Character Creation: The Watch

I should say up front that I'm doing this game now because the...sequel? Second edition? I dunno is Kickstarting and, as of today, not quite funded. I should also say that I'm quite sure the author would as soon spit on me as look at me, and fair enough, but I'm still impressed with the game and Mars Watch looks pretty cool. 

The Game: The Watch
The Publisher: Peach Pants Press
Degree of Familiarity: None, other than the fact that it's PbtA 
Books Required: Just the one

I don't feel like going down the rabbit hole to figure out where in the early incarnations of PbtA this game came out. I'm actually only interested in that at all because it's one of the "create the threat facing the group" - there are a lot of those, but this may have been one of the earlier ones? Anyway, the basic conceit here is that the Shadow (whatever that is in your game) has infected the land and driven the men - just the men - to violence and despoilation of the world. The Clans (which are enumerated, but not given a lot of detail) broke apart, the civilization fell back, and you're playing a member of the Watch. That is, a woman or enbie task with driving back the Shadow and protecting the people remaining. 

Why the gender strictures? Because the game's about toxic masculinity, which is something I know a little bit about. Without wanting to get too personal, I actually had a very good model of masculinity, because my dad was a gentle, patient man, not prone to outbursts or macho chest-thumping (my mother was another matter, make of that what you will). I, on the other hand, while never having been particularly prone to demonstrative macho-ness, have absolutely been prone to anger and even violent outbursts, and it's something that took me a long time to get over. (And that's all the self-analysis you're getting today.)

 

Anyway, the idea is: 

You can read in the Mars Watch Kickstarter how the author's notions of all this have evolved since coming out as trans, but I'm just rolling with what I have. 

As with a lot of PbtA games, we're starting with a playbook. Here they're all animals (rather, they're named for animals). The game also does something I really like, which is give a list of the playbooks with a one-sentence blurb and a "this playbook is good for players who X". 

Now, if I were actually playing this game, I suspect I would lean toward Bear or Wolf, because I like playing support characters (Wolf also has some interesting relationships with violence that, at the right table, would be fun to explore). For our purposes today, however, I think I want to pick the Fox.

So, starting with name, gender presentation, and demeanor. Gender presentation is, of course, important in this game. I don't mind playing cis or trans women occasionally, though I'm generally more comfortable playing men (which isn't an option here, obviously) or, failing that, non-binary folks. The Fox playbook is very much about moving between worlds (living and dead, or physical and spirit, mostly), so I think I want to lean into that and have my character's presentation be "fluid." I'm gonna name them Teka (it's a choice off the list, and the lists of names are actually constructed to give some thought to the phonology and consistency of the language at work here, which I appreciate). 

Completing Teka's look, I think we'll say they have a, arresting face, ragged clothing, and a distracted demeanor. I like the notion of being half "here", but that means I'm also half "elsewhere." 

Gear! I get a symbol of my clan, which should probably wait until I pick that. I get a token, mark, or scar that shows the price I paid to talk to spirits. I think the fingers on Teka's left hand are permanently crooked, like half-curled into a fist. When they learned to commune with spirits, the left side of their body was possessed, and they managed to get it out, mostly. 

I get a spear, sword, bow, shield, and armor. I get to pick two options off the list to make my gear unique. Let's see here. I'm gonna say my shield is covered in spikes (I just kind of like that imagery), and that my bow is famous for killing the Three Kings. The Three Kings were a pride (pack?) of hyena/lion creatures that were picking off Watch members. The got the nicknamed because the horns on their heads looked like crowns, from a distance. Teka killed them with arrows over the course of three nights, took their horns, and use them to adorn their shield. 

Rank...I can be a recruit, initiate, warden, or corporal. If I were playing this, we could only have one corporal, but of course that doesn't matter here. I feel like Teka is more experienced than a recruit or initiate, so let's make them a Warden.

Normally, here I'd do Ties that Bind (establishing history with the other PCs and giving and getting Camaraderie), but y'know, just me, so moving on!

Clan! I get to pick one, but they aren't given much detail, really just a profession. Clan Dothas are mystics, which would make sense, but I think I want Clan Sharn (hunter/gatherers). Going back to the symbol of my clan, I think it should be an empty basket. The thinking here is that Clan Sharn knows that people are always consuming, and if you're going to keep your people fed, you must treat that basket as if it's always empty.

Stats! I get Cunning 0, Luck 2, Training -1, and Valor 0, and then I get to add 1 wherever I want. I think I want Training to not suck so bad, so I'll bump that to 0. 

Moves! I get two from the playbook. Let's see now. The obvious one is spirit walk, which lets me (as the name implies) walk in the spirit world and do a number of things, but I actually think Teka's experience with possession made them a little gunshy about actually going there. Instead, I'll take eyes in the sky (I can mark an animal and then see through its eyes) and spirit bond (I can open up, the basic social sort of move, with my Camaraderie with that person rather than using Valor, as long as I teach them about spirits).

And that's actually about it! I picture Teka as kind of on the smaller side, but oddly shredded in a "damn, that skinny guy can run/fight/lift" sort of way. Their armor is light, but the shield is heavy, especially with those horn-spikes on it. Teka has black hair and green eyes, and while they don't know it, their left hand flexes while they're sleeping. 

Cool, that'll do it!

Movie #973: Bangkok Dangerous

Bangkok Dangerous is an action/drama flick directed by the Pang Brothers and starring Nicholas Cage (in his "must pay my back taxes" career phase), Shakrit Yamnarm, Charlie Yeung, Panward Hemmanee, and Nirattisai Kaljaruek. 

Joe (Cage) is a hitman livin' that hitman life - no connections, erase all traces of your passing, kill who you get paid to kill and don't worry about the morality of it. Deciding it's time to get out of the game, he books a gig in Bangkok - four separate hits for a crime syndicate - and when he gets there, recruits a young street hustler named Kong (Yamnarm) to be his errand boy and translator, fully intending to kill him when all is said and done.

Things don't quite go that way; Kong winds up getting into Joe's heart a little when he shows more loyalty and gumption than Joe expected, and Joe winds up falling for a deaf pharmacy...employee (I have no idea whether she's actually meant to be a pharmacist or just a clerk), Fon (Cheung). He mentors Kong in self-defense (maybe with an eye towards training him to be an assassin, but it never gets that far), and continues doing the jobs he's there for. And that's fine, because his targets are, as Kong points out, bad men. 

But then Joe is out with Fon and gets jumped by a couple of muggers, and he quickly kills them both, and Fon panics and runs away (I mean, obviously). Joe becomes despondent and goes back to doing his job, but chokes at the last minute because the fourth hit is on the goddamn Prime Minister (Keang Kunsri, I think), who Kong tells him is a good man. His employer, Surat (Kaljaruek) grabs up Kong and Aom (Hemmanee), Joe's informant and go-between whom Kong has been seeing, and Joe has to do the third act bloody rampage to free them! 

So...I actually didn't hate this movie. It's not bad. It's certainly better than the 9% on Rotten Tomatoes it's getting. Sure, it's not really treading any ground that The Mechanic, Leon the Professional, or Grosse Pointe Blank didn't already, but it's very different in tone than any of those, too. What's interesting is that it's a remake of the Pang Brothers' first film (same title), in which Kong was the POV character, was already a hitman, and he was the deaf-mute character (the conceit apparently being that gunshots didn't bother him because he can't hear them). So aspects of the characters get mixed around here, but the broad strokes seem similar. This includes the ending where Joe (Kong in the original) shoots himself in the head, simultaneously killing Surat. 

Second act drags a bit, but not painfully so. There are a couple of pretty effective scenes, most especially the one in which Joe mercilessly dispatches the two muggers and Fon stands looking out over the river, oblivious, until blood spatters her jacket. The action isn't anything to write home about, but it's fine. I actually like that while Joe is a competent marksman, he's not super accurate under pressure (he misses a lot during the river chase sequence). 

The standout performance is Yamnarm as Kong. Cage is playing Muted Cage (as opposed to Wild Cage), so we don't get much of a range from him, but I do like how he portrays Joe during the scenes where he's trying to get to know Fon and bumping up against the language barrier twice (she understands English, but of course speaks in sign). Kaljaruek's Surat is on the verge of being interesting, and I wish he'd gotten just a little more time to react when Joe threatens his wife to get him to back off. 

Overall, though, it's not high art but it's a solid enough action/drama, which is a hell of a lot more than I thought I'd say for it.

My Grade: C+
Rewatch Value: Medium-low

Next up: Barbarian

D&D: The Woodcutter

Last night, D&D! Hey nonny nonny.

Recall that last time, our heroes met a caravan traveling north to Cian, owned by Aindriú, an affable, charming fellow with seemingly limitless wealth. This, of course, raises some eyebrows. Keenan, Clara, and Zook stay with the caravan while Dara, Fearg, and Aisling go on ahead and wind up at the burnt-out remains of the manor house where they fought doppelgangers a long while ago.

The manor grounds now play host to families and travelers waiting to enter Cian (or staying here while they conduct business in the city). The remains of the house have been stripped of anything useful, and the basement is open and exposed, overgrown with plants and moss. The three of them arrive there and talk about Aindriú, and Fearg asks Aisling to lay out her suspicions. Mostly she's concerned about what Dara heard last night - Aindriú talking to someone with a scary, echoey voice. Aisling is concerned he might have made a deal with demons. Fearg agrees that's a possibility and probably they should look into it.

Meanwhile, the caravan continues along. Clara walks, but keeps near the food carriage to grab snacks periodically. Zook and Keenan ride on the open back of one of the carriages, Zook paging through his spellbook, with Maeve snoozing by his side. As they're traveling, through, Maeve perks up, gives a brief "wuff" and scampers off into the brush. Zook and Keenan follow, and as they approach the brush at the side of the road, smell death and putrefaction. 

Zook pulls back the overgrowth and finds a corpse. Looks to be a human man, wearing a green cloak and leather gloves. Large parts of him have been ripped away and it looks like he's been here a couple of days. Something big has been chewing on him, but Zook isn't sure if that's what killed him or if animals got to him afterwards. Keenan takes off the man's glove ("ew") looking for a ring or something that might help to identify him, and only finds that his hands are nicked and scarred; apparently he worked with his hands.

Zook pulls out his keek-stane and casts divination, seeking to know what killed his man. Smoke forms in the lens, and then congeals into what Zook initially thinks is an ogre (the party has battled an ogre before, after all). But the ogre is leaner than the ones they've seen, and has a hungry intelligence in its eyes. And it looks...bluer. Zook ponders this, and remembers a children's rhyme he heard growing up:

Lock the door, blow out the light;

The hungry ogre haunts the night.

Hide and tremble, little one; 

The ogre wants to have some fun.

Hear it scratching at the door;

See its shadow cross the floor.

The sun won't rise for quite a while;

Till then, beware the ogre's smile

Zook remembers the stories about this "ogre" - it's clever and cunning, it can slide under doors as mist, it can change its form to appear human. He figures it's probably some subspecies of ogre, capable of using magic or something. 

In any case, they tell Clara what they've found, and then warn the guards around the caravan. They decide to see if they can figure out which way this thing went, and go back to look at the body. Clara looks around and finds footprints - too large to be human, but wearing boots ("didn't think ogres did that"). But then she finds human-sized footprints walking back toward the road. There are no visible tracks on the road - the caravan has obliterated those - but it looks like the giant thing might have shrunk. They rejoin the caravan and resolve to keep an eye out. If this ogre continued along the road, it might already be in Cian. 

Speaking of Cian, the other three folks happen by a campsite. A woman lies on the ground blissfully gazing at the sky, while a man prods at a stewpot. They chat with Aisling pleasantly, and mention that there's a fellow telling stories to a group of kids (which is where their kid is, so they're happy to have a minute to themselves). Aisling hears "stories", grabs Fearg by the hand, and leads him over to this area. 

And indeed, they find a grizzled-looking fellow in a cloak, sporting an impressive beard, telling the kids a scary story (they only catch the end, but it ends with "and they were never seen or hear from again!"). He greets Aisling and, spotting her harp-lute, asks if she'd rather take over, but she says that she's happy to hear his stories. He was actually about to teach the kids a song, and starts to sing in a growly, tuneless voice:

Lock the door, blow out the light;

The hungry oni haunts the night.

Hide and tremble, little one; 

The oni wants to have some fun.

Hear it scratching at the door;

See its shadow cross the floor.

The sun won't rise for quite a while;

Till then, beware the oni's smile

He then gets the kids to sing it, looking over to a reluctant girl ("honey, sing"). About this time, parents start to collect their kids, as it's getting dark. A couple of the kids remain - one boy mentions that his dad might be asleep after drinking from his "special jug." Aisling stays with the woodcutter and chats. He says that he's from Fiadh, though he heard that song from someone from central Abhaile. Aisling has heard that song, too (she's a bard, she collects them), but she always heard it with "ogre," not "oni." The woodcutter shrugs. "Maybe it was ogre," he says. "I don't know." 

She asks if he's here to sell wares, and he motions back to his wagon, saying that he's maybe hoping to find someone to buy the lot and then resell it. She asks what he's got; he tells her to have a look. It turns out to be wooden objects - ax handles, bows, staves, chairs, and so forth. They wait a while and the last few kids get collected, and Aisling excuses herself. 

The caravan rolls into the area and circles up; Aindriú instructs his people to make camp rather than enter Cian at night and disrupt things. The party reconnects and shares information, and of course hearing about the "woodcutter" raises some eyebrows. Might that be this "oni?" They go looking for him.

They ask around and someone points them toward the burnt-out manor. They get close and hear someone whimpering in the pit. Dara jumps down (she can see in the dark) and finds a little boy in a corner, crying. He tells Dara that the woodcutter put him down here, and said that if he tried to leave, he would eat the boy's sister! The party carries the boy and and he directs them to where his parents are; his parents are already organizing other folks to go find the boy. The boy's sister is there and safe and sound, so apparently that was just a bluff. 

Zook casts dancing lights to light up the area, and of course the gathered people ooh and aah over that. The others take the opportunity to ask if anyone's seen the woodcutter, and they point the adventurers toward the caravan.

They head over there and find the woodcutter standing with Aindriú, chatting. They approach and start trying to feel out who this guy is, and then Zook just cuts out the middleman and casts locate creature, focusing on the blue ogre he saw in the keek-stane. The feeling of magic wraps around the woodcutter - that's him.

Clara tenses and the oni warns that there are an awful lot of bystanders around, but Clara isn't here for his shit and charges. The oni bursts up into its true form, a huge creature carrying a glaive ("where the hells was he keeping that?"). 

I am aware that "oni" is a Japanese creature, but D&D is a cultural mishmash at the best of times

He starts to cast a spell and Zook feels the temperature drop, and decides that's not a great idea, so he counters it. The monster snarls, but Clara is already punching it - even faster than usual, as Zook has put a haste spell on her! Aisling throws a bane on it, and Dara blights it, and its skin goes pocked and withered. Keenan, not wanting to risk throwing fire, hastes Fearg. Fearg rages, charges in, and swings a war pick!

One of Aindriú's guards charges in and swings a sword, but doesn't land a blow. The oni gives it a "you'll get yours" sort of look, but then realizes that there's no way it's going to survive another onslaught. It starts to disintegrate to mist...but Zook counters that, too! Helpless, the oni suffers multiple more punches from Clara, who ends by sweeping the leg and knocking it over. Zook hits it with a magic missile, and Fearg buries his pick in its head. 

The guards and caravan-folk cheer, and Aindriú says that once again he owes the heroes - who knows what the oni might have done if it had been allowed to hunt unchecked. He asks how he can repay them, and Zook mentions that there's a spell he wants to learn, but doing so requires an expensive gilded box. Aindriú writes a note and tells Zook to give it to a particular silversmith in Cian; he'll make whatever Zook wants and bill Aindriú. Clara is happy to just grab some more food...but Aisling wants the truth.

Aindriú sighs, but agrees, and brings the heroes into his carriage. He shows them the box (the one that Dara saw last night), and confesses that there is a magical being living it it. He's not sure what it is. The box did arrive with a messenger bringing him his sister's stuff, but he's not sure where the box came from. He's asked craftsmen across Abhaile, but no one is sure of its origin or indeed the methods by which it was made. As for the creature, when he opened the box it emerged and recited a little poem. He didn't write it down and the creature has refused to repeat it, but the gist was that it grants him three wishes, it can only have one master at a time, and once it grants the wishes it retreats into its box. It's not freed after granting all the wishes to someone. Aindriú has only made two of his wishes.

His first wish was to call up the riches of the earth. He show them a hole in a cupboard and pulls some gems out of it. His second wish, he blushes to admit, was to be charming and loveable - he didn't want to wish to be loved, as he figured that was a wish that the creature could twist too easily. Besides, Aindriú felt it was better to be worthy of love and loyalty than to just get it outright. He says that the creature has been encouraging him to wish to know where his sister is buried, but he's resisted doing that so far. Zook suggests that he could wish his sister back to life, but Aindriú seems uncomfortable. For one thing, he figures the creature would definitely screw with that wish, but more importantly, his sister was a highly principled, spiritual person. He doesn't think she would ever forgive him for pulling her back from whatever awaited beyond death.

The characters take this in and ask about the creature, and Aindriú offers to let them talk with it. He mentions that the creature slipped up once and told him it was not able to lie, but it doesn't have to tell the truth (it can just refuse to answer). He opens the box and sand pours out, spins in a whirlwind and forms into a humanoid figure made of rock, with opals for eyes, adorned with gold and jewels. They talk with it and it confirms that it's from the Plane of Earth (much like the xorn that the heroes met in the Glann Plateau). It says it wants to go back, and the characters ask if it needs to be wished free. It says no, just remove one jewel from the box, break a hinge, crack the lid - any of these would free it.

Clara asks if it would just go home or if it would wreak vengeance on the fleshy creatures. It says that while there are people it might like to smash, it's under no obligation to do so and vengeance is secondary to freedom. The heroes, of course, feel like keeping a sentient being under wraps isn't great. The creature, for its part, makes no bones about the fact that giving away the riches of the earth to this human that gives them away to other humans kind of bothers it. 

The adventurers leave it there, but the feeling is very much that they're going to encourage Aindriú to make his last wish, so that they can free this thing. After all, having a box of wishes just loose on the landscape probably isn't safe.

Character Creation: Playing God

Often something warned against, but I dunno, seems like it might be fun. 

The Game: Playing God
The Publisher: Gnome Made Games
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

This game shares some DNA with Gods & Monsters, inasmuch as it focuses on the "build up a pantheon" bit of this kind of game. It's got some cool ideas and the subject matter, of course, is very interesting to me. The implementation...eh. This game feels like it wants to be a board game with some creative elements, in the vein of Before There Were Stars, perhaps. It also feels like it wants to have its cake and eat it, too; you can play solo, with or without a GM, cooperative or competitive...I dunno. If you want to be that flexible, maybe you need more than 60 pages. If you want to be a short game, maybe you should pick an experience you want players to have and work towards that. 

As long as I'm griping, the character sheet is bananas inky-heavy, to the point that I really don't want to print it. The DriveThru page for the game says something about a printer-friendly one, but I sure don't see it and the author's web page doesn't have downloads. Maybe I can print it in grayscale, but I think all that'll do is eat all my printer's black ink. 

Well, anywho, let's make a god. We start off with an Origin: Apotheosis (I was mortal and became a god), Born of Gods (I was...born of gods), or Primordial (I have always been a god, and perhaps have always been). 

Let's assume we're playing this game from scratch in the vein of the example of play (which I do appreciate), and I'm making a Primordial god. That being the case, I should probably choose some concept that's very basic and elemental as my domain. How about Darkness? I like the idea of being a kind of boogeyman-ish god, but maybe having a peaceful, serene side - the riddle here is that the fear of the dark is the fear you bring with you. (I mean, also there are tigers.)

Being a God of Darkness gives me the Shrouded Wonder, and being Primordial gives me 20 History minus the number of other deities in the game (so 20, unless I ever wind up playing this). Let's name my god Suratesh.

The book presents some Roleplaying Question for both my Origin and Domain, so let's have a look at those. For Origin, I'm asked to consider what I was before the first reality was created, whether I think the multiverse will ever end (and how), and what I think of younger gods. 

Well, I think Suratesh was, as far as he knows, alone in the dark before the world was created. It's not that darkness can't exist without light, it's just that it's all that exists without light - light doesn't create darkness, it gives it meaning and context. So once other gods started showing up, Suratesh watched them and sometimes granted his presence through whispers from the dark. He doesn't mind other gods, but he's pretty sure that eventually, the last light will go out. He's not in a hurry for that to happen, but when it does, it does. 

My Domain's questions ask a little about whether I'm about night or darkness (slight difference there). I think Suratesh is kind of about both - he's the god of darkness, and that means he bleeds over into the day/night/dawn deities a little (if I were playing this, I might try and say that the god of dawn is his child). He's not interested in being feared particularly. In fact, he appreciates people who can go to the dark places and meditate, not be terrified by the sounds they hear. When he manifests, it's as a whisper from the dark, faint but audible if you can calm yourself. He doesn't manifest visually, that's kind of the point. 

Need to pick a symbol. I don't want it to be an animal (like a bat or a cave fish), that's a little obvious. You know, let's make it a Site - caves, dense forests, tunnels, any place with no natural light, that's Suratesh's domain.

And, um, that's it! If I ever get a printer-friendly sheet, I'll upload it. 

Movie #972: Nobody 2

Nobody 2 is the sequel to Nobody, and stars Bob Odenkirk, Connie Nielsen, Christopher Lloyd, RZA, John Ortiz, Sharon Stone, Colin Hanks, Gage Munroe, Paisley Cadorath, and Colin Salmon. 

We start just as the first movie did, with a beat-up looking Hutch (Odenkirk) sitting across from a couple of (probably) Feds (David Lawrence Brown and Denesha Lee-Labiuk), very conspicuously not explaining himself. Only this time, his wife Becca (Nielsen) and a dog are with him! And right here we have the theme of this movie; just like the first one, only this time Hutch's family is present the whole time.

Since the events of the first movie, Hutch has been working off the massive amount of Russian mob money he burned doing jobs for "the Barber" (Salmon). That, however, has resulted in undoing all of the character development we had in the first movie, and Hutch has again grown distant from Becca, his daughter Sammy (Cadorath), and his son Brady (Munroe). Realizing this, he takes the family to an amusement park that you would be forgiven for thinking is in Florida, but is in fact in Wisconsin, according to the wiki. Oh, and he takes his dad (Lloyd) with him.

He's barely there a day before he realizes that the cops here are hella corrupt (I mean, sure), as the local sheriff (Hanks) threatens him for staring a bit. Hutch does his best to make all this fun, but then his son gets in a fight in an arcade, the proprietor (didn't catch his name) smacks Sammy on the head, and Hutch goes back inside to whoop ass. And that results in the organized crime ring that runs this town, run by Lendina (Stone, but she doesn't show up until two-thirds of the way through), gunning for Hutch, until he, his father, and his brother (RZA) have to set up a trap-filled death-maze in the water park!

If it's not apparent, I...kinda wasn't a fan. I wanted to be. I really like Nobody, and I didn't realize until we'd started watching this that it's not from the same director. Derek Kolstad is credited as a writer, but if that's the case I'm not sure what happened. Nobody 2 is beat-for-beat the same movie, just with the set dressing changed. The problem with that is that it necessarily erases all of the character development from the first movie, because that movie ended with Hutch reestablishing himself as a badass but also realizing that he needed to be present for his family, and now we get to see him learn that lesson again. 

As long as I'm bitching: Sharon Stone was wasted in this role. She had a better character arc in Catwoman, even if the movie overall wasn't as good. Here, she just kinda shows up and acts nuts and kills people indiscriminately, and it comes off as a pale imitation of Alexei Serebryakov from the first movie. But again, he had some character traits beyond "bwa-ha-ha evil". 

The action scenes are fine, but they're nothing new and nothing special. There's a fight on a duckboat that's beat-for-beat the same as the bus fight in Nobody, and had me thinking "I should watch that instead." The best sequence in the movie is probably the fight in the arcade, not because the action is amazing, but because we're really on Hutch's side - but then the response gets completely over the top because this town is run by a nutbar with her own private army. 

The takeaway, here, is that I need to go back to not blind-buying movies, or at least sequels.

My Grade: C-
Rewatch Value: Low

Next up: Barbarian, unless I get something beginning with "A" from Toasty today

Chill: Putting the Genie Back in the Bottle

Yesterday we finished a case in our Seward-based Chill game. Here's last time, on we go!

Two of the envoys - Khalil Barnes and Arlo Miller - plus Khalil's brother Hamza drive to Anchorage to visit Anchorage Fast Cash Alaska to see if they can retrieve the ruby stopper for the genie-bottle that was sold there. They enter and Khalil talks to the proprietor, and gives him a story about how it was sold by mistake and he'd like to get it back. The proprietor opens a safe and pulls out a little cardboard jewelry box, inside of which is...a rock. 

Khalil holds it up and asks "is this it?" The clerk does a double-take, drops below the counter to look back in the safe, and starts (Khalil assumes) cursing in Russian. "Problems?"

One thing Khalil is good at is getting people talking. The proprietor tells him that his cousin, Mitya, must have taken it - he's got a fence that he meets in Seward who probably said he could give him a good price. Khalil asks him to call Mitya, but he says Mitya won't answer if he sees him calling. He does give Khalil an address ("he stays with this girl when he's in Seward"). 

Khalil punches this information into the group chat. Back in Seward, at the QCOM HQ, the other three envoys are resting (Amelia Rostov, in particular, is pretty wiped out). But when this info comes through, they rouse themselves, check to make sure there are no djinn waiting for them outside, and head to the apartment building. 

Amelia knocks on the door, and a moment later the woman (Sharon) answers. She isn't especially sure about Amelia (she doesn't read like a cop, but very much reads like someone Official), but Amelia manages to get her to get Mitya. Sharon retreats into the apartment and Amelia sends Tuulugaak Hanta around the back of the building to watch the windows, just in case Mitya runs, but he doesn't, he comes to the door to talk to Amelia (Mercy Williams, meanwhile, stands back in case anything goes really pear-shaped). Amelia gives Mitya the same spiel Khalil used (it's an heirloom, it shouldn't have been sold), and Mitya quickly realizes he kind of has the upper hand in this negotiation. He initially asks for $10K; Amelia talks him to down to $8K. (Khalil, who has a good pension from the Air Force, agrees to cover it.) They send Mitya the money, he hands over the stopper. 

Khalil and Arlo, meanwhile, are headed back to Seward (after dropping off Hamza, who has officially reached the end of his useful involvement here). The other three head back to QCOM. As they're turning down the street, Mercy (driving) spots a guy leaning on a wall near a turn-off and has a sudden urge to turn toward him. She resists it and recognizes that the feeling was strong enough that it was probably an Unknown compulsion, and points the guy out. They pull the car into the parking lot up near the door and Amelia raises a Sphere of Protection. They move to get into the building (which is still warded), but Amelia slips on the stairs. She manages to keep the sphere up, but the djinn ambles over and very affably demands the bottle. 

She shows it the stopper, but it doesn't seem terribly impressed. And now the envoys are faced with a dilemma - they have the bottle, they have the stopper, how do they get the genie into the bottle? Amelia goes into the building to talk with the others, and they look at the bottle and stopper.  The bottle looks considerably older, so they're not exactly a matched set. Amelia turns the stove on and holds the bottle in the fire, but nothing happens - it doesn't even get hot. She tries it with the stopper, and that reacts normally. 

Outside, they see the djinn walk back up with a bottle in a paper bag. He pulls the bottle out - grain alcohol - and starts splashing it around the door and the base of the building. That makes his plan clear - burn the building, take the bottle. He offers to leave Seward, just give him the bottle ("Alaska isn't much fun, really"). 

The envoys refuse, of course, but they need a plan or things are going to escalate. They decide to try and trap the djinn - if they can get a circle around it, maybe they can hold it and figure out how to put it in the bottle. Tul runs out and tackles it (making good use of his Quicken discipline), but the djinn grabs his back and its hands burn through Tul's shirt and into his flesh. Mercy runs out with a folding chair and bashes the djinn in the face, pushing past her feeling of revulsion in hitting what seems like a normal person. The djinn's face bleeds, but not...right...somehow.

Amelia touches its leg and Disrupts, and the djinn dissolves into smoke. It flows a bit away and reforms, this time as Dr. Bellman. Mercy charges it and whacks it again, and it grabs her ribs and burns her. Suddenly everything goes black. 

All three envoys start feeling their way towards the edges of the blackness. Tul has the sudden urge to toss the bottle behind him, and that seems very reasonable, so he does. And just about now, Arlo and Khalil pull into the parking lot. They see the pocket of darkness and the envoys emerging from it, and Khalil runs over and grabs the bottle. He hears Arlo's voice behind him say "throw it here!" but turns around and sees Arlo behind him...and also getting out of the car. 

Not fooled, he shoots at the djinn (nearly hitting Tul, running out of the darkness). Arlo (the real one) grabs the bottle from Khalil and Disrupts, and this seems to hurt the djinn, but it doesn't force him to turn into smoke. It points to Arlo and Arlo feels burns appear over his body, but keeps hold of the bottle. 

Tul tackles the djinn again, and Khalil walks over and shoots it in the head. It dissolves to smoke once again, but this time it flows into the bottle! The envoys put the stopper in...and everything goes quiet. 

"Ambulance please?" says Mercy, the shock wearing off and the burns on her sides flaring up. Khalil calls 911, telling them about the gunshots (he figures it's probable someone already called it in, might as well get ahead of it) and has them send an ambulance. The envoys also call Dr. Bellman, but he gets there in enough time to follow the ambulance to the hospital. The wounds definitely raise question - Tul and Mercy have hand-shaped burns on them, and Arlo is covered with squiggly brands. The medical staff asks for explanations, of course, but the envoys rely heavily on "I don't know how it happened."

Meanwhile, Khalil and Amelia deal with the bottle. They wrap it in duct tape, and Khalil builds a box, puts the bottle in it, and fills it with cement. And then...well, some discussions happen. Some envoys favor throwing it into the ocean, some think that it's better to keep it close to hand so they know where it is. They ask Dr. Bellman to see if SAVE has a Raiders of the Lost Ark-style warehouse somewhere, but in the meantime it's in the QCOM HQ, covered in a tablecloth. 

The envoys still have some legal issues pending, and several of them are pretty badly injured, but they've captured the djinn, so that's victory.

Character Creation: HEDGE

Every once in a while I get to read a game that hooks me from the cover, and continues hooking me through out. Good stuff.

The Game: HEDGE
The Publisher: A Couple of Drakes
Degree of Familiarity: It's structured like Forged in the Dark, it's mechanically based on LUMEN, but I haven't played it
Books Required: Just the one

I'm not sure why the game title is written in all-caps, but whatever, I'm not above a little affectation myself. Anyway, HEDGE is a post-apocalyptic game in which the apocalypse in question was the Fey. You're playing Wardens, people who have some Fey magic and have become part plant (wait what) because they've partially merged with the titular Hedge. 

The game is combat-heavy and tactical in much the same way NOVA is (except that NOVA is diceless and this isn't). It's mission-focused and has distinct phases much like a Forged in the Dark game, and it very much has its own identity and strong aesthetic. I was a little worried it was going to coast on vibes and I'd end up feeling like I do with games like Songbirds (that is, "this is cool but how do I run it?"), but by the time I finished reading the chargen section I was already thinking I might pitch it to my one group when we finish Epyllion. 

So let's make HEDGEhog or whatever! (No, they're actually called Wardens.)

Let's say my Warden's name is, or was, Larkspur. That's easy.

Next we choose a Past. We've got three choices, here: Devoted, Survivor, or Settled. This is who the character was (in very broad strokes) before becoming a Warden. I think Larkspur was Devoted. That is, he was someone that held the Old Ways and tried to keep the Fey from busting down the gates; it didn't work, but he knew the importance of honoring the oaths. That means I get +1 Fate, and I get to pick three Truths about the world (which really only make sense when combined with other players' Truths, but the choices are evocative so I'm gonna do it). My Truths are about the Hedge, specifically.

Before: A Central Well, hidden from the world and slowly fading. I like the idea that the Hedge was on its way out and what the Fey did was a last gasp. 

The Fall: Rampant Growth, the Hedge bleeds and life explodes with titanic vigor. Kind of an extinction burst. 

A Threat: A Wyld hunger grips the Hedge. If she is to survive, you must feed her. 

Neato! Now we choose our Warden, which is kind of badly phrased, because all the PCs are Wardens. What I'm really choosing here is a calling or class or splat, and holy shit these past the Chupp test. Much like the different Sparks in NOVA, they all have slightly different subsystems (rather, they all generate some kind of resource that they can spend for specific effects). I really liked the Bastion when I was reading these, but now that I'm picturing Larkspur I don't know if that works. Let's have another look.

I think I'm gonna go with the Torch. I can prevent Harm to other Wardens, and if I fall in combat ("Fade"), everyone gets fully healed. I think that's in keeping with the "extinction burst" motif we've got going. 

Next we choose 2 Warden Powers. I'll take Arise Light (I can throw a wave of light that either burns foes or heals me) and A Tangle of Thorns (I call up thorns and foes have to hurt themselves to walk through them). That's easy.

Weapon! Now, up there it says I pick it off a list, but that's not quite true. What happens in actuality is that I build it; I can pick the form of my weapon and then add two Tags. What kind of weapon is appropriate here?

Well, I kind of picture Larkspur having a weapon with some reach, maybe something that allows a big sweeping blow. How about a quarterstaff kind of thing? I'll give it the Tags Reach (I can hit foes at Near Range, not just Close, but I do extra damage at Close) and Area Effecting (I can split the Harm amongst any foes in range). 

And that's basically it, other than appearance. The Briarbound Torch (for that's what Larkspur is now) is slight, with tapered limbs are black hair. Purple flowers grow from his shoulders, knees, and elbows, but these burst into purple flame when he uses his powers. The staff, likewise, grows these flowers, but they fall, burning, when he strikes.