Character Creation: Fate of the Norns Ragnorak

I actually have a stack of RPGs to read as possibilities for the next thing I'm running (since Night's Black Agents wound up the other day), and this isn't one of them, but I've been reading it, and well, it's a cool game. Here we go!

The Game: Fate of the Norns - Ragnorak
The Publisher: Pendelhaven
Degree of Familiarity: Some, but not a lot. I played it once at GenCon like 5 years ago, and it was a lot of fun
Books Required: Just the one, plus a bag o' runes.

This is one of those games that I can't run with any of my current groups, not because the system is complicated, but because it requires a level and type of engagement from the players that I'm not gonna get. This makes me sad sometime, but I own something like 650 different RPGs, so I definitely have enough stuff to run. Anydangway, let's make a dweller (PCs are "dwellers," NPCs are "denizens").

Step One is level; the GM (or "Norn", in this case) decides how many levels everyone starts with. "Level" in this context isn't like it is in D&D or similar games, in which every time you level up you get a bunch more stuff. Really, the number of levels is a chunk of points I get to split between Destiny and Essence, my two main traits. The example characters start with 20, while the sample adventure in the back has characters starting with 9. I'll go with 9, since if I ever run this game, I'm likely to use the adventure in the book.

As part of this step, I decide on my Essence and Destiny. The resolution system in this game is all about runes; you draw runes out of your bag and place them on a player mat depending on what you're doing and how. You draw runes equal to your Destiny when you Wyrd (that is, draw runes), but you know runes equal to your Essence. So if you want to have a lot of variety but not be terribly predictable, you prioritize Essence, but if you want to be strong and specific, you prioritize Destiny.

I think that I shall prioritize Essence, because I like variety. Destiny costs 2 levels per point, Essence is one-for-one. I'll go 5 Essence, 2 Destiny.

Step Two doesn't apply; it's for adding upgrades based on characters that have died and gone to Valhalla or Glassivellir.

Step Three is where things get interesting; I have to draw runes from a bag, which I have. I draw runes equal to my Essence, which is 5. Here's what I get:

It's hard to tell in that photo, but the dots below the runes are blue, green, blue, green, green. No red at all. Hrm.

There are random tables that dictate things like personality, motivation and ambition, social standing, social connections, and name. That's 5 tables, and I've got 5 runes, so fuck it, let's see if I get a good combination.

The Isaice rune (first on the left) translates to "Strategic" as personality. I can get behind that. The next one, Wunjo, is "addiction" for motivation and ambition. I dunno, I'm not crazy about that one. Eihwas (middle rune) gives me a motivation of "Independence," and that sounds better. The Wunjo applied to social standing gives me Emissary of a Demi-God holy shit yes. I work for a Son of Muspel (fuck the Aesir) and I get good gear and 800 skatt a month. Nice. I get a spectacular weapon of my choice; I need to look at what's available.

Next is social connections. The Raidho rune gives me an Angel of Death, who prepares the dead for their last journey, and given that I want to send the glorious dead to Glassivellir, that seems good. Her name is Asta.

My dweller's name is Ragna, using the Gebgift rune to find it, and that's fine by me.

Step Four is choosing an archetype. Hrmm. I like the Ulfhednar a lot, but they seem a little more physical than me. Ah, screw it. I'll do that, and I'll be an Eater of Eyes (eating the eyes of an enemy can help regain my Essence). That means my Void rune is Physical (good, that means that's my only one!), the associated Passive is Sadist (my first attack in a round can blind someone), my Active is Eye Rake (again, I go for the eyes), and my Skill is Feather Fingers (sleight of hand). Groovy!

OK, this next part is cool, but weird. There are three grids: Passive, Active, and Skills. I get to bind one of my five runes to each grid. Here's the first one:

So I start from the center, and I can choose adjacent powers. I can go, say, up (Power Attack) and then left (Precision Attack), but I can't start from Precision Attack because it's diagonal. Hang on, this'll take a minute.

Well, it's really hard for me not to take Blood-Wolf Form, since that turns me into a giant goddamn wolf. I'll go one right, too, and take Mauling. I really want Howl, Blood Fang, so I have to take Flanking Attack to get to it. Oh, and um, Cleansing Attack, yes goddamn please...oh, wait, can't take that, it's diagonal. Cleansing Block, then.

Cool! Now Passives, same drill. Oh, Tactician makes sense. I'll take Martial Prowess, so that I can fight even if I'm not a wolf. Oh, Cerebral Warrior, yes please. Also Spirit Warrior. Those let me use Spiritual and Mental runes to use certain weapons, and that's just smart. And I'll take Combat Awareness; I have 360 degree awareness in battle. Seems useful.

And now Skills! Perception, definitely. I'd normally take Athletics, but I don't have any physical runes so I'll let that go. I will take Sneak, though. Verbal Manipulation, sure, why not. Animal Empathy seems appropriate, all things considered. And, finally...Sense Motive. Seems good for a tactician.

Step Six is buying equipment. I've got a bunch of stuff, and I don't much care about shopping, but I do want to figure out my weapon. I'll take a battle axe, and add one to DF (damage factor).

And that's it, actually! I'll say that Ragna has been an Eater of Eyes for some time, and found a body of a dead warrior who had been claimed for the Sons of Muspel. He ate the fellow's eyes, and was immediately confronted by Asta, the Angel of Death, and a Son of Muspel. Ragna made a deal with the Sons of Muspel to serve them faithfully, and to share his bounty of eyes (knowledge and so on) with them, in exchange for his life and forgiving the sin of grave robbing. Ragna really wants to be free of that arrangement and live his own life, and so he approaches his life like he does his battles - tactically.

Ragna is slight of build, lean and hungry, but he's quite strong enough to use the momentum of his axe to his advantage. And, of course, if he really needs to get busy he can just turn into a damn wolf. Ragna's black hair has gotten a reddish sheen since he took up with the Son of Muspel, and his eyes have become yellow-green, life a wolf's.

Movie #504: Murder on the Orient Express

Murder on the Orient Express is a murder mystery based on the novel by Agatha Christie, directed by (and starring) Kenneth Brannagh, and also starring Johnny Depp, Daisy Ridley, Josh Gad, Dereck Jacobi, Penélope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, Leslie Odom, Jr., Michelle Pfeffier, Tom Bateman, Olivia Colman, Manuel Garica-Rulfo, Lucy Boynton, and Sergei Polunin. Whew.

Our hero Hercule Poirot (Brannagh) stars off by solving a theft in Jerusalem, and then plans to take some time for himself, but is immediately requested by the British government to return to London. He has his friend Bouc (Bateman) get him a seat on the Orient Express, and meets the variety of colorful characters riding first class, whom I'm not going to introduce because it'll take too long, go watch the movie or read the book.

Anyway, a couple of nights in, a terribly unpleasant fellow named Ratchett (Depp) tries to hire Poirot to watch his back. Poirot, of course, tells him to get stuffed (very politely), and Ratchett is found dead the following morning, stabbed repeatedly. The train has been stopped by an avalanche, and the cars are locked at night, so Poirot deduces that someone in first class must have killed him. Poirot isn't initially interested in figuring this out, but Bouc points out that if the police do this investigation, they'll just pick someone and hang him, probably either car salesman Marquez (Garcia-Rulfo) or Dr. Arbuthnot (Odom Jr.) because they aren't white (so, like, police are police regardless of where they are, I guess).

Poirot starts the investigation, and very quickly realizes that Ratchett's real name was Cassetti, and that he was responsible for the highly publicized and horrific kidnapping and murder of a little girl some time ago. He further realizes that every single person on the train except Bouc, including the night porter Pierre Michel (Marwan Kenzari) was in some way involved with the family, and it was Mrs. Hubbard (Pfeffier), actually the little girl's grandmother, who masterminded all of this. All of them stabbed the fucker.

So, I admit I have never read the book, sadly, but I love murder mysteries and I like Christie in particular because she plays fair by the audience. The answer to the riddle is pretty obvious when you think about - everyone had motive, everyone had means, everyone did it - but that's so counter to the way that murder mysteries are set up that you don't think about it the first time through.

Quite beyond the excellent source material, though, this movie is really well done. Brannagh is perfect as the fussy, brilliant Poirot, and manages to make Poirot's obsession with order and perfection both a blessing and curse, without feeling like another Sherlock or House (i.e., a genius asshole). Standouts from the cast are Ridley as Miss Debeneham, former governess to the unfortunate little girl and fiancee to Dr. Arbuthnot, Depp as Ratchett (who manages to be a complete slimeball very quickly), and Gad as Ratchett's assistant, secretly stealing from him and maneuvering him into position for the kill. And, of course, the movie is beautifully shot.

Very much looking forward to Death on the Nile, in fact.

My Grade: A
Rewatch Value: Medium-high

Next up: The Others

Night's Black Agents: The Electrifying Conclusion

Yesterday we finished our long-running Night's Black Agents game. By "long-running" I mean it started back in January 2013, here. We had a long hiatus due to health problems from one of the players (who ultimately had to drop out), added another player, lost them, added another player, and finally stabilized.

Ultimately, I think it was a good run. Gumshoe games ask a lot from the players and the GM, and I think that the mix of players we ended with probably wasn't the best suited for Gumshoe, but it worked out fine. I like the game a lot, and there's actually quite a bit of replay value because there's not a single "truth" to it. My vampires were alien creatures created (or at least unleashed) by Nikola Tesla, but yours might be traditional "stake 'em and bake 'em" style creatures. I might consider running this again some day, but not for a while.

Anyway! Last time, the agents destroyed Ioan Koltay, and learned that Tesla himself was hiding in Belgrade, but about to flee to the US.

The agents head to Belgrade and start digging. Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport has twice-daily flights to New York, so they worry that Tesla may already have left. Applying what they know about Tesla, they figure he wouldn't leave without his gear and research, so Firinci tracks cargo that's been shipped from the airport recently and Carlsson calls up a buddy in the States who works for customs and asks about it. Said buddy confirms that it was shipped in the name of a "Dane Mandic", but it hasn't cleared customs yet. Carlsson asks him to hold it up.

Firinci digs into "Mandic" a little, and learns that it's a cover ID, and it's pretty flimsy. It's sturdy enough to get someone on a plane, f'rex, but any sustained investigation would reveal it to be fake. The agents consider their options. They could easily cause this ID to collapse, but then Tesla might flee the city and with most of his network destroyed, they have no idea where he'd go. He'd be in the wind.

They look up Bugarcic, the fellow who ran the Tesla Museum, and find that he's living in Belgrade. MacAteer and Hanover go to visit him and (after pushing into his house) interrogate him. He has nothing of interest to tell them, though; Tesla came to see him a couple of nights ago to say goodbye, and he doesn't know where Tesla is or how to contact him. The agents leave (half expecting the house to explode, but it doesn't) and start planning.

They consider leapfrogging Tesla and going to the States to lay a trap, but Parker points out that doing that would be a big outlay of resources and would require dealing with the American intelligence community, which isn't what they're used to. Instead, she suggests calling upon a friend of hers who works customs at Belgrade Airport - she can have him pull Tesla aside when he checks in to his flight, and "questioning." She can bring the other agents in as her team (except Firinci, who will be under cover separately as a tech, which will allow him to shut off cameras in strategic places), and hit Tesla in the interrogation room. Yes, this is dangerous, and yes, the agents might be caught afterwards, but they're all in to finish this.

Firinci leaves a duffel bag with gear (including a machete, since edged weapons seem more effective than bullets against vampires) near the room, and the other folks pull out covers that they can use to get in (MacAteer goes as himself, working with Parker).

They watch as Tesla enters the airport, with some security, but they leave him at the door. He's carrying a stainless steel briefcase. It goes through the metal detector, but the agents can't figure out what's in it - tubes? Glass? The case looks like the kind of thing that one would carry a disassembled gun in, but it's no gun the agents have ever seen.

At the gate, two customs agents stop him and take him into a hallway toward the interrogation room...

...but as soon as the door closes behind them, Tesla falls and clutches his chest. The agents go to catch him, and he grabs them and breaks their necks. The agents spring into action (except Firinci, who watches on the monitors). Tesla opens his case and starts putting something together. "He's armed," says Firinci.

Hanover and Parker approach from the front, while MacAteer and Carlsson go to the door that Tesla just came through. Parker tells Hanover to shoot the gun Tesla is carrying, since none of them really want to find out what that does. Hanover pops up and takes the shot (his MOS, remember)...but Tesla is impossibly fast and fires as well.

The gun cracks and fizzles, but Hanover falls dead with a cauterized hole in his throat. He collapses, and Firinci sends medics. Parker charges in and hacks at Tesla with her machete, and MacAteer and Carlsson burst in the door. Carlsson shoots him, and MacAteer delivers a one-two punch that staggers him and puts him against the wall.

Parker draws back, and cleanly slices his head off with her machete. His body crumples to the floor, his tentacles limply slithering out of his neck.

MacAteer, Carlsson, and Firinci fade away. Parker stays to see it through, and she, Tesla's body, and Hanover's body disappear shortly thereafter. The British government manages to exfiltrate her later. Officially, of course, the snafu at the airport was just a big misunderstanding when the wrong man was pulled aside. The conspiracy, as far as the agents know, is dead.

FIN

Character Creation: How We Came to Live Here

Sure, why not.

The Game: How We Came to Live Here
The Publisher: Galileo Games, though they're no longer selling this game (see below)
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one.

 

So, addressing the elephant in this particular room, How We Came to Live Here has received criticism for appropriating Native American culture, and so Galileo Games has pulled it from their catalog while they revise it. And that's probably a good thing; I did find as I was reading it that I kept thinking "boy, a white guy wrote this, huh?" Which, like, fine, we grow, we learn. It's still got a chargen system, so here we are.

The game deals with the People, who belong to clans, and then within them also belong to kiva societies (basically religious/mystical sects; they're also gender based). There are monsters out in the dark, too.

Making a character starts with making a Village, which of course would be a whole-group kind of activity. There's an example of character/village creation, though, so I'm gonna use that. The name of the village is Shelter Bay. We've got badlands and a beach. Good!

And then I choose clan. My birth clan is the clan of my mother, and then there's my father's clan. I get traits from both. 'Scuse me while I reread those clans. I'm gonna say mom was from the Red Earth Clan (potters and shapers, also associated with blood) and dad was from the Knife Clan (warriors).

Neat, then I get traits from both. These are effectively Aspects, except they're purely positive (and then there are failings, which aren't). I know for my birth clan failing I want "bleeds easily." As traits, I'll take "a thousand cousins" (Red Earth Clan is numerous) and "hands stained with hard work" (they're skilled potters).

And then from dad's side of the family, the Knife Clan, I'll take "warriors die young" (dad died shortly after my character was born) as the failing, and "skilled at evasion" (if you bleed easily, don't get cut).

Step Three is to choose a gender, but I did that. Step Four is personal traits. Hmm.

Well, I want my character to be comfortable getting his hands dirty - crafting, fixing, or manipulating the world around him. Red Earth folks tend to be warm and friendly, and he is; he's a good listener but he's cagey because vulnerability is hard (because he's used to bleeding more for his trouble). So I'll say that his personal failing is "does not trust people". For his traits, I'll say he "always finishes his work" and "knows the village and the lands" (raw materials, you see).

Step Five is to assign pools. Skill, Strength, Faith, Spirit, and I get to assign 4, 3, 2, 1. Hmm. I think Spirit can be my lowball, I guess. I'll put my 4 in Skill (it include Artistry), my 3 in Faith, and my 2 and Strength.

Next I choose a name. Names in this game are kind of faux-Native deednames, like "He-Fools-The-Wolf" and whatnot. I'll say his name is He-Shapes-The-Stone (there's rock around here, I can carve it). As a child, he was called "He-Bleeds-For-Hours."

Step Seven is to choose a kiva society that I've become an initiate to. Hrm. A lot of them involve cutting as part of the initiation, and like, I don't see my guy really going for that. Let's say that he joined the Talking Society...oh, wait, god damn it. There are prescribed traits for all of the clans and societies. That is not clear from the text, nor is there a "list of traits are on p. 121", for fuck's sake. Grr. Bad design. Also these are boring.

OK, hang on, gotta print out a new sheet. Grr again. So for my Red Earth traits, I'll take "great crafter" and "can be trusted." For my failing, I'll take "must get his way." For Knife Clan, I'll take "brave" (yawwwwn) and "proud" (also yawn).

For my personal traits, I'll take "refuses to be cut" and "cagey," and for the failing I'll take "bleeds easily."

OK, back to the kiva society. The trait I get is "touched by spirits," and I get Spirit Channeling as an ability.

Step Eight is to build a village web, but I'm gonna skip that because it's just me. Step Nine is Ambitions. I'd pick one per session we'd plan to play, and they fall into one of four categories. I think I'll take two, Community and Renown.

For Renown, my ambition is to "win a fight with a stronger opponent without taking a scratch." For Community, it's "craft something that all the village can use."

And that's it!

Blue Rose: The Curative Powers of Honey

Last night was Blue Rose. Last time is here. Last sentence in this paragraph.

The party wakes up and all of them (except Dobbin) realize that they're sick. They need to figure out this medicine soon, or else Whirlpool, the only one of them who knows anything about medicine, is going to be too ill to continue.

They decide that the berries and herbs that they used before might need to be dried, so they build a fire and heat a stone and dry out some of the stuff, and then grind it all. Whirlpool notes that mixing this stuff with water will make it too loose; they need something thicker. The group hits on honey as a solution, and Dobbin runs back to the village and gets a jar of honey from the apiarist (she also makes sure Pansy stays behind, despite the doggie wanting to accompany her).

Whirlpool mixes the honey in, but this concoction is slightly too thick. Arlen suggests using the juice of moonroot, and Whirlpool happens to have just enough left. He mixes it into a poultice and applies it to Maiyon, and then they wait.

A couple of hours later, Maiyon is feeling better - the cure worked! But Kisha is sicker and getting worse, and they need to make more. They all work feverishly (in some cases literally) churning the stuff out, treating the horses in the herd and the members of the party. That night, everyone who was ill has received it, and Balstir approaches Whirlpool.

He tells Whirlpool that he has the thanks of the herd, and if there's ever anything that they can do for him, they have only to ask. He tells Arlen that he is eternally grateful for his kindness in performing last rites for the horse that died. He tells Dobbin that, as the only one of the group that didn't succumb, she is hale and healthy in a way that may be significant. He tells Kisha that she does her country proud.

The party returns to the village and the Baker greets them with celebratory confections called Year-End Cookies, typically made out of whatever spices and dried fruits are left at the end of the growing year (sometimes they're tasty, sometimes not so much). They've made them early this year in celebration of the characters' curing of the malady, and the villagers stay up and eat, drink, and make merry.

Maiyon, in the wee hours, tells them that she'll be happy to fix their boat, but they're also welcome to stay here in Riverside. Dobbin considers it - she wants to find someplace to call home. She feels, though, that she has a responsibility to see the Mask delivered. The party gears up (and levels up, which means they get Specializations, which is cool) and prepares to head on.

Movie #503: The Meg

The Meg is a natural horror/action movie starring Jason Statham, Li Bingbing, Ruby Rose, Rainn Wilson, Cliff Curtis, Winston Chao, and Sophia Cai. Oh, and a giant CGI shark.

Jonas (Statham) begins the movie by rescuing several divers from a damaged sub, and winds up having to leave a few of them behind because something attacks their vessel. However, no one else sees it, and he's discredited and driven to drinking his life away in Thailand.

And then, a research station funded by a snarky billionaire (Wilson) and run by a staid Chinese scientist (Chao) and his badass daughter (Bingbing) discovers that the bottom of the Mariana Trench isn't really the bottom, it's a layer of super-cool mist that hides what is essentially a new ocean below it. Long story short, Jonas gets brought in to save some of their scientists, but they wind up bringing up "the Meg," a catchy nickname for Megalodon, a gigantic shark thought extinct for millions of years.

It's a natural horror movie, meaning it's got the usual beats - people interfering with nature, rich people putting money and/or their personal reputation above others' safety and getting eaten for it, the monster running amok in a populated area, and so on. But, The Meg does a couple of things that I really like.

First of all, the writing is pretty tight. The dialog between characters is light and funny when appropriate, and the characters with established relationships (like Jonas and his buddy Mac (Curtis)) feel authentic. Likewise, survivors talk about the deceased characters, by name, and take the time to mourn them, which is something that you don't always see in horror films.

Also, the pacing of the movie is interesting, because we get crisis-resolution-crisis-resolution-crisis and so forth. Lake Placid used a second crocodile at the end for a cheap jump-scare, but this movie allows the heroes to have a victory, kill the shark...only to show us a bigger one and up the stakes.

Plus, it's cool to see an action movie where Jason Steakums gets to swim.

My Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: Medium-high

Next up: Murder on the Orient Express

Character Creation: Accursed

Tempus fugit. I was thinking the other day that I should do a Savage Worlds character, and then I thought, "nah, it's only been like a few weeks." Actually, the last one I did was RunePunk in late December, so that's my perception of time for ya.

Anyway.

The Game: Accursed
The Publisher: Melior Via
Degree of Familiarity: None with this game in particular, but lots with Savage Worlds and more than a little with games in which you play monsters
Books Required: Probably Accursed and a Savage Worlds core, and I think the Horror Companion, which I'm pretty sure I have kicking about somewhere

 

I have to say, reading the setting chapter of this book is a little strange. Like, it's normal to take inspiration from real-world cultures, but here we've got a lot of creatures taken from real-world mythologies (Baba Yaga, f'rex) and names that are pretty darned reminiscent of human cultures (Nikolai Yeltsev of Steppengrad). Also there's the Sakurada Shogunate, which is described as "exotic." I dunno, I kind of feel like if you're going to grab that much from human cultures, just set the damn game on Earth. If you're going to go full-fantasy, make some shit up.

(But then, I haven't read the whole book, so I have to allow for the possibility that we're doing a Dark City-ish twist and it was Earth all the time. I'll have a look as I'm doing the character.)

Anyway, in Accursed there's a war going on called the Bane War. The evil witches (Baba Yaga included) sometimes take people and curse them, turning them into supernatural creatures to use as troops, but some of those creatures break free and become the PCs. The thrust of the game looks like a pretty standard fantasy game (i.e., go investigate shit that looks interesting), but with a "you're also a monster" spin to it, which has the potential to be pretty cool.

And I have to say, the art is pretty rad. (Show you what I mean in a minute.) Let's make an Accursed!

The first thing I do is choose a Witchbreed. The section of the book that introduces them says that there are six, but there are in fact eight.

Let's see. Kinda torn between dhampir (half-vampire) and shade. I think I'll do shade. They're pretty ghost-like, and I like ghosts. Here's the picture; like I said, I think it's pretty cool.

OK, cool. So, Shades are (or were, in my case) servants of Hecate, the Witch Queen. Looks like they're semi-solid, probably for "game balance" purposes so they can still get stabbed, but they're harder to hit and vulnerable to salt. I'll write in my racial bonuses real quick.

Should think about concept a little. The write-up for Shades says that Hecate turned a lot of people from the Outlands into Shades. Reading the section on the Outlands, there are three kind of sub-nations, one of which is called Riverspring. I think my guy is from Riverspring - I kinda want to do a riff on a spectral rider but I don't know if that's possible. There's a Beast Master Edge that lets you have an animal companion, but I don't know if "ghost horse" fits into that.

OK, you know what, fuck it. You get gear based on what it's reasonable to have, and I say my character has a goddamn spectral horse. It's not any different than a riding horse, except that it's a ghost. I'll see if I can find a Hindrance or an Edge to better represent it.

Anyway, my character was a scout from Riversong. He had a home and a family and everything, but he was a strong rider and was often called upon to carry messages and suchlike. And then Hecate came to town, killed everyone and my guy almost got away to get help. Almost.

All right, got my Witchbreed and a basic concept. Let's do Attributes! I pay double for Strength because I'm a ghosty-ghost. I'll leave Strength at d4 and bump Agility to d8. That was easy.

Skills! They're not listed on the damn sheet, but they are handily collected in a sidebar in the book, which is nice because there are some changes ("Subterfuge", f'rex, covers both Stealth and Lockpicking). I get the usual 15 points.

Well, I know I want Ride to be hella good, so I'll jack that up to d8. I get a free d6 in Subterfuge, so I'll spend one more and put it to d8. I'll take Athletics (again, a combo of Climbing and Swimming) at d6, Tracking d6, Fighting at d6, Shooting at d8, Notice d4, and Guts d4.

As usual, the books says to do derived traits next, but it also says that the order of these steps isn't important as long as they all get down, so that's something, I guess. Anyway, on to Edges and Hindrances!

I'll take a Vulnerability. Going along with my "spectral rider" concept, I want to be repelled or damaged by something native to my homeland. I'm gonna say fresh water; my horse can't cross streams and if splashed with water I start to dissolve. I'll take that as a Major Hindrance. I'll take Illiterate as a Minor (don't see this guy as being very well schooled), and I'll take Stubborn.

Cool! I'll spend two of my Hindrance points to buy the Steady Hands Edge (I take a reduced penalty for "unsteady platform," like shooting from horseback). I'll spend the other two and buy a d6 in Survival. For Gear, I'll say I have my spectral horse (Ticka), a flintlock pistol, and a musket.

My Shade looks much like he did in life - tall, stocky, wearing brown leathers, a dirty white shirt, and well-worn boots. His eyes are jet black and he's vaguely translucent, but that's what you get when you're a Shade. He looks a lot stronger - physically - than he is, but he's still fast and capable of riding hard. His horse, Ticka, is pure white and snorts smoke when she's annoyed. My Shade's name is Rollo (RAH-lo).

Blades in the Dark: And Several Butcher's Aprons

Last night was Blades in the Dark. Here we go!

Last time the scoundrels came up with the idea to blackmail Lady Slane, the director of operations for the Ministry of Preservation, to get her to remove opposition to the Rail Jacks unionizing (all of this to get some turf that the Rail Jacks were claiming in Nightmarket).

We open in Dunslough, with Lady Slane approaching Ironhook Prison. She meets with a guard, who hands her a piece of paper. The crew has learned from the Star that Slane runs the Billhooks, a ruthless and bloody gang of thugs, and their purported leader, Tarvul, is locked up in Ironhook. She's apparently just gotten some orders from him.

Copper and Siren do a quick one-two punch of distraction and sleight of hand, and steal the orders. Slane doesn't notice, and keeps walking. Siren checks the orders - Tarvul is ordering his people to close ranks and hassle some magistrates, so as to push them to pardon him and get him the hell out of Ironhook.

The crew follows Slane to a slaughterhouse - the Billhooks' hideout. She enters, and Siren sends Bartok, her hunting hawk, in to spy. Bartok zips straight to the rafters and remains unseen. Slane gives a set of orders to Erin and Coran, the apparent leaders on the ground, and leaves (Slane is apparently not really welcome or comfortable here; kinda a "your boss' boss" situation).

Siren decides to have Bartok snatch the orders while the Billhooks aren't looking, but one of them spots the bird and throws a bag over it. The Billhooks start arguing about the best way to cook it, and Pearl (Cage's vampire friend, remember) leaps in and trashes the place, throwing the Billhooks around and scaring the hell out of everyone. He frees Bartok (and grabs the orders, for good measure), and then vanishes, leaving the thugs terrified and bloodied but alive.

The crew checks these new orders - they're almost identical, but the list of magistrates is different and the orders don't say anything about letting them live or scaring them, just killing them. The crew takes the orders back to the lair and One-Eye analyzes them, and finds distinct but subtle differences between them. She can prove they came from different people. Now it's just a matter of putting that to Slane.

They rope a shopkeeper in Nightmarket into contacting Slane with the promise of expensive Iruvian silks, and then when she arrives, Copper and One-Eye greet her. One-Eye does the talking, and threatens Slane that if she doesn't vote the way they want on this "Rail Jacks want to be independent" issue, they'll be leaking the truth about the Billhooks to various people, including, of course, the Billhooks. Slane insults One-Eye's heritage as a Skov, but eventually caves, though she makes clear that this is a one-time arrangement, not an ongoing thing. Slane leaves, and a few days later, Spur of the Rail Jacks invites the crew back to the Bar Car. Things are progressing nicely, and he's happy to cede the turf to the Widdershins. The crew solidifies their hold (going from weak to strong), and sees very little heat from the score.

Pearl drops off the radar, going on a bit of a drunken bender (and he doesn't drink...wine). One-Eye continues working with the Unseen to shift attention away from the crew. Siren continues building up her "Skovic youth center" initiative. Cage returns, clutching books that he found while traveling. He reports being on a ship and having nightmares of siren-like creatures trying to lure him into the Void Sea; Siren says that this is a common thing. The crew talks about their next move, and Cage mentions that this whole "demon in the ocean" thing, as well as the "Kotar in Siren's head" thing, is probably a priority. The others agree, and Cage goes to talk with Lord Penderyn.

Penderyn informs Cage that the job that Madame Tesslyn offered the crew some time back wasn't just about stealing an expensive chalice - that chalice has some occult significance and might help with understanding Kotar. Cage returns to the crew and relays this, and the crew decides that, while robbing people in Brightstone isn't really their comfort zone, it's by no means out of their abilities. Turns out Rolan Wott likes to have flashy parties, and so that gives them a way in. Next time, we'll see how that plays out.

Movie #502: The Orphanage

The Orphanage is a Spanish horror movie produced by Guillermo del Toro and directed by J. A. Bayona, starring Belén Rueda, Fernando Cayo, Roger Príncep, Mabel Rivera, Monserrat Carulla, and Edgar Vivar.

Laura (Rueda; Mireia Renau as a child) grew up in the titular orphanage in Spain. She is adopted, and then years later returns to reopen it as a group home for disabled children with her husband Carlos (Cayo) and her young adopted son Simón (Príncep). When they move in, Simón finds new imaginary friends, which his parents tolerate until he learns the truth about himself (to wit, he's adopted and HIV-positive), at which point he becomes angry and spiteful. And then he goes missing, and Laura hears strange noises at night. They suspect the mysterious Benigna (Carulla), a woman who claimed to be a social worker but was in fact an employee of the orphanage back when Laura went there, but they don't find her for months, and even then when they do she's immediately hit by a car and killed.

Laura meets a professor named Bálaban (Vivar) and he brings a medium (Geraldine Chaplin), who realizes that the ghosts of the five other children that Laura grew up with are still present. Carlos refuses to believe it, and Laura remains in the house while Carlos leaves. She discovers that the children accidentally killed Benigna's son Tomás (Óscar Casas), and she poisoned them all and burned their bodies.

And poor little Simón? He discovered "la casita de Tomás" (Tomás' little house) in the basement, but his mother accidentally shut him in the day he went missing and he fell off the staircase and died. Laura, desperate to stay with him, commits suicide and remains in the house with the children.

Whoo. Heavy stuff. I compare this movie favorably to The Devil's Backbone, in that it firmly establishes a sense of place. You learn the various locales within the orphanage and the grounds, so that in the end when Laura is trying to contact the spirits it feels familiar. The plot, too, is kind of similar, in that there are a few interconnected ghost stories. The acting and the effects, such as they are, are on point, too - Carlos and Laura both deal with the loss of Simón in their own way, and the ending that shows Carlos realizing that Laura and Simón are at peace is a really sweet way to wind things up.

It's a tragic story, and unlike The Others (which is up next, which means we had two vampire stories in a row and then two ghost stories), it doesn't go all-out trying to establish a twist or amp up the fear in the last act, it just lets the tension build to the point that it's natural and relies on the ghostly children just appearing to carry the creepiness, which works perfectly.

My Grade: A
Rewatch value: Medium

Next up: The Others

Character Creation: Remnants

Well, kinda lost my lead a little, but I'm still ahead of my once-a-week schedule for characters, and I should still be able to get ahead this summer. So!

The Game: Remnants
The Publisher: Outrider Studios
Degree of Familiarity: None, really. I've read it.
Books Required: Just the one.

 

Remnants is from the same company that put out Edge, but I don't know if the systems mesh. They're very different genres. Remnants is post-apocalyptic sci-fi, in which big ol' mechs survive said apocalypse and are now super-weapons in an otherwise technologically regressed world. See, these mechs are self-repairing (and self-arming, evidently), and they even help heal their pilots. Once they "bond" with a pilot, they adjust to that pilot's preferences and develop over time. If the pilot dies, they revert to factory settings, as it were, until someone else comes along.

The thinking is that you'd play in a small group (4 players max), because more mechs (or "Ishin", as they're called in-setting) would be unrealistic in the fiction. I actually find the game kind of compelling; I don't know how the system would work at the table, but I could see running this.

Anyway, let's make a pilot (Ishinari) and a mech!

I start with the pilot. The first thing I'm asked to do is build a group, but of course I don't have one. The book does mention, though, that it works perfectly well with one player and a GM, and while that's not my preferred way to play, it's OK as far this chargen goes.

So I actually have a concept, kinda. I want to play a young tribesman, one who's just entered adulthood as his people reckon it. He's got a heavy burden on his shoulders, though, because as part of his manhood ritual, he uncovered an Ishin and joined with it. I shall refrain from naming him as of yet because I want to figure out where he's from and then get phonologically nerdy on the naming process. (Step Two is actually name, but the books notes that a lot of people have trouble with that so it's early in the process just to get you thinking about it.)

Step Three, however, is Building a Background, so let's do that! Here's what I've got in mind so far: The "manhood" (really "adulthood," since there's no particular reason to get gender-specific with this) ritual requires a number of tasks and tests, depending on a child's proclivities, training, and interests, but the last thing is always the same. The child goes to the Trapped Ishin, an ancient mech under a boulder. It's been there for eight centuries, and the boulder was braced atop a butte. The tribe couldn't get to it, so instead, throwing a projectile at the boulder at the end of the ritual became a tradition. It might initially have been a metaphor for knowing your limits or recognizing that no matter how good you are at something, you're not strong enough to move mountains, but over time the mythology evolved and gained a kind of King Arthur, only-the-chosen-one-can-do-it.

And then my character, a pretty normal fellow in other respects, managed to hit the boulder in just the right way and sent it toppling into the ravine. The Ishin was free. The young man was the chosen one. He got in and let the Ishin adapt to him, and now he acts as his people's protector.

Internally, he wavers between "yeah, duh, I'm the chosen one, I'm so badass" to "I am a total imposter and this ends with me dying in a fiery explosion". He's a mid-teen (people in this setting stop aging at 40 anyway), and his appearance needs to wait until I figure out where he's from.

Actually, let's go ahead and do that. OK, reading through the different civilizations, I think Canyon Tribes makes the most sense; that would give my character concept the topography it needs. Canyon folks farm, and some of them are "river-runners" that trade with other tribes and villages. My character, like most Canyon-folk, is tall and slim, with fair hair and light gray eyes, and tanned skin (since like most of his tribe, he works outdoors).

There are a bunch more background questions, and I've already answered a few of them. I'll answer a few more, though, just to get a better bearing on this guy.

• Who are your parents, and where are they now? My father (Cere) is a farmer, while my mother (Xill) is a river-runner. She tried to stay around after I was born, but she just couldn't leave the river behind. I see her every year or so when she passes through; she was there when I got the mech. 
• Brothers or sisters? None that I know of, but it's not impossible. 
• What do you want most right now? To control this Ishin. It's got so much potential, so many things it could do if I could just figure out which buttons to press. 
• What are your long-term goals? No more war between the Canyon Tribes. The river connects us all, that should be our point of commonality.  

Sounds good. I'll say my character's name is Sayr. (Apparently Canyon Folk names tend toward a fricative initial sound and a liquid final sound, but who knows. I figure they need names that you can stretch out to call someone from down the river. "CEEEERREEEEE!")

Anywho, on to stats! There are only three (Body, Mind, Spirit), and they start at 0, and I get one point to put in one. I can, however, lower one to raise another, so for instance I could put Body at -1 to put Spirit at +1.

I think what I'll do is put Body at +1, Mind at -1, and Spirit at +1. Sayr feels like he's still growing up, and isn't very learned yet.

Skills! I get 10 points to throw around, plus a free point in Athletics or Sail for my Canyon heritage. Athletics, I think? Actually, no, Sail; we'll say mom taught me that. I do want Athletics, though. Ooh, I want Throwing (figure on an atl-atl or something like that). Better take a point or two in Awareness, too. Any other must-haves? I want Dodge and Melee. Probably should take Stealth and Survival. Wait, that'll give me like a 1 in everything. Maybe that's appropriate? Let's break up points thusly:

Sail 1 (free)
Athletics 2
Awareness 1
Throwing 2
Dodge 2
Melee 1
Stealth 1
Survival 1

I can take Advantages and Disadvantages, but there aren't really any I want. Likewise, there's a system for gear and money, but I can't be arsed (basically: I start with a weapon and some light armor, so I figure I have an atl-atl and some hide armor that I wear if I'm not in my Ishin).

Speaking of the Ishin, that's next! I start off with my Situational Awareness trait (SA), which is 1 (sum of my three stats). I have three Ishin Skills, Assault, Strike, and Motion. The assumption is that I have 1 in each and then get one more point, so I'll put the extra point into Strike (long-ranged attacks).

OK, then I have a basic suite of traits, but I can trade a few of them off. I start with 5 Armor and 3 Speed, but I'm gonna shift that so it's 4 and 4 (I want to be a little faster). Same thing with Strike vs. Assault damage; I'll shift it one to make me more dangerous at range.

I get a bunch of Traits standard, and then I get to pick one more. I can't pick an Upgrade at creation, so it has to be a Drone or a Power. I think I'll take Motion Tracker as my Trait; I get a bonus to avoid incoming ranged attacks.

And then I get a Speciality, so this is what this particular Ishin was made for. I'll say this is a lighter model, made for surgical strikes. I'll take the Precision Specialty (I get a bonus to called shots).

I fill in my derived traits, and now I just need a quick description of my Ishin. I'll say it's about 8 feet tall - a little smaller than most - but it's fast and light on its feet. It's got a bow-like apparatus that folds out of its arm, and Sayr is still fussing around with the controls, but he thinks there's an advanced range and targeting system that he hasn't figured out how to access yet (read: if I were playing this guy I'd be working towards sniper skills). The Ishin is gray metal, but it's painted tan and red and black, almost camouflaged into the canyon walls at times.

And I think that's it, actually!

Movie #501: Only Lovers Left Alive

Only Lovers Left Alive is a romantic drama, I think, about vampires. It's directed by Jim Jarmusch, so you know it's weird. It stars Tom Hiddleston, Tilda Swinton, Mia Wasikowska, Anton Yelchin, and John Hurt.

Adam (Hiddleston) and Eve (Swinton) are a married couple. They're also centuries-old vampires. Their true age is never really revealed, but they're friends with Christopher Marlowe (Hurt), also a vampire. They both live solitary lives, engaged in their own pursuits; Eve surrounds herself with books in Tangier, and Adam makes music in Detroit. Adam starts off the film suicidally depressed and angry at the short-sightedness of the "zombies" (humans) around him, asking Ian (Yelchin), his assistant, to procure a wooden bullet for him.

Eve, sensing some wrong, comes to visit him, and talks him down. They spend some time exploring Detroit, but then Eve's "sister" Ava (Wasikowska) visits and drags them out to a club. Ava is a much more new-school vampire; she lives in LA, she still feeds directly from people rather than buying blood on the downlow from doctors, she's impulsive and constantly hungry. She winds up killing Ian, whereupon Adam kicks her out, and the couple flees to Tangier to avoid scrutiny, and gets there just in time to find that Marlowe is dying of blood poisoning. They end the movie hungry, deciding to feed upon (and potentially turn) a young couple they find making out.

I really, really love this movie. It's not a horror movie; like I said, it's a movie about love and time and sadness wherein the characters happen to be vampires. It creates a mythology for the vampires that has some interesting takes and twists - vampires in the modern age have to be careful what they eat, since everyone is full of toxins. They all wear gloves out in public, the implication being that they all have some degree of psychometry (Eve, in particular, can date any object by touching it). Their age is indeterminate, but they seem to have a weird relationship with time because they talk about future events (the "water wars", mentioned in passing at the end).

The performances are fantastic; Hiddleston and Swinton are beautiful and terrifying as the couple, and Wasikowska is childlike and kind of terrifying as Ava. The vampires in this movie are monsters and predators, but they have a kind of pragmatism - money is easy to come by, and it's simple enough to trade money for blood, so why not buy it rather than leave a trail of bodies? But then at the end, when Marlowe's death means his blood connection is gone, Adam and Eve are quite willing to kill people (though Eve complains that it's "so 15th century"). The shots of Detroit and the streets of Tangier are likewise beautiful, and the soundtrack is pretty damn amazing. All in all, one of my favorite vampire movies.

My Grade: A
Rewatch Value: Medium

Next up: The Orphanage

Chill: Monsters in the Closet, Bones in the Cave

Yesterday was the next session in our ongoing Chill game. Last time, there was a lot of personal drama, guilt, and psychological horror. This time things were a bit more visceral.

It's Sunday, March 4, 2018, in the afternoon. Dylan leaves the ranch to go and pick Emily up from the airport (she is in the process of moving to Boise, and is bringing in a bunch of her stuff). Dylan fills her in on the situation at the ranch, and then has her drop him off at the university - he has grading to do (Dylan's player couldn't make the game). Emily comes to the ranch and gets the lay of the land, and Darnell brings up the possibility that this might be a ghost or an incorporeal being, so maybe it'd be wise to bring someone in who can see those? The envoys agree and call in Beth Anne.

Beth Anne arrives, activates Eyes of the Dead, and walks around the house. She doesn't find any ghost-things on the first floor, but when she gets to Ruth's room, she sees the closet door open. A pair of ghastly hands grip the door frame and fog or steam starts to billow into the room. Beth Anne backs up, horrified, and Emily gets in front of her. BB considers that this might be an illusion, but he can't see past or through it - sure seems real to him. The creature starts to ooze out of the room and into the fog. Emily goes running downstairs to get a gun, but she loses her motor control on the stairs and falls. Jennifer and Darnell tend to her, while Jeanie runs in with a bunch of salt, hoping desperately that this will drive the creature off. She yells "You're not Franklin Wray!" at it, and it hisses back "Not anymore."

She flings the salt around the room and it screams, twists, and vanishes. The envoys catch their breath, and Beth Anne says that when she was young, she used to go on adventures with the monster under her bed...at least she thinks she did, there's no real proof. But that wasn't a traumatic memory per se. Is this the same creature? Something causing hallucinations? The envoys are in over their heads.

Jennifer does a bit of research into SAVE archives, starting with creatures that can cause nightmares and working out from there. Turns out that a lot of different creatures of the Unknown can use a power that Michael O'Boylan called "Dreamsend" in his book Devices of the Enemy, so that's not diagnostically useful on its own, but building from there, adding in the power to cause illusion and the obvious desire to pit people against each other, there are a few monsters that do that. In fact, this particular cell of envoys has encountered such a creature - the so-called xaxog.

That still doesn't answer a lot of questions for the envoys. Why did it start with Jennifer, and why in Chicago? Come to that, why did Jennifer and Dylan share a dream, rather than get a personalized nightmare like the others? Is the creature at the ranch, or is it affecting them from somewhere else? Jeanie figures that with the amount of influence it's exerting, it can see them somehow.

Since salt seemed to work, they get some rock salt from the shed and spread it around in circles in the ranch (noting that if it gets wet it'll ruin the finish and that'll piss off Dee, but frankly that's the least of their worries now).

They take a breather and watch some TV, and the broadcast about the missing family comes on again. Jeanie, seeing the broadcast for the first time, notes that this occurred not far from where she rescued some hikers from a sasquatch (which is how she first encountered the Unknown). The envoys decide to leave the ranch and join the search party - they can't do anything here, not without some fresh inspiration. They gear up (Jeanie is an experienced hiker and outdoors enthusiast, so this is kinda her wheelhouse), and head out to Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area (yes, that's a real thing, and yes, that's its actual name). Beth Anne does a little research on the area and finds that Kuna Caves, a system of caverns at the northern end of the forest, was shut down some time ago because people kept trashing it. Digging a little deeper, though, she finds urban legends about people going missing in Kuna Caves.

They check in with the search party headquarters and Jeanie recognizes the deputy who's coordinating efforts. He shows her on the map where the McCarthy's family car was found, but he says that this whole thing is weird. The family was on the way from Boise to Mountain Home to visit the kids' grandmother, but then got off the highway for some reason, and then drove down Kuna Mora Road away from the highway and crashed off the road. The doors of the car were open when it was found, the family's belongings were still in the car, and there was no evidence of which way they'd gone. The deputy is spooked.

Jeanie brings up Kuna Caves, and the deputy doubts that the family could have made it that far, but says that if the envoys want to hike from here towards the caves, that'll cover an area they need explored. He goes over protocols, gives them orange vests (and the envoys grab sawed-off shotguns from the cars), and they head out.

(A note: The shotguns are loaded with rock salt because, as BB points out, something has been screwing with their perceptions and rock salt is at least less lethal than standard round. Jennifer also has her bow, since she's crap with a gun.)

The envoys hike to the caves; BB gets there slightly injured from the exertion (he's still healing). They find a tuft of blond human hair caught on a tree branch, too high for a person to have caught it while walking. Unfortunately, they seem to be on the right track.

They enter the caverns (passing all the "OFF LIMITS" signs), and find a child's shoe at the mouth of a tunnel leading into the caves. Jeanie calls the deputy and reports in, and he tells her to be careful - there's been predator activity out there lately (coyotes, maybe? even bears?). She tells him they're going in to see if they can find the McCarthys.

The envoys carefully work their way into the caves, and find a slope down into a lower area, smeared with blood. They rig up a rope so they can get back up, and head downwards. It's cold down here, and they find puddles of frozen blood.

They find a large, central room, with a big open gap to the outside (which explains why it's so cold here). In the middle of the room, they find a shallow pit, full of bones. A lot of the deer or other wildlife, but some are decidedly human. In the pit, they see the bodies of the McCarthy family, partially stripped of flesh.

They recoil from this trauma, and Emily takes some pictures to use as evidence. BB looks around the room, trying to get the lay of the land. Jeanie quietly freaks out - she's seen this creature before, but never the aftermath of its attack like this.

And then, the creature itself bursts from a secondary tunnel. It's over nine feet tall, covered in matted brown fur, and boasts hooked black claws and oversized fangs. It grabs Jennifer and digs its claws into her shoulder, and she screams in pain.

Emily and BB both activates Feat of Strength and punch it in the kidneys, and it roars, but doesn't drop Jennifer. Indeed, it bites her head, and all of them can hear the crunch of its teeth on bone. Beth Anne grabs a shard of bone from the pit and stabs at it, and Emily shoots it, but the damage they cause is minimal. Jeanie, plucking up her reserves of courage, runs at it and strikes with her staff, hitting it squarely in the eye. It drops Jennifer and reaches up, grabs a rock formation, and swings into the dark.

Emily makes the right call ("Marines! We are leaving!"), and the envoys head for the slide. BB activates Feat of Strength again and climbs up the rope, carrying Jennifer, but the sasquatch pops out of nowhere and claws them both, knocking them back down the slide. Beth Anne pulls a flare gun out of the bag to fire at the creature...and her player rolls a botch. She triggers the gun while it's still pointed down, and everyone is momentarily blinded. They hear the horrible sound of claws clicking on stone...and that's where we left it.

All Flesh Must be Eaten: Three More Journey Songs

Yesterday was the next thrilling installment in All Flesh Must Be Eaten (not to be confused with "All Flesh Much Ado About Nothing," which sounds fantastic but isn't this game). Here's last session, here's our opening titles.

The characters are in the hospital room, they've barricaded the door, but now they're feeling like the need to get out and get down to the lobby. Lucille takes her fire ax and starts breaking through the back wall, eventually beat out a hole large enough to squeeze through. They emerge into a similar room being used for storage, and go out into the hall.

The hospital is eerily quiet. They head for the staircase, but then they notice the nurse's station and that something red is blinking. Following good horror movie logic, they investigate, and find Sgt. Priest on the floor.

There's a suggestion to smash her head in before she gets up and attacks, but Mia vetoes that idea, and goes into the station to check on her. She's alive, but barely, and she has terrible wounds on her legs and back. Patricia heals her enough that she comes to, and although Heather is convinced that she's a zombie, she's able to talk and accompany the characters.

They make their way downstairs and to the ground floor, and peek into the lobby. They rather wish they hadn't. The lobby is full of corpses whose hearts are being eaten or corpses that are eating the hearts. Many of those corpses are soldiers or cops, many more are in scrubs, and of course a lot are just people in street clothes. Heather spots one zombie in a uniform, and watches as her father raises his bloodied face toward her.

Heather begins to fall into despair, but the zombies don't much care; they rush the group. The characters run, bursting out the side door into the sunlight, just in time to hear soldiers scream at them to get down. They do, and try to explain what's happening, and Lucille risks her life to jam the door shut with the blade of her axe, but it's not until Priest emerges that the soldiers (in gas masks) listen, pulling the characters to safety. They put them into a bus equipped to quarantine, and turn their attention back to the door.

The zombies burst through the door and charge the soldiers, and the characters realize in horror that more - these in hospital gowns, are dropping from the upper windows. Mia gets in the driver's seat and starts the bus, and they peel out to the sound of gunfire and screams. And then they all hear a chopper zoom in overhead, and explosions behind them...

They talk about where to go, but they run up against a couple of obstacles - they have no money or ID on them, and they're all covered in blood to a greater or lesser extent. They decide to go to the sorority house; there's some worry that the cops will be watching, but Lucille points out that the cops have better things to do today. Lucille also mentions that she has a great survivalist aunt who lives north of the city, should things reach that point. Daisy, though, mentions that maybe they should tell the authorities what they know - where the zombies come from and how to destroy them. Priest says that the authorities (specifically General Grantham) are unlikely to listen if they start talking about "zombies" and "magic red thread."

Maybe, then, they can find Dr. Stephens, whom Daisy believes started this whole thing somehow. They go to the sorority house and get clean clothes, and take the time to shower off (not in that order). They gather up everything of use - Patricia cleans out the medicine chests, Heather grabs sanitary napkins, someone grabs liquor, and Lucille grabs her bug-out bag - and they get back on the bus. They decide to go to Stephens' office; maybe there they can find some answers.

They park the bus outside the building, and Daisy, Heather, Lucille, and Priest head in. Lucille knocks in the door on Stephens' office and the sisters search the room. Heather finds a leather-bound book with handwriting in it, including notes on a ritual meant to give "eternal life." But for whom? It doesn't say. The ritual involves sacrificing a victim, tearing out their heart, exposing the spine, and binding it up with red thread.

They figure that the first victim must have been Stella Aminat, Stephens' GA - that would make her the first zombie. But Stella is capable of spreading the condition to others, who can then spread it on their own. Daisy theorizes that destroying Stella might end the plague, but who knows? The book is no help; the next page merely mentions that the ritual was performed and that those involved have taken a "vow of secrecy." Those pages are also bloodstained.

Lucille touches the book and prays for wisdom, and sees Dr. Stephens in a panic room, holding a pistol. Something is pounding on the door. She relays this to the others, and they grab a faculty directory and look up Stephens' address.

Meanwhile, outside, Mia sees a cop approaching their bus. She rolls down the window, but the cop lurches up and grabs at her, snarling. She floors it, and Patricia whacks the cop's fingers with a meat mallet (which she took from the sorority house). The zombie-cop falls under the wheels, and Mia reverses and runs him over until he stops moving.

The others get downstairs and they see the cop and the forming crowd. Patricia yells to everyone to run, but of course they don't. They all head to Stephens' house, and when they arrive, they see two cop cars out front and the door smashed in.

Lucille grabs a shotgun out of a cop car and they all head downstairs to the sound of chaos. They see three zombies - Stella Aminat and two cops - pounding on a metal door. When the characters show up, though, the zombies turn and charge.

Daisy summons holy fire and destroys Stella immediately. Lucille shoots one with a shotgun and staggers it, but it doesn't drop. Patricia touches Heather and blesses her, and Heather shoots the other zombie cop right in the throat, blowing out the back of its neck and severing the red thread. It collapses, and the characters surround the other one. Lucille picks the zombie up (with the strength of ten, one might say) and rips out the thread, destroying it, and then pulls the panic room door aside.

Inside, they find Dr. Susan Stephens...dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. On a whiteboard, she's written: "ARMAGEDDON MEA CULPA".

Closing credits.

Blue Rose: The Malady

Last night was Blue Rose. Last time was here. The characters made their downriver to the village of Riverside, and were making themselves useful. Dobbin stayed with Baker and helped to make bread, Arlen taught some of the younger adepts in the village about magic, Whirlpool went fishing with Trels, and Kisha talked with villagers about the place's history and culture.

They learned that Riverside has about 400 people. They make their living by farming sheep, growing fruits and nuts, and keeping bees. They trade with other villages for the products they don't produce. The village is mostly human, with the odd vata and a rhy-dog or cat here and there.

Arlen learns that Maiyon, probably the most skilled adept in the village and a respected crafter and carpenter as well, is out in the pastures dealing with a "malady" among the animals. Kisha hears some discussion of the malady as well, but no one really has a lot to say about it. And then Arlen's wild magic kicks in while he's training with the other adepts, and he feels a spell get away from him. He isn't sure what, though.

A couple of hours later, a horse comes walking across the fields toward the village. It's stumbling and having trouble, but it's walking. Arlen goes out to meet it and realizes that he probably summoned it accidentally, and realizes too that the horse is very sick. It's got blood trickling from its nose and its breathing is labored. It walks up to Arlen and then lays down, exhausted.

Arlen, horrified that he might have hurt this animal (Arlen is Rezean, remember, so he grew up with horses), tells the other adepts to bring water and food for it. Along the way, the adepts see Kisha, who remembers that Whirlpool is a skilled medic and sends a villager to get him.

Whirlpool is presently cleaning fish with Trels (they caught a bunch), and heads out to the horse. He examines it and determines that it's worse than it looks - this horse is dying, and he hasn't seen this disease before. The horse refuses water, and Whirlpool frantically tries to think of a poultice that will help, but it's too late. The horse lays its head down and passes.

Arlen weeps, and Kisha tries to motivate him to help fight this disease in some way, though Arlen isn't really interested in the pep talk. Whirlpool, too, vows to make sure this malady doesn't hurt anyone else. The characters decide that they need to go out to the pasture and see Maiyon, to make sure the sheep aren't sick. Whirlpool isn't sure if the disease can cross from livestock to humans, either.

Whirlpool and Kisha head out right away. Dobbin goes back to the village and asks Baker to look after Pansy (she doesn't want her dog getting sick). Arlen says that he'll catch up, and performs a ritual for the unfortunate horse, saying a prayer over his body and then helping to build a pyre. The sun is setting as Arlen finally heads west into the pasture.

The other characters follow the pastures west and find a herd of sheep grazing. None of them look sick, thankfully. Dobbin finds a trail going over a rise, and at the bottom, sees a herd of wild horses. These animals are ill. Some of them are in the same condition as the horse they saw earlier, but most are just lethargic. Maiyon is sitting under a tree, and stands when she sees them. She walks over to the group, and they greet her. Dobbin gives her a bun that she brought from the village, and Maiyon eats, but half-heartedly. She doesn't seem to have much of an appetite.

Maiyon calls over a horse, a chestnut-brown stallion with a white star-shaped mark on his cheek. He speaks to the characters psychically, introducing himself as Balstir. The characters are thrilled; none of them have met a rhy-horse before. Balstir tells them that a foal was the first to fall ill, but his mate was the first to die of the malady. His herd is sick, and he isn't sure how to help them. The characters, of course, pledge their aid.

Arlen arrives and talks with Balstir, and tells him that he helped the other horse pass on. Balstir thanks Arlen, obviously glad to see someone from Rezea here. The characters get to work on a medicine; Arlen talks with Balstir about how the disease has progressed, Dobbin searches for local plants at Whirlpool's direction, and Kisha considers the history of the area and what other diseases might be common. Whirlpool tries his hand at making a couple of medicines, but the first one is wrong (wrong kind of berries) and the second one breaks (mixture was too wet).

It's dark, now, and so they decide to build a fire and get some sleep. Arlen is exhausted, and worries that the malady may have hit him. In the morning, Kisha and Whirlpool realize that they, too, are aching and tired. The characters need to finish the medicine, and soon.