Midnight Muscadines: Twilight Snuggle

Yesterday we played a game of Midnight Muscadines, having finished out foray into Shadowrun. Let's jam!

(That's very funny if you know anything about this game. You can learn more here. It's pretty cool.)

We open at the Halfway Inn, a cozy little teahouse kind of thing. Five folks are around the table for some patisserie:

• Opal is a duskywhim (moth-like person) songheart, and a member of the Storycloak Guild. Of course, like all duskywhims, they don't really talk, but can play music on a lute-like stringed instrument. They also have a habit of staring at...everything. If they blink they might not see something!
• Torneko is a tatterling (mysterious hooded figure with button eyes; might be a walking teddy bear, we don't know) rookwright and one of the Cloud Coven. She has a small, mechanical creature with her called Bobbin. She also has a habit of falling asleep at inopportune times, meaning Bobbin acts as an alarm clock as much as anything.
• Timbertrod is a woadling (a plant-person) honeywarden of the Verdengarde. Timbertrod has a colony of bees living in their body (basically a walking tree, it's cool, there's room), and extracts honey to trade and give out. Their bees buzz in warning when something bad is about to happen, which is handy.
• Cinderspark Sooter is a patchfolk (basically a big, bipedal raccoon-person) wanderlustian of the Meadowlarch, and as such is an expert negotiator and trader. She also has a habit of compulsively apologizing for everything. She wears a smart coat and a hat with a nifty little tassel.
• Trill is a murmuren (weird furry-frog creature) wildergarde and member of The Fieldhouse. Trill (not his real name; his real name is unpronounceable to most other folk) is most at home among animals, and takes care of the shop night cat and the brindlehowls and mossbacks and so on that live in the area. He has no qualms whatever about stealing from people, since people take from the world all the time.

The Master Pâtissier Beulah Crumb emerges and gives these folks an assortment of pastries and scones to try out (they're delicious), but is clearly fretting. It seems that the noted food critic Nibella McQuaff is going to be here soon, but the shipment of ingredients that the Meadowlarch was meant to deliver hasn't come! Beulah needs at least a few days to refine the ingredients and make the pastries, and is just beside herself that she might not be able to. If McQuaff gives them a bad review, it could spell the end of the Inn!

Cinderspark, a Meadowlarch herself, knows the fellow who was meant to be bringing these things, a nimmian (one of the two types of humans here) named Boss Mortimer. Mortimer isn't the sort to be late or to abscond with goods, so something is clearly wrong. There are six crates of ingredients that should have been delivered. Trill asks for a list, which Beulah readily provides, and Cinderspark looks them over. 

(A side note: magic in this setting is centered around jam, and you can make jam out of these ingredients, or mix ingredients to create jam that has an entirely new power! So these ingredients can be pretty valuable.)

The five of them agree to go out and try to go along the route Mortimer was taking and figure out what happened. Beulah says she needs to have everything in no less than seven days, or else she won't have enough time to make what she needs to make. That seems plenty of time! Beulah sets up a huge hourglass on the mantle and flips it, and sand begins slowly falling...

The group gets their adventuring gear together. Opal goes outside and rings their mossback bell, and their mossback, Kudzu (because she gets into everything) comes trudging up. Trill chips at her a bit (and Kudzu is happy to chat a moment), and then everyone heads out along the Twilight Road!

After a bit of travel, the road just...stops. And there's a mountain in the way. There shouldn't be a mountain here. It's just a huge, sheer cliff, stretching up into the night. Trill climbs a tree to look at the stars and orient himself, but yeah, they're in the right place, there's just a mountain here where there wasn't before. It goes for miles in either direction, so their only way forward is up. 

Fortunately, Opal has some Nimbrussle Jam. They spread a bit on a bit of scone and feed it to Kudzu, and Kudzu is weightless! Everyone gets on as she begins to float...but then she begins to freak out and tries to run through the air!

Trill grabs her harness and swings down in front of her (murmurens are small creatures, so this doesn't harm Kudzu), and uses his Balancekeeper's Touch ability, correcting Kudzu's imbalance and mitigating her fear. Problem is, of course, that the imbalance has to go somewhere, and Trill feels muddled. He climbs back on Kudzu's back, lays down and looks up at the stars, peeping to himself. 

The others continue to help Kudzu up. Timbertrod loops a bit of rope around a tree and pulls Kudzu up, while Torneko finds handholds that she might use. Cinderspark finally appeals to Kudzu's better instincts, ties a bit of scone on a line, and uses it to lure her to float upwards to the top (whereupon she munches the scone and starts snuffling around Cinderspark's pack for more). 

And now that we're at the top, what? The Twilight Road appears fragmented, with parts of it looking normal and beaten down, and parts obscured by old growth forest. And there's a weird, glowing cloud, inside of which the characters can see...events? It seems to be night, though, so Trill starts setting up camp. The others look at the cloud, though.

They see the butt of a naked nimmian disappearing into the woods. They see crates getting pulled away, they see chaos and movement...and then one of them touches the cloud, and everything gets very swimmy for a moment...

...and they're back at the Halfway Inn, sitting down for breakfast, and then Beulah rushes in to tell them about her missing ingredients. 

"I think we dreamed this," says Trill, still somewhat muddled. "And now we're doing it for real." The others are just as perplexed, but Torneko consults her watch and the hourglass and realizes that while her watch is keeping "accurate" time (that is, time has passed), as far as when they are now, it's earlier that day. They realize that they'll need to scale the cliff again, but this time at least they know they need to scale the cliff. 

Trill has an idea - there are some marsos in a nearby stable. A marso is a kind of possum/horse creature, good as riding animals, capable of climbing extremely well. 

WHO'S A GOOD MARSO

He slips into the table and chitters at the marsos a bit, explaining that they need to get up a sheer cliff wall and maybe they can climb it? The marsos are thrilled at the idea (they love climbing), and Trill unhitches their stalls and leads them all out silently, making use of his Shadowfawn jam to move silently. Opal, meanwhile, flutters around and plays their instrument, distracting anyone who might be nearby to see the marso heist. 

Timbertrod, before they head out, reaches into the roots and draws out the confusion that's getting in Trill's way, clearing up his mind ("where's my camping gear?"). 

Thus newly equipped, the party heads back out, two of them each on a marso (they leave Kudzu behind, which doesn't thrill Opal, but they have to admit that Kudzu isn't going to want to float back up a cliff). They get to the cliff and the marsos easily make the climb, and now they're back at the weird jumble of road and the glowing time-cloud. Trill tells the marfos to head back to the stable, you know, whenever they feel like it. 

They try and track what happened (avoiding the cloud), and Cinderspark realizes she's standing in a giant footprint. The foot was wearing a shoe (and a darned nice one), and it looks like whatever made these prints chased someone down a path. Another path looks like it was made by a cart; that was probably the Meadowlarch troop coming in, so no point following that. The last one has crates being dragged away. 

The characters follow the first trail, and the woods quickly grow thick and oppressive. And then they notice a long tendril-like thing snaking around the handle of Torneko's weaver blade. Opal notices it first and gets excited, thinking it's a thread they can eat, but no, it's a vine. 

The creeper vines - for that's what they are, semi-sentient plants that steal whatever they wrap up - try to yank the blade away. Opal tries to free it, Trill tries to point out where to cut it, and Torneko tries to pull it free, but it's Cinderspark whacking it with her quill and repeating "LET GO LET GO LET GO" that does it. They continue walking and, looking up, see clothes, boots, and trinkets hanging from vines. (Trill's eyes get big, everyone else reminds him that they have other things to focus on.)

And then they hear yelling, and find Mortimer strung up in vines, naked as a jaybird, calling for help. As they approach, they are confronted by a small creature with wings, riding a glasshare - a pixie! The pixie grandstands a bit, talking about having rightfully stolen Boss Mortimer.

Trill, however, while he's very much OK with stealing things, is not OK with stealing people. He sneaks behind Mortimer (who is hung up on multiple creeper vines), making use of his Shadowfawn jam, and starts cutting the vines with his cutpurse knife. Meanwhile the others keep the pixie, Gilderboots, talking, until finally there's a crash and Mortimer tumbles to the ground. 

Gilderboots makes some grumbly noises, but Trill says that he's rightfully stolen Mortimer, and the pixie sods off on his glasshare. Mortimer gets dressed (and Trill steals everything else that was hanging from the vines) and everyone heads back to the wagon, which Mortimer starts to turn rightways up. He also says that his partner, Rance, is still missing, as are the mossbacks that were pulling the wagon. 

The characters follow another path and, in the distance, see a strangely constructed shack. It just...leans weird. There are people milling around, and a couple of mossbacks. Apparently they've found Rance? 

They talk with Rance (except Torneko, who finds a very comfy bed in the shack and goes down for a nap), and he's clearly confused. He seems to have forgotten...well, who he is, what he's doing here, his mossbacks' names. Trill talks with the mossbacks and learns that they're called Acorn and Butternut, and they don't seem to be missing any memories (not that mossbacks have long memories to begin with; they would very much like to get back to pulling the wagon, which they both enjoy). 

But as they're talking, a figure in ragged clothes approaches (or appears?). Its hands are too long, its voice is soft, and it calls itself Oublie. It offers to help, but wants to bargain, and Opal recognizes it as a "dwindler," a creature that can slowly steal memories from others. 

[There was a pixie named Niceshoes in here, that rode a night cat, but buggered if I can remember what he did during this scene.]

Bargaining, though, is what Cinderspark does. She negotiates with Oublie, offering up an ingredient she's carrying, some of the trinkets that Trill swiped (which Trill reluctantly volunteers), and, best of all, Timbertrod calls up an ancient memory of his race. The stakes are high, though - Cinderspark bargains not only for Rance and the mossbacks, but all of the other people trapped here. Some intense discussions follow, but Oublie eventually accepts the deal, and the characters leave with their prizes (and someone does remember to wake Torneko up). 

They return to Mortimer and reunite him and Rance (though Rance doesn't remember him, but Mortimer is willing to make new memories with him now). They hitch the mossbacks up to the wagon, and follow the path with the crates, hoping to find them intact.

As they approach the end of the path, they hear someone huge weeping. They round the corner and, near the edge of a cliff, they find a...giant pixie? It looks like a pixie, but it's immense, and it's wearing really, really nice shoes. The crates are splayed out around it, and a couple of them have been cracked open. 

They talk with the pixie (whose name is Swankyclogs), and he reveals that he was the smallest of the three brothers and wanted to be bigger. So he ate a couple of those ingredients and now he's too big, and wants to get small again! But not too small. He still wants to be bigger than his brothers. 

The Marmeteers realize that the two crates he ate from were Wikenweed (which pulls dreams into the waking world) and Zephyr's Dew (which can alter reality). Eating those two things together must have brought his dream of being bigger to life, but in an uncontrolled way. Torneko gets him to focus on being the right size, while Trill helps him to think about balance ("not too, not too") while a bit more Zephyr's Dew is applied, and Swankyclogs shrinks to his normal size - maybe a bit bigger? 

He calls up his mount, a sugarnewt named Glucose, and tells the Marmeteers to get these crates out of here; he doesn't trust them. At last the characters have everything put together, but what they don't have is enough time to get everything back. And how would they get the wagon down the cliff, anyway?

"We lick the cloud," says Trill. Gather everything together and make use of the time loop. They gather everything up, all hold hands, and...lick.

The character's gather round the table for breakfast pastries, only now there are two very perplexed mossbacks and a bunch of crates with them! Beulah has her ingredients, and is able to make the pastries for Nibella McQuaff! 

The reviews are positive, though not exactly glowing. This only spurs Beulah, in the way of a true artist, to try harder in future, and the story of the Halfway Inn continues. 

Shadowrun: Of Course You Know, This Means War

 (guest post by Michelle)

Wednesday morning arrives, and our group wakes up late after crashing the night before. Val (formerly Cleo) takes off to go check in on her place and make sure no one’s hocked her stuff, after imparting everything she can remember about the abandoned warehouse in the Barrens where the war council is supposed to take place. Coil and Kombucha get some blueprints of the place and set about making a plan with the rest of the group for how to approach the event. Hocus heads over in early afternoon to get some astral recon in, and what he sees is basically an empty warehouse with fenced yard around it and a gate, and a couple of nonmagical guards hanging around the door. There’s a main section that’s a huge warehouse/truck loading area, and then an office side that’s only one story high, sort of built onto the side of the main space.

After some discussion, the team decides to get a couple people in position a little bit before the event, and then spends the day doing upkeep, maintenance, and generally getting ready. The other thing that gets noted is that the commentary on the “Ripper” means that Griffin, the missing street hitter, is likely running a Jack the Ripper chip (a bad idea no matter who is running it) and is probably linked to the dead, cut-up hookers being left on street corners in the Barrens in the last two weeks.

A little detective work on the part of the team, combined with running the local Lone Star police blotter feed records, yields a 15 block radius in the Barrens, just northwest of the main inhabited/business area of the Barrens, down toward Bellevue. Looking over things, the team decides that the best way to get Griffin’s attention is to use one of their own as bait. Since Cappy’s the prettiest, they decide to dress Cappy up after the war council in some of Kombucha’s clubwear and set up  an ambush. First, though, the war council and Khan/Cooperman have to get taken down.

So after they pick up some dinner on the way out to the council in the Gorpmobile, Kombucha parks a few blocks away and sends in his drones. Hocus and Coil sneak into the yard and climb up on top of the warehouse so they can peek in one of the skylights. There’s a skeleton crew of Blood Ragers there, getting the place ready. Inside, there’s a table set up with a couple kegs of beer, some chips, and a bowl of candy – it’s all giving big “con hospitality suite” vibes. The rest of the group waits, and then five after 8, everyone arrives at once (in the way of gang war councils). There’s like a parade of gang colors, each with a leader and a small entourage and bannerman driving up and being let in, one group at a time. They each take their place in the yard, forming up around various burn barrels. Eight different groups show up, followed at the end by Cooperman surrounded by a contingent of Blood Ragers and flanked by two women acting as bodyguards. Each of the gangs has a clear leader along with a single second/bodyguard – they all go inside, accompanied by Cooperman and his two guards. The rest of the gangers start milling about outside, more or less civil if not exactly social.

As the initial refreshments and festivities get kicked off, Diablo sneaks in, dressed in plain black leathers, to ostensibly sell some “party favors” to the gangers. He knows a couple of them, so they nod him in and he makes a quick sale for cover. He eventually sneaks closer to the building until he’s standing by the window with a clear shot inside as needed, letting everything else move around him and all the others forget he’s there.

Not too longer after he gets in place, Cappy comes over the side fence, offering booze to the group in front of the gate in an effort to get them out of the way . Kombucha has his drone Bad Harry around the very back of the building, out of sight, start playing some music. Cappy says that the booze is courtesy of the Khan, and he’s just charming enough that the gangers fall for it, moving out of the way.

Meanwhile, inside the building, Cooperman has taken his place on the podium inside the building. The two bodyguards flank him, one on either side, and a quick scan tells Hocus that they’re both street mages. This prospect didn’t get impossible, but it’s not going to be the cakewalk that Val was. Still, nothing’s going to make it better. One of them casts a spell – Detect Enemies, but between Hocus and Coil, they manage to make their Will saves so that the spell doesn’t detect them, and none of the rest of the team is in potential line of sight.

Hocus casts a manaball, but it doesn’t do much to the mages (works decently on the other gang leaders, though) and people scatter. His air elemental swoops down and tries to smother Cooperman, but the mages are defending him, so he has a chance to fight it off. Diablo draws out his bow and aims at one of the mages, skewering her quite effectively before she can do anything to interfere. Coil keeps an eye out for trouble and bodyguards Hocus, taking shots at the gang leaders below, while Cappy starts hoofing it back over the wall and to the van after locking the gate behind him, to slow down pursuit.

The second mage throws up an Armor spell and gives up her attention to defending Cooperman. Again, though, Diablo goes early and often, and manages to put an arrow in her eye well before anyone even knows where they came from, shooting through the window as he is. Hocus stenches the rest of the leaders inside, drooping a bit from spell drain, and the air elemental manages to incapacitate Cooperman and whisk him out through a window, showering glass on the ground.

And of course, someone outside yells, “it’s a trap!” not knowing what’s going on, and the fragile truce that was holding for at least the duration of the meeting is broken, and everyone starts attacking everyone else, running for cover and generally making bad decisions. Someone’s going to come out on top, but it’s not going to be Cooperman at this point.

The air elemental rushes Cooperman back to the Gorpmobile and drops him through the roof hatch. Coil jumps off the roof and heads over the wall, while Hocus levitates off the roof to the street. Diablo manages to Kool-Aid man his way through the closest fence and everyone gets picked up by the van at the end of the street, with Kombucha driving off like crazy and manages to get away in the confusion.

While Kombucha is driving, Hocus looks for the chip in Cooperman’s datajack. He sees it, looks it over, and pulls it out. In the process, however, something sparks hard, there’s a terrible smell of burnt flesh, and Cooperman convulses. Hocus tries to heal him, but Cooperman’s dead and the chip is zorched. Once they’re far enough away, they pull over and Kombucha pulls out his tools, taking a run at fixing the chip. Coil took a look first, but he’s more of a coder than an electrician. Kombucha’s all about the hardware, though, and manages to clean up and mostly repair (or at least confirm it’s accessible) the chip’s data.

The team grabs a quick moment of respite and some snacks, dumping Cooperman’s body along the way. Cappy gets changed into his outfit and they drive up to an abandoned, partially burnt-out old truck stop over by the highway that’s within the area. There’s a working streetlight and some smaller buildings around to give some cover. The group sets up – Kombucha pulls the van around out of sight, and his spider drone Edith Piaf takes a ride in Cappy’s beard. Diablo goes up on the roof of the main building and lays down with a gun, acting as oversight. Coil goes inside the building and covers Cappy, while Hocus is in a secondary building waiting to set his fire elemental on Griffin as needed. A couple of people stop – this area’s rep as a “rest stop” is well known, apparently; the regulars who work this spot have the sense to take some time off so as to avoid getting slashed up, which means the coast is clear. Both are sent on their way by Cappy. Finally, a black sedan pulls up and a man gets out, wearing all black, with glowing yellow cybereyes in the misty evening air.

He asks for directions, mentioning the weather, and offers a moment out of the rain in his car. Over comms, Coil confirms that this guy is Griffin, and Cappy plays it a little coy. He talks money and gets closer, and then Griffin flexes and his hand razors come out. Luckily, no one is surprised, and the whole team comes to Cappy’s rescue. Griffin/Jack is snarling and cursing as he attacks Cappy, determined to do some up close slashing damage. It doesn’t take long to put him down, though Cappy only evades the first couple attacks by the skin of his teeth. Diablo and Coil shoot and put Griffin down, proving that sheer fuckery is really no defense against a couple of well-placed bullets.

With Griffin shot and down, Coil this time goes to remove the chip, and nothing seems to go wrong. Griffin gets dropped at a doc shop given that he did try to help Freya, and the kills weren’t really his doing and the team have a little bit of ethical code going on. They call Roxanne and get told to meet her at the Banshee, where she and Urlan take back the chips, as agreed, and pay the team handsomely, as agreed. On the way over, it comes up that no one here feels like making decisions above their paygrade about what people might intend to do with these chips; it’s enough to do the small bit of general good having kept the company in Urlan’s hands and out of Junior/HSE. Shadowrunners aren’t paid for ethical or moral qualms, after all. In the end, everyone starts planning for how to spend/invest their pay, and maybe—just maybe—they’ll work together again in the future.

Movie #985: Sinners

Sinners is a horror movie (but that's really simplifying it) directed by Ryan Coogler and starring Michael B. Jordan, Miles Caton, Jack O'Connell, Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Mosaku, Delroy Lindo, Jayme Lawson, Omar Benson Miller, and Li Jun Li. 

In 19332, the Moore Twins, "Smoke" and "Stack" (both played by Jordan in an Oscar-winning role), return to the Mississippi Delta after serving in the Army and then going to Chicago to work for the Mob (Capone is mentioned, but they were apparently playing both ends against the middle anyway). They set up a juke joint and recruit their cousin Sammie (Caton) to sing and play guitar, local blues legend Delta Slim (Lindo) to play music, Smoke's wife Annie (Mosaku) to cook, local grocer Grace (Li) and her husband Bo (Yao) to provide signage and materials, and their very lorge buddy Cornbread (Miller) to work the door. 

They open the place and play host to a bunch of locals, including Stack's ex-lover Mary (Steinfeld) and Sammie's crush Pearline (Lawson), and Sammie blows the doors off playing and singing; his music reaches across time and summons dancers and musicians from the past and the future, the roof burns, and everyone comes together in reverie. 

While the joint is hopping, however, an Irish vampire named Remmick (O'Connell) shows up, and this situation turns into From Dusk Til Dawn real fast - everyone is killed except for Sammie and Smoke, and Smoke hangs around until the dude who sold the twins the place (David Maldonado - the dude, not the place) comes back with all his Klan buddies and fucking massacres them. Cut to 1992, and Sammie is an old man playing the blues in Chicago when Stack and Mary (both vampires) show up to say hi and offer him immortality (which he refuses). 

There is so, so much I'm leaving out, because this movie is goddamn fantastic and layered and beautiful. It is legit one of the best horror movies ever made, it's beautiful shot and visually realized, and the soundtrack and score are the best things I've heard in a movie since O Brother Where Art Thou? Michael B. Jordan's performance is amazing, he makes both of the twins distinct and recognizable, and manages to act with himself to the point that it's very easy to forget that it's one actor playing both roles. Miles Caton is not only an amazing singer, but imbues Sammie with an old soul quality and a naivety that makes him a perfect POV character, but this is very much an ensemble cast. We get Mary's frustration at not being allowed to be fully part of this world, Pearline clearly just being out for fun and then being pulled into something much bigger (and then killed), and Annie realizing, I think before everyone else does, that there's no way any of them are walking away.

And then there's Jack O'Connell, playing a vampire who adapts his approach in seconds, going from begging for his life when he's being chased by vampire hunters to trying to talk people into letting him and his cohort in (they're that type of vampire) to resorting the vicious threats when manipulation doesn't work. And yet, you can almost feel a bit of sympathy for him, as he mentions that long ago his people were driven out by the Christians, and all he wants is to see his people and hear his own music again. 

I don't really have criticisms. This was my pick for Best Picture last year, and I'm still annoyed that One Battle After Another, which by comparison I found really trite and forgettable, beat it. 

My Grade: A
Rewatch Value: High

Next up: Probably whatever Toasty gives me today, but failing that, Siren

Character Creation: Harvest

It's a bear, it's a bear, it's a man, it's a man, in a cage/big wicker dude.

The Game: Harvest
The Publisher: Possum Creek Games
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

Harvest was crowdfunded along with Grand Guignol, and I have to say, I think this one sticks the landing a lot better. It's much more focused and tells a three-act story with a defined break point between acts, and it has very solid media touchstones (two of which I was referencing at the start of this post). Coincidentally one of my groups was looking for a GMless game to play on Devil's Night, so I think we're gonna give this one a whirl. Which of course just means I should make a character to try it out!

(The chargen process is not at all complicated, of course, it's a Belonging Without Belonging game, I'm mostly just going to circle some things). 

Anyway, Harvest is a folk horror game that tells the story of the people on the Island (off the English coast), and the days leading up to the sacrifice. Like other BwB games, players can get tokens by doing some moves and spend them to do others, but unlike, say, Dream Askew where it's "weak" vs. "strong" moves, here you spend tokens to use occult moves and have your power (the otherworldly entity that you're involved with) do things for you. It's all pretty intricate and the story beats are timed around certain tokens getting spent in certain places, and I'm pretty keen to try it out.

So, first thing we do to make a character is pick a playbook. These all very much pass the Chupp test for me. I think I'm gonna pick The Stranger, because I know I won't want to play that when we actually play but I think it's a cool character (the archetype here is Sgt. Neil Howie in The Wicker Man, though Josh from Midsommar works, too. Actually a bunch of the characters from Midsommar work).

Starting off: Name, pronouns. One of the suggestions for "name" is "a dashing mononym." I think we'll call my guy "Kingfisher." 

Three things that people notice: naval tattoos, a commanding voice, hands scarred by violence. I think Kingfisher was a military man, but not an officer or a toff. Very much a working man (which is why I didn't choose "a sense that you're out of place"). 

Why can't I just leave? Oh, man, all good choices, these. I think I'll pick "there's a terrible storm brewing;" if I were actually playing I'd want to tie that in to the thing that happens if the sacrifice fails (one of the choices is "the island is swallowed by the hateful sea"). 

Three things I've brought with me: ooh, definitely a pistol loaded with a single shot. That's downright Chekovian, that is. Also "nightmares of carnage and blood on your hands" and "a well-thumbed Bible." 

Two things I left behind: The name my parents gave me, and...man, some great choices, but the one that keeps calling me is "my Christian faith."

Next would be ties to other PCs, but as always, just me, so I'll skip that.

My occult power is either The Church, The Crown, or The University. Pretty obviously not the last one. Eh, I think it's gotta be the Crown, the Church assumes I'm actually there to spread the good word, and I don't wanna do that. 

OK, so what's Kingfisher's mission from the Crown? I think it's "to make this place a bloody example." Someone in the government either knows what's going on here or has some other reason to think this place is doing seditious, pagan shit, and they've had Kingfisher come in to stop things, messily. Ooh, no, wait, I got a better one - "arrest the seditious ringleader!" Kingfisher is a kind of bounty hunter for the Crown, that's where he got the name (a kingfisher is a bird that catches fish). I note my three occult moves on my sheet; I don't get the other ones until I actually succumb to my power a bit. 

And that's it! Kingfisher is big, strong, rough, older gent, multiple naval tattoos on his arms and chest, but all above the elbows (they aren't easily visible when he's dressed). White hair, clean shaved, blue eyes - I'm trying to think of who could play him and I keep coming up with Stephen Lang, but that's not quite right. Actually, change the eye color and Djimon Hounsou would be fantastic. 

Character Creation: Starship Infernum

I kept thinking this was the second edition of a game I'd already done, and drove myself mad trying to find the first edition, before I realized I was thinking of Shadows Over Sol. 

The Game: Starship Infernum
The Publisher: Wicked Clever
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

I picked this because it's a sci-fi/horror game, and I figured from the title it was like Mythos-adjacent or had demons or something. But no, it's a game where you're on a spaceship and things go to shit, and you need to figure out how to solve the crises (not a million miles from Hypersleep Terminated). The game mechanics are all based on blackjack, and I think it'd be pretty cool. There are some structural similarities to curse the darkness, too, and I don't think I ever ran it for the author (but I have met him, because he's a Con on the Cob regular). 

Anyway, the game looks pretty cool, and it does something I enjoy in that it gives the GM a way to quickly generate the obstacles and conflicts for the game (a little like TWAS, actually, but much less intricate). 

So let's make a character! Step One is Concept, and the game advises me to come up with a quick, two-word description (the examples are all recognizably from Star Trek, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, that kind of thing). Hell, I dunno. How about terrified stowaway? My guy got on the starship at the last port and maybe hacked the cryo-systems, or otherwise has managed to avoid notice.

I picture him as being small and squirrely, with wild black hair - kind of like the hitchhiker at the beginning of Texas Chainsaw Massacre only not, you know, a cannibal murderer (WE ASSUME BOOGIE BOOGIE). Let's name him Lennox Randall. 

Step Two is Traits. Lennox gets three Traits, one at 3, one at 2, one at 1 (I can use these traits to alter my totals in blackjack, and they also act as my hit points). The book says "intrinsic qualities," but the example characters basically all have quotes trying to be funny or referencing things that are funny, so this is clearly pretty loose.

Well, I've mentioned that he can hack into computer systems, so I'll give him I'm already in the system as his 3-trait. For his 2, I'll give him life spent on the run, and for his 1, I'll give him freak out and punch everything. 

Finally, Step Three is Aptitude, which is a special quality or training that helps keep me alive. This one I pick from a list. Ooh, Engineer, which would make me useful, or Survivor, which is more on brand? I think I'll take Survivor, but if I were playing this character and no one else took Engineer, I might do that instead.

And that's actually it! Lennox is ready to (probably) die in space. He might be a sole survivor, I dunno.

Movie #984: The Adventures of Pluto Nash

The Adventures of Pluto Nash is a famously bad sci-fi/comedy starring Eddie Murphy, Rosario Dawson, Randy Quaid, Jay Mohr, Joe Pantoliano, Luis Guzmán, Pam Grier, and James Rebhorn. 

Pluto Nash (Murphy) is a smuggler living on the lunar colony of "Little America" after getting out of prison. He intervenes when his buddy Frank (Mohr) is about to be killed by gangsters, and winds up owning Tony's shithole nightclub. Over the next few years he turns it into a highly successful spot, but then gets a visit from Mogan (Pantoliano), a thug working for the mysterious Rex Crater, the unseen mob boss and casino mogul of the Moon. He wants to buy the club, and isn't subtle about it - he sets off a bomb when Nash refuses and sends thugs to kill him.

Nash goes on the run with his robot bodyguard Bruno (Quaid) and Dina, a waitress he's befriended (Dawson), and works on getting to Crater to try and...you know, I'm not sure what his plan was. Kill him? Try and talk him down? It doesn't much matter, because when he finally does (spoilers for a 24-year-old movie with 6% on Rotten Tomatoes), it turns out Rex is a clone of Nash himself! Laser-fight ensues, Crater falls to his death, happy ending. 

OK, so...this wasn't as bad as I was expecting. It is by no means a good movie, please don't misunderstand me, but having seen all four Alvin & the Chipmunks movies (dammit Toasty) and Farty the Fart Fart: Health Infartstor (DAMMIT TOASTY) this year, this is goddamn pleasant in comparison. We're very much in the post-edgey phase of Murphy's career, and Pluto Nash is a watered-down version of Axel Foley, but like...Foley's kind of a dick, right? Nash is a kind, competent guy, and god help me, he's kind of fun to spend time with. Randy Quaid is...doing his best; what a "robot" is in the context of his movie and how much sapience they have is pretty wibbly. Rosario Dawson is charming and beautiful as always, and turns in hands-down the best performance in the movie (imagine what she could do with a good script!). 

This movie seems to want to be a sci-fi 1940s detective-ish movie (I don't want to say noir, because that's not really what's happening, but let's say it's trying to be something that people would mischaracterize as noir, how's that), but it doesn't have the balls to do anything really challenging or edgy and it can't quite decide how silly it wants to be. Pam Grier is utterly wasted as Pluto's mom (and like, black don't crack but Grier is only 12 years old than Murphy while Murphy is 18 years old than Dawson, his love interest, so, um, that's a thing). 

But, on the plus side, there's some interesting world-building - gambling is outlawed on Earth, which is why we're having this kind of Vegas rush to the Moon. Jay Mohr's Tony parlays Pluto's suggestion that he adopt an Italian-American persona into a glitzy career as crooner "Tony Francis", and he remembers his friend and doesn't turn out to be a bad guy or sell him out, which I liked. I actually kinda like the twist of Rex Crater being Pluto's clone - it made sense within the story, it's telegraphed a bit by cloning be clearly a thing available to the rich and powerful, and we got a good bait-and-switch with Alec Baldwin having a cameo as a gangster that disappeared after coming to the moon. There were a couple of genuinely amusing bits in the movie, and that's more than I can say for most of the shit movies I've watched recently. 

I think this movie got the hate that it did because it's a) bad, but in a kind of flabby, unfocused kind of way, rather than actively awful or offensive and b) it stars Eddie Murphy, so that lack of bite is even worse. But like...I would watch this again in a heartbeat before I'd ever view another fucking Chipmunks movie.

My Grade: C-
Rewatch Value: Low

Next up: Sinners

D&D: Falling Sand

No time for pleasantries! There's a thief about!

Last time, the heroes saved Téodóir's life from a stabbing. They head down to the vault, and find the door ajar and the alarm going off. That ceases after a few seconds, and more of the staff emerges. 

One of them shows the characters how the vault works - there's a sliding panel that contains several switches, which have to be flipped in a particular order to open it. But they aren't flipped at all, meaning someone opened the vault without them. Zook theorizes someone just used a knock spell (simple enough to learn for wizards or sorcerers), and the staff agrees that the vault is mostly for basic stuff - anyone with anything really serious to lock up who also has the money to stay here is more likely to shell out for something more impressive. 

But that doesn't help the characters - they discover that Aindriú's box is gone! Dara looks around and finds a blood trail (from the dagger this thief used to stab Téodóir, probably), and then a little ways out of the back door, a bloody rag. Zook fetches Maeve and suggests Dara turn into a dog, too, and the two of them can track this guy! 

Dara obligingly goes canine, and Zook saddles up Maeve. The two of them scamper off, while the others get their stuff together and try to determine who this thief was. Téodóir didn't get a good look at him, but says he was human-sized, wearing a cloak with a hood. The heroes start heading out into the city, when suddenly they see a blue dragon swoop in over Cian, spitting lightning! 

Let's back up. Dara and Zook follow the scent of the thief through the alleys of the nicer section of Cian, and make good time - Zook spots a man in a cloak carrying a box up ahead. He spurs Maeve on, but the man dips behind a building for a second. Zook rounds the corner and sees the guy, just as the dragon swoops in!

Zook, however, guesses that the dragon might be an illusion - it's too convenient otherwise. He casts blindness at the thief, while Dara catches up, changes back to her natural form, and throws an entangle spell down the narrow alley. The thief tries to cast a spell; Zook counters it, but the man turns and climbs up the wall (nimbly dodging over both the entangling plants and the grease that Zook throws after him).

Meanwhile, the others see the dragon and climb up a building to get a better look, except for Clara, who figures she won't be much help against a flying dragon and runs off to find Zook. Keenan, Fearg, and Aisling stand on a building looking at the dragon. Aisling throws some magic missiles at it, but they don't seem to bother it. She asks Fearg if he can hit it, and he hefts a javelin and says he probably can, but isn't sure what it'll do. He hucks the javelin and it strikes the dragon in the haunch...and then flies right through it! An illusion, indeed!

Dara spiderclimbs up the wall to look for the thief, but finds nothing. Clara arrives and parkours up the wall, but finds only Dara. They both see a small puff of dust at the other end of the roof, and, figuring the thief is invisible, run after it! 

They both slide down the wall into the narrow alley, but no sign of the thief. Meanwhile, the other folks are catching up, but they have to get down off a building and run down a few streets, so it takes a minute. Zook hastes Clara, and then sees the genie-box appear in the middle of the alley! He grabs for it, but his hands pass through it ("should've known"). 

Dara shuts her eyes and listens, and hears something above her. She looks up and sees the thief, not invisible (obviously), but hanging from a notch in the wall, holding the box. Clara wall-runs up and throws a flurry of punches, but only one connects (this guy is fast!). Dara takes advantage of the distraction and thorn whips him around the waist.

The thief is suddenly jerked down to ground level, and the box falls out of his hands. It strikes the ground and one single gem comes loose and rolls away...

...and then the dao stands up, howling in evil laughter. It summons a huge maul from nowhere, and brings it down, twice, on the thief's head, killing him. 

"Can you banish it, Zook?" Clara asks. "No!" the gnome replies, "that's what we were going to use the wishes for!" He throws a bunch of magic missles at it, and Fearg rages, charges in, and bashes it with his warhammer. Clara drops in behind it and strikes; it's like punching a bag of sand, but she sees some of the sand fall away from its body. Dara calls down lighting on it, and a patch of its skin turns to glass and falls. 

The dao swings its maul and strikes at Fearg (miss) and Clara (hit, and she falls prone, but immediately leaps to her feet). Aisling casts a spell and speaks to it in Terran - "You can just go home! You don't have to do this!"

"There's no plan," it replies, and swings the hammer again. 

But the dao is fighting in a cramped space, against a very persistent monk and a very angry barbarian (with lots of spell support). It turns to mist and flows through a crack in the wall, and Dara turns into a mouse and follows. Clara runs around the building to the front door and sees the dao in a tailor shop, the maul above its head. Dara turns back into elf-form, and Aisling and Fearg manage to get to the doorway in time to see the dao bring its hammer down upon the hapless man's head. 

The dao flows over to Clara, raising its hammer, but misses its swing and Clara pummels it. Aisling lets fly a bunch of magic missiles just as the dao begins to cast something, and it falls away, nothing left but sand.

The heroes take a breath. The city Strikes arrive and take statements, and the heroes sadly explain what happened and what the box is....or maybe was? It's completely inert now. One of the Strikes recognizes the thief from his clothes. His name is Nollaig, and he's...kind of an adventurer? More of a thief? (Zook notes that anyone can learn some skills, but that's not what makes a hero.) As far as anyone there knows, Nollaig wasn't for hire. All they find on him is a few gold pieces and a knit cap with some metal filigree woven in; Aisling casts identify and realizes it's a hat of disguise. Nollaig was probably trying to break line of sight long enough to use it.

But how did he even know about the box? The only people the heroes told was Séarlas at the wizard college. They decide to pay him a visit (but Zook sends Maeve back to Aindriú with a note explaining what happened, and that the genie is gone). On the way, they stop by a blacksmith to see if they can destroy this box. There's no magic in it, but they don't want someone else trying to bind a genie to it.

The blacksmith (taking the gems in the box as payment, very happily) examines the box, and then says that the has no idea what the metal is. It feels a little like gold, but it's not as heavy. He pours a bit of acid on it and, with no reaction, notes that if it's not gold, that stuff should have at least burned it a bit. Zook opines that maybe it's an alloy, and the blacksmith agrees that it might be, but again, of what? They decide to take the box with them and get more information.

At the wizard college, Séarlas receives them and is disturbed to learn about what happened. He says that he told his colleague Sinéad about the box to get her opinion, so they go and see her. Sinéad says that she didn't tell anyone - OK, well, maybe she discussed it at dinner, but...

The heroes figure it out. This was just a game of telephone that got out of control, and got around to Nollaig, who tried to steal the box. And now two people are dead and the city is in panic because of an illusory dragon. The adventurers, Zook especially, make clear to the wizards that they hold them responsible and suggest that the wizard college take care of the tailor's family (Séarlas, while he doesn't necessarily agree with the assessment of blame, agrees). The heroes trudge back to the Sapphire to talk with Aindriú. 

They find him in the common room, absently scritching Maeve's head. They explain what happened and wonder if the death of the genie undid the wishes; Aindriú says he shames to admit but he already checked, and his wealth generator still works. He apologizes for not just making his last wish and letting the heroes send the dao home without violence, and says that he'll take care of the tailor's family. He asks the heroes their next move, and they say that they were planning to go north and look into the strange writings on the goblets they found. They want to ask around a bit, though, both about those and about the box.

Aindriú says that he intends to stay in Cian a while, rebuild his staff, and then head west and see if he can find the grave of his sister, Ailís. If the adventurers would like, they'd be welcome to travel with him. They decide to think on it. In any case, they say, they're happy that Aindriú wasn't consorting with a demon - when they heard him talking to a box, they were worried. 

Aindriú, polite as always, agrees that it was a reasonable worry.