> now has more <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/methane-lakes-saturn-moon-titan-explosions-2019-9">moons</a> than any other planet in the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/planet-9-ancient-black-hole-orbiting-sun-2019-9">solar system,</a> including <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/jupiter">Jupiter,</a> which has 79.</li><li>Further study of the new <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/video-moon-drifts-away-earth-4-billion-years-2019-9">moons</a> could help determine how the planet's outermost moons may have <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/saturn-moons-formed-100-million-years-ago-2016-3">formed</a> from collisions that fragmented large moons into smaller bodies.</li><li>People can submit suggestions for the new moons' names on Twitter, pulling from Norse, Inuit, and Gallic <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/mythology">mythology</a>.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul><p>Saturn has unseated Jupiter as the solar system's most moon-bearing planet, the Carnegie Institution for <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">Science</keyword> <a href="https://carnegiescience.edu/news/saturn-surpasses-jupiter-after-discovery-20-new-moons-and-you-can-help-name-them">announced</a> on Monday. </p><p>Scientists discovered 20 previously unknown moons orbiting Saturn, which gives Saturn a grand total of 82 moons, flying past Jupiter's 79. </p><p>The discovery unlocks a trove of possible new hints at how Saturn and its moons became what they are today.</p><p>"Using some of the largest telescopes in the world, we are now completing the inventory of small moons around the giant planets," Scott Sheppard, a Carnegie astronomer who led the discovery team, said in a press release. "They play a crucial role in helping us determine how our solar system's planets formed and evolved."</p><p>Each of the newly discovered moons is about 3 miles (5 kilometers) in diameter, and 17 of them orbit in retrograde, or in the opposite direction of Saturn's rotation. One of them is now the farthest known moon from Saturn.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://carnegiescience.edu/news/saturn-surpasses-jupiter-after-discovery-20-new-moons-and-you-can-help-name-them">Illustration courtesy of the Carnegie Institution for Science; Saturn image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute; Starry background courtesy of Paolo Sartorio/Shutterstock</a></span></p><p class="caption">An artist's conception of the 20 newly discovered moons orbiting Saturn.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The discoveries join three groups of Saturn's outer moons, clustered by the angles at which they orbit the planet. The retrograde moons join the Norse group (all named after Norse mythology), while two others join the Inuit group (named for Inuit mythology), and the final moon goes with the Gallic group (again, mythology). </p><p>Scientists think each of those groups may have come from a larger moon that broke apart into smaller bodies.</p><p>"This kind of grouping of outer moons is also seen around Jupiter, indicating violent collisions occurred between moons in the Saturnian system or with outside objects such as passing asteroids or comets," Sheppard said.</p><p>The new Gallic moon orbits much farther away than its companions though, suggested that something has pulled it outward, or that it didn't come from the same collision as the other moons at all.</p><p>Further study can help determine what sort of collisions created the groupings we see today, and what the conditions around Saturn looked like at the time.</p><h2>Scientists discovered them. You name them.</h2><p>The researchers observed the new moons with the Subaru telescope atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. They could watch the moons orbiting Saturn, as in the below animation Sheppard made using images taken one hour apart by the Subaru telescope. The previously unknown moon (highlighted by orange bars) moves against a backdrop of stars and galaxies that appear still because of their distance.</p><p> </p><p>Following the discovery of more moons orbiting Jupiter last year, Sheppard and the Carnegie Institution held an online competition to name them. They're taking the same approach with this new group of moons.</p><p>"I was so thrilled with the amount of public engagement over the Jupiter moon-naming contest that we've decided to do another one to name these newly discovered Saturnian moons," Sheppard said. "This time, the moons must be named after giants from Norse, Gallic, or Inuit mythology."</p><p>People have already started sharing their name ideas on Twitter. American Mensa, an organization for people who score in the top 2 percent on the standardized intelligence test, <a href="https://twitter.com/AmericanMensa/status/1181234711345147905">suggested</a> the name "Moony McMoonface" in reference to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/boaty-mcboatface-climate-change-discovery-maiden-voyage-2019-6">an online submarine-naming competition gone gloriously wrong,</a> but given the criteria, that probably won't happen.</p><p>Others suggested names along Sheppard's guidelines, including the hunter-warrior <a href="https://twitter.com/niemontal/status/1181242974140878852">Fionn</a> from Irish lore and <a href="https://twitter.com/cerrit_us/status/1181252000945786881">Sila</a>, the Inuit god believed to govern life and breath.</p><p>To <a href="https://carnegiescience.edu/NameSaturnsMoons">submit</a> your suggestion, tweet it to @SaturnLunacy with the hashtag #NameSaturnsMoons.</p><ul class="read-more-links"><li><strong>Read more:</strong></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/nasa-steph-curry-moon-landing-comment-2018-12">NASA offers to show Stephen Curry moon rocks after he said he doesn't believe in the moon landing</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/china-wants-to-build-a-fake-moon-to-light-up-the-city-streets-2018-10">China wants to build a fake moon 'eight times brighter than the real moon' to illuminate city streets</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-colonize-moon-2019-6">Jeff Bezos explains why he's trying to colonize the moon: 'We need to go to the moon to save the Earth'</a></li></ul><p> </p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-drone-dragonfly-mission-titan-saturn-moon-2019-7">NASA's $1 billion Dragonfly drone mission will look for signs of life on Saturn's moon</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

You Searched For "Irish mythology" and got 6 results

I've traveled to 86 countries and Ireland is the best place I've visited to bring a toddler on vacation

Jennifer Sizeland

Critical Role's heartbreak prince helped make 'Dungeons & Dragons' cool. Now he's coming for the gothic horror gaming scene.

Cheryl Teh

20 new moons were just discovered orbiting Saturn, and you can help name them

Morgan McFall-Johnsen

Six months into the Ukraine war, Russia's film industry is on life support

Jason Corcoran

Here's The Original Meaning Of 100 Common English Names

Hayley Hudson

49. Making Nathan's Famous

Julia Press,Charlie Herman,Sa…

Popular Keywords

Buying Guides