Chill: The Death of the Xaxog

Spoilers, I guess. Here's last time.

The envoys are in a spot of bother. Jordan is on the floor of the silo, bleeding from the head. Dylan, Beth Anne, and Willa are back at the ranch with Chet, waiting for word from Jordan.

Figuring that this is not going to get better, Dylan calls Emily (since her player was available this time), and Emily heads out with firearms aplenty. Dylan tells her to just head straight to the silo, raises a Mental Shield over the group, and they get into cars and head down.

On the way, Willa finds herself unable to remember how her limbs work as she drives up to a sharp turn, but manages to right the car at the last minute. They envoys pull up to the silo and get out, and see that the door is open. They see the xaxog standing over Jordan with a gun in its hand, and Willa grabs her bat and runs for the door...and bounces off it.

She winds up with her forehead bleeding a bit, and the envoys realize that the xaxog is here and their Mental Shield has fallen. Dylan opens the door to the silo and sees Jordan on the floor. Emily pulls in and gets a quick rundown of what's going on, and the envoys notice that Chet has wandered off toward the treeline.

Beth Anne runs to catch him, but is too late. A gunshot rings out, and Chet collapses. Dylan spots the xaxog in the trees, and yells "there!" And now Emily's in her element. She trades shots with it and winds up with a bullet in her belly, but there's a splash of ochre-colored blood (cure "If it bleeds, we can kill it"). The xaxog retreats and the envoys fall back into the silo. They stabilize Emily and Chet, as best they can, and wake up Jordan. Jordan insists on calling an ambulance, because Chet is dying.

The envoys realize, though, that now is their best chance to kill this thing before it regroups and comes back for them. They tool up - Willa grabs a machete and Emily grabs her rifle from her car. Beth Anne stays with Chet, while Willa, Jordan, Emily, and Dylan head out into the woods. They find the blood trail and track the xaxog, and Willa and Jordan break into a clearing just as the creature leans out from behind a tree and fires on them.

Willa breaks right into the brush and circles the creature, and Jordan activates the Sphere of Protection. Bullets bounce harmlessly off it, and Emily, catching up, whips her rifle to her shoulder and fires. She hits the creature and it falls back against the tree, bleeding, and Willa pops up out of nowhere and beheads it with her machete. Its body collapses and Willa activates Eyes of the Dead to see if leaves a ghost (she isn't sure if creatures of the Unknown do). All she sees is something ethereal fold in upon itself and vanish into nothing, and she shudders and moves on.

Back at the silo, Chet asks Beth Anne to tell Ruth that he's sorry, and loses consciousness. The EMTs arrive shortly thereafter and patch up Beth Anne, Emily, and Jordan, but they are unable to revive Chet.

The envoys call in Annie, their lawyer, because shit is going to get weird. Fortunately Idaho is pretty liberal as far as gun laws go, so the envoys' "there was an intruder and some gunplay happened" story holds up - except, of course, the Dylan is already on probation. The envoys have a lot of questions to answer and a bunch of them are going to be in the hospital.

But, the xaxog is dead! They've taken back their HQ, and they have a safe place to work from again. And now, Jennifer, Jeannie, and BB are out of the hospital...just in time to deal with this missing hiker in Seneca, OR, and the disappearance of Casey Lynch.

That's next time.

Blue Rose: Back to the Shadows, Gate!

Last night we played Blue Rose, and the characters scored a victory...with, perhaps, some lingering problems.

Last time, we left off as a pack of shadow mastiffs emerged from the...um, shadows. They lunge at the characters, except for Whirlpool, who's presently underwater swimming towards a door. Kisha engages a mastiff with her staff and holds her own handily, while the dogs do some nasty bites unto Pansy and Arlen (although Arlen conjures a psychic mace and brains a mastiff as well). One mastiff tackles Dobbin and bays, sending fear down the spines of the party, but they hold themselves together and fight on.

Meanwhile, in the water, Whirlpool comes across a glowing, translucent figure - one that looks vaguely familiar. The specter swoops towards him and runs a hand through his chest, freezing his blood. Whirlpool responds in kind, casting Cold Shaping and driving the specter back. The specter flies up through the ceiling, and Whirlpool, a bit disquieted, swims down and opens the door. The water starts rushing out and Whirlpool has to swim hard against the current, but manages to avoid getting sucked in.

Back in the room with all the shadow-dogs, Kisha continues to avoid being bit and Pansy and Dobbin continue to not avoid it. Pansy, in particular, is bleeding and struggling but still trying to protect Dobbin, so Dobbin manages to draw attention from the mastiff biting her dog and takes them both on. Arlen finishes off the mastiff he's fighting and runs to help, and Whirlpool emerges from the tunnel and tridents the heck out of a mastiff. Arlen uses healing magic to help Pansy, and together the characters destroy the last couple of mastiffs.

They take a breather and Whirlpool tells them about the specter he saw. Kisha recognizes the description - that sounds like Vans Ebban, whose tragic history she learned in Verdaunen. But if Vans is a specter, he's not a lich, though it's not undead don't sometimes cluster. The party decides to descend and follow the tunnel.

The specter blocks the way, and asks Arlen, who is in the lead, what they want. Arlen says they want knowledge, and the specter agrees, moving out of the way. 

They find themselves in a big round room, the floor still wet, no living things in evidence except a few unfortunate cave fish. A single shaft of moonlight pierces the gloom, and Kisha tells Arlen (in accordance with the prophecy) to stand in it. He does...and immediately feels voices telling him to open the gate. Figuring that this is unwise, he resists, but the force of all of the spells that the party has cast since being in the tower pushes back, and the shadowgate opens. The specter of Vans Ebban appears, laughing, saying that they're about to get the knowledge the want. They hear footsteps in the distance - a darkfiend is coming.

Kisha remembers that a shadowgate can be forced to implode by overloading it with magic, and she, Arlen, and Whirlpool summon their arcane power and channel it. The specter appears and swoops around the room, screaming in rage and trying to kill Arlen (the most powerful adept), but Dobbin tries to fight it off. The characters manage to pump enough power into the shadowgate to shatter it, and the edges of the room implode, creating a vortex that threatens to suck them all in.

Kisha dives into a side tunnel and holds on for dear life. Whirlpool jams his trident into the wall and hangs on. Dobbin, Pansy, and Arlen are sucked towards the eye of the storm, but Arlen casts Move Object, grabs all three of them, and yanks them down towards Whirlpool, allowing them to form a chain and hold on long enough for the storm to abate. Vans Ebban is sucked in, screaming all the way, and the collapse to the floor.

Arlen, Kisha, and Whirlpool feel a tickle at the back of their mind. Arlen and Kisha ignore it, but in Whirlpool, it finds a handhold. "Train your body," says the darkfiend. "Perfect your strength and speed. You will serve me all the better."

Horrified, Whirlpool relates this to his friends, and they all head out, leaving the tower behind and going back down to the village. There, they find that the Finest have already packed up the wagon and are hustling them out of Sundown. On the road, they learn that there's something wrong in the village - the Broken Circle cult (a cult dedicated to prolonging life by any means necessary) was mentioned. The Finest are going to need to investigate this place later, but not with the Mask around.

Gyell tells Whirlpool that a darkfiend has forged a psychic connection with him, and it's possible to break it, but he doesn't know the spell necessary. Someone in Aldis surely does, though, so on they go.

Character Creation: Authority

What the heck, I've got some time today. Might as well do something time-consuming with an annoying small font.

The Game: The Authority
The Publisher: Guardians of Order, now famously defunct
Degree of Familiarity: Some, but not a lot. I've run and played some Tri-Stat games, including Silver Age Sentinels, upon which this game is based, and I've read a few of the Authority comics
Books Required: Just the one.

 
The Authority dips heavily into the moral questions of Iron Age comics, but also dials the power level way the fuck up. The characters in the comic are outright referred to as a "pantheon," and their stance is basically "We're in charge, and we're telling you to be better" (not unlike curse the darkness, come to think of it) with an implied "or else."

I can get behind that. I love superhero games, and I love them even more when they take a stand and stake out some thematic ground, because there are approximately a squillion of them and I need a reason to play something besides Marvel Heroic if I want to get my superhero on.

I'm a little confused as to why the standard ranges of character points for chargen is included; seems to me that if you're playing The Authority, you should get Authority-level points and just be happy about that. That said, 200-300 points is apparently the standard for those characters, so I'll split the difference and say I have 250 points.

Step One: GM Discussion. I have no GM, of course, but I do appreciate the advice given in this step. Make sure everyone's on the same page about what game you're playing, how many points characters have and what that means, whether there are any rule modifications, etc. That's cool. For my part, I think I'll assume that my character is someone who is about to recruited into the Authority, but hasn't been yet - someone who is powerful enough to hold his own alongside Jack Hawksmoor and Apollo and so on, and morally of the right temperament. But that's really something I should do in Step Two...

Step Two: Character Outline. Ah-ha. This gives me four questions to create a character outline. Groovy.

• Is the character human? There's an implied "and to what degree?" here, since a lot of the Authority were at least somewhat human at one point. I think I want my character to be human, and to be a pretty normal fellow - grew up in a medium-sized USA city, has seen all the craziness of alien invasions, but it never quite got as far as him, and then one day, superpowers. 
• What are the character's strengths? I want scary mental powers. Basically my character has an extreme form of biokinesis, and is able to activate neurons in other living things' bodies. That means he can shut off pain in other people or force their bodies to heal quickly, sure, but it also means he can have their bodies do things like stroke out or respond with uncontrollable fear, to say nothing of just tickling the pain center of the brain and sending them to the ground. 
• What are the character's weaknesses? I think that for all my character's power, he's mortal. Sure, he can affect his own brain (it's made of meat just like anyone else's), meaning he can boost his body, but he's not immune from the injury that might cause. Likewise, he can't affect non-living things, so robots are out, and aliens aren't impossible but they're more difficult because they have different biology.
• What helps define the character? My character has a relationship with life that's hard to nail down. What's "life?" What makes a thing "alive?" As far as his powers are concerned, it's about what a given thing is made of and in what configuration. To him, living things are machines that respond in certain ways if you flip certain switches. Now, add to that his pretty Rockwellian, middle-class upbringing. He's not a bad guy, but he's not terribly cultured, either, meaning he's pretty sheltered and kind of naive. Point him at a "bad guy," he can paralyze the dude with a thought, but he hasn't really thought through the lofty moral implications of what he can do. More specifically, he's in his 20s, recent college grad (communications degree, considering grad school but he didn't know for what), and then woke up one morning with these amazing powers. 

Step Three: Assign Stats. As the name implies, Tri-Stat uses 3 stats, Body, Mind, Soul. They're two points each. Body can be fairly average (though I'll probably take a power that can boost it), so I'll leave it at 4 (8 points). Mind and Soul both need to be high. I think we'll go 11 for Mind and 14 for Soul. That's 48 points spent.

Step Four: Character Attributes. And here's where it gets screwy.

This system lets you customize the powers all to hell, which is awesome if you're patient and somewhat mathy. I'm generally neither, but I have an idea of what I want to do and I'm not totally ignorant of how this system works, so let's start by noting the ones I think I'd like:

Animal Control (they're alive!)
Contamination (I need to check this, but maybe)
Divine Relationship (you're dumb if you don't!)
Dynamic Powers (ergh. I don't really want to do this, but it might be the simplest way)
Enhanced Stat (to boost Body)
Healing
Heightened Awareness
Heightened Senses
Highly Skilled (almost certainly)
Illusion (if I can make you see shit, that makes sense)
Mind Control
Nullify
Plant Control (they're alive, after all)
Regeneration
Sensory Block
Special Attack

Fuuuuck, that's a lot. I have a bunch of points, though. Sigh. Let me look at Dynamic Powers. Yep, that's gonna be the smartest way to do this. OK, so power over Life is obviously a primal or universal concept (it's even listed there), meaning it's 20 points per level. I need to buy PMVs, too, which define things like range and area.

OK, so starting there, I want Area 5 (1km), Duration 5 (1 hour), Range 5 (100km), and Targets 5 (100 people). That's 20 right there, meaning I'm down to 182 points. I've still got plenty. I'll take 8 levels of Dynamic Powers, costing me 160 points. Aha, but how do limitations work? Oh, those are Defects, that comes later.

So, that means I have 8 levels of Attributes that I can mess with when it comes time to use my powers, so I can flux them into any of those powers above. Cool. I'll take Divine Relationship separately at 5, and Highly Skilled at 10. Those cost me 15 points. I've spent all but 7 points. I'll hold onto them and move on to the next step.

Step Five: Select Skills. I have 130 Skill Points to throw around, plus more if I decide I need them. I figure that my guy is good with physical skills, since he can create the neural pathways in his own brain instantly. To wit:

Acrobatics 3 (18 points)
Biological Sciences 2 (8 points)
Climbing 4 (8 points)
Controlled Breathing 5 (5 points)
Driving 3 (12 points)
Medical 3 (9 points)
Power Usage 2 (16 points)
Powerlifting 4 (4 points)
Sleight of Hand 3 (9 points)
Sports 5 (5 points)
Stealth 3 (9 points)
Swimming 5 (5 points)
Archery 3 (21 points)
Gun Combat 3 (24 points)
Melee Attack 3 (21 points)
Melee Defense 3 (21 points)
Ranged Defense 3 (36 points)
Thrown Weapons 4 (32 points)
Unarmed Attack 4 (32 points)
Unarmed Defense 4 (32 points)

Holy shit. Let's tally that up! 327. LOL. Little more than I had budgeted. Well, fuck it, I haven't taken Defects yet. I'd need 30 points of Highly Skilled to make this work (which gives me 330 Skill Points, less the 30 I get for free; that actually gives me 3 more because it needs to be an even number so I'll take another level of Stealth, I guess). I had 7 points in reserved, so that gives me 17 Highly Skilled, so I need 13 more, so I need 13 points of Defects. No problem.

Step Six: Character Defects. Yup. OK, first off, I know my Dynamic Powers has limits, so let's try and figure that out.

Well, shit. Because of what Dynamic Powers is (control over a specific aspect of the world), the restriction I was thinking of doesn't really apply. That said, if I can come up with even a 1-point Reduction, I save myself 8 points. Eh, looking at it, Reduction doesn't really work for me.

So let's start with Backlash. I'll take 3 points; if I blow a Dynamic Powers roll even by 1, I take Backlash - my neurons go haywire, and I'd leave that craziness to the GM. I'll also take Concentration 3. My character is Skilled enough to be useful even when not using his power, but when he is using it, he has to focus on it completely. Considering that "using this power" can mind control 100 people at once, that's fine.

I need 7 more points. Hmm. I'll take Not So Tough, reducing my Health by 30 (reflecting that perhaps my powers take a toll on the character's body). 4 more. I'll drop Divine Relationship to 4, so I just need three. Oh, hang on, I wanted to take something that reflected that aliens are harder to affect. Hmm. OK, I'll call that a Restriction - he takes a penalty to affect any non-human life form, penalty increasing based on how unfamiliar he is with it. Give him a day or two to study a thing, that penalty can go away, but in the midst of a fight he'll be less effective at first.

Awesome, that's me at 250 points, then.

Step 7: Derived Values. At the end, where they belong. Attack Combat Value is 9, defense Combat Value is 7, Health is 60 (because of my Defect), Shock is 12, Energy we'll skip.

Step 8: Background Points. This is basically just "finish everything up," so OK, let's do.

Ken Cook has just graduated from college with a degree in communications when he realized he could control the neurons of any living thing around him. Terrified at first, he rather clumsily tried to use the power to fight crime and wound up getting his ass beat a lot before realizing that he had to train himself up first. Fortunately that didn't take long, as performing a physical feat for him is more a matter of figuring out how and then blazing the neural pathways than actually training.

Ken hasn't really made a splash yet, but I think his first appearance in the comic would be quelling a riot or doing something else really grandiose and getting recruited by the Authority. Ken has barely scratched the surface of what his powers can do, and he's already starting to lose touch with how living things differ from machines (he and the Engineer would make an interesting pair together).

He hasn't settled on a superhero alias yet, but so far he likes the sound of Synapse. Likewise, no uniform yet - street clothes, hiking boots, doesn't bother with a mask because he can prevent people from recognizing his face anyway.

That'll do it!

Character Creation: Baker Street

This mustn't register on an emotional level.

The Game: Baker Street
The Publisher: Fearlight Games 
Degree of Familiarity: I played it once at Origins a few years ago, and I've run and played a lot of investigative games
Books Required: Just the one.

 

So, in the game setting, it's 1891 or so, and Sherlock Holmes has disappeared over Reichenbach Falls (at the end of "The Final Problem"), and is presumed dead, along with his nemesis Professor Moriarty. But, of course, the cases are still pouring into his office on Baker Street, and Watson isn't going to investigate them, as he's got moping to do. Enter the PCs - folks from all over London who are, for whatever reason, willing to moonlight as consulting detectives.

It's a nice easy setup to get your brain around if you've read any Doyle or seen any Sherlock-related films, and character creation seems likewise simple. So let's do this!

Step One: Select a Profession. Profession guides choice of skills and social status, which is important in this game. I'd kind of like to play someone of a medical bent, just because Victorian medicine is bananas ("Cocaine, then!"). I think, though, that rather than play a doctor I'll play an apothecary, mostly because I'm amused by Tom Wilkinson in Shakespeare in Love drunkenly saying "I am to play the apothecary!"

So that gives me Commerce, Medicine, Observation, Reason, Science as Professional Skills. Groovy. Status 3, middle class. On we go!

Step Two: Spend Some Damn Points. I get 30 points to buy more Skills, Specialties, and Item Characteristics.

Hrm. Well, a few demerits for this: Item Characteristics aren't well explained, and we're never told how much they cost or what the limits are (more specifically, can I take a shop as an item?), so I think I'll skip it rather than give myself a headache. What about Specialties? OK, those cost 2 points. Groovy.

Well, I shall up my Medicine, Observation, and Science to 4 (which costs me 12 points). Area Knowledge, I think (3 points). Perception makes sense (3 points). Street Smarts, definitely (7 points, because I want it at 4), and I'll Specialize it in Professional Crime (27 points spent). I'll take Strength as a Skill, and that's 30 points.

Starting to see this guy take shape. Obviously he has a criminal past, though how deep he was in remains to be seen. I picture him as beefy, bald, red-faced, and generally cheerful. Probably married with a couple of kids who mind the shop for him. I think "apothecary" was his dad's trade, too, and it's his no-good brother who nearly got everyone in trouble by being a criminal.

Step Three: Characteristics. I get six in total: two personal, two professional, and two negative. These are very much like Aspects, except that they don't need to be equally helpful and detrimental because there are specifically negative ones. I will say, though, that the difference between personal and professional is never really spelled out, and some of them seem like they could overlap easily.

Well, for Personal, I'll take "Family Man" and "Never Forgets a Face." For Professional, I'll take "Medicine Dispenser" and "Neighborhood Institution." And for Negative, I'll take "Can't Stand the Sight of Blood" (my guy is strong, but he's not a fighter) and "Shameful Criminal Past."

Step Four: The Rest of It, Wot? A few last questions and so on:

•  What is the investigator's name? Basil Stokes.
• Where did the investigator grow up? I'm not familiar with London geography, so I'll just say "London" and say that his particular neighborhood is pretty rough-and-tumble. Most folks are lower class; he's middle by dint of his family history and his profession as much as anything. 
• What languages does he speak/read/write? English, and most of his reading and writing is rote. His kids read better than he does.
• How old is the investigator? 42 and still spry, thank you.
• Does the character know any of the other investigators? n/a
• Go fucking shopping if you want. I don't, thanks. I'll assume Basil has access to some fun drugs, but he doesn't carry weapons.

Basil is married to a lovely, stout woman named Mary, and he has four kids - Edna (18), Basil Jr. (17), Victor (14) and Little Belle (8). They all work the shop when they're not in school; Edna's engaged to be married to a very nice bloke that Basil suspects is running in the same circles as his no-good brother Arthur, but he has no proof and doesn't want to break Edna's heart. (There's your hook, GM.)

And that's it!

Blades in the Dark: Yonder Comes the Vamp

Last time, the scoundrels drugged and kidnapped a higher-up in the Church of Ecstasy...but then a vampire appears! Once I got my players to stop talking about Pokemon, we got down to the action.

Siren turns a spirit lamp on Scurlock, driving him back, but he bursts out the front of the restaurant, collapsing it onto the drugged Widdershins crew. Siren rolls clear, but a lot of her people are buried in rubble.

Scurlock, meanwhile, surges up into the sky and summons a storm, bearing down on Cage, Copper, and One-Eye. Streetlights go out and the wind howls as the vampire swoops in. Copper breaks away from Cage and runs back toward the restaurant, and Cage summons lightning. The blast illuminates Scurlock in the clouds momentarily, and he spins off. One-Eye runs like hell, heading for Mistshore Park, and Scurlock circles back around to attack.

Siren, though, has made contact with Copper. They lift rubble and Siren tells Copper to keep at it, and heads for the roof. She sends Bartok, her hawk, zooming down the street to give her line of sight, and shoots Scurlock with an electroplasm rifle. The blast enrages and slows him, and One-Eye clears the barrier to Mistshore. The lights here are still on, so apparently Scurlock can't or won't attack here.

Cage ducks into a door and finds himself in the carriage house of Rowan Tower. He steals some goats and hitches them up to the carriage, and heads back toward the restaurant, looking to pick up Siren and Copper.

Meanwhile, Siren is still on the roof and finds herself surrounded by rats. She kicks a few out of the way and jumps down into an alley, and then, figuring Scurlock can hear her, tells him that she wants to know what is going - if she's going to die, she wants to know what he owes Seterra. He appears behind her, and tells her that he owes Seterra, and that's all there is to it - and it's the crew's fault that he's in this predicament, because they stole his cloak and gave it to the demons. When the waters rise and the city drowns, he'll survive, but he'll miss the city.

Siren argues that if he'll miss it, maybe he should do something to save it, or give the crew the information they need so that they could help. Scurlock says he'll think about it, and vanishes.

In the park, One-Eye delivers Praeceptor Dunvil to the Reconciled, and they posses the shit out of him. They toss whatever cash he has on him to One-Eye, and she leaves, regrouping with the others and heading back to the lair.

Over the next couple of weeks, the Church of Ecstasy goes through some unpleasant changes. Services get less frequent and ghosts become more common in the city, and the war on the Widdershins ends. Widdershins also goes up to Tier IV, meaning they're basically the biggest movers and shakers in the city, as far as smuggling, transport, and weirdness-related crime go.

One evening, as Copper is out punching ghosts in order to lower the crew's Heat level, she feels a presence on her left. The demon that once gave them the job of stealing Scurlock's cloak is back, and he tells her that they should leave Duskwall. The crew can go anywhere they want, and have anything they want. It shows her a vision of herself in Iruvia, running a goat-racing track, Button by her side, her parents looking on proudly. It tells her to pass the offer on to the others - leave the city, live in luxury and bliss. Or stay and drown.

Copper tells the others, and they pretty much agree that the demon can get fucked. Cage feels that he's put far too much work into building what the crew has, and he'd fight Seterra just out of spite. Siren already ran from the horrors of the deep once; that's why she's not a Leviathan Hunter anymore. One-Eye knows what it's like to go to a new place with nothing and she doesn't want to do that again. Copper, of course, the big softie, isn't going to abandon the city to die.

The crew decides they need to find a vessel for Kotar, and start looking for someone suitable. Meanwhile, though, they'll keep their business running, so next time we'll see what the next job entails.

The Strange: Whose House?

Today we finished up a story arc in The Strange, which is good, because we're not playing again for the better part of two months.

Last time, the characters discovered Mr. Priestly shot dead, and learned from their handler in the Estate, Vernon Belding, that the likely culprit was a recursion intruder called the Gravedigger.

As we open, the characters are waiting for Belding. They decide to search the house, since they haven't really seen much of it (it's a damn big house). They go up to the attic and hunt around, and Edward finds drag marks leading to a corpse. The unfortunate fellow looks like he's been dead a couple of days, and he's undressed - someone based him in the head and stole his clothes. They search around a bit and Carmen senses Strange, but residual only - probably means this was the Gravedigger.

They call the police, and Belding arrives with the cops, using a cypher that seems to make the cops think he's one of them. He takes the characters aside to "take their statement," and gets brought up to speed. He tells them that they need to find the Gravedigger. His real name is Gregory Test, and he's a serial killer native to a recursion called "Serial." Serial is caused by fictional leakage - not horror movies, but procedurals. In Serial, serial killers are much more common, much smarter, and much harder to catch. Also, they have a predilection for picking someone to be a nemesis, and Test picked Belding, apparently following him here to see their little dance through. Belding warns the characters that they can't let Test escape. Here, he's just a serial killer, meaning he won't sicken and die the way a dragon or something would. He'll just keep killing.

The characters decide to call in all of the temp employees, figuring that the corpse in the attic might be one. Roxanne approaches Norris, who is talking with Mrs. Brewster, and asks for a list of the temps. He goes to get it, but asks Roxanne to stay with Mrs. Brewster; she's upset and doesn't want to be alone. The old lady talks with Roxanne, and asks who she is and what she's doing here. Roxanne tells her (she's here to appraise things), and Brewster asks if she's expected to die soon. Roxanne says she's not, and in fact she has a lot of life left, if she wants it. Brewster says that she was never fond of the things she was expected to do as a rich woman and hostess, and Roxanne says maybe it's time to travel?

Norris returns with the list, and the characters assemble the temps. And indeed, one Dwayne Walker is missing, and the others haven't seen him. The characters go looking for his car, and find it in the back lot of the mansion. A duffel bag in the back seat holds Dwayne's uniform, a bit of blood on the collar. This looks like a go-bag, but it probably means Test is still on the property.

They split up into two teams - Carmen, Belding, and Oakley on one, Arnauld, Edward, and Roxanne on the other, and head in opposite directions.

Near a mausoleum, they lose track of Belding, and then see someone dragging him around a corner. They take cover and Carmen calls the others. Arnauld takes off at a sprint and leaps up on top of the mausoleum, and sees Test with a shovel and a gun, Belding at his feet. He plans on dropping onto him, but Test grabs Belding and pulls him into the crypt. Oakley snaps off a shot and misses, but then Carmen uses Exception and floods Test's brain (it works extra well on things from different recursions!).

Arnauld takes the opportunity, runs in, and puts Test in a chokehold with his chain, while Edward grabs Belding and drags him to safety. Oakley, no longer having a clear shot, whacks Test with the butt of his gun, but Test lashes out at Arnauld with his shovel. Arnauld disarms him, and Edward jumps back in with a knife, but isn't able to get a solid hit. Test shoots at Arnauld, but gets disarmed again, and Arnauld kicks his legs out from under him. Test stabs Arnauld, and then stands up and flings a knife at Oakley.

Oakley, like a boss, catches the knife and flings it back ("it's all in the reflexes"), stabbing Test in the shoulder. Test keeps fighting for a moment, but then Arnauld grabs his gun off the floor and puts a bullet in Test's skull. It's over.

The characters collapse with exhaustion, and spend the night again at the mansion. In the morning, they discover that Mrs. Brewster has decided to go travel the world, and in the meanwhile she's letting the Estate use the house and the grounds - which includes the weird stone circle that goes to different recursions. Belding tells the characters that they can stay here and experiment with the circle, see where all it goes, and generally try and figure out how it works.

Next story arc, then, will take us to some new and fantastical world!

Character Creation: Mecha vs. Kaiju

Well, we didn't wind up gaming tonight due to migraines, so I shall make a character instead. Last Fate game I made was back in early June, so.

The Game: Mecha vs. Kaiju
The Publisher: WrightWerx
Degree of Familiarity: None with this particular game, but I've run and played plenty of Fate and I've seen Pacific Rim
Books Required: Fate Core and Mecha vs. Kaiju

 

 
MvK has a secret history involving Oni, Kaiju, the secret underwater civilization of Mu, and lots of other in-genre stuff. For our purposes, I'm a mecha pilot (can't play as a kaiju, which is probably just as well). I'm a member of the MAF (Mecha Assault Force).

Unfortunately, this game doesn't include an example of character creation (am I seriously the only person that both finds them useful and enjoys reading them?), nor is there an actual step-by-step for chargen. I assume, then, that I'm basically following Fate Core except for the stuff that's called out as different. The chapter on character creation begins with Archetype - everyone has an archetype from anime as one of their starting Aspects, but I initially assumed that it replaced or was folded into High Concept (which is what most Core games seem to do). Looking at the character sheet, though (which is fillable, which is nice), Archetype is separate from High Concept and Trouble, so I guess it's a different thing. I'm still gonna pick it first, though, because it'll inform my other choices.

Well, I'm listening to Lights at the moment, and this song came on just as I was starting this process, and I like it. It's sad and contemplative and evocative. It kinda lends itself to Dasaiko, the creepy/quiet one, but listening to the lyrics it could also easily apply to Shinyu, the best friend. Reading that description, though, I'm not crazy about it. It's not bad, it just doesn't hit the notes I want. I'll stick with my first impulse.

OK, so I'm the Dasaiko, the quiet/creepy boy. This gives me access to a stunt tree, which I don't have to take, but are in-theme and are pretty cool.

In any case, I need a High Concept and Trouble Aspect. I want my character to be stealthy and to have a mecha designed for recon, research, and surgical strike. I'm picturing the boy from The Grudge if he were older (and, y'know, not some weird cat-ghost). So I think my High Concept is Silent Observer, and my Trouble is If I Told You, You'd Know (that is, I know shit I shouldn't know).

Next step is a Name. A quick Google tells me that "Yoru" is Japanese for "night," and "Hinata" means "facing the sun" (I have no particular faith in the accuracy of Google translate, but I also don't speak Japanese and I don't know anyone who does, I don't think).

And now the Phase Trio. This would, of course, require me to detail my adventures and how they brought me into contact with the other players, although since one of the Aspects is already covered by Archetype, it would seem that some revision of this step should happen. It's not mentioned, however. Well, that's fine. We'll say that Yoru has always has close brushes with the supernatural, and it terrifies him. That's why he's run away from it and taken refuge in technology, which, in turn, is what led him to MAF. First Aspect: Circuits Make Sense. 

For the next one, I'd love an Aspect that ties in to an encounter with a kaiju. I think that Yoru witnessed, or maybe dreamed, a kaiju coming up out of the sea, but then being turned away by a man in a horrible, ugly mask. Yoru can't say how he knows, but he knows that Even the Kaiju Fear the Oni.

Skills! I get the standard Skill pyramid, but I need to review how the Mecha Skills work real quick. OK, so there are two methods - you can either have special Mecha Skills, or a kind of more Pacific Rim approach that puts you in mental control of your mech, so you attack using Fight, and so forth. I think that either is appropriate, here. Hmm. I think I'll go with the former, because I see a disparity in how Yoru functions when in and out of his mech.

Well, given what we've established about Yoru, I think Computer as his Great Skill makes sense. I'll put Mecha Engineering and Mecha Piloting as his Goods. Fairs are Mecha Weapons, Will, and Empathy. For the Averages, I'll take Lore (I need some), Athletics, Notice, and Stealth. Actually, I'll move Will to Average and bump up Stealth.

Stunts! I get three free, as you know. Let's look at the Archetype ones. Hmm. I think It's Always the Quiet Ones is OK; I get a +2 to the first Empathy check of the scene. It's in-concept, actually. I'll take that. Oh, shit, totally take Sensor Supremacy (I can replace Notice with Computer when piloting a mech).

I kinda want a Stealth-related stunt for when I'm piloting a mech, which is a little silly, but I like this idea of him hiding in plain sight. I'll call it Where Did THAT Come From? and say I get a +2 to Stealth when piloting a Mech until I take an attack action.

Do I wish to have any more? I think I do. I want Precognition; I can spend a Fate Point at the beginning of a scene to create a story detail or an advantage.

That'll do, so I get 2 Refresh. And now it's MECH-TIME!

There are a couple of systems for creating mechs; I can do it purely by Aspects, or I can bust out Construction Points. I think I'll do the former, since the real point of Construction Points is that they give the GM a budget for creating kaiju, which is cool, but doesn't really apply here.

So, Yoru's mech is a prototype, a stealth-mech. MAF determined that making more than a few of these was silly, because really ambushing a kaiju isn't difficult or effective most of the time, but anything other than a kaiju isn't fooled by the cloak-tech. The Nighthawk Mech isn't one-of-a-kind, but there aren't many out there.

Its Design Philosophy (kinda like a High Concept) is Hide, Observe, Strike. Its Glitch Aspect is Still Experimental; the Nighthawks haven't seen much field use yet. Its Defensive System is Disruptive Coloration, and its Offensive one is Hornet Missiles. I get one more with a special system, so I'll say that the Nighthawk has Perception Countermeasures; it can fire off decoys and chaff to distract enemies.

And that's pretty much it!

Blue Rose: The Creepy Ol' Tower

Three days, three games. Last night was Blue Rose. Here's last time.

The party is led into the town of Sundown by the town guard, and they watch as the bandits are led off to the jail (which has stocks out front, though they are currently unoccupied). The captain of the guard listens to the characters' rendition of what happens, and then goes into the manor to speak to Lord Ezrath.

Ezrath emerges, dressed in finery (rather, finery for the locale), and thanks the characters for dispatching the bandits. Kisha, finally in her element, asks if the bandits have been an ongoing problem, and Ezrath responds that they don't have a lot of problems with highwaymen because there's just not a great deal of traffic. He invites all of the characters to stay the night, and to come in a clean up before dinner. Dobbin takes the horses and carriage around back to the stables, and Kol, the groom, takes the horses in and chats with her for a moment.

Back inside, a house servant, Runma, shows the characters to their rooms, provides bathwater, collects dirty clothes, and provides dinner wear. The characters relax a while, and then come down to dinner with Ezrath.

Dinner consists of a warm mushroom salad, nuts, fruit, wild boar, and a custard for afters. There's no room for farming around here (too forested), so their plant-based food is grown on trees and bushes, as well as foraged. Ezrath chats with all of them, and Runma makes sure that their wine glasses are full. Dobbin and Whirlpool keep their wits about them, but Kisha and Arlen both wind up pretty tipsy, particularly when given the tart, after-dinner berry wine to top it all off. Ezrath, though, is a gracious host, and listens keenly to stories of their adventures.

Bresla, at one point, asks about the tower on the hill, and the room goes quiet. Ezrath says that at one point it houses a lich, and Kisha realizes that they are, in fact, about where the library and Vistul said that the lich-tower would be located. The Finest destroyed the lich long ago, though, and now the remains of the tower are just a curiosity, a place for local kids to dare each other to go. Kisha says she'd be interested in climbing the hill to check it out, and Ezrath says she'd be welcome to.

Dinner ends, and Whirlpool, Dobbin, and Kisha go to bed. Arlen sits by the fire sketching, still a little drunk, and Ezrath sits and chats with him. Arlen's tongue is a little loose, and reveals a bit more about their time in Verdaunen than he means to, in addition to the fact that not all of them actually belong to the Finest. Ezrath asks about Verdaunen, and Arlen loses control of a spell and uses Light Shaping to conjure an image of Rrusha, the Shadow Dancer, putting on the Mask.

Ezrath asks who that was, and Arlen tells him (but doesn't elaborate on the Mask). Ezrath reveals that he, too, knows wild magic, and they commiserate about how inconvenient it can be to lose control of a spell. Arlen heads for bed.

The next morning at breakfast, Runma, the maid, takes Kisha aside and says that she's heard screaming from the ruined tower. The lord probably can't hear it behind his walls, but she often winds up staying up late and walking outside, and she's heard something. Kisah is further intrigued, and talks with the rest of the party about investigating the tower.

Bresla, Pirry, and Gyell decide to stay behind and guard the Mask (because under no circumstances do the characters wish to bring the Mask to the tower), while the rest of them go up the hill. They have to stay a bit and let the horse that was injured heal up, anyway. The party heads up the hill, and comes to the lich tower. Most of it has fallen in; there's no more door or outer wall, but there's a stone staircase leading up to nowhere (the top floor has gone), and down.

Arlen summons light, and they descend. They find a scene of battle - skeletons litter the ground, and Kisha and Whirlpool identify them as mongrels (dog/human hybrid creatures of Shadow). In the corner sits fragments of a smashed urn, surrounded by a burned, white circle that was once salt. Kisha knows that a lich is immortal unless the phylactery holding its soul is destroyed, so this looks like the room in which the lich fell. Whirlpool finds a trapdoor under a tapestry, and they decide to open it up.

A stone ladder leads down into a smaller room. Dobbin stays behind with Pansy (Pansy's not great with ladders), and the other three descend. This room has a big stone rectangle stained with old blood - an altar. At the end of the room is a staircase leading into water, and ringing the room at the top of the walls is a molding of marble. Writing on it in Old Kernish reads "The answers are found under the false light."

The characters realize this might well be related to the prophecy that Dysia of Eleria told them about back in Verdaunen, but there must be more to it. Kisha asks Whirlpool to see if he can cold-shape the water out of the way, but Whirlpool dives in to see how deep it is. Kisha casts Illusion to summon light ("false light"), and more text appears around the molding:

The shadows run on paws, they bite with fangs, and they feast on meat. They are shadows, but they are also hounds. 

In the world below, where all hang suspended and the chill claws at your skin, the second door must be opened.

My moon child, be gentle and watch the shadows, they are false and divided. Keep your footsteps in the light, and see the way.

Whirlpool follows the underwater tunnel and it opens into a small lake, and he finds three doors at the bottom. He swims back, and Kisha tells him to go and open the second door. He dives back in, not noticing the sound of paws from the shadows.

Arlen notes that last part of the prophecy - it must be in reference to him, but what does it mean? The characters don't really have time to discuss before the dogs appear out of the corners, snarling and growling. Dobbin tries to bring them under control, to deescalate, but they snap and charge.

Next time, we'll see how that goes.

Character Creation: Eden

Told ya I was gonna make a character today.

The Game: Eden
The Publisher: Less Than Three Games 
Degree of Familiarity: None, but it ain't complex
Books Required: Just the one.

Eden is one of those games that I thought wouldn't even be on this list. It's very story-game-ish, and it's very collaborative. I love those games, but they don't tend to approach chargen in a way that works for this project (which is why excellent games like Perseverant and Fiasco aren't on it). Eden seems to have enough individual focus that I can make it work, though, so here we go.

So in Eden, you're playing the first people at the dawn of time, and dealing with the lessons they learn from the animals in the garden. God isn't present; it's not a religious game, despite the title. If I were in a group, we'd choose our favorite animals and draw a map of Eden, but since it's just me I'll skip right to creating humans.

Step One: Name the characters. Normally I'd name my character and a secondary character, but since it's just me there's not a lot of point in doing the latter (since it's literally just a name) I'll just name my garden-dweller. His name Eliv.

Step Two: Describe Skill. This is something Eliv learned from my favorite animal, which I would have contributed during the earlier phase. I love pigs, I find them inherently funny, so I'll say that the pigs taught Eliv that anything is food if you're strong enough to keep it down.

Step Three: Describe Appearance. Eliv is a young man (all Eden characters are assumed to be young adults). He's got short, irregularly growing black hair and grey eyes. His fingers are stained brown from digging for roots, and his mouth is often colored with the juice of whatever he's tried to eat lately.

Step Four: Learn lessons. So, at this point, I would ask the player on my left how I learned the skill of having a strong stomach from the pigs, but since it's just me, I'll my own little just-so story.

Eliv followed the herd across the plains as they snuffled and dug and rooted, and he realized he was hungry. The pigs rubbed against trees to make fruit fall, but Eliv had heard other people say not to eat this strange red fruit, as it made one's insides upset and one's lips burn. Eliv asked the pigs if there was anything else to eat, and the pigs didn't understand the question. "Everything," they said, and went back to joyously digging for roots and grubs and eating the leaves and shoots and berries and carrion on the forest floor. 

Eliv held his nose and ate like the pigs did, taking in whatever would give him sustenance. And he became sick, but then he felt better, and he ate with the pigs again, and he felt fine. And from this he learned that only by trying something could he discover something.

The last step involves other players; I'd tell them what the pigs told me about their characters. Since I have no other players, however, that about does it for Eliv!

I like this game. May have to give it a go sometime.

Board Game: RARRR!!

Bloggin' fiend. Try and stop me. I'ma make a character later, too.

The Game: RARRR!
The Publisher: Ape Games 
Time: 25 minutes or so
Players: Me, Michelle, Jenn, Chris

Cards everywhere.

Game Play: RARRR!!! is a kind of variant on rummy, kinda-sorta. You pick a monster and two power cards, each of which has a syllable in Japanese. You then introduce your monster with its full name and the sound it would make when wrecking a city.

Hezaro goes "BZZZZZ."

Note those little symbols? Those are the types of attacks your monster can use, and how often. When the game starts, someone picks a city from a random assortment on the table and lays down a set of cards. They have to match one of your powers, and you can only use a given attack once per round, and a given set can only contain a number of cards up to the number of times that symbol appears on your cards. So Hezaro up there can use Toxic (the little green biohazard symbols) sets of up to nine cards, but Radioactive (the red thingie on the end) of only one card.

You put down a set, and then the player to your left can either pass (leaving the battle) or put down a set worth more points. Whenever one player is left, they get the city card. After three rounds (of six cities each), the one with the most points wins.

Michelle beat me by one freaking point.

Opinions: It took us a bit to get the hang of it, largely because the game isn't great about explaining concepts, but once we figured it out, the game is pretty fun. We definitely liked making monster noises at each other, and the dials are fun and fiddly, though largely unnecessary. I think we all kind of angled for a bunch of one symbol when we chose our power cards, not knowing that having some diversity was actually perhaps a better idea, but the game wasn't a blowout in any direction, so apparently either strategy is viable. It'd be interesting to play again now that we have some semblance of understanding of how it works.

Keep? Sure.

Marvel Heroic: Equality, Issue Two

Last night we played Marvel. Rock, rock on!

Actually, before we played, we watched the prison escape scene from Guardians of the Galaxy, and I went through it beat by beat with the MHR system, just to put things into context a little. The players seemed to find it helpful. This works with just about any MCU action scene, BTW.

So, last time, four of the heroes kinda got their butts kicked at a power plant. But where, indeed, was Arcanix, the mechanical Sorcerer Supreme? He flew off to the top of a tall skyscraper to meditate and put himself in touch with the planet's spirit. Of course, as a robot, he senses technology rather than elemental forces, and as he does so, he senses a disturbance at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

Zeroing in on the disturbance, he opens a gate and finds himself in the depths. There's a man there, wearing a diving suit but no air or protective gear, meaning he's immune to the pressure, the temperature and the whole "no air" issue. Arcanix watches as the man manipulates the water, pulling up the cables on the sea floor that are the lifeblood of the internet.

Arcanix summons up magic energy to capture him, but the man senses the water changing and swims out of the way. He asks Arcanix, in Spanish, who he is, and Arcanix tells him ("The Sorcerer Supreme!"). "Not here, man," he responds, and flies straight at Arcanix, punching him in the chest and denting his armor severely. Arcanix responds by teleporting them both 100 feet above the water's surface, and this surprises the hell out of the watery villain momentarily. But then he calls up a waterspout, immerses himself in it, and uppercuts Arcanix. Arcanix is stressed out, lands in the ocean, and sinks.

Back at the power plant, the others regroup and try (completely unsuccessfully) to recover some stress. Rift is still flying high from whatever the hell the multiple villain did to her, Juno has been stung repeatedly by the bees, and Inferno got punched by robots earlier that day. Spore, of course, is unharmed, but concerned with how things seem to be going. Rift senses that Arcanix needs help and opens a gate. The ocean rushes out and drenches them all, and Arcanix washes up. He relates what happened to him, and it becomes obvious that this is a big, coordinated attack.

Arcanix goes into the plant to see if he can help repair it, but the villains struck on multiple levels - software virus, structural damage. This isn't getting fixed soon. Rift checks her robot detector, and that's still working. Maybe even a little better, because there isn't interference - the internet is down. Rift talks to an AEGIS supervisor (since Carlsson, the one they know, isn't here), and he assigns several agents to go with the heroes (this is what's known as an "unlockable"). Rift opens a gate...

...and the heroes emerge in the New York Stock Exchange! It's in chaos (communications are largely down), but also under attack. Several of those weird black-and-green robots, plus a woman in camos and sunglasses, a dude in green armor, and a guy perched on one of the big monitors wearing a half-mask. The camo-woman stares the heroes down, and asks them if they're really here for more. Juno responds (putting up her force field) that they aren't backing down, and the woman lowers her shades and reveals glowing eyes. Juno feels fear tug at her heart, the fear of being in a courtroom and having to defend herself and her principles...but she lives for that challenge. She throws it right back in the woman's face, and the woman, reeling, orders the robots to attack.

The robots jump in, punching at the heroes. They do some damage to Arcanix and Rift, but Juno's shield keeps them back, and Inferno flies out of reach. Spore explodes into a cloud of damaging spores when they hit him, and takes out all of the robots. Inferno throws a tongue of fire at the three villains, singing the woman. The dude in the armor seems to absorb the blast, and the little jump dude leaps up and punches Inferno right in the jaw. He feels his face start to go numb - apparently this guy is poison.

The guy in the green armor reaches up and his hands turn black, and the monitors and so on affixed to the walls start drooping and then falling. Juno activates her bracelet and blasts the woman in camos into unconsciousness, and Spore uses his spore-blast on the jumpy dude and the guy in armor. Arcanix draws a mystic sigil in the air and punches the guy in armor right out of his armor.

Rift opens a gate and moves the jumpy guy from the wall to right in front of her, and tries to sock him, but he leaps off a falling screen and jumps free. The AEGIS folks rush in to secure the villains, and the jumping guy leaps out of a hole in the ceiling.

The heroes have a win, finally! The mayor congratulates them; if they hadn't stopped this, these folks would have done irreparable damage to the country's economy. Their aim seems to be destruction and chaos, and so far, they're achieving it. What next?

Character Creation: Apocalypse World

Can't believe I haven't done this game before now, but there's a reason for that.

The Game: Apocalypse World (1st Edition)
The Publisher: Lumpley Games
Degree of Familiarity: Lots with the system and some associated games, but pretty limited with this particular game
Books Required: Just the one.

So, the reason I haven't done AW before now is that when I first bought it, it didn't look to me like the character creation system was robust enough to warrant inclusion. That's not say it didn't make interesting characters, but like some other games I own, it just didn't seem like an AW character made in absence of a group would be worth the write-up. After reading, playing, and doing characters for a lot of other PbtA games, I revised that assessment, but I forgot to put AW on the list.

And then in reorganizing my games and my character creation list, I found my book and decided to add it. Recently, I also realized that I can't find my hard copy of the 2nd Edition of AW, which probably means I lent it to someone or tucked it in a bag for travel and then forgot about it, but that's neither here nor there.

Anydangway, on we go. As is often the case with PbtA games, first I need to pick a playbook. The one time I did play AW, I played a hardholder. Think I'll go with a brainer this time. Brainers are tied into the psychic maelstrom, and if I were playing AW, I'd definitely want that to be a front-and-center piece of the game.

Starting off, I choose name, look, stats, moves, and gear (and probably I'll skip Hx, since it's just me).

I'll pick a name off the list, sure. My brainer's name is Burroughs. He says it "Burras" when he introduces himself.

For look, I'll say Burroughs is a man. He's wearing high formal wear. It's pretty worn, but he's got a vest, a fine pair of slacks, a white(ish) shirt, and a watch on a chain. He looks like he should be dapper, but probably he's just overdressed. He's got a sweet face, tanned without being leathery, handsome, but dead eyes. He's thin and his fine clothes hang on him.

Stats, then. I pick Cool +2, Hard -1, Hot -1, Sharp 0, and Weird +2.

Moves! I get the basics and then 2 brainer moves. Hmm. I'm picturing Burroughs as really embracing the "mind has been rearranged by the maelstrom" kind of thing, but not in a threatening way. More an "adrift in the sea of the mind" kind of thing. I'll take casual brain receptivity (letting me read people mentally) and direct-brain whisper projection (kind of a psychic attack). I picked that last one because I see Burroughs as being really, really hesitant to use it.

For gear, I get a small fancy weapon, 2 brainer gear, 5 barter (stuff I can trade), and fashion to my taste. Optionally I can have some of that be armor, but eh, I don't think Burroughs rolls like that.

For my weapon, I'll take an antique handgun, pearl handled and silver-barrelled (fancy, just like the rest of him). For my brainer gear, I'll take a pain-wave generator (area psychic attack) and deep ear plugs (protecting the wearer from my powers).

Last thing would be Hx, but that's all very dependent on having a group, which I don't, so that's it! I think Burroughs would be fun; a character quite capable of doing harm but not at all inclined to do so (so far).

Shadow of the Demon Lord: Humble Beginnings

Yesterday we started a new game, now that All Flesh Must be Eaten has ended. As is typical for us, we first chose a game via the Spark method:

• Travis chose The Last Kingdom, as he likes the fractured politics and the notion of barbarians at the gates.
• Michelle chose Hero (the Jeti Li movie), for the idea of professional guilds and their enclaves and communes.
• Sarah chose The Martian, for the notion of survivalist (and also for the notion of Mark Watney being a butt, but that might just be a Sarah thing).
• I chose Godzilla: King of the Monsters, because I like the notion that the monsters are forces of nature that can't be controlled, and it's hubris to think you can.
• Megan chose A Song of Ice & Fire, because she likes a fantasy setting in which travel time and things like starvation aren't ignored.

So we talked about a few different games: No Country for Old Kobolds, Keltia, Synthicide, and Fuel Priest were all discussed (the latter was the strongest contender), but in the end we settled on Shadow of the Demon Lord.

Characters, then!

• Travis is playing Buboe the Flaccid, a goblin. Buboe was born in filth, like a lot of goblins, and survived by being ruthless. He's wandered much of his life, worked as a guide and as a soldier. He has many pet cockroaches, but his favorite is Anus. 
• Megan is playing Dagmar, the dwarf. Dagmar is something of a glamor-puss. Their gender is indeterminate (it's rude to ask, and Dagmar finds the pronouns in Common insufficient). Dagmar is an artisan and a glass-blower, which typically translates to being a glazier because no one seems to want art. 
• Michelle is playing Mayfly, a construct. Mayfly is very small and winged, and was built as a valet and housekeeper, but then stolen and made a slave. It also spent some time as a sentry, because it doesn't sleep. Mayfly is committed - programmed, one might say - to being helpful to others.
• Sarah is playing Bashir, the orc. Bashir, born Basher, was a warrior and a slave, like all orcs, but then the revolution came around and he did what he had to. He's capably violent, but he doesn't want to be a warrior anymore. He'd rather be a farmer, he just hasn't quite figured out how to farm yet. It's hard.

So! We begin our tale of blood and death on a farm outside the city of Caecras. The city is still in turmoil following the Orc-King's seizure, and some of the farms around the city have been sacked and burnt. This particular farm is owned by a very nice older couple named Vikus and Corla. The characters have been hanging around; Buboe catches (and eats) rats, Bashir helps work the farm, Dagmar has been fixing their windows (and trying to talk them into an art installation), and Mayfly just zips around being helpful. The couple is trying to put enough resources together to leave, though - they don't want to hang around Caecras anymore.

On this particular day, Buboe is in the gutter stalking rats, Mayfly is in the house, Basher is in the barn, and Dagmar is outside tending to their beard. Dagmar smells smoke, and sees a plume rising from the field. Pretty sure this isn't a good thing, they zip over to the barn to inform Basher, who tells Dagmar to sound the alarm and rushes out into the fields to try and put the fire out.

Dagmar runs to the house and tells the couple and Mayfly, greeting Buboe on the way in their typical manner (Buboe: "Hey, you glittery sonofabitch!" Dagmar: "Fuck you!"). Mayfly starts helping the couple get essentials together, just in case the fire spreads to the house. Dagmar runs out to the field to help Basher.

Basher is digging furrows as fast as he can, trying to contain the fire. With Dagmar's help, he manages before it spreads too far. Buboe also "helps" by peeing on the fire, which doesn't do much, but it's the thought that counts.

The excitement over, Basher pokes about the ashes and finds something metal. He picks it up - it's a chain with a collar. Buboe, a former soldier, and Basher, an orc, recognize it immediately: It's a slave chain. It's still got orc blood on the collar.

Basher, showing a degree of restraint his people aren't really known for, goes inside. Corla and Vikus go from thanking him profusely for putting out the fire to looking horrified when he drops the chain at their feet. They confess that they used to work in Dis, the City of Chains, which is where orc slaves were bred and "trained." They claim that they left that life behind when they came here, and that they've never owned a slave while farming.

Basher considers killing them (and Buboe encourages it), but then he decides that it wouldn't change anything. Besides, the couple has been kind to him. He does decide, though, that he can't stay here. The couple asks him, and the others, for help - they need to get out of here and they want to go to the Low Countries. Buboe mentions that his rates as a guide are reasonable, and the couple agrees to pay the characters, just get them out of here alive. Basher agrees to that. He's not staying here, but he'll help the couple leave.

Basher goes out to the barn to take some rope and make a litter to carry the couple and their belongings, since they don't have a wagon. Every time he ties a knot and steps away, though, the thing comes untied. He calls for Dagmar, who comes in and starts to help, but the same thing happens. Buboe and Mayfly enter as well, and then Mayfly spots the problem - a tiny green creature zips out of a corner and unties the knot. It mentions the creature, and then the creatures attack!

One jumps on Basher's shoulder and tries to bite his ear, but Buboe smashes the little thing with his staff, leaving a wet smear on Basher's head. Mayfly aims its sling at a gremlin, but the stone misses and the strap breaks. One gremlin leaps into Dagmar's beard and starts biting at them, and Dagmar stabs it hesitantly and manages to wound it. A third jumps on Mayfly's foot and bites its toe.

Buboe knocks the one on Mayfly off onto the floor, and jams his staff into Dagmar's beard, killing the gremlin there with a squish. The last one screams something in Elvish (which Buboe understands; basically the equivalent of "I DIE WELL!") and points at the lantern. It bursts, flames falling to the hay below. Buboe whacks it with his staff and splatters it against a window, and Bashir stomps out the flames.

Buboe grabs some gremlin bones and starts gnawing ("they're delicious!"). Dagmar, highly upset over having gremlin juice in their beard, goes outside and sits down with Mayfly to try and get cleaned up. Bashir goes back to making the litter, now that he doesn't have gremlins fucking things up. Dagmar notes a goblin sitting in a tree, watching the proceedings with a weird smile. Dagmar yells at him, and he yells back. Buboe pops over to chat with the goblin in a friendly sort of way ("Heya, nutsack." "Hey, fuckface.") and learns that the goblin was looking for the couple. Now that he's found them, he needs to go and tell "Grindertooth."

Buboe nods, and the goblin leaps off the tree and glides off with patagia under his arms. Buboe goes back and tells the couple what's doing, and they panic - Grindertooth is an orc, one that they remember from Dis. He is absolutely not making a social call.

The characters discuss this. Buboe is fine letting Grindertooth have the couple, but Mayfly and Bashir are not (Dagmar isn't crazy about it, but probably could be swayed either way). They decide to get the litter up and going and beat feet out of here. They get underway after sunset, which is fine because all of them except Mayfly can see in the dark. However, they only get about a mile away when Buboe, scouting ahead, sees an orc sitting in the middle of the road. He also sees Loogie, the winged goblin from before, perched in a tree as a looking.

"Hey, nutsack," he says, and chats with Loogie a bit. Loogie tells him to go back to his buddies and tell them that Grindertooth is going to kill these old folks, and probably they should just get out of the way. Buboe agrees, and goes back to the deliver the message.

Corla and Vikus panic. Vikus opens a little strongbox with all of his savings, and offers it to the characters if they'll protect them. Buboe cheerfully takes the money (over Mayfly's protests), and Bashir decides to go an reason with Grindertooth. Mayfly undoes the litter to use as a net (maybe if they can tie Grindertooth up?), and Buboe goes to chat with Loogie to distract him. Dagmar sneaks through the woods to try and get the drop on the orc.

Bashir and Grindertooth size each other up. Bashir tells him that he's not getting the old couple. Grindertooth tells Bashir that they used to oversee the spawning pits in Dis, that they're slavers and they need to pay. Bashir opines that what they did in the past can't be changed either way, and they don't deserve what Grindertooth is planning. Grindertooth says that he'll make sure the old couple see the sunrise before they die in agony, instead of keeping them alive until the new moon like he'd planning - that's the only mercy they're getting.

Dagmar, meanwhile, doesn't do so well stealth-wise, and sees a tall, lanky individual who speaks like three voices in unison. Dagmar moves away from this thing, trying to disappear into the forest, but doesn't have a good angle on Grindertooth.

Bashir, figuring the time for talk has ended, charges Grindertooth, trying to knock him over. Mayfly tries to drop the net on the orcs, but misses. The lanky dude bursts from the treeline and breaks apart into three goblins, one with a bow and one with a spear, and the fight is on!

Bashir and Grindertooth trade blows, Bashir with his club, Grindertooth with his ax, while the others engages the goblins. The goblin in the cloak throws a spell, but misses, and then tries unsuccessfully to cast more spells (whining all the while that he just learned how to do this). Dagmar tackles the goblin with the spear, and Mayfly swoops around trying to distract folks, but gets impaled by Loogie and incapacitated. Buboe wings a spear at Loogie and pierces his wing, and Dagmar grabs the would-be goblin magician and snarls at him to take a hike; he runs off screaming.

Grindertooth slashes Bashir with his ax, dropping him, and goes stomping after Buboe. Mayfly, though, has revived, and brains a goblin with a rock, and then distracts Grindertooth enough for Dagmar and Buboe to finish him off with their weapons. Mayfly tends to Bashir, and the group sets up camp.

In the morning, they decide that Corla and Vikus can take their own selves to the Low Countries - Grindertooth is dead, so the immediate threat is gone, and none of them want to go there. They've also gone up to level 1, so they have Paths now: Dagmar and Bashir are warriors, Mayfly is a priest (of the Cult of the New God), and Buboe is a magician.

Next time, we'll see where they end up.

Board Game: Pandemic: Iberia

Whee!

The Game: Pandemic: Iberia
The Publisher: Z-Man Games 
Time: 45 minutes to an hour, depending
Players: Me, Michelle, Megan, and Gus

Game Play: Iberia is set in the 19th century and has you trying to research diseases (which are actually named this time - cholera, yellow fever, typhus, and malaria) before they wipe out too much of the population. The basics are the same; you pick a role at random and each role has special actions. You can move around the board, trade cards in matching cities, build hospitals (but only one per color, though you can move them), and treating diseases to remove cubes.

Ah, yes, Gus reminds me that you can also purify water, which soaks up disease cubes when you'd add them to nearby cities. That's actually really useful. Likewise, you can build railroads, which takes some time and effort but allows faster travel between cities along the tracks.

But diseases spreads inexorably, so you have to control the spread, build hospitals, accumulate cards of the appropriate color, and then research the diseases. Research all four, and you win! 

 We, however, did not win. Look up in the right hand corner and note that our player cards ran out. We were really close, though, we cured 3 of 4 diseases.

Opinions: It's a lot like Pandemic, but it feels like a version set in the past. Moving around is more challenging, and railroads are really useful. Likewise, water is crucial because unlike in standard Pandemic, once you research a disease you can't just remove all the cubes from a city (because you haven't cured it, really). This winds up feeling like a different version of the game, though, rather than just a harder or softer version, so that's pretty cool. There are also variant rules that I'm interested in trying at some point.

Keep? Yep.

Movie #521: Percy Jackson & The Olympians - The Lightning Thief

Percy Jackson & The Olympians - The Lightning Thief is a modern fantasy movie based on the novel by Rick Riordan, and starring Logan Lerman, Brandon T. Jackson, Alexanrda Daddario, Jake Abel, Sean Bean, Pierce Brosnan, Uma Thurman, Steve Coogan, Rosario Dawson, and Kevin McKidd.

Percy Jackson (Lerman) is the biological son of Poseidon (McKidd), dog God of the Sea, and a mortal woman (Catherine Keener). Trouble is, Zeus (Bean) forbade gods having contact with their mortal offspring, which is ironic as shit, given Zeus' proclivity for procreation, so Percy grows up with a stepdad (Joe Pantoliano) who is, I shit you not, smelly enough to cover the scent of Percy's divine blood.

This is all fine until someone steals Zeus' lightning, and somehow Percy gets blamed, even though he literally did not know of his heritage until a fucking Fury comes charging at him on a school trip. His best buddy Grover (Jackson) turns out to be a satyr assigned to protect him, his teach Mr. Brunner (Brosnan) is the centaur Chiron, and then he gets swept off to Hogwarts Camp Half-Blood to learn about his god-powerz. In the process, he meets Annabeth (Daddario), the daughter of Athena, and Luke (Abel), the son of Hermes, and wackiness ensues. In the end, of course, he returns the lightning and goes to live at the camp, as he'll be safer there.

So, this series is one of many that came out in the wake of Harry Potter, and in fact the movie is directed by Chris Columbus, who also directed the first two in that series. It's similarly mediocre and disjointed, because Columbus is no Alfonso Cuarón and doesn't quite know how to show without telling. It's not a bad movie, and it has a bunch of fun bits - Steve Coogan as the goth-rock Hades and Rosario Dawson as his horny, stifled, imprisoned bride Persephone are standouts, and Uma Thurman has a lot of fun chewy scenery as Medusa. The story also takes advantage of the fact that Greek mythology is pretty ingrained in our culture and uses that to put us in situations that feel familiar. The multiple janitors speaking in unison and merging as the Hydra was a nice touch, as was the Lotus Eaters running a casino in Vegas.

The ending feels a little pat - Luke is the lightning thief, because he wants to see a war between the gods; the gods are absentee parents, so fuck 'em. His motivation is fine, and it's actually underlined nicely throughout the movie, since both Percy and Annabeth are salty at their divine parents for never reaching out. I could have used a little more overt magic from folks who aren't Percy - he can summon and manipulate water, so where's Annabeth's power over knowledge and battle? Why isn't Luke super-speedy?

Overall, this is a story I really love in concept, I just think the execution, coming out in 2010 when we'd already seen Harry Potter and the MCU was getting into gear, really needed to have some extra spice, and it kinda doesn't.

My Grade: C+
Rewatch Value: Medium-low

Next up: Perfume

Character Creation: Thimble

Grand designs of doing three characters a week haven't really turned out, but life's like that. In honor (in a really obtuse way) of People Under the Stairs, and in light of the fact that I don't have a lot of time today...

The Game: Thimble
The Publisher: Third Eye Games 
Degree of Familiarity: None with this particular game, though I've run Mermaid Adventures, its parent game
Books Required: This "book" (it's a 25 page PDF), and Mermaid Adventures. 

Thimble is a stretch goal from Mermaid Adventures, if memory serves, and is based on various books about little tiny people living alongside human beings. Said little people are called Squelks, they're an average of six inches tall, and they live in communities in the walls and hidden places of human beings (an aside: it'd be interested to mix this game up with Infestation for a really horrific story).

So! Making a Squelk. (There's no character sheet for this game, which makes me feel a little naked, but whatevs.)

Step One: Pick a Generation. I can be a Youngling, a Pallie, or a Grand. I think I'll play a Grand. I kind of want to play someone who did a lot of exploring in their Pallie days, and therefore knows a great deal about the universe (that is, the house that we live in). I get this stuff:

Step Two: Raise Attributes. I get 4 points to throw around; Thimble uses the same Attributes as Mermaid Adventures. I think my Grand is in pretty good shape, so I'll put two points into Body and two into Mind. He's a little short on Charm.

Step Three: Random Charts. I roll once each on Hair Color, Eye Color, Hair Style, Goals, and Extras. I get: Black hair, Violet eyes, Spiked hair, Competitor (which means I'm always looking to one-up someone; I'm good with that). For Extras, I get a scar and a doll or stuffed animal. Hmm.

Well, I'm gonna say that the stuffed animal is a tiny fuzzy tiger that a human won from an arcade game. He came home talking about having won it, and my guy stole it (this was back when he was a Pallie) because he figured it was valuable. It's about half the size of him, so it's pretty impressive looking, anyway.

Step Four: Qualities. I get 4, plus the two I already have. I'll take Biggen Avoider, Bad Taste, Swinger (not what you think), and Thimble Helmet.

And then I just need personality stuff! My Squelk is named Flink Mildew. He grew up in a very big, but very smelly and unclean, house, and he and his family had to scavenge for food that was safe to eat. He learned to climb up into the high places and swing from strings and wires, to grab whatever wasn't nailed down because maybe it was edible, and to always, always protect ya neck.

He's a Grand now, and the house has gone through a lot of change. It's cleaner now and the Squelks that live here aren't quite so...moist. Flink still smells like mold, but that just means that the rats don't want to bite him, so that's fine. He's restless, and he's always happy to go on adventures and demonstrate how much he knows to the younger generations.

Name: Flink Mildew
Generation: Grand
Attributes: Body 3, Mind 4, Charm 1, Luck 2
Qualities: Competitor, Wise, Biggen Avoider, Bad Taste, Swinger, Thimble Helmet

Movie #520: The People Under the Stairs

The People Under the Stairs is a 90s horror movie from pre-Scream Wes Craven, starring Brandon Adams, Ving Rhames, Everett McGill, Wendy Robie, A.J. Langer, Sean Whalen, and Kelly Jo Minter.

In the Los Angeles ghetto, young Poindexter (Adams), called "Fool" after the Fool card of the Tarot, lives with his ailing mother, several siblings, and his sister Ruby (Minter). They're about to get evicted because their landlords are soulless monsters, so Fool teams up with Ruby's boyfriend Leroy (Rhames) to rob them. Turns out, though, that the landlords (McGill and Robie, billed simply as "Man" and "Woman"), are incestuous insane cannibal kidnappers.

Leroy is killed, Fool slips into the walls of the house, aided by the landlords' "daughter" Alice (Langer) and one of their victims who also slipped out of their basement prison (Whalen). He escapes, calls the police (who are pretty useless, though they do show up in force to an anonymous child abuse call, which is adorably optimistic), then slips back in to save Alice and free the titular people under the stairs.

This movie isn't exactly good, but it's got some things going for it. It's had a lot of analysis regarding gentrification and exploitation of the ghetto, and of course, it's a horror movie in which the primary character is a young black man, so that's kind of uncommon. Likewise, there are some nicely creepy shots as the movie gets rolling - once Fool and Leroy break into the house, they find that not even flies can escape (there's a pile of dead ones on a window sill). The movie gets progressively more over the top - even silly - as it goes, but Fool keeps himself pretty grounded even as Man and Woman go bananas.

This is definitely a movie that raises some questions - like, what happens to the half-mad, cannibalistic People Under etc after they're free and zip off into the night? They were stolen, so someone is (or was) missing them. Same for Alice, now bloodied and traumatized (though not a cannibal, as far as we know). That's kind of glossed over in the wake of the house blowing up and raining money down on all of the folks from the ghetto come to reclaim what the landlords have stolen (while "Do the Right Thing" plays, which is an interesting touch), but it's a thought.

It's a decent horror movie, the third act is kind of weak, though.

My Grade: B-
Rewatch Value: Medium-high

Next up: Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief