Character Creation: Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition

Last day of the year in a year where nothing has been normal...but then again, my "normal" died more than three years ago. As such, as fucking awful as 2020 has been on a kind of macro scale, for me personally it hasn't been so bad. I've managed to avoid getting sick, as have the people in my family. I still have my job and I'm able to do it remotely, and I'm union in a union job where the union still has a leg to stand on, so overall, I can definitely say it could be worse. It has been worse.

I told Michelle today that I didn't want to die, despite what my own brain has been telling me for the past few years. In my lucid moments, I know that's the case, but lucidity has been a kind of oasis for a while now. Mostly it's been grief, guilt, and other unpleasant emotions, and feeling that way for multiple years at a time makes one wish for death, even if it's just so that the mind could stop. 

I don't get "real" like this on my blog often because there is no goddamn point. I have very few readers anymore, and the folks who do read are either close friends who already know my mind-space, or casual folks who are just here to see me talk about RPGs or movies or whatever. And that's fine. Consider this an anomaly. I have no plans to start talking about myself or life any more than I normally do, I'm not rejoining social media, and I do not and will not have any professional contact with the RPG industry. This is how things are. Denial, bargaining, anger, grief, acceptance. 

Speaking of which.

The Game: Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition
The Publisher: Onyx Path Publishing
Degree of Familiarity: Lots, but I'll delve into that a little below
Books Required: Just the one

Ah, Wraith. Far and away my favorite World of Darkness game, and probably just behind Promethean if we include Chronicles of Darkness games, too (Beast doesn't crack the top five). Wraith was the game that got me into WoD, and instilled in me the taste for long, sprawling, interconnected chronicles, akin to our current-day cinematic universes. I did a character for Wraith 1st Edition here, but of course, new edition, new character. 

Reading Wraith 20, I'm stuck by a) how easy it is to slide back into the WoD headspace (something similar happened when reading the other 20th Anniversary Editions), and b) how much I really just do not care about the whole Stygia/Dark Kingdoms/political side of things. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't care for the non-Skinlands aspects. I love the Tempest, the Midnight Express, and even the idea of Necropoli, but like, the guilds, the renegade/hierarchy/whatever the other one is conflict...feh. When I ran Wraith back in the mid-90s, the focus was always on the characters, their Fetters and Passions, their Shadows, and what was going on in the Skinlands. Sure, I brought in all kinds of shit from other WoD games, and I did use the Hierarchy-related stuff, but the best moments were when the wraith characters got to be ghosts. 

Wraith, even more than most oWoD games, really wanted to be what we'd now think of as an indie game. It was too big for its conceptual britches, and it had to make do with all of this extra crap bolted on - including, I'd argue, Stygia and the Charon mythos and the Maelstroms. It also had to make do with this dumb system where 1s cancel successes, but like, that's life. Or death.

OK, let's move along. One of the things that happens to me a lot is that when I hear songs, I tend to think up characters (works in reverse, too; find the song for the character). I had a concept for a Wraith character that I never did anything with, but I'm gonna do it tonight. Here's the theme song:

Step One is concept and so on. So, my character is Dustin "Dusty" Mayhall. Dusty played guitar in a country/western band, and then the lead singer got this gig in Los Angeles. They went out there, took more gigs, became more of a rock band, Dusty kinda hated it but whatever, it paid the bills, and then the other band members booted him because he wasn't down with their whole persona. 

Dusty stayed in LA and took whatever jobs he could, and wound up teaching guitar, among other gigs. One of his students was a girl named Mel - 18, just out of high school, the daughter of two moderately famous Hollywood folks. Mel had done some acting when she was younger (sitcom), but wasn't really interested in it long term and really hated the lack of privacy that came with fame. She did like singing, though, and she was picking up guitar pretty quickly. Dusty had never really wanted to be a father, but he was grooving on the "cool uncle/teacher" role he'd found with Mel.

And then one night, Dusty got a phone call from Mel. She'd run away from home, she was at a dive bar, she was scared and wasn't really sure what she was doing. Dusty started heading downstairs, slipped, fell, and fractured his skull. He was in surgery three hours before he died, and remembered hearing his phone ring with Mel's ringtone before he lost consciousness.

And then Dusty woke up - kind of. He went to the bar that Mel had mentioned, and she was there. Weirdly, Mel can see him and hear him, and since then they've traveled together. Dusty hasn't told her anything about the Underworld or Stygia or any of that nonsense. That shit's for the dead. Mel's still alive, and Dusty's going to stay with her until she's ready for him to go.

Right, so. What would be "Concept" in most WoD games is split into Life, Death, and Regret. Life is Musician, Death is Accident, Regret is Love. That's easy enough.

Nature and Demeanor. Hmm. Dusty affects a kind of world-weary country boy thing, but it's less curmudgeon and more grizzled mentor, so I'll call Demeanor Pedagogue. His Nature is Caregiver, that's easy. 

Step Two, Attributes, the usual OWoD 7/5/3 spread. Hmm. I think Social/Physical/Mental, perhaps? Maybe with some freebies thrown at Wits later? So Charisma 4, Manipulation and Appearance (bleah) 3, Strength and Stamina 2 with Dexterity 4, and even 2s in Wits, Perception, and Intelligence. Sounds good. 

Step Three, Abilities! Again, usual deal, 13/9/5, not more than 3 in any one with these points, completely stupid and arbitrary divisions of Talents, Skills, and Knowledges. 

Well, Talents is gonna be primary because there's a bunch I want. I'll put one into Alertness, Awareness (it's so goddamn dumb that these are separate, especially for ghosts), and Athletics. Two each in Empathy and Expression...wait, what's the difference between Expression and Performance again? OK, Expression  is more way with words, so I think I'll skip it. Dusty's not a songwriter. 

So, three dots in Empathy, one in Intimidation, two each in Persuasion and Streetwise, and that leaves me two...I'll put one in Brawl and one more in Awareness. 

I think Skills are secondary. Three in Performance, obviously. Two in Crafts, one in Drive, one in Etiquette (country boy charm), two in Leadership. Might add to these later.

Finally, five in Knowledges. Two each in Academics and Bureaucracy, last one in Occult, boom. 

Step Four is Advantages, and we start off with kewl powerz (Arcanoi). I gotta refresh my memory on how these work. Ooh, they complicated this. Arcanoi are now split into Initiate and Common, and you can apparently have either or both at a given level. Getting the initiate stuff, though, requires Guild membership. I don't see Dusty being too into the Guilds, but if there's something I really want, I may have to rethink that. 

Well, I know I want a dot of Embody, but probably not more. Just common, thanks. Two dots of Keening, also common powers. First dot of Lifeweb, definitely. And how about first dot of Outrage? Sounds good!

Passions! These look familiar, anyway. 10 points, each needs a goal and an emotion and a rating. 

Well, I want something related to Mel, obviously, but "Protect" seems a little simplistic. "Help Mel Find Herself" is better, and the emotion is Love, of course. I'll put it at 5 dots. Hmm. I've been pretty focused so far on Mel, but I need something else. Let's say that Dusty is still annoyed with his old bandmates, especially since they're getting famous-er and using some music he wrote. I'll say that "Never Let the Band Forget Me", emotionally focused on Jealousy, is the Passion, two dots.

OK, one more Passion (rather, 3 dots). I feel like I want to circle back to Dusty being a general Caregiver, so I'll say that his last Passion is "Protect the People at the Bar". What's the emotional focus, though? Dusty feels like he's a guardian angel and he's focused on that bar (it's gonna be a Fetter) because it's where he was trying to go when he died. Responsibility? Duty? Oh, how about Respect? That works.

Fetters! Mel, 5 dots, obvs. The bar probably needs a name, let's call it Carmen's. Three dots there. Finally, 2 dots into the band members (the band is called Catamount). 

Backgrounds! Seven points here. I'll put four into Eidolon, two into Haunt (the bar's storeroom), and one in Legacy (the music that Catamount stole). 

Willpower! I start with 5, and then I get...

Freebies! 15 points. Let's see. Well, I think I want a dot of Strength (because Outrage), so that's 5 points. I definitely want a fourth dot in Performance, and I'll take a second dot in Legacy (8 spent). Heck, let's take the second dot of Embody (13 spent), and for the last two, I'll buy another dot of Intimidation (I have a feeling that protecting Mel might sometimes take the form of manifesting and doing spooky shit). 

That's it! Oh, wait, Shadow. Not mentioned in chargen, that's weird. Oh, wait, it's in the chart. See Chapter Six. OK, then. So, first I need an archetype. What's Dusty's Shadow like? I think he's superior - he's a bigot, he looks down on everyone, and he views Mel as a stone around his neck. He thinks Dusty should have sold out, gone solo, and left the other band members in the dust. The Director works nicely.

Now I need Angst; rolling my Willpower of 5 I get three successes (ugh). So my permanent Angst is 3. 

Dark passions! This one's easy. I get 7 points, so I'll take "Get Rid of Mel" (Spite) at 4, and "Kill the Band" (Hate) at 3. Note that Dusty's Shadow doesn't necessarily want to kill Mel, just get shed of her. He doesn't care about her enough to kill her. The band is a different matter. Actually, given that, I'm gonna flip those ratings so Mel has 3 dots and the band has 4. 

So now, 10 freebies, which I could use to buy Angst, Thorns, or Dark Passions, but there's no cost listed for Angst so I guess we're just going with Thorns? Oh, wait, in the example of Shadow creation it costs 2 freebies for a point of temporary Angst, so there we go. I'll spend 4 and give the Shadow a 2-point head start. That leaves me 6 for Thorns. I'll spend 5 on Shadowplay, and then that leaves 1 more, so I'll take a 1 point Tainted Relic (a guitar). 

And that's basically everything. As a ghost, Dusty looks more or less like he did in life - late 30s, hair down to his shoulders, light beard, flannel, blue jeans, cowboy boots. Always has a guitar pick in his fingers, but never a guitar (unless his Shadow comes out to play). Light Tennessee accent, gentle voice, rarely raises it (again, that's a Shadow thing). 

That'll do it! This makes my 500th character, so I'm going to do a new index post, but that'll come in the new year. 

Movie #613: Roxanne

Roxanne is a comedy starring Steve Martin, Daryl Hannah, Rick Rossovich, John Kapelos, Fred Willard, and Shelly Duvall. It's based on Cyrano de Bergerac.

C.D. Bales (Martin) is the fire chief of a little ski town. He's witty, charismatic, intelligent, and a certified badass with a tennis racket, but he's got a freakishly big nose. One day, a beautiful woman named Roxanne (Hannah) comes to stay in the town while working on her degree in Astronomy, and Bales makes friends with her - falls for her, really, but she's initially attracted to Chris (Rossovich), the hunky but nervous firefighter who just moved to town. 

The part of Cyrano that everyone knows is Cyrano supplying his friend with what to say while the woman listens on the balcony, and we get that scene here. Bales is head over heels for Roxanne and lets that come through as he woos her and writes her letters as "Chris," but Chris can't really keep up with Roxanne intellectually and panics if left to his own devices. Eventually Chris meets Sandy (Shandra Beri), who is much more on his level, and the two of them fuck off for Tahoe, leaving the truth to come out. 

Watching this movie after R&G Are Dead was nice, because it's a good chaser. It's funny and light and very 80s (oh god, the soundtrack), and Steve Martin plays Bales beautifully. Bales is erudite and skilled, but also vulnerable - he knows how odd he looks and is quite willing to take to task anyone who makes fun of him about it, but when his feelings for Roxanne become evident to him he's clearly out of his depth because he's not used to allowing himself the hope of a relationship. Rossovich manages to make Chris seem like not-a-creep, too (helps that John Kapelos is there fulfilling the "creep" role nicely); he says insensitive and gross things, but it's pretty clearly because he panics rather than because he's that much of a tool. 

Hannah...hmm. On the one hand, I like her acting here (and in general), but on the other, her role in the story is to be wooed and rescued (we're introduced to her when she locks herself out of her house naked and comes to the fire station for help). She's clearly smart and assertive, and she does address the whole "I slept with Chris thinking it was him that said all the right things" (kinda ew), but Bales throws it back at her and that was kind of gross. 1987 movie, I dunno, can't exactly expect better than that, I suppose. And, she comes to him at the end of the movie, wooing him in the same way he did her, so that's nice. 

It's a fun film, and it's different seeing Martin playing someone combat-capable but oddly satisfying. 

My Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: Medium-high

Next up: Rumble in the Bronx

Movie #612: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is a very weird movie based on the very weird play by Tom Stoppard (who also directed). It stars Tim Roth, Gary Oldman, Richard Dreyfuss, Iain Glen, Joanna Roth, and Donald Sumpter. 

The story here is basically Hamlet, but from the perspective of the title characters. Even that's not really accurate, though, because if that were the case, you'd expect to see the messenger talking to them, to see them talking through what's happening in Elsinore Castle but to have some good idea what's going on. What is actually happening that is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are seeing what takes place for their roles in the play between scenes, which is to say, not a lot. 

This movie got some flack for being too much like a play, and like, I see the point. It would work much better onstage, but I think that the rapid dialog and the amazing snappy wordplay still comes across. The metanarrative discussions on language, free will, destiny, and so forth might be a little harder to grab onto, and I find that watching the movie now as opposed to in my 20s, it makes more sense. But it's very much the kind of theater I like - playing with audience perception and understanding of what's happening, and a kind of fatalistic realization that what's happening is happening the way it is because that's the only way it could happen, because we're in a play and we've been here many times before, never learning anything because it's not in our nature to do anything but repeat. 

The three leads - Oldman as Rosencrantz, Roth as Guildenstern, and Dreyfuss as the Lead Player - take us through the film. We get to see Guildenstern struggling with the idea that his death is foreordained and not really a "death" in some sense, Rosencrantz struggle with giving up and feeling relieved when the noose is finally around their necks, and both of them struggle with who's Rosencrantz and who's Guildenstern. Actually, it's in that seemingly comedic bit that one of the most poignant notions comes across: "At least we are presented with alternatives...but not choice!" 

There's a lot here, and I think you kind of need repeated viewing, and a working knowledge of Hamlet, to really get it. That in mind, it's one of my favorite movies, because it manages to be that meta and heady without getting sneery or losing a sense of humor. 

My Grade: A
Rewatch Value: Low (it's long, though, and it's not light viewing)

Next up: Roxanne

Chill: How the Other Half Lives, Pt 2

Last night we finished up the Chill game we started back here. Lots to do today, so on we go!

Recall that Nicole had a date with Timothy Bodden, known to be a creature of the Unknown, but she was feeling pretty excited anyway. She goes back to her hotel to get ready, and Hector goes along (but waits in a car outside the hotel), while Alfred heads out to a nearby Tim's to meet with Rhonda Banks, the woman who had seen a "mutant" beat a man to death last January. 

Alfred meets Rhonda and buys her some food and coffee. She shows him her scars, which start at the base of her neck and spread over her left arm and down over her heart. Alfred is a medical examiner and has seen all sorts of scars, but these are curled and actually kind of pretty - they're nothing found in nature, though. Alfred asks if the creature Rhonda saw was wearing anything, and she says he was - he had on a University of Toronto sweatshirt, black pants, and very expensive boots. 

Meanwhile, Kayla tries to put what she's learned together and see if she can figure out what they're dealing with. Definitely a creature that is capable of pretending, successfully, to be human, and for long periods of time - this thing(s) basically has a human life. She also cross-references some of the killings and discovers that, taking into account that bodies aren't always found, it looks like there are two killings a month, and that didn't change last year when Tyler vanished from public life. 

A limo pulls up at Nicole's hotel, and the doorman lets Nicole in. Hector follows the limo over the building where the twins live, and parks a short distance away (which may be the most unbelievable part of this whole story) to case the building. Lots of security cameras, probably inside and out; rich white people live here. Nicole enters the building, and quickly blocks the door so it doesn't close and lock. She also distracts the doorman and the lobby attendant for a moment, allowing Hector to slip in and duck into the stairwell, where he notices there are no cameras. 

Nicole rides up the elevator with the attendant and asks a bit about the twins. The attendant tells her that since Tyler got sick, Timothy doesn't really date - oh, he'll take someone to a gala or charity event, but doesn't really bring people here. 

Meanwhile, Hector goes downstairs into the basement, where the staff facilities and laundry are located, and steals a uniform so he can move around more easily. He finds the staff elevator, and notices that the penthouse, where the twins live, is cleaned every other day, always by one of three people, always at the same time. As such, he can't exactly go up there and pretend to be there to clean (not if he wants the ruse to last). Figuring he'll improvise, though, he gets on the elevator with a cleaning cart and heads up.

Nicole exits the elevator into a hallway and the door to the penthouse opens - Timothy welcomes her. Nicole looks around the penthouse, and it's beautiful and well-appointed, but cold and posed - this isn't really Timothy's "home." He offers her champagne, and Nicole, deciding to seize the chance to do something reckless, strips naked and is waiting for him on the couch when he returns.

His response, though, is as she feared - he's surprised, but he doesn't care. He doesn't view her as human. He hands her a glass of champagne, but she refuses it, and starts to get dressed - she can tell, she says, that he's not interested. He protests that he is, and she tells him to say something to make her stay. He sighs, and says "Tyler!"

Someone emerges from the kitchen - a huge man, blue and warty and carrying the champagne bottle. Nicole flips over the glass coffee table and runs for the door. Outside, Hector hears the crash, but then nothing, and indeed, in the apartment, everything has gone deathly silent. Nicole flings open the door and Hector yanks her out of the way and shoots Timothy in the chest. 

Timothy drops to one knee, and Tyler points at Hector. His gun twists itself into a misshapen lump of metal, and Hector, wide-eyed, flees with Nicole. They get onto the elevator and Nicole tells Hector to get off on a floor above the lobby - she has an idea. Hector does, and tries to hide.

Nicole gets to the lobby and calls for help. She tells the doorman and the attendant that one brother shot the other - she doesn't know why, maybe jealousy? The doorman takes her into a security room while the attendant goes to call the police, and Nicole starts to calm down. This room has monitors; she can see most of the building (though not the stairwells, she notes).

Hector texts Kayla and Alfred for help, and they get in the car and head out. Kayla, in the interim, has dug a little deeper and notes that Rhonda's description resonates some with folkloric depictions of trolls or goblins. SAVE has some information on such creatures (also changelings, which seem to be adjacent, if you will), and the methods of harming them vary, but "pure iron" or "cold-wrought iron" shows up as a preventative or a weapon a lot. Also, seeing them in their true form is often a way to limit their powers, destroy them, or prevent them from changing form. And then Kayla figures it out - that's what happened to Tyler. Rhonda caught him in his true form, and he got stuck in it. That's why he dropped out of public life. 

Alfred notes, however, that this doesn't help them kill them. He knows of a coffee shop with old horseshoes on the wall, so they stop and grab them (Alfred yells "I'll explain later!" to the staff). 

But meanwhile, the doorman leaves Nicole for a moment to check on the attendant. The monitors flicker for a moment, and the doorman comes back in with a bottle of water. He hands it to Nicole, but she's trembling too much to drink. She's texting the others when he tazes her. 

She collapses and tries to kick him in the stomach, but he doesn't budge and tazes her again. He zip-ties her hands behind her back, and then pulls a tie - Timothy's tie, still with a bullet hole in it - out of his pocket and gags her. His form melts into Timothy, and he hisses, "you should have just drunk the champagne." He picks her up and carries her out.

Hector is watching Nicole's cell phone moving, and heads to the parking garage, hoping to find her or catch up with the others. He sees an SUV leaving, and manages to snap a picture of the plate before it gets out. He runs out and Alfred and Kayla pick him moments later, but the SUV is out of sight. Nicole's cell phone is still in it, though...

They follow the signal towards the highway, and Alfred calls his friends in the police to report seeing a woman being shoved into said SUV. They say they'll put out a BOLO, but Alfred is concerned about what happens if the police do catch the twins. The cell signal cuts off...

(In the SUV, Nicole hears her phone beep. Timothy, driving, says "oh, shit. Sorry, I forgot about her phone. Grab it." Tyler takes the phone from her purse and crushes it.)

The envoys try to think about where the twins might go, and Kayla remembers that they grew up in a house not too far away. Figuring it's the best idea they have, they head to York Hills.

Nicole feels the SUV pull down a rough driveway, and then Tyler pulls her out, and carry her into a house. "She's yours," says Timothy. "Damn right," says Tyler. "We had to kill two doormen because of her." But then Timothy says "shit, her friends are here." Tyler replies, "Good, kill them, too," and Timothy leaves the house. Tyler shuts off the light.

The envoys pull up, and Kayla notes that the driveway has two stone pillars on either side, the kind that might be part of a wrought-iron fence, but the fence is gone (she surmises they had it removed because of the "iron") bit. Hector, Kayla, and Alfred all take a horseshoe, and Alfred gives Hector his gun. The two men start moving towards the house, while Kayla stays back to act as lookout. 

They see Nicole running towards them, looking flustered and terrified, but Alfred decides caution is the better part of valor and touches "Nicole" with the horseshoe. Her flesh bubbles and turns blue, and she turns into Timothy and pulls a knife from his belt. Hector shoots him in the chest, and then between the eyes, and he falls, apparently dead. Alfred calls back to Kayla to touch the body with the horseshoe to see if it's really dead, and they head up to the house.

Kayla, following their lead, does touch Timothy's body with the horseshoe (somewhat reluctantly), and the flesh bubbles and smokes again. His eyes fly open, and he grabs her by the throat and starts to squeeze. She pushes down on the horseshoe, jamming it around his neck, and screams for help.

Up at the house, Alfred tells Hector to go back and help Kayla, and he does, sprinting back towards the "corpse." He takes his horseshoe and tries to punch Timothy with it, but doesn't manage to do much. Timothy glances over at Hector and blows at him, and Hector feels pain shoot through his body, nearly dropping him to his knees. He manages to keep going on pure adrenaline. And then he gets the idea to stomp on the horseshoe that's already around Timothy's neck. He pushes it straight down into the ground, and Timothy's head rolls free. His body melts into blue and black sludge, and Kayla and Hector collapse, spent.

But meanwhile, at the house, Alfred finds Nicole tied up and gagged, and the room completely silent. He touches her with the horseshoe, and, seeing that it's really her, tries to drag her out. And then he feels pain blossom in his head. Nicole shakes her hands to be let free, and he cuts her bonds. They head for the door, but Tyler steps out and blocks it. He swings a small sledgehammer and strikes Alfred, breaking his clavicle. Nicole dips past the monster and runs toward the others.

Alfred strikes with the horseshoe and stumbles back. Hector, hearing Nicole's terrified cries, forces himself to run up to the house. Tyler turns and tells him "You're going to be February, you son of a bitch" and Hector's nose starts to bleed. Alfred pushes the horseshoe further into the monster's back, and Tyler wheels around and cracks his skull with the hammer. Alfred collapses, but manages to find the strength to touch Hector and heal him.

Hector shoves the horseshoe into Tyler's mouth, and pushes, breaking it through the back of his skull. He melts, hate on his face. Alfred manages to whisper the word "ambulance" before passing out.

Meanwhile, Kayla tries to get Nicole to go up and help, but Nicole can't bring herself to do it. She walks toward the car, weeping in shame and fear, and Kayla pulls herself together and goes to aid the others.

The aftermath isn't quick or easy, but Nicole has a lot of very expensive lawyers, and the scene is weird, to the say the least. The mummified remains of Helene Bodden are found in the walls of the house, as are a lot of weapons, some stained with blood. The bodies of the doorman and attendant are discovered in the twins' apartment building, and no evidence ties the characters to those murders - basically the whole thing is messy, and the non-Canadian characters are asked to leave the country. Nicole decides that she isn't cut out for field work, and she'll remain with SAVE as an ally and resource, but not as an envoy.

Movie #611: Rosemary's Baby

Rosemary's Baby is a psychological horror flick directed by Roman Polanski and starring Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Ralph Bellamy, Sidney Blackmer, Maurice Evans, and Charles Grodin in his film debut. 

Rosemary (Farrow) and her husband Guy (Cassavetes) move into an old house (now split up into apartments) in New York as he searches for work as an actor, despite their friend Hutch (Evans) insisting that the place has a history of murder and cannibalism and so on. Very early on, they meet their neighbors, Minnie and Roman Castevet (Gordon and Blackmer, respectively), who seem charming if intolerably nosy. Guy is quite taken with them, and soon after, his career picks up. He suggests that they have a baby, and Rosemary is all for it...

But then she gets drugged with chocolate mousse and raped by Satan while all of the tenants of the building, including Guy, watch, naked. 

The rest of the film is Rosemary suffering through her pregnancy, desperately trying to cling to some sense of normalcy and reconnect with her pre-crazy building life, but the tenants (they're a cult, OK, it's pretty obvious) are always one step ahead of her. The famous doctor that they recommend, Sapirstein (Bellamy) is in on it, and even when Rosemary tries to flee to a real doctor (Grodin), he rats her out...because in fairness, she's talking about witches and people casting spells to kill people, which is objectively kind of delusional sounding. 

In the end, Rosemary delivers her titular baby and it's implied that she'll act as a mother to the little monster, even though the cult makes it very clear that his role in the world is to overthrow God. 

So! This movie has heaps of acclaim as a horror film, and it kinda deserves them. The story relies on some very uncomfortable ingrained misogyny (Rosemary wakes up after the "nightmare" of being Satan-raped, and her husband claims that he did it because he didn't want to miss "baby night," and she's upset but kind of takes it in strike), as well as the very poignant idea of folks in the medical profession not listening when women report pain. In addition, the depiction of the cultists is creepily on point - the only one who really radiates "Satanic worshipper" is Roman, because he's lustily yelling "Hail Satan!" But his wife, Minnie, remains a New York busybody right till the end (a fun moment was her picking up a knife that had embedded in the floor and frustratedly rubbing at the mark it made before going back to the cult stuff). 

The nightmare scene is also really well done; Rosemary doesn't eat much of the poisoned mousse and so is partially conscious throughout, but still sees things as though in a dream (including the Pope and other folks talking about how she was "bitten by a mouse" - "mouse" being how Minnie pronounces "mousse"). It nicely captures the feel of a nightmare, and on a first view it's hard to know how much is really happening, which makes us feel for Rosemary. 

With that said, there's no point in the movie, in my opinion, that we're supposed to feel like this isn't really happening and Rosemary is just ill, especially because when she does connect with folks outside the building, they usually believe and support her. That makes it all the more tragic when her last outreach to safety fails and she gets dragged back into the building. 

The other thing I want to note is that John Cassavetes has the remarkable ability to out-creep himself multiple times over the course of the movie, which is damned impressive, considering.

My Grade: A
Rewatch Value: Low

Next up: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead

Character Creation: Knights of Underbed

It's a really cool concept, anyway. 

The Game: Knights of Underbed
The Publisher: Gallant Knight Games, I guess?
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

So, this game was initially Kickstarted as Nighty Knights, which is a much better title (and the PDF was delivered before the name changed, which is why the cover pic there has the old title), but then Gallant Knight apparently got hit with a C&D from someone. I did some light googling and the term "nighty knights" shows up in a couple of places; TV shows, webcomics, so it's not immediately clear who made the claim, but whatever. But then there's a Kickstarter update that says that the author isn't able to continue working on it due to "personal reasons" (which could mean anything), and now it's being sold on GKG's DriveThru page, but it's not mentioned on their website. 

None of which matters for purposes of making a character. The basic premise - you're a toy venturing into the dark places to protect your kid from nightmares and monsters - is so obviously rich and cool I can't believe this is the first time anyone's done it (there are other games that kinda-sorta approach the idea, but this is the only one I'm aware of that takes the premise and puts it center stage). 

Reading the book, though...I dunno, I don't think it lives up to the promise of the idea. All the pieces are there, I guess, but the system is roll 2d6 and look for a 5 or 6 on either die. If you have Advantage, you get a third die, if you have Disadvantage, you only get one die, but unlike Shadow of the Demon Lord's boons and banes, here if you have Disadvantage for any reason, it doesn't matter if you have Advantage, too, you get just the one die. Bleah. I like games that favor the player in their core system, and I don't think this does it.

Not to mention that a game in which you're playing toys defending a kid just cries out for something a bit more narrative-focused, rather than a more trad "roll the dice to hit the thing," but that's just a personal feeling. Anywhichway, let's make a damn toy. 

First thing is to Choose a Kid. If I were in a group, we could all be defending the same kid, or we could all be defending different ones, but a Knight can only defend one kid. Sounds reasonable enough. Kids are broken down into archetypes (Imaginative Kid, Prepared Kid, etc.), so I just pick one and make the rest up.

I believe I would like an Imaginative Kid, actually. When I was a wee lad I used to bring stuffed animals in to show and tell, and rather than just say "this is a stuffed animal, it is an animal in shape, but it is also a soft toy," I would tell stories about them. As was often the case, this got me bullied, which sucks, but such is life. Anyway, my kid's name is Butch (it's a nickname, obviously), he's an Imaginative Kid, which gives me a choice of Traits. I will take Beast-Speaker, so my Knight can talk with animals as well as toys.

Next I Pick a Heritage, which is basically "what kind of toy are you." Hmm. I'm intrigued by Bird or Good Monster. I think I'll go with bird, and say my Knight is a snowy owl. I start with the Flight Trait (rather, I start with Focused, which gives me either Flight or a Prestige Trait, but I have no idea why you couldn't just say that rather than bring "Focused" into it, which means nothing in context) and 4 Hit Points. 

Select two unique Traits. Hokay, then. I have Beast-Speaker and Flight already. I shall take Dark Fighter (which means I can see in the dark, which is appropriate for an owl) and...OMG, the "p. XXs" are still here, in the PDFs and the print book. That's pretty pathetic. 

Anyway, second Trait. I feel like Educated is kind of on the nose (beak), but I also feel like it's what a kid would imagine an owl to be like, so I'll take it.

Right, so, next we Select a Weapon Group. I'll say my owl is proficient in ranged weapons, and he's Mastered a bow (he has to fire it with his claws, not his wings, but that just means he can fire in flight). 

I get 10 Play Money and a Knight's Kit, and I can be wearing armor if I like, but I dunno, seems like it'd be hard to fly. Maybe a mail shirt. I fly by magic anyway, I'm sure. 

Select Family Trade. So, this is actually kind of weird. The idea here is that my character has a family, and we did something before I was knighted, so that gives me a Family Trade and an area of expertise. But like...I'm a stuffed animal. Presumably I was purchased from a store and then came to "life" to protect Butch? I went looking for setting info to try and clear this up a bit, and there's maybe 4 pages (perhaps 1000 words, maybe a little more?) of setting info. It's basically "Knights protect kids, Captain Snuggles the bear is their leader, he lives in Underbed," but there's not much about what that really means, and certainly nothing concrete about how a stuffed animal has family or how said stuffed animal becomes a Knight. Alas.

Anyfrickinway, I think my owl (let's call him Ferron) comes from a family of scribes and scholars, so he'd have Advantage in matters of literacy and law. No idea if that's helpful in fighting monsters, but like, probably could be. 

Finally, I need a Belief. This is a statement of the guiding principle of my Knight. Hmm. I think Ferron's Belief is "Wait, watch, learn, strike." He feels that if you go into battle without knowing what you're facing, you're just doing the monsters' work for them.

And I think that's it! Ferron is a stuffed snowy owl and looks a little too rotund to fly, but he manages. His quiver is belted to his leg, not around his chest, which looks a little silly when he's walking but he can't fly if it's hitched too high up. Ferron is highly knowledgeable, but keeps quiet unless asked; it's been his experience that folks don't tend to remember information they don't deliberately seek. 

And that'll do it! 

Atlantis: FREEDOM!

Tonight was Atlantis, skippity-doo. Here's last time.

Recall that last time, our heroes were spread out over the continent of Gondwana. Akala and Thanos are leaving the city of Acheron, heading north to Zin. Imani and her companion and friend, Masamba, are traveling through the mountains of Nubia towards Kush. Eithne, the Jinn, is on a ship bound for the port city of Kemul on the northern coast of Sheba. 

Imani and Masamba pass through the mountains, and travel down the northern slopes. Imani notices that the slope has become overgrown with weeds, and gets down from her horse to cut through the brush. She realizes quickly that this stuff isn't just weeds, it's robgrass, a plant that wraps around the legs of animals walking through it and digs into the flesh. She manages to guide the horses down the slop without a problem, until her horse gets spooked and steps in the stuff. She gently cuts away the grass and manages to keep the horses calm, and they continue on. 

They pass into the plains of Nubia, heading east into Kush, and Imani feels someone watching them. She mentions it to Masamba, who readies his spear. Imani notices figures watching from the high grass, and stops to call to them. "I see you! I mean you no harm, and hopefully you mean none to me!" Sheepishly, a pride of young Nemeans emerge from the grass, asking Imani how she spotted them. Imani tells them that she was paying attention, and tells them to hunt easier prey. They strike off into the savanna, and the Taureans ride on.

In Khemit, Akala and Thanos are riding north past the Kha-Em Canal. The Canal requires constant upkeep and maintenance, all of which is performed by slaves. Thanos, a former slave himself, looks out at the workers and notices one stand up, stretch, and wave to him - he remembers these folks. The overseers come over and push the slaves down, telling them to work, and Thanos decides he's about had it with this shit.

He gets down off his horse and summons up dark magic, flinging a spell at the overseers. Both of them develop horrific wounds on their chest, and one of them pitches over dead. Thanos calls upon the slaves to rise up, and they do, striking down the overseers. Akala, happy to go along with this, takes to the sky and spreads the word. The overseers flee, but Akala realizes that there's a garrison of Khemit soliders to the north at the border with Zin. They'll be riding in to quell this uprising sooner than anyone would like. The two liberators decide they'd better head south along the coast, with the mountains to the side. Thanos agrees, and Akala takes to the sky again. Thanos casts a spell and makes her glow brightly, and Akala sings to attract the slaves' attention. She beckons them to follow, and they do, nearly 50 of them, heading south towards the border with Kush.

On the ship, Eithne watches the water and the sailors, but then a terrible storm comes out of nowhere. Eithne realizes it's not a normal storm - too fast, and the lightning flashes purple. The sailors are terrified, but Eithne calls up the wind to push them through the worst of it. She doesn't quite manage to keep them on course, though, and they wind up further west. The captain comes to her and tells her that they aren't going to make it to Kemul, but they'll land first in the town of Mosi. Eithne smiles - that's where she wanted to go anyway. 

The good fortune seems short-lived, though, as a ship closes in. The captain recognizes it as a pirate ship, much bigger than their vessel. The pirates board and seem prepared to rob the ship, but then they spot Eithne. The pirate captain notes that a Jinn is worth a lot of coin, and tells her to come with him. Eithne refuses, and tells them to leave if they don't wish to feel the wind's wrath. The pirate instructs his men to put her in irons, and Eithne casts a spell to shove them all back.

Some of them fall into the water, but the pirate captain keeps his footing. He tries to rally his men, but they're terrified, and the sailors on the ship are finding their pluck. "I am of the elements," says Eithne, "and you are nothing but blood."

"This blood remembers you, creature," spits the pirate, and they return to their vessel.

Akala, Thanos, and their procession of slaves, after a few days of travel, fishing, and worrying about the Khem soldiers catching them, cross the border into Kush. They tell the slaves that they are free - they can follow them to Joktan, or they can make their way. Many of the slaves head into Kush, some accompany Akala and Thanos to the town of Kashta.

Back in Kush, Imani and Masamba stop to water their horses by the river. Imani spots the crocodile seconds before it bursts up at them, and pulls her horse back. The croc lunges, but Imani hurls her spear and kills the thing with one blow. "Tonight, we feast," she says, and Masamba can only agree.

Some days later, a group of slaves passes Imani and Masamba. Imani stops them and greets them, and hears the story of their liberation. She recognizes the name of one of their liberators - the Ulukan, Akala - whom she met in Gorgos some 15 years ago. As it happens, she and Masamba are headed to Kashta to procure a boat across the Red Sea to Joktan, and according to the slave, Akala and her Anubim companion are as well. The two Taureans continue on into Kashta.

Movie #610: Rope

Rope is a 1948 thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring James Stewart, John Dall, Farley Granger, Douglas Dick, Cedric Hardwicke, Joan Chandler, Constance Collier, and Edith Evanson. 

The movie opens with Brandon (Dall) and Philip (Granger) strangling their friend David (Dick Hogan) and putting his body into a chest. They have no particular reason to kill him, they (well, mostly Brandon) just wanted to do it for the thrill and to test his Nietzsche-inspired beliefs that murder isn't a problem for intellectually superior folks like them. They follow up the murder by having a dinner party to which they invite the victim's parents, his girlfriend, his best friend, and their old teacher. Again, all of this just for the thrill of it.

The rest of the evening gets weird very quickly. Their teacher, Rupert (Stewart) espouses his theories on why murder is fine and probably good population control, and Brandon goes along with it, but Brandon is pretty clearly serious and Rupert is (probably) joking, though he's hard to read. Meanwhile, Brandon mentions to the victim's buddy Kenneth (Dick) that he should soon have a shot with his ex, David's girl Joan (Chandler), and the two of them eventually grow suspicious that Brandon did something to prevent David from coming. After all, he's usually so punctual...

Philip gets drunk as the night progresses, and eventually Rupert comes back, finds them out, and reads them the riot act before summoning the police. He even has the good taste to be ashamed of his misanthropic BS. 

So! It's a pretty simple story, all things considered. Only nine people in the cast (Hitchcock apparently had trouble fitting in his customary cameo), and it's adapted from a play. But within that simple story there's a lot going on.

For one thing, Brandon and Philip are a gay couple. Oh, this being 1948, they couldn't admit that, but it's pretty obvious and it's coded really heavily. The screenwriter talks about how, at the time in Hollywood, they referred to homosexuality as "it" and everyone involved knew this was a movie about "it", even if they couldn't be blatant about it. 

But is it, really, a movie about "it"? I don't know. The relevant issues in the story have more to do with morality, philosophy, and maybe what responsibilities a teacher has to students, if you want to stretch. Additionally, Hitchcock decided to try and make the movie look like one continuous shot, but couldn't actually film it that way because reels at the time only held about 10 minutes. Some of the cuts are therefore disguised, but the whole experiment really annoyed the actors (as did the tight set). 

For all of that, though, the movie is a lot of fun to watch. Hitchcock might have been a bastard to work with, but he knew how to build tension, and then scene in which the housekeeper Mrs. Wilson (Evanson) cleans off the chest in preparation to open it and put some books back in is amazing because the dialog is happening just off-camera, but we're focused on what she's doing. Likewise, a brief shot of Brandon putting the murder weapon (the titular rope) in a kitchen drawer as the swinging door reveals him is pretty classic stuff.

Performance-wise, everyone is pretty on point, except maybe Stewart. Oh, he does the role well and all, but he's missing an edge that I think the part needed (apparently some other actors refused to touch the role because of "it"). With that said, the dialog is fun, and there's a nice bit of discomfort that comes when the murder victim's mother calls on the phone, crying because she's starting to get really worried, and Brandon can barely contained his excitement while Philips hits the sauce even harder. 

Like most Hitchcock movies, there's a lot going on, and it's almost a shame that he used the "one-take" gimmick because I think it kind of overshadowed things.

My Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: Medium

Next up: Rosemary's Baby

Board Game: Railways of the World

You'd think that in a pandemic, I'd wind up playing more board games, but here we are. 

The Game: Railways of the World
The Publisher: Eagle Games
Time: ~30 minutes, I think
Players: Me and Michelle

Game Play: Starting from a central hub, players built tracks out to cities, each of which wants a particular kind of good (grain, cattle, ore, and wood). Track cards are colored-coded, and you can only build from like to like, meaning that you can't attach two cities directly unless they share a track color. Cities produce goods, too, but they do randomly, and so you may wind up with a city wanting the good it's already got, which is not addressed in the rules (but the most consistent ruling I could find was "don't worry about it, they must want a different flavor"). 

The central hub and a couple of cities.

When you build to a city you claim the route, which becomes important when you start delivering goods. Goods get delivered from wherever to a city that wants them, but you can only deliver to cities a certain number of "links" away based on how many engines you've dedicated to that purpose (engines are also wild for purposes of track building, but I never really felt we ran low). 

Michelle ponders her moves.

You get points based on the value of cards you use to build cities, how far away you can deliver goods, and whether or not your opponent uses your links to deliver said goods. At game's end, other factors show up, too. 

Sprawling mass of railways.

Opinions: So, a lot of the mechanics here bear a striking resemblance to Ticket to Ride, which invites the question: Is there any point at which, faced with the choice of playing this or Ticket, I would choose to play this? And the answer is, "eeeehhhh, maybe?" Railways is perfectly serviceable, there are strategic elements that become clear pretty quickly, the delivery element to the game means that there are some pretty distinct phases (like, you can deliver pretty quickly if you set up that way, but you won't get many points for it), and despite a couple of little niggles, the instructions were actually pretty easy to understand. 

But, on the other hand, although the game box is small the game itself eats a lot of space and spreads out strangely, the cards and components are small and kind of fiddly, and it just doesn't hook me the same way Ticket does. I don't know. It's by no means a bad game, I just feel like there are others that do more or less the same thing better. 

Also Michelle beat me by one freaking point.

Keep? Probably not, but I'm not going to Half-Price Books anytime soon.

Cairn: Goblins & Snakes & Rain

Today we jumped on Zoom and played some Cairn. Here's last time.

The characters continued up the river, Russelet standing at the prow of the boat smoking his pipe and listening for trouble. He hears the water getting louder, and has Puddleleaf check the map. They note a fork in the river coming up, the northern spur being the way they want to go and the more western spur leading to the Heartloss Crevasse. Russelet takes to the sky and sees that the waters up that way are swollen and rapid, and flies down to the boat. They land the boat, moor it for a bit, and make some long staves to direct it a little, and Russelet uses his echolocation to guide them safely through the rapids and up the Swiftwater. 

They find themselves in the foothills of the Highpeak Mountain, still on the river, but out of the forest. This is all very distressing for Ratatosk, and he notes something moving amidst the rocks. He calls the others to attention and Russelet flies up to get a better look, and sees a small green humanoid creature jump out of the rocks and hurl a stone at him. He misses by a mile, but Russelet flies back down to warn the others. 

The little creatures fling rocks at the characters, and they decide to fight back. They ground the boat, and Rumdiggle starts into a rousing chorus of her song about sticky sticks. Snootabur and Russelet try to flank the little bastards, and Ratatosk spots a mouse hiding the rocks. He asks it what these things are ("Goblins! They eat mice and throw rocks! Sometimes they eat rocks and throw mice!") and what they're afraid of ("fire, thunder, loud noises, bright lights"). He tells the little mouse to hide and zips back to the boat to make a torch. 

Meanwhile, Snootabur tumbles up the hillside and fires an arrow at a goblin. It responds by hurling a spear at her and cutting her, but Russelet hears her cry of pain and shoots the goblin with an arrow treated with the sleeping draught Ratatosk made. It passes out, and Snootabur moves on, spotting a pair of goblins tracking Russelet and drawing a bead with a spear. Snootabur fires and arrow and strikes one, and the other goes charging at her with a dagger. Snootabur, in the way of her people, curls up into a ball. The goblin strikes, but just manages to injure his hand on her quills, and Russelet drops him with another sleep arrow.

Rumdiggle keeps her song going, but Puddleleaf takes a rock to the head and retreats into the water. Ratatosk charges off the boat with a lit torch and dashes up the hillside, yelling "FIRE SQUIRREL!" The goblins, much as the mouse had said, are terrified and flee into the night.

The threat routed, the characters hang out for a bit. Russelet and Snootabur compete with archery, Rumdiggle plays some tunes, and Ratatosk leads them in a ceremony praising the Primal Powers (specifically fire). None of them notice that Puddleleaf stays on the boat and doesn't take part...

They move down the river a ways, and Snootabur uses one of Ratatosk's drugs to stay away, as does Puddleleaf. Snootabur notices that Puddleleaf is sad and taciturn, but can't quite get him to open up. 

The characters stop at the head of the river and disembark. They do some fishing and lay in what provisions they can find, and then head out into the foothills, dragging the prism on a litter. They keeping moving over the course of the night, and as the sun rises and the nocturnal animals bed down, Ratatosk looks around for plants and other things unique to this biome. In addition to some plants and insects and so on, he finds some small, diamond-shaped things, very thin, brown and black, clearly organic but from a creature he's never seen. He beds down, not really wanting to sleep during the day but tired from the journey.

A few hours later he awakens with a start, sensing danger. He freezes, and slowly turns around to see an animal he's never encountered before - hairless, huge, with no legs and horrifying eyes. It flicks its tongue out and rears up as if to attack. Ratatosk sends Glimmer, his hoverwing, to distract it and bonks it with his staff, but the creature moves faster than even a squirrel's eye can follow, bites him, and wraps its obscene body around him. It then starts to squeeze.

Ratatosk realizes he's not getting out of this by himself, and screams for help. Rumdiggle and Snootabur wake up (Russelet does not; he was making more sleep arrows and accidentally dosed himself) and rush to help their friend. Rumdiggle hisses at the creature, but it ignores her. Snootabur takes a more direct approach and shoots it. It lets go of Ratatosk and curls up in a coil, and Rumdiggle runs over, picks it up, and hucks it. The creature slithers off into the grass, and the characters relax, but must cope with shedding the blood of another creature.

They head out in the evening, Puddleleaf wearing the harness and dragging the prism. They look up at the sky and are amazed by the stars and the sheer size of it all, and manage to make some good time. The next night, though, they wake to find everyone feeling a little grouchy. Ratatosk also notes that the stars have vanished - it's clouded up, and rain is coming. They manage to set up a couple of tents to keep the at least somewhat dry (although Rumdiggle notes that a wash wouldn't go amiss). 

The rain starts, and quickly becomes a torrent. The smaller tent is washed away, and Russelet and Ratatosk run for the bigger one. Ratatosk gets turned around and has to find his way back, and Rumdiggle notices that a stream is forming - they must be on a slope. They pick up the tent and get to higher ground, and Ratatosk and Russelet notice that Puddleleaf is staring out into the rain, murmuring to himself. Ratatosk tries to get him to cheer up and goes to hug him, but when Puddleleaf tries to return the hug, he accidentally touches Ratatosk's wound. He winces, and Puddleleaf panics and runs off into the night. 

Rumdiggle calls upon the speed of the ripper and catches up with him, grabbing the harness. Snootabur talks him down and they bring him back to the tent, and as the rain dies down Russelet builds a fire to help dry everything out. Rumdiggle leads them in a singalong, and everyone gets into slightly better spirits.

They head out when the rain tops, and in a few hours, as the sun rises, they spot the Rock Circle. Someone standing atop one of the rocks blows a horn, signaling their approach. "Finally," says Puddleleaf. "The druids."

Movie #609: Romeo + Juliet

Romeo + Juliet is, of course, the adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy set in modern (well, 90s) Florida and directed by Baz Luhrmann. It stars Claire Danes, Leonardo DiCaprio, Paul Sorvino, John Leguizamo, Harold Perrineau, Pete Postlethwaite, Miriam Margolyes, Paul Rudd, and Dash Mihok. 

You know the story: Two households, both alike in dignity, etc. In this re-imagining, they're competing crime families in Verona Beach, the "prince" is Captain Prince  (Vondie Curtis-Hall) of the VBPD, and everyone is armed with guns trade named "Rapier" or "Dagger." Beyond that, though, the dialog and characters are pretty much intact. 

One thing this version brings across that a lot of versions don't, though, is how young and stupid the characters are. In the original, Romeo and Juliet are young teens; in this version, they cut the dialog establishing that (which is good, 'cause it'd be creepy otherwise), but they're still obviously teenagers. They act impulsively, they take drugs, they lead with their hormones, and they feel "love" in the most intense and life-ending way that only teenagers can. That truth of the play - that all of the strife happens because the adults in the room don't act like it, and the kids can't - gets lost amidst the dialog and costuming a lot of the time, but modernizing the setting and giving everyone guns underlines it nicely.

As far as individual performances go, pretty much everyone is on point. Sorvino is menacing and often drunk as Capulet, while Diane Venora plays off of him nicely as Lady Capulet. There's also an, um, interesting dynamic between Lady Capulet and Tybalt (Leguizamo) that leads to Lady Capulets repudiation of Juliet (Danes) after she refuses to marry Paris (Rudd). DiCaprio's Romeo captures the poetic, pretty emo personality of the lad, but also the anger and desperation he shows in the third act. I like that this anger isn't the determined, John Wick-esque quest for revenge or finality, but very obviously the stupid decision of a teenager caught in the grip of his emotions. Pete Postlethwaite is perfect as Father Laurence, and I really enjoyed the "could you not be so fucking stupid" looks he shoots Romeo from time to time.

Another thing I appreciate is that the movie keeps the rhythm of the stage play in that it's a comedy right up until Mercutio (Perrineau) dies. We see a storm moving in as the fight between him and Tybalt starts up, which is a pretty clear demarcation of what kind of story we're in. 

The chemistry between our titular star-crossed lovers is likewise well-imagined. It's gentle and playful, and when they're kissing I felt it comes across less like the immortal passion of two of the most famous lovers in literature and more like two mid-teens who just found their "soulmate" (which, of course, is exactly what's happening). That portrayal of their love - that it's "real" in the same way that any teenage love is - makes the ending all the more tragic.

I don't know if I needed the addition of Romeo still being alive when Juliet wakes; it's an extra tug at the heartstrings. It does give them a moment to say goodbye, I guess. I do like that we cut all of Juliet's lines after she wakes, and Danes does amazing things with her face and movement before shooting herself. Likewise, cutting Paris' final scene (where he comes to the tomb and Romeo kills him) was probably smart; Rudd is just the right amount of awkward and charming, and watching him and Romeo fight to the death would have padded the movie unnecessarily and been too much violence. 

All in all, it's a pretty faithful adaptation of the play, if you look at the themes and spirit, and the soundtrack is pretty killer, too.

My Grade: A
Rewatch Value: Medium-high

Next up: Rope

Character Creation: 'TWAS - The RPG Before Xmas

I actually just got this game as a Kickstarter reward not too long ago, but I don't have a lot of Xmas themed games and it looks cool so I don't want to wait another year. 

The Game: 'TWAS - The Roleplaying Game Before Christmas
The Publisher: ACE Gamebooks
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

I rather regret not backing for a physical copy of this book, actually, but I think maybe I thought it was too niche to bother with beyond a PDF. Silly me.

Anyway, the conceit here is that we're all toys, animated by Santa's magic as he is kidnapped by the Krampus. Our mission, then, is to rescue the jolly ol' elf. Sounds pretty cool. 

Character creation begins with a quick explanation of stats and then tells us that the easiest way to get started is to pick a pre-gen. Possibly so, but that's not why I'm here.

There's not a step-by-step, unfortunately, but basically I need to allocate points and then pick three special abilities (the book doesn't say I get three, but all the pregens have three, so). I guess I should figure out what kind of toy I want to be, hmm? Well, how about a car? My toy is a red-and-blue sports car, the kind that you can pull back and rev up to make it go. Good start; I now have to do stats.

OK, I get Agility and Combat at 6, Endurance at 20, and Magic at 0 to start. I get 10 points to throw around, though I can only pump 5 points into Agility, Combat, or Magic. 

Well, I don't know that Magic makes a great deal of sense for a car, but let's check the magic system. Ah, nah. My car can just be super fast, and that'll be fine. I'll leave magic at 0, pump 5 points into Agility (11), 3 points into Combat (9), and the other 2 into Endurance (22). 

Then three special abilities. OK, I'll take Acrobatics (maneuverability, good handling), Bravery, and Clockwork (this requires another toy to wind or "rev" me, but then I can flip out in battle). 

And that's basically it. The Race Car has red and blue trim, a sturdy front bumper it can bonk imps and monsters with, and the heart of a champion. It's so fast it can drive right up walls, and it can turn on a dime. It's not terribly tough, though - a sharp enough blow would send its bits flying.

And that's all she wrote. Ho ho ho!

Movie #608: Romancing the Stone

Romancing the Stone is an action/comedy starring Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, Danny DeVito, Zack Norman, Mary Ellen Trainor, and Manuel Ojeda. 

Joan Wilder (Turner) is a romance novelist who lives a quiet, somewhat lonely existence with her cat Romeo. Her agent (Holland Taylor) tries to fix her up with dudes, but she's waiting on Mr. Right. And then her sister Elaine (Trainor), who is in Colombia and whose husband has just been murdered, calls her up and asks her to come down and bring her the treasure map that she just got in the mail - Elaine has been kidnapped by Ralph (DeVito) and Ira (Norman), a couple of smugglers and general ne'er-do-wells. 

Joan flies down to Colombia despite speaking no Spanish and being utterly unprepared fcor the task ahead of her, immediately gets on the wrong bus and winds up literally "hell and gone from Cartagena", and winds up running afoul of the evil Zolo (Ojeda), a Colombian general who is also really into stabbing people. A bird smuggler named Jack (Douglas) saves her life, and then the two of them embark on a rollicking adventure through the jungle to find "el Corazón", which turns out to be a big ol' emerald. 

Romancing the Stone is kinda-sorta in the vein of Raiders of the Lost Ark and similar movies, except the focus is squarely on the characters rather than the MacGuffin or search for same (actually, Jack has to convince Joan to even go after the "treasure;" her only focus is on her sister. It hits some of the same beats, including the sister military man in black pursuing our heroes, but the stakes are overall much lower. No traps, no Nazis, some soldiers, sure, and much more comedy. 

Turner and Douglas both sell their roles, and the also display some real chemistry together. Douglas manages to play Jack as a sleazeball, but not a complete sleazeball, all the way through, and I kind of appreciated that there's no moment of betrayal - he considers making a copy of the map and leaving Joan to find the treasure on his own, but as he falls for her, he reconsiders and sticks around. Likewise, Ralph and Ira are criminals, but they're as good as their word and release the sisters when they give up the map. 

Overall, it's funny, the action is nicely paced, and the ending with Joan and Jack sailing away on a boat down a street in New York (presumably on their way to the harbor) seems earned. The only real tragedy is the crocodile that wound up skinned after he saved their necks by doing a chomp on Zolo, poor guy.

My Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: Medium-high

Next up: Romeo + Juliet

Character Creation: Overlight

The weather outside is monochromatic, but the game is so ecstatic...

The Game: Overlight
The Publisher: Renegade Game Studios
Degree of Familiarity: Not a lot; I played it at Origins some years back
Books Required: Just the one

Overlight was on our shortlist to play recently. We wound up choosing Atlantis instead, but I think I shall have to put this into the rotation at some point. Fantasy RPGs are a dime a dozen, but Overlight has a strong aesthetic (kaleidoscopic fantasy!), some interesting new races, a system it unabashedly commits to, and (this one's important to me) does not care about shopping lists or equipment bonuses. 

So, in brief, the world has shattered into seven continent-sized "shards," stacked on top of each other, and hovering under the Overlight and over the Sea Beneath. Various Folk live on these shards; the Folk species are native to one shard or another, but travel is possible and the PCs are all Skyborn. That is, they're born with a sense of purpose and wanderlust, and don't quite fit in amongst their native peoples (which I freaking love, because it lets you play the race that are usually homebodies without an overly contrived reason to leave the Shire, as it were). 

Oh, one other thing I love about this book: The font is big enough to read easily and the graphic design carries the look of the game without fucking with readability. Moving on, chargen. 

Step One is Character Concept. I want to play a healer, but I want him to have a kind of sinister edge. Not necessarily be sinister, but just to come off as kind of strange. Kind of character who'd wind up getting accused of being a traitor and then it was actually the cute fluffy kitten or whatever. 

Step Two is to choose Folk. I already know I want him to be an Aurumel, one of the long-limbed, mask-wearing inhabitants of Veile. That gives me a Vigor rating of d8, Craft and Performance ratings of d6, and, optionally, the Mask of the Aurumel Gift. I'll come back to that.

Step Three is a Background. Each Folk has seven possibilities here ("seven" is very big in this game), and they determine backstory and occupation kind of stuff. I know I want my character to be a Jeweler Chirurgeon (it lets me heal people by sewing gems into their skin). It gives me a bunch of stuff related to that (scalpels, embedder's instruments, etc.), a Wealth rating of d10, 6 Wealth points, and the Flesh Shaper Gift. 

Step Four is Core Virtue. It can't be Vigor, because that's the Aurumel Virtue, and it has to be different than that (see above about being Skyborn). Hmm. It's kinda between Logic and Compassion, and I think Compassion makes the most sense for my healer.

Step Five is Character Points. I get 45 of them, but I need to make sure I don't spend them all. Well, to elaborate, any I don't spend become my starting Spirit Point pool, which would be important if I were going to play this character, so I maybe won't stress too much about leaving some. Anyway, I can boost Virtues, Skills, and Chroma (magic stuff!) with these. Let's see, what Skill do I use to heal? Oh, it depends who's doing the healing and how. Well, Craft, then, obviously. My Craft starts at d6, but I want that higher.

Buying a Skill from d6 to d10 would be 8 points (doing it from nothing to d10 would be 9), so I'll buy Craft up to d10. What else do I want? I've never regretted buying Athletics, so I'll spend 1 there. I guess Blades makes some sense, so d6. Intuition seems appropriate, and I think I actually want that at d8 so I'll spend 4. That's 14 spent. Oh, Machinery and Science needs some love. D6 for now? 

I think Performance; I'll spend 3 to bump it to d8. Inspiration, too. That's 22 spent. Think I'll leave off Skills and hit Virtues. Oh, wait, Perception. Erm. I guess I'll just bump that to d6? Maybe Resistance and Resolve, too? That's 25 spent.

OK, Virtues! It's 4 to bump a d6 to d8, 6 to go to d10, and 10 to go to d12. Well, I guess I ought to buy up my Compassion a bit. I can spent 10 and buy it to d10. I'd kinda like Logic at d8; that's only 4, I can do that. I'm fine with the others being d6. That leaves me 6 points left. Hrm.

I get one Chroma for free. It has to be either a Compassion Chroma or an Aurumel Chroma. Let's check 'em out. Ooh, I like Exile of Hearts. It's really an offensive power, but that's OK, I feel like I should have one. I'll take that. 

That leaves me...oh, well, still 6 points, because that was free. Hmm. I think I'll call it good and say I have 6 Spirit Points to start out. I have 10 Health, and beyond that, just need to do the name/description/flesh out thing. 

Kaelus was offered the mask of his grand-uncle, a great and renowned jeweler chirurgeon amongst the Aurumel in Sydor (the city where a lot of the mining takes place, so I figure that's where the jewelers might be). He turned it down - his grand-uncle was known for his amazing skill, but also for requiring the relatives of those he healed give him a slave, and it wasn't unknown for members of the patient's own family to volunteer if no one else was available. Kaleus felt that healing should never be worth money, but something incumbent upon the healer. He's happy to charge money for cosmetic surgery or other jewel-working, of course, but if called upon to heal, he refuses to accept coin or trade. 

Kaleus, like all Aurumel, is tall, with disproportionately long limbs. His mask is a stark, black thing with a red diamond shape on the forehead and white stripes on the side, obviously new and fresh (which among the Aurumel isn't really a good thing). Kaleus walks with a slight hunch, and it makes him seem to loom and stalk, which, coupled with his mask, can make him appear quite intimidating. It doesn't help that his voice is low and he stretches vowel sounds out.

Kaleus wishes to go to Banyan, as he understands that there are still fights happening there between the Teryxians and the Banyari. He doesn't understand the squabble, of course, so that'll be educational. 

And that'll do it. Merry Xmas!

Movie #607: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is a mid-quel, if you will, set juuuuuust before A New Hope and starring Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Alan Tudyk, Donnie Yen, Wen Jiang, Riz Ahmed, Forest Whitaker, Ben Mendelsohn, Mads Mikkelsen, and Jimmy Smits. Possible unpopular opinion: It's the best Star Wars film.

The Empire, in the personage of Krennic (Mendelsohn) comes to collect Galen Erso (Mikkelsen), a former Empire scientist-turned-rebel, in the process killing his wife (Valene Kane) and sending his daughter Jyn (Jones, as an adult) to live with a crazy-paranoid rebel militant Saw Gerrera (Whitaker). Fast forward a bunch of years, and Erso has been browbeaten into completing his work on the Death Star, Jyn is a criminal on the run, and Saw has just taken custody of a defecting Imperial pilot Bodhi (Ahmed) and is torturing him to get information that he's happy to give up (told ya, kinda crazy).

Anyway, Cassian Andor (Luna), a rebel spy and guerrilla, gets hooked up with Jyn, as well as a couple of rebel hangers-on, Chirrut (Yen) and Baze (Jiang), and together they go to first free/kill Galen, and then steal the plans to the Death Star from a giant Dropbox planet. The movie ends with the plans getting uploaded and given to Princess Leia, and then on we go into A New Hope. 

I said before that this is the best Star Wars film, and I stand by that, but there are a few caveats. The premise of the movie is basically to fill up a plot hole (to wit, why does the Death Star have an Achilles' vent?), but since it's still a Star Wars film, it opens up a few new ones (like, once the rebels were clearly so keen to get their hands on the plans, don't you think Tarkin would wonder why? Maybe not, actually, he's pretty arrogant). The dialog is worlds better than the original trilogy and, obviously, the prequels, but it's still pretty cheesy a lot of the time. 

Beyond that, though, the movie hits a lot of the right notes. The costuming and feels hearkens back to New Hope without looking outdated, and it avoids the problem that the Alien films have where the ones set way in the past looking much more futuristic than the original films. Jyn Erso starts the movie as a fugitive and trusts no one, but I like that she doesn't take forever to get over the Refusal of the Call and join the Rebellion (and that her combat prowess is addressed; she was raised by Saw to be a soldier and then abandoned). 

On that subject, the fact that these characters are at war comes through, mostly through Saw (during his brief screen time) and Andor. Andor is quite willing to kill a dude to avoid compromising his mission, and Saw I kinda mentioned already. But then the idealism of the Rebellion gets to come out, too, not so much in the council (who are mostly thinking of saving their own butts), but from Yen's Chirrut and Ahmed's Bodhi.

There's a kind of freedom in storytelling that comes with knowing that all of your characters are going to die and you don't have to hold anything in reserve for the sequel, and I know this is wishful thinking, but I wish Disney would embrace that a little more often. Not killing off the whole cast, necessarily, but just focusing on making one movie without always considering the franchise, because there's room enough for some standalone stuff (and hey, maybe weave that into the ongoing franchise later if necessary?). But, as long as I'm dreaming, I'd like a space-pony. 

My Grade: A-
Rewatch Value: High

Next up: Romancing the Stone

Character Creation: Bluebeard's Bride

Been a bit. I picked up the 3.5 version of Iron Kingdoms, read part of it, and then realized I don't actually have D&D 3.5, so I can't really make a character (which is fine, because the book was boring me, which is why it was taking so long to get through). Consequentially, however, I needed something quicker and more familiar, so here we are.

The Game: Bluebeard's Bride
The Publisher: Magpie Games
Degree of Familiarity: Some. I played it a couple of times at GenCon some years back
Books Required: Just the one.

I've been played RPGs since I was 11, and I've been played horror RPGs since I was about...18, I guess. In that time, I have occasionally experienced a game that shifts the foundations of my understanding of "horror RPG." Chill 2nd Ed did it because it was my first horror game (so less "shifting" the foundations than "laying" them, I guess). Wraith: The Oblivion, Dread, and Slasher Flick all changed my perception of the genre a bit, too. Bluebeard's Bride is definitely another such game, because holy shit, it captures "horror" in a way that very few other games can. 

In the game, you're playing various facets of the personality of the titular Bride, and experiencing wandering through your new husband's house. Sooner or later you're going to open the final door and learn what's become of your predecessors, and then you might be able to get away with your life. The game is tragic, brutal, and provocative, and I both love it and am terrified to run it. (I would need players that I trusted implicitly, and vice versa.)

Anyway! Let's make a character. First step is to choose a Sister (that is, a facet of the Bride's psyche). Hmm. I know I played the Fatale the first time I played this, but I don't remember which one I played the second time. Animus, maybe? I think this time I shall choose the Virgin. 

First, Wedding Prep, which consists of several questions. 

What do the Bride's eyes look like? They are brown and soulful, but often downcast, and have bags under them as though she hasn't slept. 

How do others know you want them when they gaze into your eyes? A slight widening of the iris, subtle but unmistakable, before my eyes dart away.

What are you leaving behind from your provincial life to become Bluebeard's Bride? My best friend and lover. She and I promised we would write each other.

When you first met, what loving gesture did Bluebeard make that won you over? He was kind to my dogs. He patted their heads and learned their names.

What gift did you present to Bluebeard before the wedding? Why did you choose this? A sachet of herbs taken from my garden and around my home. I did it because his odor is very strong.

Do you trust your generous husband, Bluebeard, or do you hold unkind suspicions? Why is that? I trust him. He is strong and gruff, but I saw his true nature when he played with the dogs.

The next bit is Sensory Bonds, but I'm skipping that because I'd need other Sisters for it. 

Stats! My Resilience is +1, and then I have 0 and -1 to put into Blood or Carnality. Hmm. I guess 0 in Carnality and -1 in Blood, though honestly I could kinda go either way.

Finally, Choose a Face. This is basically a playbook move, but also a way to pick an expression of the (in this case) Virgin. My options are the Lily, the Moth, or the Victim. They're all interesting, but I think I gotta go with the Moth, based on the decisions I've made so far (I suppose Victim would also work, but I like moths anyway). 

And that's it, actually. I don't even have to come up with a name, since I'm just one part of the Bride. 

Slipstream: Let's Go Shopping!

Slipstream! Here's last time! Here we go!

The characters land on Mechanos, and get to work on shopping for a ship. Zeenia has a budget of 10,000 Slips, which limits her options somewhat, but after looking around at the showroom, decides on a Bird Man Yacht as the basis. She pays a little extra to have a chamber that can fill with her atmosphere, but otherwise basically sticks with the standard. She names it the Zeenadu Zeenith. 

From there, the characters decide to wander the city while the ship is being constructed. Salesbot Beta, the Robot Man who sold them the ship, tells them that organic life forms tend to run afoul of the laws here, but shows them a viewmaster kind of thing that lays it out. Iris reads a bit and determines that there's way too much, and asks if they can hire a guide. They can indeed! Guidebot Alpha comes clanking up, and asks what they would like to see. They ask to get some food, and off they go! 

The food-place is a lot like an automat; you can obtain food from behind little glass doors. Oola is a little worried that this stuff might be meat-based, but really apart from the small live fish that Zeenia eats, it's all synthetic. The characters eat, and then Iris asks what laws people typically break that get them in trouble. Guidebot tells her that pollution laws are strict - you can't litter, but light pollution, noise pollution, and even "emissions" can be violations. They ask whether there's a place that they can, uh, eliminate, and Guidebot says that of course there is! He takes them to the Purgation building, and Oola and Iris go in and avail themselves of the service. They feel very clean afterwards.

Iris asks if there's a tourism attraction, something that people come to Mechanos to see, and Guidebot brings them (in a bubble conveyance!) to the Technocrat tower as the center of the city. It takes them halfway up the tower, and shows them the city (and has to sedate Zeenia, who succumbs to the vertigo). 

Back on the ground, they head back to the launchpad to wait for the ship to be delivered. While there, they notice a man lying underneath the launchpad, shivering. Iris goes to talk to him, and he asks to be taken back to "her" and "my queen." She tries to get him to focus a little and, stating that his name is Gregor, he demands to be taken back to the queen, displaying an explosive device across his chest. Oola steps in and talks him down, and he weeps, saying that he used to be strong, but the Queen broke him down. He asks the characters to stop her, to kill her before she can do this to more people, and Zeenia agrees. Thanking her, Gregor dies.

Iris and Oola bring his body on the Zeenith ("NEW SHIP!" complains Zeenia), and disconnect the bomb he was wearing. They decide that he needs a proper burial, and looking at the nearby fragments, they decide to take him to Avia. Iris has been there before; her beau was a Bird Man, before he got stolen by Queen Anthraxa.

Movie #606: The Rocketeer

The Rocketeer is a period superhero movie starring Bill Campbell, Jennifer Connelly, Alan Arkin, Timothy Dalton, Paul Sorvino, and Terry O'Quinn. 

It's 1938 in Los Angeles, and Cliff Secord (Campbell) is a handsome young pilot trying to make a career for himself. His girlfriend, Jenny (Connelly), is an aspiring actress, just hired to be an extra in the latest film starring Neville Sinclair (Dalton). As he's test-flying a new plane with modifications from his engineer buddy/father figure/housemate Peavy (Arkin), the plane gets shot up by gangsters running from the FBI. It crashes, the gangsters are captured, and the feds recover (they think) what they're looking for from the burning wreckage. 

NOT SO! Turns out the gangsters stashed the gizmo, a jetpack enabling the wearer to fly, in the hanger where Secord and Peavy work. They take it and experiment with it, trying to figure out if they can make a little money before giving it back, before circumstances conspire to make Secord wear the damn thing and rescue his drunk pal Malcolm (Eddie Jones). Dubbed "the Rocketeer," he becomes a mysterious sensation...but Sinclair, who turns out to be a Nazi spy working with mobster Eddie Valentine (Sorvino) is hunting him down. 

It's a superhero movie, and it hits all the notes we're familiar with - hero gets powers (kinda), hero uses powers for gratification, hero discovers he can use powers to be a hero, hero saves girl/kills bad guys. Since this is pre-MCU when everything was a franchise, we also get "hero loses powers". There are a few things that give Rocketeer some charm, though.

First, Secord is really no superhero. He's a skilled pilot and a swell guy, but he's got no fighting chops and the jet pack basically just lets him get around quickly and access airborne trouble. Sinclair mops the floor with him when they fight, and his biggest advantages aside from the jet pack are courage and heart (and Peavy). That's actually kind of refreshing, because it makes his heroism seem a little more focused and genuine. 

Likewise, the supporting cast all get to decide where they come down. Sinclair is a spy and utterly devoted to the Fatherland, but when his massive henchman Lothar (Tiny Ron) dies, he actually spares him a thought and a moment. Eddie Valentine is a mobster and is quite willing to kill to make a point, but when Secord informs him of Sinclair's real loyalties he turns on him immediately ("I may not make an honest buck, but I'm 100% American"). Peavy is a voice of reason and Secord actually listens to him, which is nice. 

Oh, right, Jenny. She actually has stuff to do in the movie; she seduces Sinclair and gets the drop on him, and she backs up Cliff when he tells Valentine about Sinclair's goose-stepping tendencies. She has some agency, though no real arc in the movie, and her main conflict (that Cliff doesn't take her career seriously) isn't really resolved. But Connelly is charming as always, and she and Campbell have enough chemistry to feel like a couple. 

Overall, it's a fun and self-contained superhero movie, and it's got enough fun moments to merit rewatching.

My Grade: B
Rewatch Value: Medium-high

Next up: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story