Misspent Youth: The Tangle Finale

Last night we finished out our game of Misspent Youth that we started waaaaay back...oh, hang on, it was just back in March?

Yeah, at six episodes, this is the fastest we've ever gone through a campaign (though actually Celestial Bureaucracy only went seven and Nation of Christ, which I'm not linking, go searching if you care, went nine, so it's really about standard). That's not a bad thing, of course, it just speaks to how people chose to approach their Convictions. I will say that there were far fewer scenes losses than I've seen in previous games, meaning the decision to sell out didn't come up as much, so I think that kinda trained people to sell out when they could. 

Anyway, this remains one of my favorite RPGs. Into the mushroomosphere!

Our Authority Figures:

• The Hounds, the immense fungus-creatures that we met last session
• The Underground Network, the connected mycelium that makes up the heart of the Tangle
• The Other Caretaker, the YOs killed one of the Tendrils controlling the Hounds last time, but there's still another
• Chad, the kind of dick from the characters' school we met back here, now heavily infected

Our Friendship Questions:

• Sandy asks Sparky: "Do you ever think of just leaving?" Answer: "No, you don't leave your team."
• Sparky asks Quinn: "Do you think those creatures were faster than the van?" Answer: "I mean, we got away, so no, but they were fast."
• Quinn asks Tate: "After all that's happened, is your heart still in this? Are you scared?" Answer: "I'm not scared, I'm mad...but I don't know if it's useful-mad."
• Tate asks Sandy: "How are you doing with watching my not-mom burn?" Answer: "It wasn't your mom, it was just a bunch of fungus."
  

Scene One: What's Up

Sparky's player set this up and chose Quinn's question to Tate: "After all that's happened, is your heart still in this? Are you scared?" Answer: "I'm not scared, I'm mad...but I don't know if it's useful-mad"

We pick up exactly where last session left off, standing around the embers of the fire on which they burned the fungus-creature mimicking Tate's mom. Tate's actual mom is still inside, so Tate goes to check on her. She's a little shell-shocked, and Tate talks her down a little and then says they need to go, so she goes to pack a bag.

Outside, Sparky asks what they should do next, and asks Sandy about finding more ingredients for Tonic. Sandy snaps a little, but then calms herself and says that she's not even sure what parts of the woods are safe anymore - maybe they could find some more chemical methods of making Tonic? They decide to get in the car and head to the Resistance HQ to drop Charlotte (Tate's mom) off. 

As Tate and Charlotte are walking to the car, the YOs notice a soft, snowflake-like thing falling from the sky. Where it alights on someone's hand, the skin goes number, and then they realize that these things are fall en masse. They all start to feel sleepy, so they pile into the car and Charlotte starts driving them to the HQ. 

As they're driving out there, they see people on the street collapsing into slumber, and realize that this stuff is causing the "Torpor Timeout" that the Tangle uses to put unruly people away for a while. Charlotte starts to doze off a little, and tries to put down her window to wake up a little. Sandy stands up and puts the window back up, explaining in detail why that's a bad idea (Pedantic) but Charlotte is still dozy, so Tate stands up...and loses. 

Tate grabs the wheel to try and keep the car under control, but wrenches it too hard and the car spins out and rolls. It comes to a rest in a ditch. 

And here's out Kickoff: The Tangle is putting everyone in Timeout.

Scene Two: Fighting Back

Quinn's player set this up, and chose the Hounds. 

The YOs pull themselves out of the wrecked car and help Charlotte out - she's unconscious and they can't tell if it's from the crash or the Torpor Timeout. As they're getting their bearings, they hear a noise in the background...they figure they'd better get moving.

Fortunately there are lots of unused cars around, so Quinn gets to work on stealing one. She stands up (Untrustworthy), smashes the window on an older car, and gets to work trying to hotwire it. The cliques hears the thump-thumping of one of the Hounds getting closer...but then Tate stands up and wins on Quinn's Conviction, checks behind the sun visor, and finds the keys ("wow, people really do this? How stupid"). The clique loads Charlotte into the car and heads off to the HQ. 

Our First Beat is a Catastrophe: The Torpor Timeout in spread. 

The Question is: Can the clique stay awake? 

Scene Three: Heating Up

Tate's player set this one up and chose Sparky's question to Quinn: "Do you think those creatures were faster than the van?" Answer: "I mean, we got away, so no, but they were fast."

The clique is driving down the road as fast as this car will go, but as they watch they see a hippo-sized fungal quadruped - the Hound - chasing them (we pretty much launched right into the Struggle in this scene). Sparky stands up and, realizing this car belongs to one of his coaches, finds a sack of baseballs in the back and hurls them at the creature (Fast). The balls knock chunks of fungus off the creature, but it keeps coming. Quinn stands up and drives Relentlessly, taking a corner and skidding, but the creature crashes through the windows of a coffee shop to keep up the chase.

Tate stands up and, the erratic driving and the repeated sips of Tonic too much for him, barfs out the window at the thing (Perverse). The barf strikes the Hound and, as it's largely Tonic, eats away at its head! The head falls off...but it keeps coming, and its chest opens into a huge, mushroomy maw. 

Sandy figures maybe they can burn it, even just enough to drive it off, by reflecting the sunlight with a mirror, so she breaks off the side-view mirror and reflects the light back (Sun-Lover). The creature smolders a little but doesn't stop. Quinn stands up and loses...and decides she's had enough.

She stomps the break and screeches to a halt, gets out, grabbing a bat, and douses it in Tonic. When the creature runs up, she beats it until it falls apart, the other YOs watching in horror as she brutally and methodically whacks it until it all stops moving. Having sold out Tough to Vicious, she gets back in the car and they get on their way. 

Scene Four: We Won

I set this up, and chose Tate's question to Sandy: “How are you coping with burning my not-mom?” “She wasn’t your mom, she was just a bunch of fungus.”

The clique arrives at the HQ, but right away something is wrong. The whole building is covered with a thin, almost spider-web like coating of mycelia. The splash a little Tonic on the front door to open a path, and inside they find everyone...asleep. 

The Torpor Timeout spores got in here, but how? There's a filtration system. Sandy stands up and uses his skills as a Scavenger to find out; there's a man crumpled under one of the filter slots, with a clean filter and a dirty filter next to him (he was changing the filter and that's when they stuff got in). Tate stands up and wins on Scavenger, and looks around until he finds the blueprints that Quinn's dad was using. Using that as reference they get the filters working away, and people slowly, groggily, start waking up. 

Scene Five: We're Fucked

Sandy's player set this up, and chose Chad (now heavily infected). As everyone is waking back up and figuring out what happened, Sparky gets a text from Chad, calling the YOs out and making fun of them. Sparky tries to answer somewhat politely, but Tate grabs his phone and answers Chad in kind, saying that if he wants to have this out, they're down! They tell him to be at the bleachers, and then start to tool up.

They grab Tonic and a supersoaker, of course, but Quinn's dad also provides a brush-burner. They raid a liquor store (since the people inside are asleep) and steal some grain alcohol (Sparky marvels at how Quinn knows what to take). And then they head for the bleachers.

Right away they can see something is wrong, because they can't see through the bleachers. The entire space underneath them is taken up with ropes and webs of fungus, and there are people wrapped up like they've been caught by spiders - some of them are Sparky's teammates, some are folks the clique knows from around town (Tate recognizes his mailman, Dylan). Chad, for his part, is standing on the ground but half merged with the fungus, and tells the clique how immensely cool this is - you feel so strong and connected!

Sparky stands up and tries to talk Chad down (Trusted), but Chad steps forward a little and sends out little tendrils toward him. Tate stands up and yells at Chad, telling him how lame he looks and how they've managed to beat the Tangle every step (Arrogant). Chad laughs and laughs a softball-sized puffball at Tate's face; it misses and goes paff on the ground behind him. Sandy stands up and loses...and sells out her last Conviction, changing Sun-Lover to Firestarter. 

She hurls a Molotov into the bleachers, heedless of what that means for the people there. The fungus burns, and the people in the bleachers drop to the ground - there are some broken bones, but everyone lives. Except Chad, of course, who burns alive.

Our Second Beat, then is a Reversal: The clique takes down Chad. The answer to the Question is yes, the clique is very much awake.

Scene Six: Who Wins?

Sparky sets this up and chooses the Underground Network. 

As the fires starts to die out and the YOs start working on getting people mobile (Dylan says his mail truck is parked nearby), the streetlights flicker and the PA system crackles to life. "You've become such a bother," says a hollow, inhuman voice. The ground starts to ripple, and little mushrooms start erupting. The Tangle itself seems to be talking to them.

Sandy stands up and lets her own Cloying scent suffuse her, leading her towards the school building. Quinn runs for the parking lot, but slips as fungus pulls at her feet. Tate stands up and once again berates the Tangle (Arrogant), telling that they, a group of four kids, having been holding their own and fighting back. 

"Didn't there used to be five of you?" says the Tangle. Oof.

Quinn stands up and loses...but no way that's happening. She sells out Outrage to Wrathful and, following Sandy, sees that she's walking towards the window to the principal's office. Inside, the room is covered with blue slime mold, and sometimes it moves...sometimes it thinks, and they can feel it. Almost taste it.

Quinn doesn't wait or think. She throws a Molotov into the room and burns the Tangle's brain. The fire quickly spreads to the school building, but the damage is done - all over town, Tendrils collapse but people who are still human spit out spores and reclaim their agency. The clique has won the episode - and the campaign!

Scene Seven: Dust Settles

Quinn's player set this up and chose Sandy's question to Sparky: "Do you ever think of just leaving?" Answer: "No, you don't leave your team."

The clique is driving back into town to get to the HQ. They see that Tendrils in town have burst, spreading fungus up walls and onto the ground (they note with disgust that Perry's body did something similar). But as they pass Tate's dad's restaurant, Tate sees something - someone in the window, moving as though they're fighting something. 

Tate has Quinn stop and runs in, and finds his dad thrashing around trying to expel the spores in his body. Blue gunk is leaking from his mouth; it seems like whatever remains of the slime mold is here! Tate stands up and pours Tonic into his mouth, trying to encourage him to barf up whatever is fighting him (Family Ties), and Sandy stands up and wins on that Conviction. She, too, helps turn him over and expel the gunk, and he flops against the wall, panting, and pulls Tate down into a hug. 

Aftermath

The YOs have destroyed the Tangle, and over the next few days they find that the Tangle had largely cut their town off, but it hadn't spread far. This was just ground zero for its attack, and they managed to stop it before it got out of hand. The Tangle isn't entirely dead (it's far too hard to kill off every single part of the organism), but now that people know what to look for they can burn the slime mold when it shows up. The clique has defeated the Authority and taken back the world. 

The YOs, themselves, go on in their own lives. Sandy doesn't go back to school. Her free, natural way of living has been hit too hard. She becomes something of a hermit, and starts a power-wash company down the line, never quite trusting people or the natural world again. 

Quinn does go back to school, but things don't go well. She starts her own gang and over time engages in various sorts of criminal activities, stealing cars, breaking stuff, and so on. She does have twins at some point, but eventually she winds up in prison. 

Sparky is offered a baseball scholarship at a prestigious school...but turns it down to go to community college. He eventually becomes a teacher and and a baseball coach, and one spring day sees him trying, in vain, to work with a set of twins (one of whom bonks him with a ball). 

Tate starts working in the restaurant after school, and eventually goes to culinary school. He and his family spend a year in France as he learns the craft, and down the line he takes over for his father, running the restaurant. He also goes to therapy to work on managing his anger, until down the road he's only prone to the same outbursts as any other chef. 

And the restaurant does not serve mushrooms of any kind. Just in case.

FIN

Character Creation: League of Seekers

If I heard this title in a vacuum, I'd think it was a pulpy adventure game in the vein of, well, Adventure! or Temples & Tombs or something. Actually, in a vacuum I wouldn't hear anything at all, but you know what I mean.

The Game: League of Seekers
The Publisher: FeralGamersInc? Broken Rat Games? 
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

This game Kickstarted in 2018, it was apparently on DriveThruRPG at one point because it's in my library there, but it's not available for sale anywhere I can see on a cursory glance. And like...yeah, I can kinda see why. 

It reminds me a lot of Dark Aeons, another thoroughly mediocre Lovecraft-inspired game. There are some kernels of interesting stuff, but for the most part it's not doing anything new, and holy hell does this book need an editor. Lots of sentence fragments, misuse of "effect" vs. "affect", and Strong Bad seriously needs to sing the author his Rhythm & Grammar song about "its" vs. "it's." Interestingly, there is no credited editor. 

But never mind that. The game starts out with a timeline that takes us from AD 730 all the way to AD 1765. I think what we're going for here is something like Unhallowed Metropolis where the supernatural has basically taken over, the history talks about "spheres" opening, but it's never quite clear what those mean. Actually if I wasn't as familiar as I am with Lovecraft (and I'm by no means an expert), a lot of that chapter might miss me. 

So we're playing characters who are "Called" or "Awakened" or "Spunky", I forget what the title actually is, and we're working to help protect people from bad shit. And that's not the only way it's like Chill (which is not mentioned in its list of inspirations, and I find that very suspect) - the game system is roll d%, shoot for lower, graduated success based on how much below your stat you roll.

There's some cool-looking artwork in the book, anyway. Cover's pretty dope. Not sure if having "I'll kill you" in funky letters at the bottom of the cover is really in-tone, but whatever. Let's make a character! 

I got all excited because I saw "life paths", but although you could call this chargen system a "life path" system, it's pretty anemic. Better than nothing, though, and it means I don't have to figure out a concept before starting. 

So first we roll to see if we're a peasant, middle class, or noble. Got an 80% chance of peasant, but let's try it...hey, 95! I'm middle class! I could also be a member of the secretive Akhua sect, but it sounds too much like "Hawk Tuah" for me (I'm kidding, I just don't want to bother with the weird shit today). 

I'll note this stuff down later, I know better than to write anything on a character sheet in a lifepath system until things firm up a little. 

My Dark Knowledge starts at 1d6%, whatever that means. Hey, rolled a 6, that's as much I could know!

I get "Logical" as a Trait, and then I can pick Educated, Respected, or Fencer as a Talent. Hell, let's take Fencer. 

Now we roll for a few things:

Birthplace: Town. (As opposed to a city.) I get Commerce 10, Travel 10, Eloquence 1, Fitness 1. 

Education: Church School! That's an interesting combination with Fencer. I get Arcane 1 and Dark Knowledge d6%...hang on, 5, putting me up to 11, meaning I get a point of Insight (again, whatever that means). 

Early Career: Officer. Well, that makes more sense with Fencer. I get Melee, Toughness, and Sneak 10.

Now we do a Tale of Horror! The way this works is that I get a writing prompt, and I take it an run. I can use it to justify a 5% bump to three Skills, but every one after the first also requires a 5% penalty to a Skill (all justified by the Tale). 

Rolling, my prompt is: "As the moon turned red my own men began to change before my eyes...". 

Well, this implies that we were out on campaign or something. Let's say that I was in command of a platoon or whatever, and I'd sent out scouts the day before to find supplies. They found a small lake that contained what seemed to be clean water, so the men camped by it and drank (I and the other officers stuck to our wine, thanks). The lake, it turns out, was connected to...something. The water changed them, they grew...parts that weren't human or even mammalian. The other officers went mad or were swarmed and killed, but I got on my horse and got the hell out. 

So what Skills are implied by this? I think Travel (which covers horse riding), Stealth (because I got away), and Willpower (because I got away and didn't go crazy) all make sense. I need two penalized Skills, though. Let's say Memory (much of his brainspace at any given time is taken up by what he saw) and Diplomacy (talking to people just doesn't come naturally anymore). 

I get a Statement, which just gives me a bonus in a particular situation. Let's say that "I am well-traveled," which gives me a +10% when "recognising other cultures." I don't think "recognize" is the verb you want here, friend. "Oh, look! That culture is German!" Well, whatever, what's next.

Derived traits! Well, guess I should total my Attributes n' shit. Eloquence, Investigate, and Learned start at 4, Fitness, Subterfuge, and Occult at 3, and Conflict and Mind at 2. I get +1 Eloquence and Fitness 'cause I'm from a town, Arcane 1 from my schoolin'. 

Skill Totals: I...huh. I guess how this works is that, for example, for Eloquence, Learned, and Investigate, I get scores of 20, 20, 30, 40, and 50 that I can put into the Skills. There are 5 Skills linked to each Attribute, so presumably I get that spread in each of those categories? This is never explained, and there's no summary or example of chargen. 

Ugh, fine, that means I have to do this for nine different Attributes. Let's start with Conflict (skipping Arcane because evidently I don't get anything in those Skills). I get 5, 5, 10, 20, 30, which is pathetic, but whatevs. I'll put my 30 into Melee, obviously, since I can fence. I'll put the 20 into Ranged, the 10 into Explosives, and 5 into Thrown and Unarmed. I also get a +10 to Melee, so that's 40. 

Eloquence, I get 20, 20, 30, 40, 50, with a -5 in Diplomacy. I'll put my 50 into Etiquette, my 40 into Diplomacy (making it 35), my 30 into Languages, that leaves 20 in Commerce and Deceive. 

Fitness! 10, 10, 20, 30, 40, with a +5 in Travel and a +10 in Toughness. I'll put my 40 in Travel (45), my 30 in Toughness (40), my 30 in Resistance, that leaves 20 in Acrobatics and Athletics. 

Investigate! 20, 20, 30, 40, 50, let's put 50 into Notice, 40 into Search, 30 into Research, 20s in Track and Detect (side note: Detect, Notice, and Search are all discrete skills? Just...why?). 

Learned! 20, 20, 30, 40, 50. Well, 50 into History, 40 into Academia, 30 into Theology, 20s in Mythology and Medical. 

Mind! 5, 5, 10, 20, 30, with a -5 to Memory and a +5 to Willpower. 30 into Cunning, 20 into Willpower (25), 10 into Memory (5), leaving 5 in Dream and Logic.

Occult! 10, 10, 20, 30, 40, why on Earth is this higher than Mind for a Middle Class person? Was "middle class" even a thing in the 18th century? Anyway, 40 into Demonology, 30 into Folk Tales, 20 into Cults, leaving 10 in Divination and Xenology. 

Subterfuge! 10, 10, 20, 30, 40, with a +10 in Sneak and a +5 in Stealth. What on Earth is the difference between Sneak and Stealth? Oh, there isn't actually a Sneak Skill. Probably it was called that at some point and just never changed, must actually mean Stealth, which means I get +15 there. Cool. 40 into Stnealthk (55, making it by far my best Skill), 30 into Tinker, 20 into Forgery, 10s in Disguise and Steal. 

I get a d4 as my experience die and...OK. Every time I get a critical success or failure, I can roll my XP die and bump the Skill by that much. I actually kinda like that. But the die size is based on Mind + Learned. This means that bookworms are better at improving everything, including, say, combat Skills, and who gets a crit isn't meaningfully different, because you get a crit fail by rolling 99 or 00, and a crit success by rolling under the Attribute linked to the Skill you were using (so at best a 5% chance). 

Anyway, my Damage Bonus is also a d4, my Insanity is 12...wait, do you mean Sanity? 'Cause there's no Insanity Trait on the sheet. Whatever. Reason is "the first number of Willpower" JESUS CHRIST DO YOU MEAN THE TENS DIGIT? Ahem. That's 2 for me. Injury is the "first number" of Toughness (4), Wounds are 12 (but that's true for everyone), and Insight is 0 but 1 for me because I have Dark Knowlege (wwooOOOOooooo). 

Now I get a superpower! I'm Awakened, so I get something quasi magical. It's random, so...03 gives me Corpse Tongue, which keys off of Mind. Great, my lowest Attribute. That means I have to roll under 20 to use it. What's it let me do, anyway? Communicate with corpses and ask basic questions. Well, that's not the worst thing I could have rolled; my guy did see a lot of death. 

Oh, Languages. My Learned is 4, so I speak two, obviously English and French (and I probably should read Latin, too, but there's no way to simulate that and I do not care that much). 

OK, so: Jonathan Nelmes attended church school but didn't really have the temperament to be a vicar. He wound up enlisting and becoming an officer through a combination of luck, cleverness, and fencing skill, and when he was finally given his first squad (I'd figure out what war or campaign he was in if I cared, but a) the history of this world is a little screwy because of the monsters and b) I don't) that's when the "everyone's a bug" thing happened. 

Jonathan used to be very put together and clean-cut. He's...rather let himself go. Scraggly hair, uneven beard, dirty hands, he still wears his uniform but it's dirty beyond recognition. Somewhere in here he discovered he can (unreliably) talk to corpses, and that hasn't helped the old mental state any. 

Right, good, done, not a fan of this one. Also there's no reason this sheet couldn't have been a single page.

Character Creation: Midnight of the Century

Cheer up. The world's about to end in ten minutes anyway.

The Game: Midnight of the Century
The Publisher: By Odin's Beard RPG
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

Midnight of the Century is a game I wanted to like more than I do. I do like it, mind - it's an investigative horror game that actually does do something different than Chill. It's designed to emulate the dark investigation stories of the 90s, stuff like Millennium, Se7en, Silence of the Lambs, and so on. You're playing Investigators who are tracking down serial killers, but there is also a "you're part of a shadowy conspiracy" and a "by the way, the world is ending" component to the game. Setting-wise, there's almost nothing about it I dislike. 

System...eh. I mean, I think it's probably fine. It's OSR-inspired, but not actually OSR, so it's not like...what the hell was that weird game that the author gave up on? John Silence. Anyway, the stats aren't the standard D&D ones, so the creators obviously put more thought into it than "iunno, rulings not rules". I think I would like it better if it were something like Gumshoe or Forged in the Dark, but that's a personal preference thing. 

The thing that I get hung up on is that the book says it works best with one or two players plus a GM. I...never have only two players. If I do, I cancel the game and do something else. Four is my sweet spot, three is OK with the right game (I ran a whole Slipstream campaign with three players, but it definitely changed the calculus of designing encounters), two or one feels weird to me. And I like this setup of this game so much, I'm sure I could probably figure out making it work with more players.

For now, however, let's make an Investigator, which is like an alligator, only investi. 

I actually do have something of a concept, here; it's a character I've had in my brain for a while but never had the right game for it (and frankly probably isn't a character I'd actually play unless everyone at the table was super cool with it). My idea is someone who was a serial killer, but then had a brain tumor removed from his head and became "cured." It sounds like something that would have happened on Criminal Minds, and in a setting where demons exist, I can also see doing a kind of Malignant thing with it and having the tumor actually be a demon or something. My character doesn't need to know anything about demons, of course, just that he used to have these urges, he acted on them a couple of times, got caught, did time in prison, was diagnosed with brain cancer, and had a lot of sciencey people (from the Ouroboro corporation, in setting) poking at him and theorizing that the tumor fucking up his ability to feel...much of anything, but certainly empathy was responsible. And then he had brain surgery, and wound up being able to remember what he did but to appreciate it like a non-psychopath. 

So after his second suicide attempt, he wound up reading in the papers about an active killer in the Pacific Northwest (where this game is set by default) and contacting someone he'd met from Ouroboro with some insight. Ouroboro pulled some strings and got him released to their custody, but he's basically on permanent house arrest. He's enthusiastic about the work (tracking down killers), partially because he's got skin in the game in a way a lot of other investigators don't, but also because he expects - wants - for one of these bastards to kill him someday. 

There, that's appropriately bleak. There's a table with random names in this book, so let's use it! Rolling a d100 twice, I get...42 and 42. Huh, what are the odds. (1 in a 100, Matt.) Anyway, that gives me "Gregory Howard" as a name, which is fine by me.

My age is 30+4d6...a roll of 15 means I'm 45. Let's say he was in prison for the last 10 years, so he was killing in his early 30s. 

Traits! These are game stats (that's next), these are physical and personality traits. I'll roll them randomly, but I reserve the right countermand anything stupid. 

Physique: Lean. That's fine.

Face: Bony. Aside from rolling two 1s in a row, that's fine too.

Skin: Scarred. Obviously I didn't make it out of prison unscathed, which makes sense.

Eyes: Shining. I...huh? I don't think that tracks. I choose to pretend I roll a 7 instead, giving me "searching" eyes.

Hair: Matted. Sure, that's fine. 

Speech: Blunt. Yeah, that's good. Greg isn't interested in playing around. He knows what other people think of him, they're right, he is a monster, so what if he doesn't have the urge to do monstrous things anymore. 

Virtue/Vice: Cautious/Aggressive. First of all, those don't work for Greg, and second, they're almost antonyms. Let's try again. Ambitious/Cold. I'm OK with "cold," but "ambitious" doesn't work for me. Let's take "upbeat," just because it's such a juxtaposition. Greg is jovial and dry, but that's part defense mechanism for himself and partly for others. If he's never serious, if his humor is kinda gallows, then other people can hate him and that's just easier. 

Clothing/style: We've got an 80% chance of being "corporate" here, and...look at that, I roll within that margin. Eh, Ouroboro probably dresses me anyway. 

Stats! Body, Mind, Will, roll 3d6 in order and then swap any two. This gives me: Body 14, Mind 10, Will 15. Well, I'm gonna swap Body and Mind.

Specialism! Class, more or less. I want Greg to be a Profiler, his insight is valuable because he can think like a killer. That gives me +2 Mind.

Psych profile! More random tables, but I'm probably gonna pick these. But let's see. 

How did you become a profiler? Yeah, "cancer-induced serial killer" isn't on the random table. Why did you leave the agency? Oh, right, this assumes profilers are LEOs. OK, I'm going to skip these questions because they don't apply. 

Bonds! I get three, again rolled randomly, and this time I think it's fine to do so. My Connection Bond is...a lover. Oh, hell. Yeah, I'm OK with that. Her name is Kelly Martel (another random name). Kelly is one of those serial killer groupies who wound up tracking Greg down after his "release" and making contact, and she is literally the one person Greg ever lets his guard down to. My Haven is...a tattoo shop! Yeah, Greg has some prison tats (some of them given against his will) and he's gone into Gone Baby Gone Tattoo (owner's a big Violent Femmes fan) a bunch to get them covered up. And, finally, Vehicle...hatchback. Yeah, that's fine.

Equipment is just common sense plus the stuff my specialism gets me, which is...a picture of Kelly, some painkillers, and some latex gloves. And then I get a pager, a notebook and a pen, and a flashlight. I think I'm also required to check in with Ouroboro every day. 

And that's it! Greg is a white guy in his mid-40s, a bunch of tats on his arms and scars on his face. He's lean because he doesn't eat much, his hair is matted because there's a bunch of scar tissue on his scalp and his hair grows in weird. 

I think, again, that provided the other players are cool with it, Greg would be an interesting character study in silly things like "forgiving yourself" and whether it's possible to atone for doing something terrible. 

Movie #969: Alvin & The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel

Alvin & The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, in case the clever wordplay goes over your head, is the second (OF THREE) sequels to Alvin & the Chipmunks. Obviously. It stars Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, Jesse McCartney, Jason Lee, David Cross, Amy Poehler, Christina Applegate, Anna Faris, Wendie Malick, and Zachary Levi. 

We pick up with the titular Chipmunks, Alvin (Long), Simon (Gubler), and Theodore (McCartney) doing their schtick where they sing pop songs in squeaky voices, when their manager/adopted father falls victim to a cartoonish injury and winds up in traction in France (if this had happened in the US, it wouldn't have worked because the US health care system would have discharged him the same day). Anyway, the Chipmunks are sent to stay with their friendly Aunt Jackie (Kathryn Joosten), but she almost immediately falls victim to a similar accident and this leaves the boys in the care of their slacker cousin Toby (a pre-Shazam Levi). 

Part of Dave's instructions was for them to have a normal childhood, so they're getting sent to school. This turns out to be high school, which was jarring because before this I realized I had no context for how old these mutant rodents were supposed to be. I mean, they're all "sassy" and talk like teenagers, or rather, they talk like how a middle-aged screenwriter thinks a teenager in 2009 might talk ("oh, it's on like Donkey Kong!" "Right back atcha!" "I can't hear you over [whatever]". Stuff like that). Anyway, they go to high school, where they are immediately beset by bullies who try to kill them (what is this, the 80s?) and the principal (Malick), who happens to be a Chipmunks superfan, tells them they have to represent the school in a music festival because if they win, the prize money will pay for the school's flagging music program!

So we've got like six different cartoon plots already, but we're not done! The evil former music exec Ian Hawke (Cross), living like a mad hobo in the basement of the record company building, gets a FedEx package with the Chipettes, the female versions of the Chipmunks. Like, literally, we've got the sassy one, Brittany (Applegate), the one with glasses, Jeanette (Faris), and the fat/loveable one, Eleanor (Poehler). And sure, let's talk about this here.

The Chipettes are literally just girl versions of their respective Chipmunks, just a little less-than. Brittany is a less-assholish Alvin, Jeanette is a less-smart Simon, and Eleanor is...well, Eleanor is about the same as Theodore. Less cowardly, maybe. They get almost no characterization. I'm not saying the Chipmunks are fleshed-out characters, but they at least all have a little personality. I was there in the 80s when the girl-versions of characters appeared, I know this song. 

Anyway, the plot is stitched together from multiple cliches. We've got Alvin joining the jocks and blowing off his family, the Chipettes vs. the Chipmunks as they're manipulated by Hawke, and Toby learning to come out of his shell and talk to his high school crush, Julie (Anjelah Johnson, utterly wasted in this role). If you've been awake for the last 20 years, you know every beat before it happens, and for those of us in Gen X who watched the cartoon, there's a palpable sense of déjà vu. Anyway, it ends up with both groups performing together (obviously) and the Chipettes moving in with the Chipmunks (obviously). 

I just...I think my biggest problem here is that I don't get the appeal. I mean, the Chipmunks have always had the same gimmick (again, pop songs in a squeaky voice) but the 80s cartoon had the benefit of cartoony adventures n' shit. This is that schtick with cliché plots, hackneyed dialog, and some truly mediocre CGI. And there's a cameo from a...sewer gopher? that the movie clearly thought I should recognize. I had to look him up; it's a thing called Digger (Dave Bauza), who was a mascot for NASCAR on Fox until the head of Fox Sports apologized for him. 

People talk about Marvel movies being soulless corporate affairs, but to me, this is the kind of thing that makes me want to make movies made in the 70s. It's real bad...

...but it's somehow better than the first one. I don't mean it's good, I hasten to add. It's like how stubbing your toe is better than getting kicked in the balls. I don't want either one, neither one is fun or good, but if I have to experience one or the other, I'll pick the one that has a timely reference to another, better movie (that'd be Alvin - remember, voiced by Justin Long - reminding us during a dodgeball game of the five Ds of dodgeball). 

Wish I could've dodged this movie! HAHAHAHAHAHAi'mgonnakillyoutoasty

My Grade: D
Rewatch Value: IINSIAIFWT

Next up: John Dies at the End (for reals this time!)

D&D: The Rich Man

Ho, there! Last time, our heroes fought a snakelike monster in the ruins of a mysterious city. This time, no one ran the risk of being swallowed, so that's good.

Our heroes, having retrieved Aisling's harp-lute from the hidey-hole and bade farewell to their erstwhile companion Brébhin, set out north to the city of Cian. They're a few days out when they pick up a strange trail - a caravan, consisting of six wagons pulled by horses, and with a few folks in good-quality shoes walking alongside. This is somewhat perplexing; merchant caravans aren't unknown, but they usually aren't this big or this well-appointed.

They catch up with said caravan a day later, and see that it's entered a valley. As they're about to make themselves known, Dara spots people on the ridge on either side of the valley, clearly a bandit company ready to spring! 

Zook rolls up his sleeves to ready a fireball, but someone points out that if he blows up part of the ridge, it might collapse down on the caravan. And besides, says Fearg, do we really want to kill all these people? Zook opines that it's no different than killing monsters or kobolds, but there's a prevailing feeling of disagreement, and Keenan points out that these bandits haven't actually done anything yet - slaughtering them en masse seems extreme. Zook grudgingly agrees, but does note that his spell repertoire doesn't include a lot of non-lethal options. 

Clara scampers up the left side of the valley, and Dara goes right. Clara sees that these are indeed brigands - they wear a mishmash of armor and carry makeshift weapons, cudgels and shillelagh and the like. She spots one bandit in studded armor giving orders, but then he notices Dara on the other side of the ridge making her way towards the bandits there and signals them. And at that point, the attack begins!

Several of the bandits, including the captain, slide down the hill into the valley, draw weapons, and start attacking the guards walking with the caravan. Clara runs up and downs one of the remaining thugs easily, and on the other side of the valley, Dara conjures a wind wall to block off the valley. A couple of the bandits, already heading for the slope, hit the wall and get blown back. 

Zook and Keenan join Dara. Zook throws a magic missile at some of the dudes, hoping to encourage them to flee. Dara, likewise, clonks one on the head and tells him "I could have hit you much harder." He takes the point and runs. One of them runs up to Dara and swings a cudgel, and Keenan (who's also realizing that many of his spells involve fire and are therefore not great for non-lethal combat) casts reduce on the guy, shrinking him to gnome-size!

Meanwhile, Aisling jogs up the side of the valley and throws a hypnotic pattern across a bunch of the bandits, including the captain. They all collapse, charmed and stupefied. Fearg just walks into the valley and one of the thugs runs up and stabs him with a dagger. He looks down at the scratch and bonks the guy with his hammer, but doesn't fell him (and notes that maybe he's not as effective when he's, like, mentally present for a fight).

Up on the ridge, Dara continues her strategy of clonking bandits with a mace and either knocking them out or sending them fleeing. Clara easily fells another, and then slides down the hill, where two more bandits have a guard pushed up against a wagon! They stab him, but then turn to face Clara - and she promptly knocks them both out. Aisling ties up the bandit captain, Keenan shoots a dude in the leg with a crossbow bolt, and Zook drives the rest away with magic missiles.

The bandits either unconscious or routed, the adventurers approach the caravan. Dara and Aisling cast some healing magic at the wounded guards, and the folks riding in the wagons emerge, applauding them. The caravan numbers about 30, and the leader emerges. He's a handsome man in his 30s. His teeth are beautiful and white ("think those are real?" whispers Clara), his hair has some kind of product in it making it look lustrous, and he's wearing jewels and gold on rings and fine clothes. He thanks the characters profusely and introduces himself as Aindriú. He calls for the last two wagons to be made into transports for the adventurers, for anyone else who's wounded to be given healing potions, and the characters notice that he treats his people kindly and respectfully - but that he clearly employs them.

Aisling wakes up the bandit captain and they briefly parlay, but the bandit doesn't have anything that they want and now that his company is scattered, he pledges to leave the caravan alone and rethink his life choices. They untie him and he and his fellows flee into the hills, and the caravan gets underway again! 

The characters ride in Aindriú's carriage at first; he has one of his people bring tea ("unless you'd like something stronger?" "Yes, please," says Fearg) and some dates that turn out to be covered in sugar ("I love these," he says). The characters chat, and Aindriú is pleasant and forthcoming. He correctly guesses all of their origins, listens sympathetically when they tell him they recently lost one of their company, and once again thanks them for their heroism. 

Aisling asks after his money; for the most part he just says he's "been fortunate." When she presses, he says he was a merchant in Fiadh and that he managed to sell a particular kind of wood that became very profitable for a short time. Aisling asks if he has any, and mentions that where she's from, such fine woods are used to make instruments, and Aindriú neatly changes the subject and gets her talking about her harp-lute. None of the characters see anything wrong with this story - Aindriú is charming and seems trustworthy, but Aisling suspects something. Not that he's lying, but he just seems to be leaving something out.

Aindriú tells them that he had a sister - Ailís - who was an adventurer. She left Fiadh to answer that call, but some years later a messenger from a village in central-western Abaile arrived in Fiadh delivering a box of her personal effects; she'd been slain defending the village. Aindriú neglected to get precise directions on where that village was, and he's been searching for it to find his sister's grave. He shows them a map of Abhaile and the places he's been, and points to the general area the village should be - on the shore of a small river, not so far west that the plains give way to the badlands, but he hasn't been able to find it. He searches for a while, then circumstances tend to draw him east or south, so he travels with his caravan, and eventually heads back to Cian for resupply (which is where he's going now).

The caravan stops for the night, circles their wagons, and hunters return with deer to roast. Aisling calls her companions together and voices her suspicions - where does Aindriú get so much gold? Why is he so free with it? And more importantly, why does he change the subject when asked about it? The others, thinking about it, share the concern, though Fearg gently points out that there are a number of stories in which suspicion is rewarded with tragedy. Aisling counters, though, that it's her being suspicious, and Fearg agrees that that in itself makes this strange.

Aindriú asks Aisling to play, which of course she does, and after a few songs on the harp-lute she switches to the bodhrán. Members of the caravan with instruments join in, people dance, and a good time is had. Dara sneaks off and turns into a squirrel, and listens in to conversations, looking to see how people talk about Aindriú. She doesn't find anything untoward - one person says to another that he's trying to work up the courage to ask Aindriú to help him buy something, evidently a gift for a lady-love, and the feeling is that he'd probably help if asked. 

That night, though, as everyone sleeps, Dara listens at Aindriú's carriage and hears him talking to someone - someone with a deep, echoey voice. She can't make out what this second voice says, but she hears Aindriú's response: "I'll use it when I have something worth using it on." Aindriú leaves his carriage and walks a bit, apparently troubled, and Dara scampers in to have a look. She finds...no one. The only thing different than when she was in here before is a small box, clearly old, encrusted with jewels. 

Next morning, Dara tells the others what she saw. Possessed box? Something in the box? They aren't sure. Aisling says that she wants to stop by the burned manor on the way into Cian (mostly as an excuse to break away from the caravan for a moment), and Fearg and Dara decide to join her. Clara, Keenan, and Zook stay with the caravan as it rolls into Cian. Aindriú, of course, graciously provides breakfast (Clara: "I really hope these people aren't evil, the food is so good"), and then the party splits. 

(They also level up, but that's incidental.)

Movie #968: The Innocents

The Innocents is a psychological (or supernatural, or both) horror movie based on The Turn of the Screw by Henry James and starring Deborah Kerr, Megs Jenkins, Pamela Franklin, Martin Stephens, Michael Redgrave, Peter Wyngarde, and Clytie Jessop. 

Miss Giddens (Kerr) is hired by a happy bachelor (Redgrave) to take charge of his orphaned niece Flora (Franklin) and nephew Miles (Stephens). "Take charge" may be underselling it; he flat-out says that no matter what happens, she's in charge and he wants to bounce around the world and bang hot twinks (this last bit is not explicitly stated) and wants nothing to do with any of them. 

So Giddens goes out to his country estate, a house far too big for the few people who live there, and meets Flora and Mrs. Grose (Jenkins), the head housekeeper. Not long after, Miles gets home from school after having been expelled, but won't say why (and this is in the days when a school could just boot a kid with no good explanation). 

Giddens begins to see people haunting the house and determines that they're the ghosts of her predecessor Miss Jessel (Jessop) and the valet, Quint (Wyndgarde). She comes to believe that the children are possessed by these people (which would be plenty weird enough, but they were lovers in life), and she fixates and getting them to admit what's happening. That winds up traumatizing Flora, and when left alone in the house with Miles, Giddens forces him to confront Quint's ghost...and he dies. 

There are a couple of interpretations here. One is that there really are ghosts and Giddens is trying to save the children. The other is that she's a few toes short of a toaster and winds up killing one kid and traumatizing the other. We never know one way or the other. The original script by William Archibald played up the supernatural more overtly, Truman Capote did some rewrites that amped up the psychologist thriller aspects, but I understand that James' original story doesn't fully explain it, either.

Ambiguous ghosts aside, though, the movie is really tense and well done. Deborah Kerr gives a fantastic performance as the naive and inexperienced governess put in a truly weird situation that just keeps getting weirder - these children are odd ducks. Flora needs constant attention, Miles speaks like a much older person and seems to be actively flirting with Giddens at times. The one you really feel for is Mrs. Grose, who loves the kids and is just trying to do her job amidst all of this shit that she is truly not prepared for. 

It's a sad and Gothic movie, it's beautifully shot, and (sing it with me) the house feels familiar by the end of it, but also manages to feel consistently too big for the people in it. It's not exactly a "fun" movie, but it's definitely a good example of how to do horror without gore or jump scares.

My Grade: A-
Rewatch Value: Low

Next up: John Dies at the End, presuming I don't get something from Toasty today

Character Creation: Legend of Ghost Mountain

WhoooOOOooooo a mouunnntaaaaaiiinn

The Game: Legend of Ghost Mountain
The Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment Group
Degree of Familiarity: Never played this, but I know SWADE pretty well
Books Required: Legend of Ghost Mountain and SWADE

Obviously inspired by wuxia fiction, Legend of Ghost Mountain has the players taking on the roles of Ghost Wardens. Basically they're people who became enforcers of the titular mountain, going out into the Empire and beating up ghosts so that they fly back to the mountain and get through the Hell Gate and get on with the business of being tortured until their souls are "lightened" enough that they can be reincarnated. (Which sounds horrific, but on the other hand, a lot of Western mythologies just have you getting tortured forever, full stop, so this is probably better.)

It looks pretty cool, actually. One thing I'm a little iffy about is that PCs start at Veteran, and I get why they're doing that - Wardens are supposed to be on the badass side. On the other hand, doesn't that kinda mean there's nowhere to go? Maybe it would have been better to just scale things so starting characters have the correct amount of badassery. But I haven't read the GM portion of the book, so I freely admit I'm talking out of my Hell Gate here. 

The book says that Ghost Wardens tend to be haunted (in the figurative sense), so I need some trauma in my past, here. Let's say my character is from the North and his village was wiped out by a clan of Horse Lords. The survivors fell back to the city of Sanctuary, and one day my character (let's name him Sky-Eyes Bo) saw a band of Ghost Wardens headed back to where his village was. He stole a horse and followed them, and had to watch them put to rest people that he'd known all his young life. "Put to rest" here sometimes meant helping them achieve whatever they were holding onto, but mostly it meant beating the ectoplasm out of them.

Sky-Eyes went back to Ghost Mountain with the Wardens and worked his way up from there. He was probably allowed to go because he knows about horses, but whatever works.

Cool, that'll work. Let's do chargen proper! My Race is human, obviously (I mean, I could be some kind of devil, but I don't wanna). The SWADE book actually says to do Hindrances next, so cool, we'll do that. 

Well, I'm gonna say that Sky-Eyes has a habit of gazing off into the distance. We'll just call that a Quirk. And I think I'll go ahead and lean in to his backstory and take Wronged as a Major Hindrance (it's basically Vengeful on steroids), and say he's out to get the Horse Lords. That's...there's a lot of them. Finally, since I'm from the North I need land, lots of land, and the starry skies above, so I'll take Claustrophobia (Minor).

Now we do Traits. Well, I'm going to get a bunch of advances, but I think I want to start playing to my strengths, so I'll put Agility to d8, Strength at d4, the others at d6.

Skillz! I get the usual starting skills (Notice, Common Knowledge, Persuasion, Athletics, Stealth) at d4, then 12 more. Obviously I want Fighting, but I want to do thrown weapons, too, so I'll jack Athletics to d8, Fighting to d8, Riding to d8, Survival to d6, and Thievery to d6.

Derived traits, whatever, I'll do those at the end. Edges! I have to take Ghost Warden. Now, do I get that free or do I have to take it? Just says it's required, so I guess it eats my free Edge. Grr. That means I need Martial Artist as well. Oh, but I can take these things with Advances, my guy didn't start as a Ghost Warden. OK, well, then I'll take Beast Bond as my free Edge. And then I get my four "points." I'll buy Occult d4, I'll put Spirit up to d8, and I'll put Notice up to d6.

Neato. And now we get to do Advances. Helpfully, there's slots on the character sheet, so I can keep this straight pretty easily.  

OK, I get three Advances under Novice. I will bump Agility to d10, buy Martial Artist, and bump Fighting and Athletics to d10.

Four Advances under Seasoned, and that would put me to Veteran, so I guess just those four. Well, obviously I need the Ghost Warden Edge, so that's first. I'll take the Throwing Mastery Edge so I can whip knives at ghosts. I'll bump Occult and Stealth to d6. And then...hmm. I feel like I should take my Attribute bump. Yeah, I'll knock Spirit up to d8.

And then I could spend money if I wanted, but I don't. Sky-Eyes Bo carries lots of little throwing knives and chakram, and is used to riding in to battle, hurling stuff at foes, and then riding off before they get their bears. 

Sky-Eyes is small and wiry, like a jockey. He's got the long white hair (used to be black, but turned white when he became a Warden) done up in a braid that's common in the North, and his eyes are brown with perhaps a greenish hue at times? He's adopted the dress of the Ghost Wardens, but he has a pair of rabbit-fur gloves that he's patched and rebuilt many times since he was a boy. 

That'll do it!