Blades in the Dark: The Conclusion

Last night was, as the title suggests, the conclusion of the Blades in the Dark game that started way back here. I really like this game, and I'm interested to see if any of the forthcoming Forged in the Dark games measure up. To me, one of the strengths of Blades is the setting; Duskwall is exactly as well-realized as it needs to be to still give players some breathing room and GMs some room to make shit up, and it rewards initiative of players who read the book.

There are things I wish I'd done differently, mostly relating to how I interpreted rules, but in general this has been a lot of fun. So!

Last time, the scoundrels had found a willing vessel for Kotar: Arvis Lomand, a junior professor of Ethics of Demonology at Charterhall. They consulted with the Path of Echoes and decided that the best place for the ritual would be the Belleweather Crematorium; it was used to playing host to supernatural stuff and it had leftover gear from the Spirit Wardens. The crew assembles and hooks Siren up to a big sparkcraft device, and she finds herself in a white plain.

Kotar approaches and thanks her for keeping his soul safe, and she thanks him for saving her ass a couple of times. He flows out and into the big hourglass shaped device, and then starts flowing into Lomand. This will, of course, take some time.

Everything goes dark around the Crematorium, and the windows blow inwards, slicing up a bunch of the adepts and other folks here for maintenance (though the crew remains unhurt). The worst is yet to come, though. Lord Scurlock lands in the center of the room and begins walking toward the device.

Copper quaffs a vial of Rage Essence, making her stronger and tougher, and slams into Scurlock, trying to push him back. It's like trying to shove over a redwood, but she does stop him from moving forward. Cage calls down lightning, and Scurlock catches it, making it splay out near him. One-Eye, having already rigged up a vampire-repelling device (basically a big gun with a tank that sprays electroplasm) straps it on and fires at him. Scurlock shrieks and vanishes, and the scoundrels catch their breath.

Everything goes eerily silent. Siren heads out a window and onto the roof, and sees corpses pulling themselves out of the canal and walking toward the Crematorium. That's bad enough, but then she also sees horrible tentacled things leaping from rooftop to rooftop. The hollows start trying to batter down the doors and the crew has their adepts brace them. One-Eye asks Lord Penderyn if it's possible to speed up the ritual, and he replies that it might be possible, but it's almost certainly unwise. She says that if the alternative is doom, that might be necessary, and he says if it is he'll need Cage to tag in.

Siren, Cage, and One-Eye get on the roof and start shooting at incoming monsters, while Copper helps brace a door. Siren has Bartok survey the area to keep anything from surprising them, and Cage sucks the ghosts out of the hollows at the front door, ending that threat. The scoundrels get out on the roof to watch for more trouble, but then Copper turns and finds herself face to face with the demon that came offering them a chance to leave the city.

Said demon takes a breath to speak, presumably to threaten or bargain, but Copper, still under the effects of the Rage Essence, punches him in the jaw and knocks him across the roof. He snarls, grows extra and limbs and claws, and leaps for her, but Cage interrupts with an ax and Siren shoots him in the forehead to finish him off. The crew turns and sees that the inside of the Crematorium is completely filled with fog, and they can't see in.

Cage and Copper leap in, and discover that inside the fog it's eerily still and quiet. Siren sends Bartok in to try and see, and although he can't really see through the fog, he can sense the device and that it's still running. Something grabs Cage and bites him, draining blood. He wheels around and strikes, and hears fluttering.

One-Eye throws a flash-globe in, and the light shows Copper and Cage a couple of silhouettes. Copper charges one and gets punched in the ribs for her trouble, but keeps Scurlock back while Button zips in and bites his leg. Cage calls up his tempest and makes a bubble in the fog, and Siren and One-Eye leap down. One-Eye straps on her device, but Siren takes a shot.

Scurlock, moving with the speed only a vampire can muster, picks poor Button up and holds him in front of him like a shield. Copper leaps in front of her dog, taking the bullet in the belly, and falls into the fog. Scurlock surges forward and grabs Siren, but One-Eye points the spray-device at him and threatens to light him up - and really, hasn't he done enough to fulfill his debt?

Scurlock hisses that he can't discharge the debt, certainly not while in this stalemate. They wait there, and Cage speeds up the process, which results in the device exploding. But then Lomand stands, glowing, and glides over to Scurlock. Scurlock tosses Siren aside and snarls at Lomand/Kotar, and then flies off.

The scoundrels check Copper, but she is gone. Button sits by her whining mournfully, and Siren stares horrified at what she's done. Cage vows to take care of Button, but they are interrupted in their grief by a salty wind from the sea blowing in. Kotar tells them if they want to be safe, they can stay here, but if they want to see, they should follow him.

They follow him to the seashore, and they see Seterra walking out of the water. Kotar walks out to meet her, and they talk briefly in demonic. Cage understands a little - basically, Seterra feels that she has lost too much ground to win in her bid to flood the city, what with Kotar protecting it. She turns and walks back into the ocean, and Kotar informs them that if they ever set sail on the Void Sea again, she will drag them down to her stone temple and torture them forever.

The Widdershins go back to work - at least some of them. One-Eye works with Master Vreen to open the goat-racing concern that Copper always wanted. Cage adopts Button, and he and One-Eye run the gang. Siren departs Doskovol for the Deathlands, unable to live with the guilt of what she did. They rename their club, the Ruby, as "Copper," and Widdershins takes its place among the power players in the city of Doskovol.

FIN

Movie #540: The Pit & The Pendulum

The Pit & the Pendulum is a 1961 horror movie starring Vincent Price, John Kerr, Barbara Steele, Luana Anders, Antony Carbone, Lynette Bernay, and Patrick Westwood. It's loosely based on (probably more accurately "inspired by") Edgar Allen Poe's story of the same name.

In a mysterious pocket of Spain where everybody speaks English with American accents, an Englishman named Francis Barnard (Kerr) travels to the castle of Don Medina (Price) after the death of his sister Elizabeth (Steele). He finds weirdness - Medina's father (also Price when he appears in flashback) was, unexpectedly, a member of the Spanish Inquisition, and has a room full of torture equipment, including a mysterious loud clanky apparatus behind a locked door. Elizabeth, it seems, died of fright after becoming obsessed with these implements, and family friend and doctor Charles Leon (Carbone) pronounced her dead...but then strange things start happening and her voice is heard in the castle.

Turns out she's very much alive, and she and Leon are gaslighting the everloving shit out of Don Medina, which backfires spectacularly when Medina goes mad and believes himself to be his father - who killed his own brother (Charles Victor) for having an affair with his wife (Mary Menzies). This all ends up with poor Francis, whom Don Medina now believes to be his brother, strapped in a pit beneath the looming pendulum, but as in the story, he's saved at the last minute.

As an adaptation of Poe, this actually isn't terrible. Sure, the story is almost completely added on (Poe's story is presented completely from the perspective of a dude getting tortured, for reasons unknown, by the Inquisition), but adapting this story as anything other than an episode of a TV show wouldn't work because there's just not that much there. The story itself is classic; infidelity, gaslighting, madness, hallucination, and Price rolls his eyes and chews scenery, but he's actually more pathetic and fragile than sinister through most of the film, which actually makes his turn at the end more effectively. John Kerr is...actually kind of boring as our protagonist Barnard, but for the brief period she's in the movie Barbara Steele kinda steals the show.

All in all, it's a pretty good example of Roger Corman style horror, and it'd be interesting to see a remake with a cast that actually speaks Spanish.

My Grade: B
Rewatch Value: Low

Next up: Pitch Black

The Strange: Chomp Chomp Chomp

Back to Halloween Land!

The characters are in a spot of bother. Specifically, they're in the Graveyard, surrounded by hungry ghouls, and one of them (Carmen) is already pretty injured. Edward touches a ghoul and one of his magic tattoos bites it, stunning it, but that's just one. Others swarm in and claw at the characters, injuring most of them. Alexander grabs rope from Carmen and lashes her to his back to protect her, and a ghoul pins Arnauld to the ground with the intent to eat his ears. Arnauld takes this opportunity to change into a werewolf and claw the ghoul back.

Roxanne lashes out with her broomstick, but she knows that these ghouls aren't likely to lose this fight, just on the numbers. She hurls a cypher gem to the ground and it explodes into a sweet-smelling pink cloud. Everyone hustles out of said cloud (Carmen levitates Arnauld out), and the cloud affects the ghouls, blanking their memories. The ghouls stumble around sniffling, and then begin to dig up a grave as the characters beat a hasty retreat back to Roger Reaper's store.

Roger thanks them profusely, and they rest and bleed on his floor. A ghoul shows up at the door and hands over the restless soul of Roddy Reaper, as per the agreement. Roddy thanks the characters himself, and tells them that he doesn't know who dug him up - ghosts don't really become aware until after the exhumation happens. He does suspect, however, that it may have something to do with the strange visitor to the Powers of the Night gathering.

Each neighborhood in Halloween is ruled by a Power of the Night, and every 11 nights they meet in the Big Top at the Midnight Circus. Last time, a well-dressed gentleman carrying a cane with an eye on the end was there, too, and Roddy eavesdropped a little on their conversation. He remembers the strange - whom Gomez Snake called "James" - demanding "the key" from the Tattooed Woman (the Power of the Midnight Circus). He doesn't know what this means, however.

The characters mull this over. They figure they could investigate a little more, and ponder getting on the good side of one of the Powers. Gomez Snake seems reasonable, but he's an information broker and the characters aren't sure what they'd have to offer him (other than the truth about themselves, which Edward thinks would be an unwise thing to do). They decide to rest for a while, recuperate, and then explore a bit, starting with the Midnight Circus.

After said rest, they venture to the Circus (and do not cut through the Graveyard). They ignore Fabien, the orange clown that tries to lure them onto the Carousel, but they do enter a tent with a placard saying "See the Five-Headed Thing! But Never Alone." All five link arms and go in, and Carmen rings a little bell that summons the Thing.

The Five-Headed Thing is a huge, humanoid creature who does indeed have five heads. Four of them, though, are gagged, though they try talking (screaming, really) around them until the center head shushes them. The center head is eloquent and polite, and is happy to chat with the characters about local politics (he also makes some obvious attempts to get characters to stay with him alone, but no one really thinks that's a good idea).

The Five-Headed Thing tells them more about the Powers. The five main ones are the Night Watchman (Graveyard), Gomez Snake (the Hollows), the Tattooed Woman (the Circus; the Thing also notes that she prefers to be addressed as "your Inked Majesty"), the witch Hazel Jenkins (the House on the Hill), and the Rusted Knife Coven (Forest Hills). There are other neighborhoods further out from the city, but those are the main ones. The Thing tells them that Jenkins makes monsters - she is in fact responsible for the pumpkin golems. The Rusted Knife Coven recently won a trial-by-monster against another coven, so there's animosity there.

Arnauld asks if there's a "leader" among the Powers, and the Thing says there really isn't; each of them has an area of expertise that the others don't have. That said, anything that would given an advantage would be of interest - for instance, the Tattooed Woman doesn't really truck with witch-magic, but a powerful spell would be of interest to her because she could use it as leverage with Hazel.

The Thing doesn't know much about "James," but he knows some - he immediately denies knowing him, obviously lying. He reveals that James seems to be a vampire of some sort, but perhaps a devourer of souls rather than blood. He also notes that James was a guest of Snake at the recent meeting of Powers, but any Power can bring a guest.

The characters leave the Thing (after tipping him handsomely with candy) and discuss their options. They want to get in good with a Power so they can score an invite to the next meeting. They know that Hazel rents out rooms, though they're all kind of suspicious about that (and rightly so), and worried that if she sees Alex, she'll know he isn't her handiwork. They decide that Arnauld, Edward, and Roxanne will go and see Hazel, while Alex and Carmen will do some trick-or-treating and scope out the neighborhood a little more.

Movie #539: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is the second in the Pirates series, and the last one I own. It stars Johnny Depp, Kiera Knightly, Orlando Bloom, Jack Davenport, Bill Nighy, Jonathan Pryce, Lee Arenberg, Mackenzie Crook, Kevin McNally, Tom Hollander, and Stellan Skarsgard.

I have to say, the opening sequence of this movie, showing the spread for the wedding of Will Turner (Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Knightly) being ruined by the rain and by Will's arrest for piracy is really nice. We jump right in and establish the stakes: The two lovers helped Jack Sparrow (Depp) escape the gallows, so now Lord Beckett (Hollander) is here to mete out justice. Mostly, though, he wants something specific: Jack's compass. For that, he's willing to pardon Jack (and, it's implied, keep Will and Elizabeth from the gallows).

Will goes to find Jack, who's having his own issues. The treasure from the first movie, we're told, was "swallowed by the sea", and the crew of the Black Pearl hasn't been doing well. Worse, Jack gets a visit from Bootstrap Bill Turner (Skarsdard), who should be dead, but sold his soul to Davy Jones (Nighy) and is slowly become sea life. Jack made a deal with Jones, and promised to pay with his soul. When Will finally catches up with Jack, he and what remains of the crew are captives of a tribe of cannibals. They manage to escape that by rolling through the jungle, and get away on the Pearl...just in time for Jones to catch up.

Anyway, there's a lot more, lots of action and a whole other sequence involving rolling through the jungle, which I thought was kind of unnecessary. The guts of it is that Davy Jones keeps his heart on land, but can't set foot on land but once a decade (why doesn't he keep his heart at the bottom of the ocean? We're not told, seems like a bit of a misstep). Beckett really wants the compass because it points to whatever the holder wants most, which would allow him to find the heart, but that's what he really wants, because holding power over Jones means you hold power over the sea. Norrington (Davenport) winds up in the mix because chasing Jack cost him his commission and his career, and of course Elizabeth catches up, and we have this love triangle kind of thing with her, Will, and Jack.

I have to say, I like this movie more than I remember liking it when I first saw it, and it's making me wonder if I just waited too long to watch the third one because these movies do not waste a lot of time with exposition (they waste time with action sequences instead). The characters grow and develop from movie to movie, and the lore is kept pretty consistent. The love triangle isn't so much because Elizabeth has feelings for Jack as what he represents (freedom, lust, all the things that proper women don't get), and it's gratifying to see Elizabeth just fully embrace that impulse and straight-up murder Jack to keep Will safe, while Will himself is pretty committed to remaining honorable and fulfilling his promises.

I dunno, I may need to stream At World's End just to see if it holds up.

My Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: Medium

Next up: The Pit & the Pendulum

Blue Rose: Welcome to Aldis

Last night we played Blue Rose. Very low-key session, but yet felt very consequential. On we go!

Last time, the party emerged from the mists a scant mile from Aldis, on the northwest side. Walking through the forests on the outskirts of the city, they come across a woman wearing a hood, picking flowers. Kisha greets her, and Pansy scampers right up and sits for her, which convinces Dobbin she's OK. She chats pleasantly with them, and then Whirlpool, being Whirlpool, leaps out of a tree and lands in front of her to startle her.

At this point, several armed guards appear from the brush, pointing crossbows at the characters. The characters put their hands up and glare at Whirlpool a bit, but the woman waves the guards off, saying that this sea-folk was just being a little enthusiastic. One of the guards walks up and murmurs something to her, and Dobbin catches it: "Your Majesty, they are carrying something magical and dangerous. We need to get you away."

Dobbin, who has zero chill at the best of times, falls over into a bow and motions to the others. The woman takes down her hood, and stands revealed as Queen Jaellin. The Queen is fortunately very understanding about the characters' position, and listens to a very abbreviated form of their story (she asks how far they've been traveling and the nature of the mask). She then tells one of her guard, Maern, to stay with them and escort them to the Royal College, where they're to be given lodging, food, and clothes so that they can come to the Palace for a dinner tonight. Meanwhile, they're to take the mask to one of the professors at the College, Dorian Cal.

The Queen and her guards leave, and Maern walks the characters through the city of Aldis. They cross the Outer Ward, where folks make soap, paper, and other things that smell (and the characters note that alchemists also hang their shingles); the Lower Ward, where Dobbin feels most at home among shopkeepers and works; the Middle Ward, with its scribes and theaters and so on; and finally the High Ward, which houses all of the nobility and government functions. Of the characters, of course, Whirlpool is the only one who has been to Aldis, so the others are all pretty awestruck (and, in Arlen's case, a bit claustrophobic - this many people all in one place is disturbing to him).

They arrive at the Royal College and are taken to meet Professor Cal, a pleasant man who, upon hearing they have a cursed artifact made from the skull of a darkfiend, takes them into a warded room for safety. He asks their names, and then learns a bit about the mask and its history. He also recognizes the weird time-traveling mists that they encountered: This is called the "Orchard of Tears," and it seems to happen to allow the closure of psychic wounds formed by long-ago tragedy. He's a bit jealous; he's talked to people who have experienced it, but never done so himself.

Cal has the characters leave the mask here so that the College can find a way to destroy it, and reassures them that he knows the danger of such objects. His cariad and his village were lost to darkfiends in the Pavin Weald, and so he takes this very seriously. Satisfied that the mask isn't going to get stolen again, the party retires to their rooms to bathe and rest. Some hours later, tailors arrive to make them clothes for tonight's dinner, and each is dressed formally, but according to their comfort. Whirlpool winds up with a jacket bedecked with iridescent scales, Dobbin in a simple, but elegant suit, Arlen in a long, flowing vest and loose-fitting trousers, and Kisha in an evening gown befitting a noble.

On that subject: Kisha learns that becoming nobility is a matter of passing a series of exams on subjects like law, ethics, literacy, and so on, but then also attending a ceremony in which her mettle is judged by the Blue Rose Scepter. That ceremony happens every other year, but it's coming up in a couple of months.

That night, the characters attend the dinner and tell their story to the Queen and the assembled nobles. Everyone is impressed, particularly with how they destroyed a shadowgate and witnessed the Doom of Faenaria. When they're finished and folks are wandering around chatting, they're approached by a functionary who tells them that they're to come to a ceremony tomorrow at the Noble Assembly, and the tailors will return early in the morning ("You mean I'll have two shirts?" says Dobbin incredulously).

And indeed, the following morning, the tailor arrives and measures the characters again, this time for much more official-looking jackets. They're brought before the assemblage, and the nobles grant them all a Medal for Distinguished Service, for their efforts in bringing the Mask of Ebban to Aldis and keeping the people of the land safe. The Queen herself then makes an appearance, and invites all of them to become part of the Queen's Finest, to which the all readily agree.

Talking afterwards, Kisha says that she's going to stay her in Aldis for at least the next couple of months, as she wants to be here for Midsummer and try to become a noble. The others agree, though Arlen requests an assignment that will take him out of the city for a while (he's not comfortable here). Whirlpool stays close to the shores of Lake Vash, where other sea-folk tend to congregate, and Dobbin keeps herself busy learning from other Finest and helping out where she can.

Next session, we'll continue our adventures in Aldis, and see if Kisha can pass her tests!

Movie #538: Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is an action/adventure movie based on a ride at Disney (wtf) and starring Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Kiera Knightly, Geoffrey Rush, Jack Davenport, Jonathan Pryce, and Keven McNally.

Set in the Caribbean during piratey times, as the name implies, the movie follows the story of a cursed ship called the Black Pearl, and its erstwhile captain Jack Sparrow (Depp, in a role that propelled his weird-ass style of character creation into the national eye). Sparrow lost the ship to his first mate Barbossa (Rush) in a mutiny, but that turned out to be all right, because the pirates stole a cask of Aztec gold with a terrible curse: Anyone who takes the gold is immortal! (Wait, what?)

OK, yes, they're immortal, but also unable to eat, drink, or, ahem, slake their lusts until all the gold is returned and everyone who has taken a piece bleeds for it. Problem is, the pirates condemned one of their number, "Bootstrap" Bill Turner, to the depths of the ocean before they knew that, so now they're screwed.

ENTER WILLIAM TURNER (Bloom), who crossed from England at the approximate age of 10, but whose ship was attacked by the Pearl. He was carrying a piece of the gold sent to him by his father, but said gold was taken by young Elizabeth Swann (Knightly), who rescued him while crossing the ocean herself. So now it's a matter of immortal pirates trying to break the curse, all while Jack Sparrow is trying to finagle his ship back, and while Will and Elizabeth are trying to mack on each other, and also while the ever-stern Commodore Norrington (Davenport) is trying to exterminate pirates and do some mackin' of his own.

Now, that's all a more or less chronological summary and the movie doesn't unfold that way, and honestly the timelines seem a little strange unless you really pay attention. But really, the strengths of the movie are the visual effects (which hold up surprisingly well after 17 goddamn years), Depp's iconic performance as Sparrow, and, well, actually the acting in general. Bloom gets some shit for his performance, but I kinda like him as the earnest and forthright Turner. Likewise, Knightly comes a little close to Girlfriend, but then she tricks Jack and burns rum and otherwise takes some agency. Rush, of course, is wonderfully scene-chewy as Barbossa, and shoutout to McNally as Gibbs, the first mate that just won't die.

The trilogy as a whole (yes I'm aware there are more than three movies, but the first three are the ones that deal with this set of characters) doesn't stick the landing, which is why we don't own the third one, but this movie was a really surprisingly fun bit of cinema.

My Grade: A-
Rewatch Value: High

Next up: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Board Game: Good Dog, Bad Zombie

Whew, last one, unless I decide to make a character later.

The Game: Good Dog, Bad Zombie
The Publisher: Make Big Things Games 
Time: 20 minutes or so
Players: Me, Jenn, Chris, Megan

Game Play: Good Dog, Bad Zombie takes the zombie apocalypse and puts it in the perspective of the real heroes, the dogs. The doggos are trying to find their hoomans and bring them to Central Bark, the enclave of safety. Zombies can't really hurt dogs, but they can startle them, which costs energy cards. Likewise, dogs can do certain things (run, sniff) without using cards, but a lot of actions, including killing zombies, do require them. Run out of cards, lose a hooman to a zombie, let a zombie into Central Bark, and you move the marker on the Feral Track.

Feral track is on the right.

The game is cooperative, and everyone has a particular dog they're playing. Dogs have special abilities, which are mostly combinations of other actions you can take, but you can only access said abilities with a Good Doggo card. Getting more cards is pretty easy, you just devote an action to licking yourself (you can also lick other dogs and give them cards). My doggo was Waine.

Waine is a good boy.

The game is a balancing act between sniffing out hoomans, herding them back to the park, and keeping zombies away. Zombies spawn every turn and move toward the park, and while it's not hard to get rid of a zombie (use the Chew action, Herd them off a cliff, etc), they just keep coming. If your Feral Track gets to 10, you lose, because the dogs decide to "fuck it" and become wild again.

See, lots of zombies.

Opinions: It is possible, with deliberate comedic games, to let the cutesy stuff do the heavy lifting and wind up with a game that's funny but not a lot of fun to play. That is not the case here. There's lost of talk of "hoomans" and "doggos" and so on, and the cityscape is all from the dogs' perspective so the airport is "loud birds" and the vet is "the worst place," but the game play itself is solid and challenging. Also, very smart decision that the dogs don't lose by dying or getting hurt, but by getting scared and going feral. The stakes are real, but not unpleasant.

If I have a complaint, it's that the text on some of the game pieces is very small and hard to read, but that's really the only issue I have.

Keep? Arf.

Movie #537: Brain Donors

Brain Donors is a very silly comedy starring John Turturro, Bob Nelson, Mel Smith, John Savident, Nancy Marchand, George de la Pena, Spike Alexander, and Juliana Donald. It's one of those movies I love, but I have no illusions about.

Brain Donors is an homage to the Marx Brothers, and the humor is constant and fast-paced. In summary: Roland T. Flakfizer (Turturro) is a fast-talking, ambulance-chasing lawyer summoned to the side of the widow Lillian Oglethrope (Marchand), whose late husband's will requests a ballet company to be founded in his name. Flakfizer immediately jumps at the job and its hefty salary, but runs afoul of Lillian's family lawyer, Edmund Lazlo (Savident) and the egotistical ballet star, Volare (de la Pena). Various hijinks ensue, eventually the ballet happens, and Flakfizer and his companions Jacques (Nelson) and Rocco (Smith) manage to finagle a happy ending.

So, this movie is based on A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, and it doesn't remotely try to pretend to be other than what it is. It's a Zucker Brothers movie, which means that the jokes don't let up, but it also means that it keeps what it's spoofing (or homaging, in this case) firmly in focus and doesn't get off-message. Some of the humor is a touch problematic, the women in the movie are love interests, marks, or bimbos and that's about it, but Turturro and Smith keep the dialog snappy and moving along. I also like the few moments where Marchand as Lillian isn't the butt of a joke or a target of something unpleasant, but is in on the humor or having fun with the characters. Savident as Lazlo is appropriately jowly and grumpy (I recognize him from Hudson Hawk), and de la Pena is slimy and shouty as the Great Volare.

As a movie and as a comedy, Brain Donors isn't exactly high art, but there are some very talented people in it, and a lot of it is pretty quotable ("Excuse me, two's company and three's an adult move"). I had a hell of a time finding it on DVD, but I'm very glad I finally did.

My Grade: C, being generous
Rewatch Value: High

Next up: Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl

Marvel Heroic: Equality Act 2, Issue 4

Next!

Last time, Arcanix and Rift found a new base of operations and sanctum/space prison for the team, and Spore, Juno, and Inferno took on some of the Kutya.

Back at the sanctum, they take stock and rest up. Rift tries to patch up Inferno, but grabs the wrong anti-toxin from the wrong reality and just makes his poison worse. Juno, however, manages to talk Spore down from his brush with U4YA, and heals his trauma. Arcanix takes off his armor and pounds out the remaining dents, and the heroes reconvene.

They've taken down the Root of the Mountain, Oleado, Dafadae, and U4YA (as well as Waves, Decibel, and Grimoire) and imprisoned them. The plan is for a speedy trial once the Kutya's plans are defeated, but to do that, they need to understand what those plans are. Arcanix opens some mystical communication channels and loops in Bianca Hines, AEGIS admin, and goes over the remaining Kutya members.

The first is Hunter Insea, also known as the Multitude. He was sentence to federal prison for murder, and somehow wound up with super powers while inside. He can change into a cloud of smoke or a swarm of bees, and he has a passage from Revelation tattooed on his back. Religious fanatic and maniac.

Corey Diamond, aka Erosion. Not much is known about his past. His powers stem from his gear - his armor can superheat anything it touches to a melting point, and he can create blades from nothing. He's also utterly fireproof (sorry, Inferno).

Shanice Greer, also known as Guerilla. Revolutionary and terrorist, US born but operates mostly in Africa. Her powers include mind and emotion control, and a psychic blast powerful enough to fry a person's brain (Hines isn't sure if her powers will work on Spore or Arcanix).

Dennis Stark, also called Deton8. Stark was an Army combat pilot, honorably discharged and a veteran's advocate before something drove him underground and hooked him up with Kutya. No powers of his own, but has next-level weapons tech, including gloves that allow him to deliver an explosive punch without taking off his own arm.

Blake Smith, also called Bleedout. Once an agent of AEGIS, Smith wound up losing his home in a financial crisis and not being able to get help from AEGIS (or anyone). Superlative martial arts training combined with Kutya tech, including a sword that, like Erosion's armor, can super-heat and cut through almost anything.

And, finally, Michael Carlsson, formerly of AEGIS. The heroes don't know why he turned or what he's trying to accomplish, or, indeed, whether he has any powers of his own. They figure he's at least got access to the same tech as the others. They look back through his records to see if they can figure where he turned. Hines tells them that following the Phylum's attempt to conquer Earth (here), Carlsson worked with Spore to try and make sure they had a way to fight the species if they returned. AEGIS developed a computer protocol called GENYS, which was meant to predict and monitor metahuman activities - Carlsson was heavily involved. But his activities started getting more erratic after Baron Anguish and company attacked AEGIS (here).

The heroes look for commonalities between the villains - they're all idealists, they all seem to want to fight the "system" (in some form). They wonder if Baron Anguish or Jurgen von Drescher (aka the Krampus) were also pitched on this idea, seeing as how they're pretty idealistic, too. Arcanix decides to ascend the space elevator to talk to Grimoire.

Juno contacts Baron Anguish and asks if he knows anything, and he says that he interfaced with GENYS when he and his crew took on AEGIS. GENYS became self-aware and began to learn, but Anguish was captured right after that, so GENYS "grew up" on its own. Juno asks if GENYS could have "infected" a human mind, and Anguish says he thinks so, if the mind was curious, idealistic, and regimented.

Rift looks through multiple realities and talks to various versions of herself to learn what exactly the Kutya are planning. She learns that the next stage of the plan involves population reduction - the Kutya are planning a leveling of sorts. Carlsson has become one with GENYS, and his mind and personality has become rigid and cold. He doesn't even think of himself as Michael Carlsson anymore - now he's just Logic.

Arcanix, meanwhile, talks to Grimoire. Grimoire was indeed approached by Logic, and Logic knew exactly what to say to entice him - but Grimoire, as a former possessee, knows what two minds in one body looks like and wasn't interested. Arcanix posits that magic might be a bit of a blind spot for the Kutya, and Grimoire agrees, and offers his help if the team needs some more magic.

The team confers with Hines, who tells them that most of the research taking place on the Phylum was happening in a black site in Nigeria, outside the capital city of Abuja. They decide to head there, and take Grimoire with them.

When they arrive, they realize that things are already going badly. A mob of people, moss in their eyes, starts lurching toward them. Grimoire puts up a magical barrier, and Spore tries to fell them with a spore-burst, but it doesn't help. They're already infected with the Phylum, but this is an offshoot containing animal DNA as well. Arcanix closes the barrier to keep the people from escaping, and Rift gates in to try and knock them out, but they stay standing. Juno uses her force field to cut them off from the Phylum and a bunch collapse, and Spore, correcting for the mutation, drops more. He tells Inferno to burn off the moss near their eyes, and Inferno very carefully does so. The heroes have won this fight, but now they hear a loud droning noise from inside the building.

The heroes steel themselves and head inside. The interior of the building is a hive, but the bees are as big as guinea pigs. The worst is yet to come.

Shadow of the Demon Lord: Nobody Expects Etc Etc

Bunch of write-ups today. Here's the first. Last session here.

The party has been traveling steadily north for a couple of months. Along the way, they've learned and progressed. Bashir has become an initiate of the Old Faith, specifically worshiping Father Death, and talked with other such folks in the forests (he's now a Druid). Mayfly has discovered that talking to the weird petrified hand it carries triggers divine ecstasy, making it an Oracle. The party stops at the residence of the mad wizard Brindlax, who once employed/enslaved Veni, and he teaches the faun the ways of Wizardry and helps him construct a grimoire. Dagmar, realizing that errant thoughts can empower the Demon Lord, learns to rely on instinct and becomes more solitary, taking up the mantle of a Ranger. And Genevieve receives word and surreptitious training from the terrorist group that gave her the pamphlets, making her an Assassin.

The party crosses into the Holy Kingdom, a land nominally ruled by Queen Moira, but in practice is under the control of the Cult of the New God. Things seem pretty pleasant at first; people are kind to them, and although they're a curiosity (an orc, two fauns, a clockwork, and a dwarf), no one shuns them. Farmers are willing to let them work for shelter and food, and their journey is largely without incident. They're heading northwest, and they cross a river on a ferry. By Veni's reckoning, they're a few miles east of the Deepings Gorge, a dangerous place infested with beastmen. If they keep heading that way, they'll eventually have to break north and cross through the kingdom of Tear. If they bear northeast, they'll cross into Old Edene. Either way, they'll eventually reach the Shield Mountains (which Dagmar is looking forward to, given that there are dwarf fortresses).

For the moment, though, they're on a dirt road in the Holy Kingdom, and they hear a voice in their midst: "Help me. I'm bleeding." Veni senses magic and feels the spell coming from the west, and Dagmar zips off into the wheat to scout ahead. They find a granary, and inside, they heard someone shuffling around and making pained noises - no ambush, then.

Bashir opens the door and they find a frightened looking woman with a dagger. They assure her they mean no harm, and she introduces herself as Oballa. Veni asks if she's a sorceress, and she says she is, of a sort. Mayfly closes her wound, and Oballa tells them that she got the injury escaping from a demonic cult. Veni, a scholar of such things, talks to her, and determines that she's lying, but she clearly knows the subject - the only reason Veni can catch her in the lies is because he's as well-versed in theology and demonology as he is. He keeps it to himself for the moment.

Dagmar, meanwhile, searches the room, and finds a series of marks on the wall with names next to them: Firl, Cri, Rist, Dru, Ban, and Meer. Some of the names are repeated, and Firl's is the one next to the highest marks. The characters quickly figure that this a growth chart for human children.

Bashir sees a man approaching, and goes out to meet him. The man is initially frightened (Bashir is scary), but calms down, and introduces himself as Father Danil, the owner of the farm and the granary. Dagmar whispers to ask if he has kids, and Danil confirms that he does; they're back at the house. When Bashir tells him that there's a wounded woman here, he tells them to bring to the house at once, and he runs off to have his wife prepare a place.

The party helps her down to the house (well, really Bashir carries her) and lays her on a makeshift bed next to the fire. The farmer's wife, Mother Danil, prepares a poultice to keep the swelling down, and Danil has his oldest, Firl, take all the other kids outside. Veni motions Danil out, and tells him that he doesn't know how Oballa got hurt, but he knows she's lying about something. Danil nods and mentions that this is the kind of thing the Inquisition has been warning the people about; there are demon-worshipers everywhere (although in talking to him, Veni realizes that he's clearly not really educated on what a "demon worshiper" is or does).

The characters go back in and Veni calls Oballa out on her lies. Oballa at first says that she'll just leave - she doesn't want to put anyone in danger. Veni has Danil go outside, and Oballa comes clean. She's a spy working for Queen Moira, and she's obtained a list of undercover Inquisitors that she's planning on delivering. An Inquisitor called Tain Faw nearly caught her, but she lost him at the river. She says that the citizens of the Holy Kingdom are generally good people, but the church itself is hopelessly corrupt and people who criticize it tend to disappear.

Dagmar goes into the wheat again and tracks Oballa back to the river, confirming at least part of her story. Dagmar isn't sure, though, if Oballa managed to escape pursuers or not - it depends on whether anyone saw her board a ferry. Dagmar returns, and the party debates what to do here. And then they hear horses approaching.

A man in black with a white, featureless mask approaches, and riding with him are four soldiers of the Holy Kingdom. The man introduces himself as Tain Faw, of the Inquisition, and asks if a traitorous woman named Oballa is here. One of the Danil children immediately pipes up that she's inside. Meanwhile, inside, Veni hatches a plan. He and Dagmar slip out and run into the wheat. When they get a good solid distance away, Veni casts Swap with Oballa, putting her out in the field with Dagmar and him back in the house.

Tain Faw enters the house and finds Veni, and tells him to go outside but to wait, as he'll need to ask some questions. The guards watch the party, the family stands off to the side, and Dagmar helps Oballa get to a safe distance before starting to head back. Mayfly zips over and starts chatting with the guards about the New God, and they're kind of confused by a construct who's also an Acolyte.

Tain Faw leaves the house, and Veni notices two shadow-like wraiths behind him, lurking in the house. Tain Faw approaches and demands to know where Oballa is, but Veni says that he will not answer to someone who trucks with demonic forces. The guards (and the Danil family) gasp, and Tain Faw tells the guards to clap the faun in irons. Veni responds decisively - he throws a fiery blast of magic at the guards.

The guards try and jump clear. Genevieve runs over to Tain Faw and stabs at him, and hits, but draws no blood. Veni casts a spell at the Inquisitor, but Tain Faw shrugs it off. Tain Faw punches Genevieve, and the blow lands much harder than his frame would indicate. Mayfly casts a spell at the guards, dazing one, and Dagmar pops out of the woods and whacks a guard with their staff.

Bashir is standing near the door, and hurls a magic acorn at Tain Faw. It affects him, but not nearly as strongly as it should, and then two shadow-creatures slide through the walls. One gropes at Bashir, the other at Veni.

Since there are clearly unholy forces at work, Mayfly casts Dawn, flooding the area with sunlight. The shadows scream in pain and begin to boil, but worse, Tain Faw burst out of his robes. His hands curl into claws, multiple sets of wings appear on his back, and he stands there revealed as a demon. Genevieve, now not at all conflicted about stabbing him, er, stabs him, but Tain Faw rakes her with his claws and rips sticks and mud. "False faun," he laughs, and Genevieve runs in pain and shame.

Bashir endures another attack from the shadows, and feels their cold fingers pry at his soul. He remains functional and charges Tain Faw with his axe. Veni throws more magic, and the guards, realizing with horror what their leader really is, join the fight.

Tain Faw, surrounded by enemies, bursts into a huge flock of starlings and flies away. The sunlight from Mayfly's spell boils away the shadows, and the fight is over. The party deals with their injuries, and with the horror and betrayal that the guards (and the Danils) are dealing with. The guards give the characters silver coins bearing the symbol of the New God - these coins will act as passes should they encounter other Inquisitors (presuming that said Inquisitors aren't demons, in which case all bets are off). The characters decide that they'll rest for the night, catch up with Oballa, and escort her to see Queen Moira. They don't know how deep this demon infestation goes, but if it's taking over the church of the New God, it's already worse than they thought. 

Blue Rose: Slimy Tentacles

Last night, after a notable hiatus due to holiday travel, was Blue Rose. Here's last time.

The characters, recall, had emerged from the mists to see Faenaria beginning to meet its prophesied doom. More specifically, shadowgates were exploding and the dead were walking, but the party, standing on a pile of rubble, saw their old nemesis Delkem facing down two horrible slimy tentacled things. Kisha, drawing on her knowledge of shadow lore, recognizes them as chaos beasts. Figuring that Delkem is a jerk, but no one deserves to be eaten by chaos beasts, she casts an illusion to make a big chorus line of Delkems in fighting stance.

The chaos beasts look at each other, confused, and Whirlpool throws some cold magic at them. Kisha slides down the rubble and tells Delkem that she doesn't like him, but she likes these monsters less. Dobbin fires arrows and Pansy guards her, and Arlen summons up a psychic weapon and joins the fray.

The chaos beasts focus on the characters, and Delkem uses his power of Earth Shaping to bring down the piles of rubble on everyone in the fray, but fortunately only manages to harm the chaos beasts (well, Pansy gets a little scuffed). The beasts attack Kisha and bang her up pretty badly, but worse, the touch of these things makes her flesh and bones spongy and gelatinous, sending her into spasms of pain. She manages to pull herself together and will herself solid again, and joins the battle again.

The party fights hard, and the chaos beasts are tough, but eventually Whirlpool impales one on his trident and Arlen stabs one with his psychic weapon and fries its brain.

Kisha approaches Delkem, but collapses into gelatin again. She solidifies through force of will, but realizes this isn't something that she can walk off. Fortunately Arlen is there, and casts a healing spell, dissipating the effect. The characters talk to Delkem, and he expresses confusion as to why they're helping him. They tell him that the people of Faenaria need him, even through all this destruction, there are people who survived and need help. He agrees, grabs his bow, and runs off to find survivors.

The mists rise, and the tableau resets, but this time the characters see the scene as it really happened, without their interference. The chaos beasts slither in, and Delkem begs for his life...and a darkfiend appears and offers him and his family a long and prosperous life, if he agrees to a mark. He agrees, and the darkfiend touches his forehead. "Delkem Ebban," it says, "your family line will bear our mark until the Mad Seer tastes the cold sea."

Delkem Ebban, the progenitor of the Ebban line, walks out of the chaos of the city, the monsters stepping aside for him. The characters realize that the darkfiend's face is the same one as the Mask they now carry. The mists rise and fall, and they find themselves on a hilltop, a scant mile from the city of Aldis, back in their own time.

They've finally made it. But if the Mask's curse can be broken when "the Mad Seer tastes the cold sea," and the Mad Seer Miriana was entombed in Falzanoth, perhaps their journey has only begun.

Movie #536: The Pirates! Band of Misfits

The Pirates! Band of Misfits is a very strangely titled animated movie from Aardman Entertainment (they of Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit), starring Hugh Grant, Martin Freeman, Imelda Staunton, David Tennant, Jeremy Piven, and Selma Hayek.

In Victorian times, Queen Vic (Staunton) has basically conquered the globe except for the West Indies, still very much the territory of pirates. That sentence alone should tell you how closely we're following reality, here.

One crew of pirates, led by the Pirate Captain (Grant), who presumably actually had a name at one point, is fully loyal but not especially effective. The Captain takes it into his head to win the coveted Pirate of the Year award, which asks about shanties and beards, but ultimately comes down to whoever has the most booty. Constantly overshadowed by flashier pirates, the Captain eventually boards a scientific ship run by Charles Darwin (Tennant), who immediately realizes that the Captain's fat parrot is in fact a dodo, supposedly extinct. Darwin really just wants to get in good with Queen Vic (with whom he's kind of obsessed), and convinces the Captain to present the Dodo at the Scientist of the Year awards. He does, disguised as the Scientist Captain, and wins, but then sells the dodo to the queen in order to win the Pirate award, everything falls apart spectacularly, turns out the queen wants to eat the dodo, but the Captain wins back his crew's loyalty and all is well.

So, this movie is based on a book series, and was released in the UK as The Pirates! An Adventure with Scientists!, which is much more indicative of what's actually in the movie. The reason for the change varies by who you talk to, but the thinking basically boils down to "Americans won't get it," which, like, they didn't, because the movie didn't make enough internationally to demand a sequel.

Knowing that the studio changed things to make it appeal to Americans make a lot more sense, actually. There are some pretty British things going on. Just the casual murder that happens (Hayek's character happily stabs dudes for no reason, and they actually die, rather than getting up cartoonishly) isn't something you tend to see in USian animated films. The story overall is pretty basic, and I'm not sure how well the trope of the pirates not having names really works. The Captain has some personality, but the other pirates, including Martin Freeman's put-upon Number Two (credited as "the Pirate that Wears a Scarf"), wind up feeling a little samey. But for all that, the camaraderie of the crew is fun, the jokes mostly land, and the monkey butler is pretty clever.

My Grade: B
Rewatch Value: Medium-high

Next up: Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl

Character Creation: Soap Dish

Sure, why not. It's just this one and Enemy Gods and I'm done with the Big Book of Little Games, after all.

The Game: All the Days of My Children: Hospital
The Publisher: John Wick Presents 
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

Many of the games in the BBLG are kind of half-assed, if we're being honest. They tend to start off pretty flavorful and promising, but then the boring part of game writing kicks in and they just kinda fade away. Concepts are referred to early on that don't pan out, a lot of rules boil down to "make it up, but, y'know, in a cool way", and the concepts fall back on "D&D is for kiddiewinkies" a little too often.

(Not that I'm in any position to talk about slagging D&D, of course.)

All My Etc, though, is probably the least-assed of all the games in the book. I wish I had a PDF because I'd love to be able to screencap this, but in the section of chargen talking about Secrets, at the end of the paragraph, there's a little parenthetical thing that says (things you've done?). It looks very much like a note an author would leave to come back to later and flesh out a rule or an explanation, and here it is in a book that costs $30. Likewise, there's a sidebar that obscures text, on that very same page.

Anyway, gripes about unfinished games aside, All My Etc is a soap opera emulator. I don't imagine there's much overlap in the Venn diagram between "gamer" and "soap opera viewer", but that's probably why it's a little throwaway game (and, after all, Pasión de las Pasiones worked juts fine). The game is very much into secrets and who knows what about whom. Everyone is supposed to have two characters, a "hero" and a "villain." Heroes want to resolve secrets, while villains want to ruin them. I'm only gonna make one character, though, because the process isn't meaningfully different. I'll make a hero, I think.

First step would be building a Town, but that's a whole-group process, so I'll skip it. Step One of actual chargen is Name, Gender, Age, Profession.

Aaaannd looking at the character sheet, there's space for none of this. Well, that's not true, there's a space for name, of course, but nothing for the rest of it. This gets more ridiculous in the third step, but I'll get there. For now, I'll say my character's name Declan Jarrel, he's an adult ("age" is just "child or adult"), he's male, and he's a doctor (seems a very soap-opera profession, plus the word "hospital" is right there in the unwieldy-as-fuck title of the game).

Right, Step Two: Hero of Villain? Hero.

Step Three: Traits. OK, here's where the half-ass comes in again. There's no spot on the sheet for Traits. However, there are slots that say "I am a...", "I will always..." and "I will never...". These are roughly the same format as Traits as described in the book, but not quite. Ah, well. I'll say that Declan will always find a way to help a patient, and will never break doctor-patient confidentiality. I know that makes him sound very goody-goody, but if you think about it, having a pretty inflexible moral compass makes you ripe for conflict in a soap opera because everyone's going to use that against him.

Step Four: Relationships. Here we go again. We have a Relationship to the people to our left and right, but as written, the person on the left has one with our villain, and the one on the right with our hero. So far, so good. But on the damn sheet, there's a slot for a Friend and an Enemy, which is a totally different arrangement (singing, "we didn't playtest, nope not at all"). Anyway, I'll once again go with the sheet, and I'll make people up, because I have no other players. I'll say my Friend is Maggie Verachek, one of my colleagues, because we went to med school together and we've seen each other through some very tough times. My Enemy is Anthony Baylock, the hospital's ombudsman, because his wife left him after I inadvertently told her that he was having an affair (an STI test was involved, can't say more).

Step Five: Secrets! Two things that are secret about the character. Sure. This actually works on the sheet! I'll say that Declan sold (and used) drugs while he was doing his residency. He needed the money and he needed the pick-me-up. He's since gotten clean and he hasn't sold anything since, but someone knows.

Second secret: I stuck my father in a nursing home after I moved to the Town. He's got dementia and he can't really identify me as his son, but Declan can't forget what the man did to him while he was a kid, so he's not really interested in seeing him, either.

Step Six: Share Secrets. Actually, I'll skip this, because it would normally involve pulling secrets out of a hat and thus knowing them about other characters, but of course, it's just me.

Declan is in his early 30s. He's chiseled and blond and handsome, in that soap opera kind of way. I suspect that on the show, his role as a doctor isn't more specific than "doctor," allowing him to do everything from general practice to brain surgery, as the script requires. I think the fan base also suspects he might be gay because he doesn't tend to get romance subplots much.

Movie #535: The Philadelphia Story

The Philadelphia Story is a 1940 romantic comedy starring Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, James Stewart, Ruth Hussey, Roland Young, John Halliday, Mary Nash, and Virginia Weilder. It's based on a play by Philip Barry, written as a vehicle for Hepburn.

Socialite Tracy Lord (Hepburn) divorces C. K. Dexter Haven (Grant) for his drinking and just generally not being up to her standards, and then some time later, is remarrying to a noveau riche fellow named George Kittredge (John Howard). Dexter comes back into the picture, disapproving of the new marriage, and a tabloid reporter named Connor (Stewart) with his photographer (Hussey) finagle their way into the Lord household to take some snaps and write an article about the wedding.

There's a ruse that gets them in, but that lasts all of about five minutes (Lord isn't stupid and susses out right away that Dexter is behind this, but Dexter insists that he's doing it to keep an article about Tracy's father (Halliday) having an affair out of the press). The protagonists circle each other, snipe, drink, and Lord finds herself torn between her fiancee, her ex, and Connor. By the end, Tracy learns to stop taking herself so seriously and remarries Dexter.

You know, I'm not one to say "oh, modern day (whatever) sucks, things were so much better back when", but holy shit, if this is an example of a rom-com of yesterday, maybe the Production Code had its good points. The characters here actually have some chemistry. There's some complexity to the relationships, there's not really a bad guy - Kittredge misjudges Tracy, but no one is exactly blameless. If anything, it's simply that relationships between adults are nuanced and complex, and love isn't simple. Compare/contrast with the boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl-back formula that tends to infect rom-coms and it's easy to feel a little insulted. But with that said, I think it's always useful to remember that classics become classics for a reason, or put another way, I'm sure there was just as much crap in the genre in the 30s and 40s, but the cream rises to the top.

Anyway, snappy dialog, great acting all around, definitely deserves its acclaim.

My Grade: A
Rewatch Value: Medium

Next up: Pirates: Band of Misfits

Blades in the Dark: Smoke and Teeth

After a month+ of not being able to play because of various illnesses and such, Blades is back! Last time here.

The scoundrels were in the sewer tunnels beneath Brightstone, coming up into the manor house of Lord Strangford, hoping to get some evidence of demon-worship. They open a door into the house, and Siren sends Bartok, her hunting hawk, up into the storage cellar to scout. Four servants are sitting around playing cards, and they have weird iron collars on. The scoundrels decide to incapacitate them, and they recall Bartok, and then send him back up with a trance-powder bomb.

The servants drugged, the crew heads up and asks some questions. The servants all turn and face whoever's talking in unison, which is a little creepy. One-Eye asks about the collars, and is told that they're for security. Copper asks if there's anyplace in the house that servants aren't allowed, and the servants say that there's an iron door upstairs that never opens. And just then, the crew hears a loud bang (like an iron door flying open) and screams of pain.

They run upstairs and see a butler sliding down a staircase. He's wearing one of the iron collars, and there's a demonic creature made of smoke and teeth trying to force its way into his mouth. Copper runs over and strikes the creature, knocking it away, and the butler screams in pain and spits out blood. Cage and Siren trap the creature using a demon bag that Siren kept from this job and a demon bane. Siren pops the collar off the guy's neck, and he says that there are more of those creatures upstairs. Copper runs off, Siren and One-Eye follow, and Cage kind of sighs and goes along.

The room upstairs contains six people - two dead, two possessed, and two in the process of being possessed. The crew springs into action. Siren tries to pop the collar off one of the folks in mid-possession, but manages to cut his neck open (One-Eye saves his life and knocks him out). Copper and Button knock the other demon away from its intended victim, and Button grabs it and shakes it. Cage faces off against the other folks, dodges some attacks, and rips a collar off, which seems to banish the smoke-demon.

One-Eye notes that these demons are air-aspected, and, studying the collar, realizes that the collar acts as an anchor allowing easy possession. Siren looks for a way to pop all the collars, like a key. She doesn't find one, but does notice that people outside don't seem to hear the screams. She mentions that to One-Eye, who studies the walls and realizes that there's a lattice work of electroplasm tech in the walls blocking sound.

The crew takes down the last possessed folks, with some hiccups: Siren tries to command Button to bite one and he gets confused and bites a recently un-possessed servant, but Copper gets her dog under control.

Copper, Siren, and Cage head upstairs to find the room with the iron door, leaving One-Eye behind to mess with the walls. She opens a panel and gets blown backwards and burned, and figures "fuck it." She puts an explosive into the wall and blows out the window and part of the wall. And then, she notices that the three dead bodies are getting up and advancing on her.

Upstairs, the crew finds the iron door, but the room is engulfed in hellfire. Cage calls up a rainstorm to put out the fire, and the storm swirls around outside of the house as well. And about now, One-Eye yells for help.

The other three zip downstairs and fight off the zombies, and then decide that between the witnesses, the collars, the fact that the Bluecoats are on the way, and the demon-created mayhem, there is plenty enough evidence and they can fuck off. They head back to Nightmarket.

Over the next couple of weeks, they handle business. The City Council expels Lord Strangford, and votes to give the Gondoliers use of the Crematorium. Siren takes a city council person out for dinner and gets the city to ease off of Widdershins, lowering their Heat. Flint, their spirit trafficker friend, gets brought in for questioning, but Cage pays off the cops.

And, of course, the crew continues looking for a suitable host for Kotar, scouring the university, checking with the occult enthusiasts, and communing with spirits, until they find one that they believe will work. He's a young man named Arvis Lomand, a junior professor of Ethics in Demonology at Charterhell and an aspiring Path of Echoes initiate. Cage has the Path of Echoes offer him the chance to save the city by becoming a vessel for Kotar. Next time, we'll see how that goes.

Movie #534: Philadelphia

Philadelphia is a 90s drama directed by Jonathan Demme (riding high off winning every Oscar ever for Silence of the Lambs) and starring Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Antonio Banderas, Jason Robards, and Mary Steenburgen.

Andy Beckett (Hanks) is a rising lawyer at a firm with a really long name, but has AIDS and is getting sicker. After being given a big case, he's fired when the complaint he wrote up disappears (but reappears right before deadline), and believes that he was fired because he is gay and/or has the disease. He hires a local ambulance chaser named Miller (Washington), who is a persistent and talented lawyer but also a complete homophobe, to sue his former firm. His firm takes the position that he's never been anything special, and that he was fired for botching this big case (even though he kinda didn't).

This movie generated a lot of buzz in 1993, but that was when I was in college and long before I started watching movies just because they were Oscar-nominated. I remember one of the complaints about it (though I can't remember where I read this; might've been a review in the Toledo Blade) saying that the depiction of many of the supporting characters as being no only homophobic but utterly dumb about it and AIDS (Miller, at one point, visits his doctor after shaking hands with Beckett). Having now seen it, I think it plays more like the fear that people showed in the 80s. I remember a classmate in middle school telling me the Totally True Story of a homeless dude in NYC who got charged with attempted murder after he spit on a cop (because said dude had AIDS), and then of course there was the story of AIDS Mary (again, which I heard as a Totally Real Thing).

But back to the movie. One thing I did like was that Beckett's family and partner Miguel (Banderas) all stood by him throughout his illness and the case. It's easy in stories like this to make the gay character wind up utterly alone, and that wasn't what was happening - Beckett didn't have a crazy religious aunt who threatened him with Hell or anything. If anything I thought his family's portrayal was a little understated, though not necessarily in a bad way. Likewise, I feel like the "guy defends member of a group he doesn't like but learns that they're really people" thing is a little played out (see also: Green Book), but in 1993 maybe that wasn't the case, I don't know.

Hanks is brilliant as usual, Washington brings a bluntness to his performance that I really liked, and I enjoyed Steenburgen as one of the lawyers for the opposition, showcasing the dilemma of a lawyer taking on a cause she finds repugnant. I thought the ending, showing footage of Beckett as a kid at his wake, was OK but a little strange, like the movie just kind of tapered off...

My Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: Low

Next up: The Philadelphia Story

Character Creation: ACE Agents!

The Game: ACE Agents!
The Publisher: Stellar Games, now long defunct
Degree of Familiarity: Never played this particular game, but I've played and run other games using the same system
Books Required: Just the one

 
ACE Agents takes the basic premise behind GI Joe (the 80s cartoon/toy line/franchise) and jacks up the satire and the absurdity. ACE (Alpha Commandos Echelon) was slated to be a top-secret tech-terrorism security force, but then in a wacky mixup their existence got leaked to the press while a military scholarship got labeled Top Secret (and has since been given to dogs). ACE was defunded, but hired a publicist and now makes all its money off lucrative media tie-in, meanwhile that agents are encouraged to be flashy and marketable - one might almost say "toyetic."

ACE struggles against PYTHON, their archnemesis, an evil organization bent on world domination or something. Truthfully, they only differ from ACE in their stated motives (and that they don't make money off their action figures, but who are they gonna sue? They're criminals), but the general feeling is that ACE and PYTHON are a perfect counter-balance to each other's screwy antics.

(I note with some amusement that this is exactly the conclusion that the Cheat Commandos reached in 2 Part Episode: Part 2.)

Anyway, let's make an ACE Agent!

I'm to roll 4d10 for each of the eight basic abilities, so let's see what we get:

Strength 18
Dexterity 27
Fitness 19
Intellect 31
Will 16
Perception 8 (jeez)
Attractiveness 16
Public Relations 22

OK, well, that's an interesting spread. I'm quick and hella smart, but I'm pretty weak-willed and I probably run into walls. Next up is Survival Points, which is Fitness + Public Relations, or 41 in my case. Consciousness Points is Will + Public Relations, or 38. I have a spot for neither on this character sheet, however, which is weird.

Anyway, next up is Hand to Hand damage, also not on the sheet...oh, wait, it's on the back. Fine, I ain't printing that, though, it's combatty stuff. My HTH is 2 or 20, depending if I'm doing SP or CP (ah, 90s game design).

Right, now for skills. I get 25 1d10 rolls to place in Skills, 5 of which have to be placed in Combat Skills, and the other 20 can go anywhere. Think I'll use random.org for this part. All right, done, now I need to choose Skills, which means I should think a little about concept.

Well, my agent is obviously no great shakes as far as rough-and-tumble shit goes, but his Intellect is pretty beefy. DEX actually isn't bad, so I can do ranged combat if I throw some rolls in there. So let's say my character's code name is Laser Pointer. He's a former office jockey who, like Arthur before him, decided that adventure wasn't going to find him in the world of number-crunching and filing, and so applied to join ACE. As it turns out, though, he's got a real knack for marksmanship, and likes factoring tech into being long-distance lethal (not close up, because he really doesn't like the sight of blood or the feeling of being punched).

So I'll put a total of 33 into Rifle, putting my score to 60 (I add the basic ability to the rolls for a total). I'll put 15 into Pistol, too, for a total of 42 there. And then the other Skills...good lord, there are too many. Well, I want Business, so I'll put 9 there for a total of 40. Computer Operation, sure, 10 points, 41. Communications sounds useful, 10 points, 41. Electronics sounds good, I'll put 19 points in for a total of 46. Security Systems, 4 points, 35 (that's far too low, but I'm running out of points). Stealth, 9 points, 36. Bicycles, 8 points, 35. Two more rolls left (9 and 9). I'll put them into Information (Bureaucracy) and Mathematics, respectively.

And now I just need to do the profile kind of thing. So! Lester Bean was a bean counter (that joke never gets old). Had the "Hang In There!" kitten poster and the "I Hate Mondays" mug and everything, and then one day ACE and PYTHON had a rollicking laser battle outside his building and he was just fascinated, mostly by how inefficient and sloppy their shooting was. He's since learned that hitting a target under pressure is a little harder, but he's getting better at hitting things from very, very far away, preferably using a laser scope.

Lester is tall, thin, and wheezy. His hair is thinning and he wears thick glasses, a silvery jumpsuit, and some cool laser projectors on his wrists (they don't do anything but make dots, but they're useful for calling attention to something or blinding enemy pilots).

Oh, now that I finish this, I realize I should have named him Reynold. 

Movie #533: Phenomenon

Phenomenon is a magical rom-com (I promise it's a genre) starring John Travolta, Kyra Sedgwick, Forest Whitaker, Robert Duvall, Brent Spiner, Jeffrey Demunn, and Richard Kiley.

George Malley (Travolta) is a kind-hearted mechanic living in a small northern California town who, while at his 37th birthday party, sees a bright light in the sky and hears a loud boom. Thereafter, he finds himself growing more intelligent and learning and reading at an increased rate, and also developing powers of telekinesis and (implied) clairvoyance.

George follows his interests; he sends coded messages to air force bases with his buddy Nate (Whitaker) and pursues the single mom Lace (Sedgwick), but as his powers get more overt, the other townsfolk become distrusting and nervous around him. Ultimately he collapses during a book fair, finally gets the CAT scan that his doctor (Duvall) has been bugging him to get, and it turns out that he's got a tumor in his brain that's giving him this increased ability, but also killing him.

So, I like this movie, though I have some niggles. One is that the chemistry between Travolta and Sedgwick just doesn't really track (I mean, I was thinking about it and I can't recall seeing romantic chemistry between Travolta and anyone in a movie). George gets weirder as his powers increase, and that makes sense, but again, the chemistry issue. I do like that the town never gets further along the Frankenstein scale than being nervous and judgy (no one ever threatens George or calls him a freak or anything). I also like that his close friends don't turn on him. And I like that the "we only use 10% of our brains" trope isn't used; they talk about the tumor "waking up" brain function, but they don't fall back on that cliche and that makes me happy.

The weird quasi-love scene set to Aaron Neville's "Crazy Love" hasn't improved with age (were they going for erotic? 'Cause that's not what it is), and I'm so very glad they didn't try for a sex scene, but I appreciate Sedgwick doing the heavy lifting on the relationship portrayal. Actually, the supporting cast is generally really good, and the town and the dynamics therein are well-realized. And, as always, I like movies where the conflict comes more from situations than people being assholes, and there's a lot of that here.

My Grade: B-
Rewatch Value: Medium

Next up: Philadelphia

Chill: A Pleasant Hike in the Snow

After missing a month, we're back in the tiny town of Seneca, OR.

The morning of March 8th, Blake arrives at the RV Inn where the envoys are staying (less Jennifer, who went back to Boise to return the master keys to the ranch). Blake brings donuts and gets caught up on what's going on, and decides that he'd like to go out to the ranch and see the steer carcasses. Samantha, too, figures she should go, so as to use her Postcognition discipline for more information, and finally the envoys decide the BB and Jeanie will go as well. Mohammed, though, is going to call Bob Houston, husband (probably widower) of the missing woman, and see what he can learn. Before that, though, Blake goes through Felix Willis' (the rancher and former SAVE envoy) journal, photographing the pages so he can return it. He doesn't see anything germane to this case, but he does note that Felix studied the Protective Art.

Mohammed calls Bob and asks where on the trail he thinks Miranda might have gone, and Bob tells him just to come over (easier to show him on a map). On the way in, Mohammed bumps his head on metal wind chimes hanging on the porch, but thinks nothing of it. Mohammed uses his Telepathic Empathy discipline to establish a connection, and learns that Bob had awful dreams the night before. Bob tells him that in the dream, he saw Miranda walking along the trail and stooping down to feed a white cat. But then something - something that looked human but was far too big - yanked her into the brush, and he saw violence and heard screams.

The cat, he notes, is real - it's been spotted around town and the elementary school of late (the Houstons are friends with the Frenches, and Jo French teaches there; the kids have been calling it "Slenderman's Cat" because it's weird looking). In his dream its eyes glowed blue, though. Mohammed asks about the hike - was it odd that she went alone? Bob tells him it was, in a sense; they had been drinking last night and Bob overdid it, and wasn't feeling up to the walk. Mohammed senses that he's not a habitual drinker, he just, as he says, overdid it. Mohammed also notes a sense of the Unknown, and figures that the dream he had wasn't natural. He also asks about the wind chimes, and Bob tells him that Lonny Patton, the owner of the Bear Valley Store, makes them.

Meanwhile, the others head to the ranch and talk with Felix. One steer carcass is left, and Blake examines it. He concludes that the giant humanoid creature appeared near the steer (perhaps so as not to spook it) and then punched it in the side of the head, breaking its neck. Horrified by how much strength that would take, he also notes that the bites in the steer are from a human shaped mouth, but several times bigger than any person. Samantha uses Postcognition and sees a strange bull - with jet black horns and teeth, glowing blue eyes, and exposed muscles and sinews instead of skin - walk up to one of the steers. It changes into a giant man, punches the steer to death, and starts to eat it.

BB, inside, talks with Jasmine (Felix' daughter-in-law), and learns that she and Mark are going to moving out of here soon. Jasmine is looking for a job in places like Richland and Boise - bigger, but still not huge. She also mentions that coyotes have been bad of late; one of their dogs was found dead a few days ago, and since then they've been keeping them in at night. Jasmine also saw a man she didn't recognize outside the fence that morning, a man in an army coat. She didn't get a look at his face, though.

The envoys meet back up at the hotel and discuss their findings. They still aren't sure if this is one creature with multiple forms, or several creatures with an animal form each (cat, bull, etc). Mohammed thinks it through and asks Samantha if the giant man she saw in her visit looked like Casey Lynch, the fellow they're trying to find, and she realizes that he did. Blake checks a map and notes that it's a straight shot north from Lawen, OR (where the envoys met Lynch) to Seneca. So did he walk, drive, or change into something fast? With a big stride, he could cover the ground quickly. They figure that Lynch was the guy that Jasmine saw, but they still have questions - why did Lynch visit Baker's bedroom in cat form? Did he kill Baker, or influence him? They decide to go and walk the trail while there's still light.

They head over to Bob's house and park in his driveway, and, taking their guns, go to the backyard where the trail starts. Jeanie looks for tracks, but the police have been all over the place. She does, however, find cat footprints on the railing of the porch, like the cat walked along and then looked into the house (or maybe out at the woods, hard to say). They also notice another wind chime on the back porch, again made by Lonny.

The envoys head into the woods, and Blake sees a weird trail in the snow, like something slid down a slope to a valley. The envoys make their way down and find a frozen creek, and walk along for a bit. And then they spot a fallen tree with something moving in the root structure. Jeanie uses Hidden Hand to move the leaves and stuff out of the way, and they see a white cat with glowing blue eyes and coal black teeth.

They brace themselves, and the cat leaps out and takes the form of a flayed bull. It rushes forward and knocks BB into the brush. He whacks it with his bola, and Jeanie hits it with her staff, but it rears up and kicks Jeanie in the head, staggering her. The others shoot at it, but it doesn't seem to mind. It sinks into the ground, and the envoys start to retreat, figuring that they don't know how to fight this thing.

Blake, Samantha, and Jeanie make it back up the slope, but Mohammed and BB don't quite, because the creature bursts out of the ground in giant-man form, knocking them back down. BB holds his own with Feat of Strength, but the creature beats on him, whittling him down. Mohammed takes a chance and uses Telepathic Empathy, tapping into the creature's mind and horrifying himself, but learning that he's got more in common with Casey (as a military vet) than he'd like. He doesn't know how to kill the creature, but he figures he can confuse it. He learns that Casey feels betrayed, the phrases "they knew" and "they had to know" bubbling around in his mind, and Mohammed yells "they did know, and they lied to you, but we didn't, and we want to make them pay!"

It's just enough. Lynch shrinks down into his human form and slumps to the ground, sinking into the earth, and the envoys flee. Mohammed tries to get Bob to leave house, but his story is muddled and Bob doesn't seem to listen. Blake calls Felix and Felix tells them to head for the ranch.

Once out there, they note a similar wind chime on the porch, and Samantha breaks it, telling Felix she'll replace it if it turns out to be harmless (the envoys note that it's just copper, glass, and iron). BB uses Heal on Jeanie to stop her concussion from getting worse, and the envoys take a breather and debrief. They realize that they're unprepared to fight this thing, and they use Felix' computer to do some research (Samantha does the digging; none of these envoys are particularly good at research, however).

Most the parameters they use are too broad to be useful, but one - the "flayed bull" - does come up with something. There's a Norse legend of something called a draugr, a fallen warrior who died dishonorably (or feels that he did). Supposedly these creatures can take animal forms, including a flayed bull, and feed on whatever meat they can get. They're also invulnerable to harm. That, of course, is just the folklore, and there probably is a way to harm such a creature. The envoys put in a call to Dylan back in Boise to do some more digging, and settle down to think this through.

Movie #532: The Phantom Planet

The Phantom Planet is a 60s sci-fi film starring Dean Fredericks, Coleen Gray, Anthony Dexter, Francis X. Bushman, Dolores Faith, and Richard Kiel. It's (very) loosely inspired by Gulliver's Travels.

In the distant future of 1980, humanity has a base on the moon and is launching exploratory ships. One such ship crashes into a "phantom planet", and so they send a follow-up captained by Capt. Chapman (Fredericks). His ship, too, crashes into said planet, and as soon as he steps onto the planet, he shrinks to six inches tall (because...something about the atmosphere).

Chapman is taken prisoner and learns about the planet of Rheton, and is given the choice to wed Liara (Gray) or Zetha (Faith), eventually assimilates, and then escapes with the help of his one-time rival Herron (Dexter). In the meanwhile, there's a whole lot of quasi-scientific mumbo jumbo, a duel (with Herron), an invasion by Richard Kiel in a googly-eyed alien suit, and a lot of melodrama.

There's an MST3K episode of this movie, and that's just a good idea. But with that said, the movie isn't terrible. Sure, the science is silly, the acting is overwrought, and the story meanders, but for all that, it was kind of a fun watch. Science fiction, like horror, is instructive inasmuch as it says something about the society that creates it, and in the early 60s, evidently the theme "there's a lot of shit out there that we don't understand" was on someone's mind. The idea that a lot of the universe has life and it's very different from Earth life gets repeated, and the end of the movie doesn't really resolve much for Rheton, nor does it grant Chapman a lot of revelation. He goes back home, Rheton spins merrily on.

It's nice to see a movie that could have been a kind of "white savior" (I mean, everyone's white here) just involve visitation. DNA from Swift, I think.

My Grade: C
Rewatch Value: Low

Next up: Phenomenon

Character Creation: Predation

I was not expecting to enjoy this game as much as I did, but I also never expected to groove on the Cypher System as much as I do, so.

The Game: Predation
The Publisher: Monte Cook Games 
Degree of Familiarity: Never played this particular game, but I've been running The Strange for a while and I agree with the author's thesis that dinosaurs are awesome
Books Required: Predation and theoretically the Cypher System core, though I don't know if the latter is strictly necessary for chargen

 

The central idea of Predation is that time travelers went back to the Cretaceous and set up shop, and a couple of generations later, time travel just...stopped working. PCs in the game are the children or grandchildren of the original time travelers ("Commuters"), and everyone is mighty worried about this whole extinction-level event asteroid thingie that's probably due any year now.

But, everyone gets a companion animal, so that's freaking cool.

Characters are, as is the usual for Cypher System, defined as an [adjective] [noun] that [verbs]. I actually start with the noun, or "type." I've got four choices, here: Karns (warriors), tecs (sciencey types), pteryx (explorers) and osteons (social folks). I think I'm gonna lean in to my predilections for a game like this and be a pteryx. As such, I start with Might 10, Speed 9, and Intellect 9, and six points to divide however I wish. I believe I shall put 4 into Speed and 2 into Intellect.

Oh, and some of my stuff is taken from the Explorer type in Cypher, so I guess I do need to grab that book. OK, here we go. Effort 1, Might Edge 1, 2 Cyphers at a time, practiced with light and medium weapons. I also get the Discover Dinosaurs ability, I get a choice abilities from the Predation book, and I get a companion, but that'll happen later. For my abilities, I'll choose...Extra Edge (gives me Speed Edge of 1, which is good), Trained Without Armor (I'm trained in un-armored Speed defense, or "dodging" as it's sometimes known), and Physical Skills (balancing and climbing).

I also get a Background Connection, and since I don't have much sense of this character yet I shall toss a d20. Oh, perfect. I grew up inside a concrete and metal compound, rarely saw the sun, and now I don't go inside if I can help it.

Now we do Descriptor, the adjective in our little sentence. I can pick from the ones in either book, so I gotta skim through. Hmm. Daring is fun, but I think I'll lean into my Background and pick Naive. My character is just out of his compound. I'm trained in perception, Intellect defense, and I get +1 to recovery rolls, but I also have an inability in seeing through deception.

I also pick an initial link to the starting adventure, but for Naive they're all pretty basic, so I'd probably just go with "Sounded like fun!" and leave it there.

(Side note: I like characters that join adventures because adventures are awesome, but something I rarely see at the table is that character realizing that parts of the adventure aren't fun - someone bleeds, folks are hungry, things are scary - which I think would make for a good RP moment.)

Focus! Oh, man. There are so damn many. I think, though, that I like Explores Deep Waters. I figure that being Naive and doing that makes sense, considering the aquatic dinos that are happy to try and eat you. I can dive from 100 feet up and withstand pressure up to 100 feet, I can hold my breath for 5 minutes, and I'm trained in a bunch of water-related stuff.

Nice! Just need to do equipment and pick a companion. I'll say my guy (who's name is Third Morning, or Termor for short) has a set of strangely clean and well-kept clothes, a spear tipped with the tooth of some fearsome aquatic dinosaur, and a SATI rebreather that lets him function underwater. Ter-Mor was part of a SATI program to try and reconnect with the time travelers by making some kids believe that they were still in the future, a kind of temporal harmony thing. Who knows if it would have worked; the secret was blown very early, and Termor and his friends found a drain that led into the river. Most of them were too scared to go after they saw the carnosuchus, but Termor stole the rebreather and kept training, eventually plucking up the courage to swim to the surface, where he was picked up by a fishing boat.

Now, as for his companion, I would love an aquatic or amphibious dino, is that doable? Sure, because I can make something up. My companion is an gaviaraptor, a species of raptor bred to defend people on the riverbeds from the carnos and other aquatic (people say they were bred with duck DNA, but really they're more closely related to loons). They have slick, black and yellow feathers and they're more streamlined than other raptor species, able to swim swiftly by undulating their bodies. My companion is named Odette (after the main character in Swan Lake, because gaviaraptors make their weird songs and Termor has read about swans and their songs, so...yeah).

Raptors normally are trained in all sneaking-related tasks, but I'll say that Odette is trained in all swimming related tasks, including underwater combat. I'll also say that the first time Termor met Odette, she took a snap at him, but they've worked it out. Oh, and Odette's Disposition is Curious, so I get an asset in perception tasks when she helps me search, look, or listen.

And I think that's it!