Movie #567: Don't Breathe

Don't Breathe is a noir/horror movie starring Stephen Lang, Jane Levy, Dylan Minette, and Danial Zovatto.

In the decaying remains of post-apocalyptic modern day Detroit, Alex (Minette) takes advantage of his father's position as a security guard for a private home security company along with this unrequited love Rocky (Levy) and her boyfriend Money (Zovatto). Alex is careful that they only take goods that can be sold, not cash, and that they don't put themselves in a position to commit a major crime. They all have their reasons for doing what they're doing - Rocky wants to get the hell out of Detroit with her little sister (Emma Bercovici), Alex is in love with Rocky but also wants to go to law school, and Money is trying to move up in the criminal food chain. They find out about a big score - a blind veteran (Lang) who lives alone on an abandoned block and received a six-figure settlement after his daughter was killed by a teenage driver.

Alex, of course, has reservations, but agrees to do it for Rocky, so they break into the Blind Man's house and rapidly discover that he's perfectly capable of defending himself. He shoots Money with his own gun, and (inadvertently) traps Rocky and Alex in the house with him. In trying to escape, they discover the horrible truth - he's kidnapped the girl who killed his daughter and is holding her captive in his basement.

The first time I watched this movie, I didn't consider the noir angle, but after thinking about the genre yesterday for a character I was making, damn if it ain't a near-perfect fit. All of the characters have understandable motivations for what they're doing, all of them have some real human pathos behind them (Money less so because we don't get to see as much of him). Nobody's clean - all of the characters are doing objectively criminal and morally wrong things, but what's interesting is that all of them seem to understand that on some level. Alex tries hard to mitigate legal exposure and obviously feels bad about exploiting his father's position (made clearer in some deleted scenes), Rocky wavers between choosing to steal the Blind Man's money and holding him accountable for his crimes, and the Blind Man himself seems to be trying to convince himself as much as Rocky that what he's endured in his life means there is no reason to try and be a good person (movie does fall back on the "Angry-at-God-so-Atheist" thing, but eh).

The Blind Man's house is pretty amazing, too. I've said before that I love it when horror movies give us a consistent sense of place, and we learn the layout of the house in the movie. That's actually important, because sound and placement of objects is so important, because it's what the Blind Man uses to navigate. And, on that subject, I love Lang's performance. He's not superpowered because he's blind; he compensates with hearing and scent, but also touch and just general familiarity with his surroundings. The scene where he beats Rocky into unconsciousness is especially chilling because he can't see her, so his punches are short and direct - he can't put too much distance between his hand and her head because he'll lose track.

The remake of Evil Dead was by the same director (Fede Alvarez), so I think I need to check that out.

My Grade: A-

Rewatch Value: Medium

Next up: Hail, Caesar!

Character Creation: Sword Noir

The weather has, for the moment, cooled off. Despite the utter shitshow happening in much of the rest of the country, at least there's that. Anyway,

The Game: Sword Noir

The Publisher: Sword's Edge Publishing

Degree of Familiarity: None. I ran a one-shot of Nefertiti Overdrive, which uses a similar, if not identical, system, but I've never played or run this one

Books Required: Just the one

I picked up my copy of Sword Noir because I wanted something small to follow 7th Sea, which is a big ol' hardcover, and it wound up being a nice counterpoint in a lot of ways. 7th Sea is a big, thick book, sure, but the prose is easy to follow and it contains the right amount of setting material for its premise. It hooks the reader, both with text and production values. And, despite a system with some potential wonkiness, it still screams at me to run it.

And then there's Sword Noir. The premise of the game - a mashup of hardboiled noir fiction with Howard/Leiber sword and sorcery-style fantasy - is a really interesting one. I love noir, and I'm usually lukewarm on fantasy (though it occurred to me the other day just how much of it I've been running of late; Blue Rose just ended, but I'm still running Shadow of the Demon Lord and I've been glancing sideways at Atlantis 2nd Age...anyway). I have the same problem with Sword Noir, though, that I had with Nefertiti Overdrive - it's an interesting premise that the text doesn't really explain or present very well. There's more setting information in Sword Noir, and the principles of the genre are laid out, but a lot of the example properties (that is, Gandalf's sword is an Item, while Grey Mouser's sword is not, f'rex) don't really fit that genre.

Imbuing a game with a feel is hard, and this game really needed it. As such, whereas 7th Sea still wants me to run it even though I've had warnings about the system from experienced GMs, Sword Noir isn't much more than "hey, wouldn't this be cool?" To which I respond, "Sure would. If I wanted to, I could grab Fate or Gumshoe or something and make this into an interesting game."

Anyway, I could of course be 180 degrees off because I haven't played the game, and games show off their best selves at the table (or at the...virtual table, of course, in the age of the 'rona). I'm gonna make a character anyway.

I need to start with a Concept. I'm gonna lean on the "noir" part of this game, and say that my character's Concept is "Bonepicker." He scavenges the bodies of the dead after plagues, battles, and so on, steals whatever he can sell or use, and moves along. He's been known to grave-rob, too, when he feels there's a percentage in it, but mostly that's just a lot of work for very little reward. His name is "Louse." My Concept Quality has a rank of Good. So Many Capital Letters.

Next: Background. This is where Louse came from, so might not be bad to think of how he came to be a Bonepicker. I'll say he's the Sole Survivor of the Biting Plague. The Biting Plague was a disease that infected whole villages, leaving the victims unable to move other than to twitch and thrash occasionally. In particular, it made the jaw muscles seize, so many victims bit off their own tongues. Louse, for whatever reason, never contracted it, but he watched his family and everyone he knew die of it. Background Quality is also ranked Good. On we go.

Now I get a Faculty. This is basically something I'm good at or a useful Quality Aspect Trait thing about Louse. I'm gonna say Louse has an Eye for Value. That is, not that he's great at spotting sales at Kohl's, but that if someone is likely to be valuable to anyone, he'll be able to figure out to whom. This Quality is Good, too, and it's linked to a Trait of my choice. I think Wit makes the most sense.

And then a Flaw. As an aside, the Flaw of the example character is "Papa needs a brand new bag." That's nice and clear, right? You know exactly what that means? It means she's greedy! Duh! Not that her father requires colostomy care. Oy. Also, one of the other examples is "Rage-ohol." Not "rageaholic," which would imply the character is addicted to rage, but "Rage-ohol," which I imagine is some weird combination of energy drink and booze.

Anyway. Louse's Flaw...hmm. My first thought is "Plague-Bearer," making him a kind of Typhoid Mary sort of person, but I don't know. I think that works mechanically, it would just require a GM that's not going to use it to be a dick. I'll trust my hypothetical GM here.

Now Traits! We've got five, and they're pretty standard: Physique, Agility, Wit, Charisma, Will. Why are they not presented alphabetically, since PAWCW doesn't mean anything? Dunno! Anyway, they all start at Average, but I have six ranks I can use to advance them if I wish. I shall advance Wit and Agility to Good, I think.

And now, Qualities. Really, all of these things are Qualities, but these Qualities are just Qualities. Except they're also linked to Traits. Whee.

Well, I think it might be appropriate to give Louse an "Iron Constitution" kind of thing. I was thinking "Immune to Disease," but that's a) absolute and b) pretty narrow. I'll stick with Iron Constitution, attached it to Physique, and pump an extra rank in it to make it Great.

I picture Louse as being able to slit throats and purses quickly and quietly, so I'll take "Unseen Blade" and link it to Agility.

And finally, gotta know where to sell stolen goods and where the bodies are buried. I'll put "Can Always Find a Buyer" and link it to Charisma.

Now...sigh. There's a section in the book about Weakness, but there's no slot on the character sheet and none of the example characters have one, so I'm gonna skip it.

Pivot is next. It's a rather weird term for a goal or a story point (not to keep harping on 7th Sea, but remember I said that I liked the "character's story" bit of that game? This is kind of similar, but, characteristically, not very well fleshed out). For Louse, I feel like what he wants to do is stop bone-picking. It's hard, it's dangerous, and it's going to get him hanged one of these days. His Pivot is "I want to save up enough money to leave this life behind." I get an Advance every time I save or hoard wealth that I could spend to solve an immediate problem.

The only blank on the sheet is Reputation, and if I'm reading this right, the GM comes up with that for the player (none of the sample characters have it, which supports my position). As such, all that's left is a description.

Louse dresses in filthy rags (what's the point of washing when you're just going to delve into the muck again?). He rolls in flowers and smears himself with honey or other fragrant stuff when he can to mask the smell, but it doesn't really work. He carries a number of small sacks and pouches, and always has at least one knife on his person. He has a leather cap that he doffs when he's talking to someone he's trying to sell to (in fact, not that he's figured this out, but if he's planning on killing someone rather than doing business with them, he doesn't take his hat off). Louse has a few teeth left, but mostly they've rotted away or been knocked out. He's missing a couple of toes on his right foot (frostbite in a particularly harsh winter). His voice is gruff and grating, and he's rail-thin.

That'll do it, I think. I like this character, actually. Might have to have him show up as an NPC sometime.

 

Character Creation: 7th Sea 2nd Ed

Trying to get caught up again, so here we go!

The Game: 7th Sea (2nd Ed)

The Publisher: John Wick Presents

Degree of Familiarity: None with this particular game. I played the 1st ed once or twice

Books Required: Just the one.

Wow, 7th Sea 2nd Ed. If you had asked me in 2012, when I was tentatively running my first Kickstarter, what pre-existing RPG property was going to be the first to break a million bucks on the platform, I probably would have guessed some iteration of D&D, maybe Exalted (since that hadn't shit the bed quite yet). I don't think I ever in a million years would have guessed 7th Sea. But there it was, beating the shit out of the records, smashing through stretch goals, and people were really goddamned enthused by the whole thing. In the Kickstarter's wake, JWP (and, behind it as manager, Mark Truman, which was the smartest thing John Wick could possibly have done) had a whole slew of upcoming releases and some really, really talented folks working on them.

And past the core book, I really didn't bother looking at them. That's no knock against anyone, just that the game kinda fell off my radar because no one in my group was champing at the bit to play it, and I had other fish to fry. I have friends who have run and played it pretty extensively, and they all say the same thing: It's beautifully and stylish, but it's a bugger to run because of the narrative load it places on the GM.

Having made characters for all of the games (the ones with chargen rules, anyway) in the Big Book of Little Games, I can say that surprises me not a whit. John's games pretty much all ask for input from the players in a "let's all imagine this scene together" way, but they consolidate power pretty heavily with the GM. I don't say that as a bad thing, necessarily - my main criticism of John's games is that they tend to be half-finished, and that is not a problem with 7th Sea. But, doing a lot of prep for a game is one thing. Determining details in the moment is a different skill set, and I can see how running this game would get difficult.

But with that said, I love this book. The artwork is beautiful, the layout is amazing (Thomas Deeny FTW), and the writing is good. A little more reliant on sentence fragments than I'd like. Just par for the course, really.

And, more to the point, the game wants me to run it. I've mentioned this before; some games yell "RUN ME," and some kinda offer "run me?" and some games sneer and say "D&D is the only game I know about!" and I tend to put those latter games down and go play Hitman. 7th Sea is very much in the first category, because, I think, in addition to being as accessible as a 300-page hardcover can be, it also goes out of its way to make the game seem awesome.

What I'm saying is, god help me, I might have to run this at some point and see if I can handle the work. For now, however, let's make a character.

Step 0: Concept. The book recommends I play 20 questions, here (with the 20 questions it helpfully provides) and I've got no objection.

1. What Nation is your Hero from? I'm really glad this is the first question, because it's really the most important one in a lot of ways. There are 10 Nations to choose from, and I just happen to have no particular inclinations and a 10-sided die right here. Rolled a 1. OK, Avalon it is! (All of these Nations are analogues of European ones; Avalon, obviously, is not-England.)
2. How would you physically describe your Hero? With my mouth and articulators, obviously. Oh, you mean how would I describe my character's appearance? Gotcha. My Hero is thick-limbed and barrel-chested, with a thick black beard and throaty, bark-like laugh. He's got green eyes and a slightly feral vibe to him.
   
3. Does you Hero have any recurring mannerisms? Be funny to just say "no" and move on. But no, I think that my Hero has a habit of touching people's shoulders and heads when he's talking to them, but if he senses any discomfort, he stops immediately and never does it again (unless he's trying to scare you, of course). He's also missing one tooth in front and sucks air through it when he's thinking.
4. What is your Hero's main motivation? Love. My Hero fell in love with an Inish (that is, not-Irish) lass whom everyone said was touched by the Sidhe. They had a month together, and then she went away, saying that he could find her "in the ebb of the tide, or on the waning of the summer." He's been trying to figure that out ever since.
   
5. What is your Hero's greatest strength? Greatest weakness? My Hero is physically strong and tough, and has a heart to match. He's loyal and he's persistent. On the downside, he's perhaps not well-suited to riddles, which made the fact that he fell in love with a fey-touched lass (or so they say) a little problematic. He's also got a bit of a temper.
6. What are your Hero's most and least favorite things? Ignoring the unnecessary modification of the superlative, my character's favorite thing is his lady-love. But failing that, he likes fireside tales. Roasting meat or veggies in the fire, quaffing mulled wine, telling tall tales or ghost stories or just fun anecdotes. You can learn a lot about someone from the stories they tell. His least favorite thing is churches. He can't explain why, but they make him feel cold and queasy. That's not to say he's not a believer, or that he dislikes devout folks. It's just...churches make him uncomfortable.
7. What about your Hero's psychology? What an awful question. What about it? My character, like I said, has anger issues. His anger isn't a controlled, useful thing. It's ugly and feral and violent. That said, getting him angry really requires something actively cruel or personal. A brigand trying to rob him, hey, he's not going to let that happen, but he's not going to kill the fellow either. A brigand who harms or threatens a child? That fucker's going to regret getting up this morning. He's also a hopeless romantic, and cries at weddings and during ballads.
8. What is your Hero's single greatest fear? Invalidity. He's afraid of becoming crippled, or blind, or mad, or otherwise so infirm that he can't take care of himself or others. He watched it happen to his grandfather, the man just got older and sicker and wouldn't die.
   
9. What are your Hero's highest ambitions? Greatest love? My character wants to find his Inish lass and learn what it would take for her to return to Avalon with him and settle down. Failing that, he's willing to become a rover like she is if it means understanding the riddle of her heart.
   
10. What is your Hero's opinion of his country? If asked, he would absolutely take up arms in defense of Avalon, but he wakes every day knowing he has to feed himself, and generally the Queen doesn't help with that. Which is fine, that's not what queens do. He sees matters on a national scale as pretty far removed from his life.
11. Does your Hero have any prejudices? He doesn't trust priests or other folks who choose to be in churches full time. That attitude might extend to folks who spend all their time in universities, but I don't think he's been to one yet.
12. Where do your Hero's loyalties lie? Whoever is around. He's bad at conceiving of situations that aren't in front of him, and that means he'll jump to defend someone he's never met because they need the help. He's nominally loyal to his Queen and country, but he'd be hard-pressed to say what that means.
13. Is your Hero in love? I think we've covered this; hopelessly in love with an Inish lass named Moira.
14. What about your Hero's family? He's got a pretty big family - three brothers and two sisters, plus both parents and a few sundry aunts and uncles nearby. That's why he felt OK leaving to chase Moira. His father wasn't crazy about this idea, but his mother packed him some food and clothes and told him to find her and win her heart.
15. What would your Hero's parents describe him? Dad would say: "He's strong and true and a hard worker, but he needs to get his head out of the clouds and back to work." Mom would say: "For so many years I thought he had no poetry in his soul, and then he met her and it all just blossomed forth like blooms in spring."
16. Is your Hero a gentle? Nope.
17. How religious is your Hero? Not especially. He's nominally a member of the Church of Avalon, but he's not terribly learned or observant.
    
18. Is your Hero a member of a guild, gentle's club, or secret society? I'm gonna say probably not, but if something comes up later in the chargen process that makes sense I may change my mind.
19. What does your Hero think of Sorcery? I think Sorcery falls into the category of things that my Hero hasn't really had to think about, so it may as well not exist. His opinion of Sorcery is likely to be formed by however he first encounters it.
20. If you could, what advice would you give your Hero? "Love is action."

Step One: Traits. Got 5 Traits, they all start at 2, and I get 2 more points to throw in. I'm gonna put them both into Brawn.

Step Two: Nation Bonus. As I'm from Avalon, I can take a +1 to either Resolve or Panache. Resolve, I think, makes the most sense.

Step Three: Backgrounds. I get two of these. They're basically to represent my life up to this point. Well, I will take Farmkid and Pugilist, those seem best representative of my character's life to this point. That gives me the Legendary Trait, Survivalist, Boxer, and Staredown Advantages, whatever that means. Also means I get a Hero Point when I drop a weapon to fight someone with fists, regardless of what they're packing, and (oh, this is perfect) when I solve a complex problem with some folksy, simple, farm-based solution.

Step Four: Skills. I get 10 points to buy Skills, but I can't go above 3 during chargen. So: Brawl to 3, obviously. Also Athletics. Three into Intimidate, 6 spent. One more into Ride, one into Hide, and two into Notice makes 10!

Step Five: Advantages. I get 5 points to buy Advantages, in addition to the four I got from Backgrounds. Well, two points gets me Reckless Takedown; I can immediately drop a Brute Squad by taking a Dramatic Wound. I'll spend 1 and take Large. Two left. I think I'll take Handy, that plays into his upbringing.

Step Six: Arcana. Ooh, Tarot stuff. Kinda. It's a unique deck with only 20 Major Arcana. Normally I'd draw randomly, but I dunno, I have a pretty good sense of this guy, so maybe I'll just choose. I need two, one for Virtue and one for Hubris. Well, the Emperor's Hubris is Hot-Headed, so that's perfect. For Virtue, I'll take the Road, which gives me Friendly.

Step Seven: Stories. Every Hero has a Story, and I have to say, there are a lot of RPGs that includes elements like this (Blue Rose, which I just finished running, is one), but I really like this system for it. It includes mechanical rewards, which is good, and provides a multi-step structure to the Hero's Story. Smart.

Anyway, my character's Story is pretty obviously that he wants to find Moira. I'll set the Goal as "Solve Moira's riddle", which means that he'll find her but not that they'll end up together necessarily. For the reward, I kind of feel like this should make him smarter, so I'll say it's a dot of Wits. Gaining a dot in a Trait makes this a five-step Story, which is perfect; I'd want it to be a pretty major journey for him.

But what should the first step on said Story be? I'll say it's "Learn the destination of the Weeping Bride." (That's the ship Moira left on.)

Step Eight: Details. Filling in the rest of the blanks, then. I don't start with any Reputations, so that's easy.

Languages: I speak Old Théan and one more. Avalon was under Montaigne rule for a long time, which means that I probably speak their language. I suppose I could also speak Inish, if that's a language. No spot on the character sheet for this, anyway. I'll say he speaks Montaigne.

Secret Society, nope, don't need one.

Wealth: Start at zero, which makes sense.

Last thing is name, actually. I'll say his name is Tristan, because I can't resist tempting fate.

Blue Rose: The Grand Finale

Or, as Zapp Brannigan would say, the "grand finally."

Last time, the party battled (and defeated!) Qinis and a big ol' wyvern, and then cracked open the tomb of the Mad Seer...I mean, just click the link. The important this is, now they're fighting a handful of needle-fingered darkfiends and a huge humanoid headless creature - Nettas, the darkfiend whose skull Kisha currently carries in her clothes.

Nettas demands the Mask, and the heroes pause for a moment. The vision that Arlen had seemed to indicate that they do indeed have to give Nettas the Mask in order to defeat him, but do they want to do that now? Dobbin, always one for a direct response, shoots one of the minor fiends and the fight is on.

The darkfiends immediately surround Kisha and try to rip her apart. Nettas, too, strikes at her, but is too big to strike the ever-nimble Kisha. The heroes focus on the darkfiends first, figuring that Nettas is probably invulnerable to their weapons but wanting to thin the field a bit.

Nettas, horribly, responds by reanimating the body of the wyvern! It stings Arlen with its tail and goes in for a bite on Kisha, but Dobbin fires an arrow into its head and knocks it off the edge of the island into the sea.

The heroes fight on, wearing the darkfiends down, destroying some, but Kisha is pretty badly injured. Arlen casts Cure on her to keep her on her feet, and of course she's quick enough that she's avoiding most of the blows, but every so often a darkfiend strikes. The fiends, too, seem willing to weather whatever punishment the heroes dish out, just to try and get to the Mask.

Nettas leans down and touches the rubble of the Tomb, and more darkfiends spring up. Arlen has a vision, and sees them throwing the Mask to Nettas, who then becomes solid. Arlen figures that, no matter what, they need to defeat Nettas with his skull restored, and yells to Kisha to give him the Mask.

Kisha tosses it up and Nettas catches it, reabsorbing it into his neck-stump. Arlen notices that he drops a few inches to the ground, as though he's become a bit more solid. The heroes attack, Arlen with the bolts of purifying light, Dobbin with arrows, and Kisha and Whirlpool with their melee weapons, and they find that their weapons connect.

Arlen summons the purifying light of Selene and drives the minor darkfiends to the edge of the island, and then moves forward, pushing them into the sea. The others beat on Nettas, and he grows smaller until he is only a little bigger than Whirlpool, whereupon Whirlpool leaps up and crushes his skull - the Mask of Ebban, with his trident.

Nettas falls to the ground and seeps into the earth. The rocks that made up Miriana's Tomb liquefy into a horrible tar, absorbing his body, but then a woman stands up out of it. She's beautiful, but a little too perfect, a little too symmetrical, and her face is twisted in an expression of hate and envy. She reaches out for the characters and they brace themselves for a (probably short-lived) battle with Ulasta, Exarch of Envy...

...but then they feel a gentle hand on their shoulders (all four of them at once!). They step aside, and a woman made of moonlight steps forward and lays a hand on Ulasta's chest. The Exarch screams in rage and falls back into the tar, which then sinks into the earth. Selene, the moon-goddess, turns to the heroes and kisses Arlen gently on the forehead. She gestures them onto a disc of moonlight, and they find themselves flying through the air over Basketh Bay as the spire collapses into the sea behind them.

They arrive at the palace in Aldis, and the Queen receives them once again. They are awarded medals for their service, and, their quest complete, the party goes their separate ways.

Kisha asks for, and receives, a bequest of land from the queen, on which to found her own household.

Dobbin serves for a year in the Finest, but then returns to the village of Riverside and learns the craft of baking from Myon, finding the simple home she's always wanted.

Arlen stays with the Finest for a few years, but then leaves and also returns to Riverside. He, however, does so to find Balstir's herd, and runs with the horses, spreading the word of Selene. He also writes and publishes a chronicle of the quest, based on his sketches and notes.

Whirlpool, after a similar stint in the Finest, acquires a ship and becomes a treasure-hunter and privateer, sailing the seas in search of lost artifacts of power.

FIN

Shadow of the Etc Etc: Tear

Special Memorial Day edition.

Last time, the party saved the life (as it were) of Father Death, and was transported to the Kingdom of Tear, which conveniently has a sourcebook that didn't contradict anything I'd already established about the game world and was therefore hella useful. Anyway, the characters emerge from the gateway near the West Keep, and spend the next month or so in and around said keep, learning about Tear and making themselves useful. They learn that Nevil Defries, the commander of the West Keep, isn't doing much commanding of late, and a brigand gang called the Wyvern's Claw has been attacking patrols from the keep.

Mayfly, by day, helps people out whenever possible, healing injured folks with magic and so on. By night, she builds a little house for Twitchy, her disembodied hand friend. She doesn't seem to remember her nightly activities during the day, which is worrying.

Dagmar spends their time going out into the surrounding areas and helping the soldiers deal with the Wyvern's Claw. They learn that the Claw strikes with guerrilla tactics, and don't prolong fights if they can't win decisively.

Bashir talks to farmers and growers in the area, learning all about plants and how to cultivate. He also learns that most of Tear is taken up by the Claims, land parcels available to anyone who wants to work them. Tear is also pretty friendly to orcs, so this is seeming like a good place to buy the farm.

Homraz the Glorious wanders the Forest of Screams, killing monsters and composing poetry. He hears rumors of three witches that supposedly sold their souls to demons and dwell in moving huts somewhere in the forest, but doesn't find them.

The characters come back together and chat about their next move. They need to talk to Horus, the ruler of Tear, because they're going to need his help and knowledge to figure out what to do about Drudge and the Empire of Caecras. They get one of the garrison captains (not Defries, as he's unreliable and largely unavailable) to write them a letter to Horus describing the situation here, and they set out east toward the capital and only real city of Tear, Holdfast.

As they arrive, they see that a tent city has sprung up around Holdfast. Dwarves, humans, and orcs have been flooding in from the east and south, and white-robed adherents of the Cult of the New God are ministering to them, both in the "here have some water" and "have you accepted the New God into your heart" senses. The characters hear masonry, too, and Dagmar follows the sound until they see workers on the eastern edge of the city, building a border wall. They talk to one of the dwarves working on it, and learn that the wall is meant to be preventative against invasion from the east, and that Horus is having folks work on it round the clock. With the city expanding so quickly, though, it might not be enough.

The characters go to the Main Hall and ask for audience with Horus. They relinquish their weapons (or, in Homraz' case, bury it in the wall, which the guard talking to them recognizes as pretty typical for orcs), and they wait a bit for the ruler to arrive.

He does, a tall, striking figure with an impressive mustache. With him is a woman in robes, and Bashir recognizes that style as typical of the wizards of the Tower Arcane in Caecras. The characters go before Horus and he greets them individually, Dagmar in Dwarvish and the orcs in Dark Speech. Dagmar mentions that, in addition to information from West Keep, they need to tell him about some things happening in the Holy Kingdom. Horus reads the letter and gravely agrees that something needs to be done about Defries before the Keep falls, and then asks Dagmar to continue.

Dagmar gets as far as saying that the Inquisition of the Holy Kingdom seems to have some demonic infiltration before Horus stops them and summons "the bishop." Moments later, a man in black robes and a skull mask that the characters recognize marks him as an Inquisitor appears, introduced as Bishop Mazen of the Holy Kingdom. Worse, he knows who the characters are - he identifies them as the "Unholy Assassins." They protest, of course, that while they were there when Queen Moira was killed, they weren't to blame, and in fact Mayfly tried to save the queen. Horus glances to the woman in the robes (whose name is Eris), and she says that they're telling the truth.

Mazen protests that of course the witch would cover for the assassins, but Horus cuts him off. He tells the characters that he'd like them to stay in town, but he needs to confer with his advisors. They leave, and a dwarf approaches Dagmar, saying that he's a representative of the Heartstone Mining concern, and that the company has bought out a small inn nearby. The ceiling might be a little low for the orcs, but he's sure they have rooms to rent.

Dagmar agrees, and the characters head to the inn and rent a couple of rooms (though Homraz chooses to sleep in the stables; he doesn't relish being in such cramped quarters). Dagmar plays some cards with some of the dwarves there, and learns that they were recently employed as miners in the Shield Mountains (Heartstone has exclusive rights to mine in Tear; Horus made a lot of such deals during the early wars of conquest against beastmen here) but the miners broke through a wall into a warren of troglodytes and mining has been shut down until someone can clear it out. They're working on the wall now.

Homraz wanders the streets, doing some slam poetry and generally scouting around. Bashir, too, chats with merchants and farmers about how to make a land claim, and learns that it's a matter of finding a suitable place and then applying in Holdfast, demonstrating that one has the skills needed to make the land produce. It's easier to find places closer to the Forest of Screams or the North Lands, because those areas tend to come under attack more. Bashir figures that maybe he could make an orc commune; that would be well-defended and allow him to have the farm he always wanted.

As the characters chat, they hear unpleasant rumblings. A mob is forming, and folks are talking about how the "Unholy Assassins" are being sheltered by the dwarves. Not wanting their people to suffer because of this, Dagmar rounds everyone up and goes outside to meet this growing unrest. Homraz, easily the best speaker among them, spits some verse about their glorious deeds and how they were framed by the fauns in the Holy Kingdom, but then, right at the end, says the Dark Speech equivalent of "lol j/k we totes killed her, down with queens!"

The crowd starts to get ugly, but Homraz is staring at one particular guy in the crowd. He heads right over toward him, and brandishes his ax. The man starts screaming for help. Mayfly, who figures it has seen this kind of thing before, Denounces the man. He doesn't move, but flinches a bit.

Homraz strikes with his ax, and the man falls, bleeding and crying out for aid (the crowd parts in fear, but some folks are holding weapons and trying to figure out what to do). Mayfly flits over and heals the man on instinct, but the touch seems to burn him and wriggling creatures fall from the wound.

Dagmar, perceptive as always, realizes this is an illusion and yells as much to Mayfly. Mayfly casts a spell negating all magic in the area, and the "man" stands up into an 8-foot demon.

The crowd breaks and runs, screaming, but Homraz strikes again with his ax. Dagmar sends Skadi, their Eidolon, to grab the demon, but it's too quick. Dagmar whacks it with their war-hammer, and Bashir conjures up brambles around the battle - they don't grow in the Negation zone, of course, but they do form a barrier.

The demon, apparently not wanting to take on all four of these folks and with its whisper campaign failing, runs, pushing through the brambles and climbing up the wall of a nearby building. Homraz charges it and strikes in a berserk rage, but only manages to damage the wall. The actual demon has teleported away, and the characters are left with no real answers, but a large group of people that saw them fight a demon.

They're summoned once again before Horus, and Bishop Mazen, with obvious effort, apologizes for his accusations and says that he will accept their help. They're brought into a conference room with Horus, Mazen, Eris, and an old, grizzled soldier named Marshal Clellan in a wheeled chair to try and come up with some kind of strategy.

To be continued.

Chill: Hey Hey Johnny

Yesterday was Chill, and then we went to the drive-in and saw The Invisible Man and The Hunt, so I'm a little sleepy. Here's last time.

The envoys are in the living room (which is warded, recall), trying to figure their next move. Jordan notes that they haven't checked the cars outside, which presumably belong to the missing teens, so they head out to the driveway to try that. The cars are locked, but Emily breaks the windows impatiently.

Both cars have what you'd expect from teens on a road trip - food wrappers, drink cans, and like. Papers in the glove box indicate that the sedan is registered to Vicki Parsons, while the SUV is registered to Jacob Hammond. The SUV doesn't contain much of interest; there's a case of beer in the back, but otherwise nothing. The sedan, however, does turn up something interesting. On the floor of the back seat is a copy of a book called CrimeSong: True Crime Stories From Southern Murder Ballads. The book is obviously in process of being read; it's got notes and underlines, but it's not old or weathered. Jennifer takes a moment to speed-read it. It's basically a history of murder ballads, specifically from the South. As such, nothing specific about their area of the country is mentioned, but the song "Knoxville Girl" (which was on the Louvin Brothers album they found inside) and its history are described.

Samantha uses Postcognition on the book, and sees the cars pulling in. A heavyset girl is driving the sedan, and the black boy that she saw in an earlier vision is riding shotgun. They stop the car and kiss, and when the girl gets her bag out of the back, the book falls on the floor.

Samantha notes that the kids don't look spooked or excited as though they're trespassing, just happy to be on vacation. Apparently they didn't know that anything was wrong. The characters talk about this a bit, and Blake muses that the kids probably listened to the album just like the envoys did. Just like you did, a voice whispers to him. At this point, the book in Samantha's hands falls apart as though the binding just disintegrated.

The characters head back inside, and Blake looks around the living room. He notes that they didn't check the closet, and inside finds a plastic bin labeled "INTERNET". Inside there's a router and the cables to set up a wireless connection; evidently it comes with the house and the teens either didn't find it or didn't bother. He sets it up, and the envoys talk about their position.

They note that the mysterious voice only seems to talk to some of them - it hasn't spoken to Samantha or BB, for example. It calls women "lovely" and it sounds male, though since it whispers that's hard to tell (although Jordan points that given its attitude toward women, it's almost certainly male). Blake thinks it has a southern accent, but he can't place it. Since they've seen it near the washer/dryer, they decide to have a look there again.

Jordan and Blake leave the ward to check the mud room. Jordan closes the door on the washer and a face appears in the glass, a distorted reflection of a young man. She recoils, but keeps her cool. The figure talks to them a bit, and it does indeed have a southern accent.

Remembering the lyrics to "Knoxville Girl," Blake calls it "Willy." It says that it hasn't been "Willy Wise" in some time now. Blake asks if there's going to be a "Boise Girl" song about this instance, and thinks that he sees a flash of anger in the man's face. It vanishes, and the characters fall back.

The characters talk in the living room more (this is going to be a common thing, as you might have noticed). Since the teens unplugged the appliances, including the TV, Blake wonders if the creature might be able to appear in that screen. They lug the TV into the hallway, out of the ward but still close by, and plug it in. And indeed, the man appears.

He taunts them again, saying that he expected better of "the Society." Some of the envoys call him "Willy," and he tells them again that it's not his name. It doesn't seem to anger him, though, he just isn't going to answer to it. Jordan asks if the kids are OK. The man says that they're alive, but not OK. Becky is going to need her inhaler at some point, so the characters had better figure it out.

The characters decide that they need to figure out how the teens disappeared and where they are. Jordan tries to go to the car and get some gear, but even with a Mental Shield up, she can't pass the barrier. She figures that effect is targeting the place, not her, so while she might be able to activate a Sphere of Protection and walk though it, she isn't sure if that's wise (since it would leave everyone else in the "bubble", including the teens). They also figure that Becky must be in the corner bedroom (since that was the one with two women, and the woman in the other bedroom was Vicki). Jennifer and Emily go to the bedroom to search it, and Jennifer finds Becky's inhaler - prescribed to Rebecca Bennet - in her pants pocket on the floor.

At this point, the door to the room slams. Emily figures she knows how to deal with this, grabs a chair and hurls it against a window, only to have it bounce back. The man's face appears in the glass and smiles, and Emily insults it, telling it that if it wants to come out and be corporeal she'd love a chance to fight it. She turns to work on the door, and Jennifer sees a humanoid figure appear behind Emily for a split second. Emily feels a stabbing pain in her back and a wound opens, apparently from a knife. Emily hears the man whisper You really ready to see another comrade die? I could gut her right now.

Emily activates Feat of Strength and shoulders the door, but it doesn't budge. The others hear the commotion, though, and come down the hall. Jordan uses Disrupt on the door and it opens, and the characters fall back to the ward again. Jordan stitches up Emily's shoulder, and they talk it over again. This creature, whatever it is, is playing with them. BB opines that if this thing is really interested in this game, it probably hasn't killed the kids yet and it might talk to them and let something slip. Presently, though, it's content to wait them out until the ward falls. Since BB is far and away the toughest of the envoys (master of all the Restorative disciplines, after all), he decides to go into the hallway and talk with the being again. He brings the record, too, figuring it might be something that the creature is focused on.

It appears, and BB tells it that if it wants to play this game, it needs to be a little clearer on the rules. He also asks why the man isn't talking to him like he is the others. The man says that frankly he finds BB a little boring, and he's amused that given that the envoys have someone who can see back in time that they haven't applied that ability well. Emily, listening, says that she feels the man is the one who's boring, and pulls her gun, again asking for a chance to shoot him. The man appears in front of BB, wiping Emily's blood off his knife, and says "go ahead, then."

Emily shoots, and BB suddenly lurches forward, pulled by an unseen force. The bullet catches him in the back, but fortunately his Resilience discipline minimizes the damage. He falls forward and Emily stares in horror. The man grins and says "there, now, don't you feel better?" before vanishing.

BB limps back into the ward Jordan removes the bullet and stitches him up. He tells Emily that she needs to calm down and think - she might have been trying to bait the creature, but she let it bait her and shot an envoy in the process. BB uses his Heal discipline to close the wound, and Samantha decides to use Postcognition on the record player to see what happened when the teens played it.

She sees Vicki and the black boy talking. Vicki is excited about the record; she mentions that "Knoxville Girl" actually charted back in the 50s. The others seem more or less nonplussed, but she plays the song. As they listen, one of the kids looks up and says "Who's Johnny Wren?" Others ask what he means, but he said he thought the other boy (apparently his boyfriend) said it. Samantha hears the name "Johnny Wren" several more times, and then the song ends. She sees the creature's face appear in the TV, but the teens aren't looking. 

Armed with this new name, Jennifer gets back to research. Turns out there was a murderer named Johnny Wren. He killed his girlfriend, her sister, and her cousin back in 1958 in South Carolina before his girlfriend's father disarmed him and chased him off after whacking him in the face with a log. But here's the weird thing - Johnny Wren is still alive. He's almost 80 now and he's in federal prison. Jennifer also manages to find a digitized SAVE record of an encounter with a being called "Willy Wise" in Cincinnati in 1899. The envoys describe disciplines of the Evil Way much like the ones the characters have seen (Slam, Whisper, Quiet), but not its ability to cut an area off from the outside world or how it's hiding people. That manifestation ended when two workers doing construction on the Ohio River got in a fight that left one of them dead and one of them on death row for the murder.

It's almost 6PM. The characters are hungry and tired, and they've got a few more hours until sunset. As they rest a bit, they hear glass breaking and a ruckus from one of the bedrooms. Blake guesses it's Johnny Wren, trying to draw them out, but Jennifer wonders if it might be one of the teens. Jordan and BB head down the hall to check.

Inside the corner bedroom (the one where Jennifer found the inhaler), they see that a window has been broken inward and there's blood on the sill on the bedspread. They see the clothes moving as though someone is rummaging through them, and for a split second they see one of the teens, the African American boy, standing there screaming at them. Jordan tries to reach out and Disrupt the effect, but she collapses. BB calls the creature out, but then sees Jordan's shirt slit itself open and the words MY NAME IS JOHNNY cut themselves into her back.

BB reaches down to get the inhaler, and the boy appears, fully visible...and then BB blacks out as well. The other envoys are heading to the room, but things are definitely going badly.

Character Creation: vs. Ghosts

Just realized I'm a bit behind on these posts, but since today is my first day of summer vacation, I'll have more time for chargen. As opposed to the last two months, where I've been technically working but not actually doing a lot of work.

The Game: vs. Ghosts
The Publisher: Fat Goblin Games (their actual site seems to be down)
Degree of Familiarity: Never played it, but I've seen Ghostbusters and the vsM engine is pretty simple
Books Required: Just the one

I got this game as part of a bundle, I think. It's basically a "hunt down the ghost" game, drawing on Ghostbusters pretty obviously as its focus, much like Spooktacular. 

So, starting off, we select a name. Let's call him Dr. Claude Valentine.

Write a bio. Sure! Dr. Valentine has a PhD in psychology and another in parapsychology, with a focus in family planning and relationships. He had a short-lived radio call-in show called Dr. Valentine's Love Clinic, but he kinda lost it on air one day after the 85th relationship problem that basically cooked down to "you fuckers need to talk to each other." Falling back on the "para" part of his education, he started studying how romantic relationships lead to powerful and pissed of ghosts, and here we are.

Choose Attributes. I've got six, and I can rate the 6, 4, 4, 3, 3. Well, I don't see Claude as much of a combatant, so I'll put the 6 in Mental, the 4s in Physical and Investigation, and the 3s in Offense and Defense.

Choose Gimmicks. Usual drill; for every good one I take, I need a bad one. I find it easier to pick the bad ones first. Oh, well, I think I'll take Too Old for this Crap, which reduces Offense, Defense, and Physical by one but pumps Investigation up to 5 and Mental to 9! I'll also take Stubborn.

And then for Good Gimmicks, I'll take Charming (I get an extra card for social actions) and I Know a Guy (my agent, Bernie; he's a pain in the ass but he knows everybody).

I start with 10 Health. Everything else is just a personality trait or description. Dr. Valentine is what you might call "avuncular." He likes sweater vests and slacks, jeans for the weekends. He's got gray hair that refuses to thin, but also refuses to behave. He's a got a soothing, pleasant voice (great for radio, and also for talking down angry spectres). He doesn't suffer fools gladly, though, and he's got a bit of a temper, it just takes a long time to wind him up.

And that's it!

Blue Rose: Mad Seer Tastes the Cold Sea

We're in the endgame now. Here's last time.

The characters stand before Miriana's Tomb on this weird isle of peace in the middle of the Leviathan's Teeth. They start by hacking away at the vegetation covering it, until they can see it clearly - a small, oddly clean marble mausoleum. It doesn't have a door, just a white block of marble perfectly fitted into the front opening, so tight that not even air can get in.

As they're pondering their next move, they hear a horrific screech from above, and they see a monstrous dragon-like creature bearing down on them. On its back - Qinis, still ghoulishly pale, gripping his trident.

Whirlpool hurls his dirk at the wyvern and tears its wing, dropping it slightly. Kisha establishes Psychic Contact with Qinis and tries to rid his mind of outside influence, but nothing happens - apparently he's not being controlled. Dobbin takes a more direct approach and shoots him off his mount. He lands and strikes Arlen with his trident, but Arlen casts Plant Shaping and entangles him.

The wyvern swoops down, biting a clawing, and the characters attack. Whirlpool jumps on top of it and starts stabbing away with his trident, but the thing stabs him with its tail and flings him off. Qinis frees himself from the foliage and attacks Arlen again, but Arlen sets the vegetation on fire and hurls Qinis back into it. Dobbin shoots him again and knocks him further into the flames, and Kisha and Pansy attack the Wyvern. Whirlpool stabs it in the side and bears it to the ground - still dangerous, but not as likely to carry anyone off into the sea.

Qinis manages to free himself, but Kisha casts Calm on his mind and removes his aggression, so all he does is put out the fire and brace himself (whereupon Arlen imbues his staff with magic light and bops him, which ends that calm). Whirlpool finishes off the wyvern with a mighty thrust of his trident, and then charges at Qinis. He pins his head between the tines, and Dobbin puts an arrow between his eyes, finally killing him. Whirlpool, noting that he's already come back several times, beheads him and throws his head into the sea, and then puts his body in the burning half of the island.

But now the characters are faced with a conundrum - how to get into the Tomb? It seems to be magically sealed; Arlen tries to magically move the block and finds that even if he could manage the weight, he can't get around the magic. Whirlpool punches it a couple of times, but doesn't see much result. Kisha casts Second Sight and figures that introducing a little chaos into this artificial stasis might help, so she creates an illusion of a tragic play from her homeland of Kern on top of the crypt.

Arlen, meanwhile, figures that the light of Selene might at least annoy whatever force is in control here, so calls on Purifying Light. At this, the illusions of the Kernish shadow-creatures come to threaten the young lovers (for 'tis the plot of the play) attack! Dobbin fells one with an arrow and Whirlpool beheads one with his sword, and both of them feel a weird pull to join the story, though they resist it. The "warriors" set fire to the "village", and Whirlpool gets caught up, catching fire and running around trying to extinguish it.

Arlen calls to Kisha to drop the illusion, which she does, and the fire goes out. With the Purifying Light, though, Arlen notes that the places where Whirlpool punched the door are scuffed. It should, therefore, be possible to break it, though it might take some work. The characters get to that work, Whirlpool and Kisha battering through it and Arlen hurling bolts of light, and finally the block cracks.

Whirlpool uses Water Shaping to summon up sea water from far below and hurls it against the block, flooding the crypt. The Mad Seer has, at last, tasted the cold sea.

And then the crypt explodes, nearly knocking them all into the ocean. The shadowgate below them opens, and darkfiends begin crawling out of the ground. One of them, a huge, black monstrosity, has no recognizable head, just a shapeless lump on it shoulders. That, then, would be Nettas, and they've got what's left of its skull with them.

Next time, the exciting conclusion!

Legend of the Elements: Soot-People and Mudslides

Mudslide is often my drink of choice, actually. Here's last time.

The characters are in a cave partway up a mountain above the burned remains of the village of Marn, and their fireshaper is, once again, losing control of her power. The flames lick outwards, but Khatun thinks fast and douses the whole area in water, extinguishing the flames but causing a bunch of steam.

Ember steps forward and talks to the spirits below, telling them that she was responsible for the destruction of Marn and she wants to make amends. The spirits tell her that they're hungry, and that Ember's earthshaper friend looks meaty enough ("Hard no," replies Gerde). Ember is understandably unwilling to sacrifice any of her friends to this spirit, so the characters start looking for other options.

There's a tunnel at the back of the cave, as they discovered last time. The tunnel is steep, but they aren't sure how steep or how far it goes down. They discuss the situation and decide that going down the tunnel and getting out of this cave is a good start, though Feng points out that they need to put this spirit down, and everyone agrees. Gerde earthshapes some handholds to ease the descent, and they start heading downward.

Khatun descends first, landing fluidly at the bottom. She can see a tunnel leading outside, but it's tight and there's a thick layer of loam on the ground. Said loam rises up and humanoid, dirty figures start climbing at her. She yells a warning to the others and leaps back up the shaft. Gerde tries to get a handle on these creatures, but a geyser of dirt shoots up the tunnel. One of the creatures grabs Ember and tries to pull her down. Feng tries to free her, and the dirt just solidifies over top of all of them, smashing them all down the shaft and burying Khatun (the others, however, are unharmed).

With soot-people swarming in, Gerde puts her hands on the walls and blasts the tunnel into a wide open cavern, giving the characters room to move. Ember calls down lightning into the cave and blasts apart the soot-creature holding her, and Feng pulls out a piece of fruit and summons Sable, the Black Monkey spirit, to fight alongside him. Khatun saturates the earth with water, turning the loose loam in the cavern into mud, and Gerde forces it all out of the cavern back into the village. As she does so, she sees the mud reveal something strange - a man dressed in white and green, sitting in some kind of bubble in the lotus position...but then he's covered in mud again.

The characters step out of the cavern and Gerde creates a path to the man, parting the mud. Ember recognizes him as Laird, the healer of Marn (that's whose cave they were in, looking for anything he may have left behind). Ember puts her hand on the bubble encasing him, trying to find a way to free him, but the mud slithers over it, forms a face, and laughs.

Feng examines the spirit and realizes that this creature isn't the collected spirits of the villagers of Marn, it's something else, something more powerful and elemental...and hungrier. He commands it to release Laird, and it laughs and spits the bubble high into the air. Gerde earthshapes a column of mud to catch it, and Ember talks to the spirit, offering herself as a sacrifice if it lets Laird go.

The mud recedes from the bubble and Feng starts to push it into the cavern, but the mud also swallows Ember. Gerde screams in rage and starts pulling up chunks of earth, looking for her, but apart from making some boulders doesn't find much. Feng and Khatun concentrate and realize that Laird isn't so much asleep as dormant, his chi flow stopped to prevent him from dying. They start working to get his chi flowing again.

Ember, buried in mud, tries to burn her way out, but there's no oxygen. The spirit whispers to her and says that it won't let her go, but it can make her death quick. She agrees ("make it quick, spirit") and feels mud fill her mouth and nose, but then Gerde focuses on the earth. She feels the hot spot where Ember is interred, and forces it up, creating geysers, one of which expels her. Ember lands, and the spirit screams as the oath is broken. Ember, in response, sets the whole damn place on fire.

Meanwhile, Khatun and Feng have managed to revive Laird, and he looks perfectly refreshed and rested. He notes that everyone is still on fire, much as it was when he went to sleep - and there's Ember, so that makes sense! The characters quickly fill him in on what's happening, and he calls up a cloud of steam from the geysers to cover the characters as they leave the village. The burning loam-spirit still howling, Laird has everyone sits down and he tends to the characters' injuries.

As they talk, though, the loam-spirit rises up into a 100-foot humanoid figure, made of earth, fire, trees and the stones of the remains of Marn. It screams in hunger and starts climbing the cliff face.

"I've been gone a while," says Laird, "but is Greycliff still at the top of this?"

"Hasn't gone anywhere," says Gerde.

"Oh, dear," says Laird.

Next time: Legend of the Elements meets Shadow of the Colossus!

Movie #566: The Prophecy

The Prophecy is a...modern fantasy horror-ish? movie starring Christopher Walken, Elias Koteas, Virginia Madsen, Eric Stolz, Viggo Mortensen, Amanda Plummer, Adam Goldberg, and Moriah Shining Dove Snyder.

Thomas (Koteas) is a cop who was very nearly a priest, but as he was undergoing his final weird-ass culty Catholic ceremony he had a vision from God about dying angels, and lost his faith. Called to the scene of a murder of a man with no eyes and the cellular structure of a fetus (Jeff Cadiente), he draws on his thesis about angels and gets drawn into a second War in Heaven, fought between two factions of angels. One, apparently led by Gabriel (Walken, in the role that defines this movie) feels that humans have usurped angels' rightful place as God's favorites. The other side, as represented by Simon (Stolz), feels that disobeying the Word is a always a bad idea.

This war has evidently been in stalemate for a long time, during which time no soul can enter Heaven (which is, like, a pretty big deal that almost gets glossed over). The anti-human angels want to harvest the darkest human soul they can find for ideas about how to win the war, and they hit on Colonel Hawthorne (Patrick McAlister), a sadist and cannibal who just died in a tiny town in Arizona. Simon grabs his soul and, wounded and pressed for time, stuffs is into the body of a young girl named Mary (Snyder), and all interested parties, including Mary's teacher Rachel (Madsen) converge to resolve all this.

This is a weird movie. It's actually a little hard to follow in places, and it doesn't spoon-feed you the mythology. But the performances make it, Walken in particular. His perching, impatient, misanthropic Gabriel is the perfect antagonist to Koteas' careful, devout, doubting Thomas (GET IT). Likewise, Mortensen only has a couple of scenes as Lucifer, but he's amazing and terrifying. I like, too, that the "weapon" used against Gabriel isn't some magic anti-angel sword or something, but just the little niggle of doubt used to weaken his faith. That definitely feels like something that Lucifer would give humans to fight an angel.

I think it's interesting that the soul gets expelled from Mary not in a Christian exorcism, but in a Native American ceremony (the soul is referred to as "the enemy ghost," which is about right). I'm always fascinated by the portrayal of spiritual metaphysics in movies where God exists, and the fact that the ritual works implies either that God isn't the only game in town or He allowed it to work, but that's a rabbit hole I'm not bothering with today.

My Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: Low

Next up: Pulp Fiction

Character Creation: Fuel Priest

Off we go, into the wild chargen yonder.

The Game: Fuel Priest
The Publisher: Timeless Caverns LLC, but buggered if I can find anywhere online you can buy the game
Degree of Familiarity: None, I've read it
Books Required: Just the one

Fuel Priest is an interesting, and more than a little disappointing, indie game, but there's a big asterisk by the word "disappointing." It's got a strong premise and it devotes a good amount of space to talking about the aesthetic of the game, how it looks and feels, and I don't know why, but as I get older I appreciate that kind of discussion more and more. There's a balancing act, sure - it's fine to have a game inspired by a particular piece of media, but I shouldn't feel like I'm reading a one-sheet for that movie or whatever (Edge of Midnight managed this nicely, whereas Damn the Man, Save the Music!, as much as I love Empire Records, feels kinda like a one-trick pony).

But with that said, Fuel Priest does sometimes feel like it has an aesthetic more than a setting. There's background info and some history, but there's also a lot of "make up your own shit." That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's definitely more narrative load on the players than, say, Blades in the Dark.

And, not to sound like a stuck record, but an example of play to see the mechanics in practice would have been awfully nice.

Well, let's make a Fuel Priest. All characters in this game are Fuel Priests, meaning that they were born with oil for blood, due to the miraculous intervention of the Maiden of Oil. They fly kick-ass airplane powered by the blood of the Priests - like, hooked up to spigots in the character's body. That's horrifying and evocative.

So, we start with the character's Creed. This requires me to pick one of the Words of the Maiden (the "words" are actually tenets of her moral code) and define how my character interprets it. If I were making this character with a group, I would have to have a Word in common with at least one other player, but then I could have one that isn't shared. Since it's just me, however, I shall choose two and move on with my life.

Well, one of the Words is "Do not suffer stagnation." I think that my character interprets that as a call to be watchful that a tradition or practice has outlived its usefulness. That is, "because it's how we've always done it" is a huge red flag, and if that's ever cited as a reason for doing something, it's time to change it.

And then I'll also pick "Be not selfish with your knowledge or your talents." My character interprets this to mean, basically, with power comes responsibility. If he has the ability to help, he has an obligation to do so.

Now I choose a specialization for each of the four parts to my airplane (Wings, Fuselage, Engine, Guns). For Wings, I'll pick Glider - I know about an intriguing secret area in every new place I visit. For Fuselage, I'll pick Ostentatious (once per takeoff or landing, I can direct all attention to myself). For Engine, I'll pick Aggressive - I can act first when things get tough, which I think is in line with my Creed. And for Guns, I'll take Jury Rigged (when I get violent, I can't stop until it's finished).

I get a tag from each part, so I'll take Leisurely, Supportive, Honest, and Stubborn.

Fuel and Favor are fixed values; I start with 2 Favor and therefore 6 Fuel, so that's easy.

Next up, I need to describe my Home Cathedral. I'm gonna say that my character's home is halfway up a mountain, and glider-style aircraft are very common for the poor to get down the mountain. Most of the time they have to climb back up, but the Old Money types can use personal hot air devices. The Maiden and Her teachings aren't very well received here, because tradition is huge. It largely revolves are gliders, kite flying, and other wind-related stuff. I picture a lot of colorful festivals that distract folks from the exploitation of the Old Money. The village is called Zephyr.

I need to define a Port in a Storm NPC, someone from Zephyr that grew up with my character but isn't a Priest. They share one tag with me, too. I'll say my NPC's name is Bayring, and he's a dyer - he helps make all those colorful kites and glider wings (and knows a bit about chemistry, too). He gets two tags, so I'll give him Supportive and Warm.

Finally, I have to define my character's look and and plane. I'll start with the plane, because I have an idea there. My plane is a glider that my character and Bayring modded out, fitted with an engine and guns, and then painted black in stark defiance of the colorful, happy gliders of Zephyr. However, at the flick of a switch, my character can ignite the oils on the guns, making the plane blaze with fire and smoke (hence the Ostentatious Fuselage). The plane is called the Harbinger.

My character's name is Erren. He's slim, square-jawed, and he's got black hair that tends to be singed in places. He's generally pretty laid-back, and despite his disdain for how tradition-bound his village is, the patience and calm required to ride air currents is something he's cultivated.

And that'll do it!

Movie #565: Princess Mononoke

Princess Mononoke is an animated film directed by Hayao Miyazaki and starring (in the English dub) Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Billy Bob Thorton, Gillian Anderson, Keith David, Minnie Driver, and Jada Pinkett Smith.

Ashitaka (Crudup) is a warrior-prince living in a village on the edge of a huge forest, and gets cursed by a boar-spirit infected with squirmy demon worms. Doomed to die from the curse, he accepts exile from his village (tough crowd, man) and travels to find the great spirit of the forest, hoping for a cure or at least clarity. He winds up stumbling into a war between Lady Uboshi (Driver), a ruthless warrior women trying to wipe out the animal-spirits of the mountain in her quest for iron; Jigo (Thorton), a greedy monk looking to take the head of the great spirit for the emperor; and the animal spirit-gods themselves, including Moro the Wolf-goddess (Anderson) and Okkoto the Boar-god (David).

That all sounds delightfully straightforward, but the movie does not rush. Like a like of Miyazaki films, it doesn't so much move slowly as it does take all the time it needs, and as a result, there's a lot of fun, gory action (Ashitaka being quite capable of decapitating a motherfucker with an arrow) interspersed with long sequences of travel, talk, and exposition. Also characteristically for the director, the "villains" have motivations, life, and feelings, and sure, they do horrible things, but they're treated fairly within the story (and none of the main characters die).

The titular Princess Mononoke is actually San (Danes), the human adopted daughter of Moro, but she's not any more important to the story than anyone else. The story is long, sprawling epic, and nowadays I think you'd see it as a miniseries rather than a single movie (but this came out in 1997).

The animation is beautiful, and the more adult themes and visuals are a nice shift from My Neighbor Totoro and so on. Miyazaki definitely has a signature style but you can't say he just does the same thing over and over. The English voice cast is also pretty impressive. Keith David in particular does a really amazing job calling what he thinks are his boar warriors to his side while he's dying of his wounds.

All in all, it's an evocative and moving film, probably one of Miyazaki's best.

My Grade: A
Rewatch Value: Low

Next up: The Prophecy

Character Creation: The Last Parsec

Meant to do this on May 4th, but then didn't. All of life is strife and uncertainty, and we should long for the cold blackness of space.

The Game: The Last Parsec
The Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment Group 
Degree of Familiarity: None with this particular game, but it's Savage Worlds and I know that well enough
Books Required: More than usual! The Last Parsec, Savage Worlds and the Sci-Fi Companion

I have to say, as I was reading this book, I felt kind of disappointed. For one thing, the prose is dry. It feels like a very human-o-centric, boilerplate hard sci-fi setting, and then you get to the "alien" races, and they're all presented through the lens of humanity interacting with them. One of the races, the k'ho, are called "yetis," and the text makes clear that they don't like to be called that, that's just what humans call them because "k'ho" sounds more like a cough than a word.

Leaving aside the fact that I'm quite sure that there are languages spoken on Earth that would have no problem producing the "cough"-like phonemes required for the k'ho language, I guess I'm finding the presentation of the races...pedestrian? Maybe it's because I just finished reading The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, but one of the things I loved about that setting was that humanity wasn't some uber-smart or uber-ambitious or uber-anything race that charged into space and whipped out its space-dong and was like "OK, fuckers, we're here! Ooh, those aliens are lizards! We'll call them saurians!" Instead, humanity was one more race among many, and the other races have their foibles, too, and everyone has to bend a little to accommodate everyone else in space.

The other problem I have with the game is that I don't get any sense of what it's really about. The book doesn't have an introduction, it just starts off with history of space colonization. It's really just a setting, and it's a pretty well-realized one, but there's no hook except "planetary exploration." Maybe it's enough, I don't know, but it kinda left me indifferent.

Anyway, I'm gonna make one of those k'ho characters, because I like 'em.

Oh, wait, this is cute. The Last Parsec book doesn't actually tell me the racial hindrances and edges for any of the races. Rather, I can figure them out from the stock characters in the book, and from other products in the line, but why in the hell wouldn't they be in the core book? Am I missing something here? It says "core" right on the damn spine of the book.

Well, whatever. As a "yeti" my character gets an environmental weakness to heat, but a resistance to cold (makes sense). I have a Low Tech hindrance because my big ol' paws don't work with a lot of human or human-facing tech (see what I mean about the human-centric nature of this? Isn't more fun and more interesting to think about what accommodations might be made for other species and how that all works together, rather than saying "paws too big lol"?). On the plus side, I'm big n' strong (+2 to Toughness and Strength starts at a d6).

Guess I should think about concept. One of the things about the k'ho is that they tend to learn as much as they need to about a given device or subject and no more, unless they're taught, meaning they might be fluent in language concepts about an area of expertise but not so much in other topics. That's really interesting, but there are no mechanics associated with it, so it's not important. I like the idea of my character seeming like a big dumb brute on most topics "yeah, me lift, grunt" and then getting just downright erudite when you hit its area of concern.

I think I'll say my k'ho is a miner. I get a free Knowledge Skill in a topic of my choice equal to my Smarts, so I'll say that's Mining. Beyond that, I'll say my k'ho (let's call him Gater; it's actually pronounced with a tap in the middle and a trill at the end, but most humans don't bother and just say it like it rhymes with "water") is quite capable of doing the physical work of mining, but is also very knowledgeable about the science of it - what rocks are useful to be made into ore or fuel, what minerals are volatile and explode, which ones burn blue, and so on.

So, standard Savage Worlds chargen, I get 5 dice to split between Attributes, and a free one in Strength. I'll distribute them evenly, I think; I don't want anything at a d4.

Skills, then. 15 points, as usual. Any new ones? Nope. OK, Climbing looks good. Fighting, doy. Intimidation seems like a gimme. Notice is never a bad idea, and Repair makes sense, though maybe just at a d4. Survival, too.

Well, that's a d6 in all of those except Repair, and that still leaves me 4 more points. Anything I bump except Climbing will cost two points, though. I'll put a third point into Knowledge (Mining) and a third point into Fighting because I know how Savage Worlds games are.

Have to say, so far I'm not see the utility of the Sci-Fi Companion. Oh, wait, the races are in there! What the fuck, guys, why would you not include a page number in the Last Parsec book. Good grief.

All right, well, that's that cleared up, then. Anyway, Edges and Hindrances. Do I wish to take more Hindrances? Bet your ass. There are some new ones in the Companion, so let's check that out. I'll take FTL Sickness (I take a level of Fatigue after going FTL), that's a Minor. I'll take Greedy as a Minor. It's not that Gater actually is greedy, that's just the paradigm of miners, so that's the approach he takes.

And then for the Major, I'll take One Leg. Gater lost his right leg in a mining accident, and while cyber and cloned replacements exist for other races, they're just not easy to come by for "yetis." As such, he's got a prosthesis, but it's just a fake leg. Doesn't even have fur.

Four "points," then. Do I wish to buy an Edge? Gravitic Acclimation isn't bad, and would make sense of Gater winds up on asteroids and such a lot. Let's check the core. Ooh, Brawler is good, too (really should have taken that instead of the extra die in Fighting, but eh). I'll take those two and call it a day.

So! My Charisma is 0, my Pace is 4, my Parry is 6, Toughness is 7. Normally I'd have to buy equipment, but eh. Mining gear, I think, is the big concern.

Gater is just over 7 feet tall (about average for his race), and weighs better than 500 lbs. His fur was pretty white when he left his homeworld, but it's gotten stained with various minerals and ores over time, so it's got patches of blue, black, green, and even a shockingly bright orange right around where he lost his leg. Gater speaks in monosyllables and has no grip on syntax until he starts talking about mining, then he sounds like a geology expert. That would be fun to play, anyway.

That's that, then!

Blue Rose: Into the Sunshine

Roses are blue, violets are fragrant, why murder-hobo when you can kill-vagrant. Here's last time.

Darkfiends drop from the ceiling like cockroaches in a cheap motel! They surround our heroes and charge in, their fingers and fangs dripping poison. Most of them attack Kisha, trying to get to the Mask, and they manage to do some damage before Arlen calls on Purifying Light. It drives back most of the darkfiends and they scuttle to the walls, hissing at the heroes.

Arlen hands the map to Whirlpool to figure out which of the three exits from this room is the right one, and he susses it out pretty quickly. But then the heroes hear a horrific voice in their heads, petulantly demanding the light that Arlen wields. Kisha considers their options; they think about trying to destroy the shadowgate above their heads, but the sea-folk they talked to said that this gate doesn't seem to want to budge. They decide to handle the Mask and come back for the gate later, maybe.

They head for the exit, but the voice returns and screams at the darkfiends to stop them and get the Mask, even if they have to burn. The ceiling shifts and starts closing off the exit as some of the darkfiends force their way into the light, crying out in pain all the while. Pansy and Whirlpool throw themselves under the collapsing rock, and Kisha tosses the Mask, too. But now Dobbin, Kisha, and Arlen are stuck in the room with the darkfiends, while Whirlpool is trapped in a tunnel with the Mask (and Pansy, of course, who frantically digs at the stone).

Kisha uses Psychic Contact to tell Whirlpool to use his trident as a lever, while Kisha does the same thing from her side using her staff. They manage, with a great deal of effort, to lift the rock enough that the others can crawl under it, but now they have a conundrum: Kisha is holding up the rock. Arlen has to concentrate to maintain the light. How are they all going to get through?

Dobbin holds off the darkfiends with some arrows, and then dives under the boulder. Arlen follows, and then Kisha's grip slips and the rock starts to shift (Whirlpool, fortunately, has managed to brace it well on his end). The darkfiends bite at Kisha and nearly kill her, but Arlen casts Move Object and yanks Kisha under the rock, pulling her to safety.

Whirlpool and Arlen help Kisha with her wounds, and the party presses on, eventually emerging from the dark tunnels into the light. They're standing on an island in the Leviathan's Teeth. It's sunny and spring-like, and the small island boasts only one notable feature: a tomb, right in the middle, covered in moss and vines and lovely blossoms.

The heroes sit and rest. Their quest is almost at an end, and yet, this might be the hardest part.

Movie #564: The Princess Bride

The Princess Bride is a late-80s movie based on the book by William Goldman, and stars Carey Elwes, Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Andre the Giant, Fred Savage, Peter Falk, Chris Sarandon, and Christopher Guest. It's one the most quotable damn movies ever.

A young boy (Savage) is sick and being read a story by his grandfather (Falk). Within the story, Buttercup (Wright) falls in love with Wesley (Elwes), who is supposedly killed by pirates, but, in fact, returns to the kingdom of Florin to find that Buttercup has become engaged to Prince Humperdink (Sarandon). Into this mix we have a Spaniard out to avenge his father, murdered these twenty years (Patinkin), a giant with a penchant for rhymes (Andre the Giant), and the torture obsessed, six-fingered Count Rugen (Guest), who, as it happens, murdered Inigo's father all those years ago.

The story is, all in all, pretty basic - Buttercup is kidnapped, Wesley and friends have to go rescue her. But it's basic in a way that's appropriate, because it's a fairy tale, and the framing device of this story being told to the initially skeptical grandson (which we come back to every so often during the movie) reminds the audience what tropes are important - true love winning the day being the big one.

Watching the documentary about making the movie, it's pretty clear that this was a labor of love for just about everyone involved. Patinkin, especially, is moving, because he used the movie as catharsis for the death of his own father (he chose to see Rugen as the cancer that killed his father, making his line "I want my father back, you son of a bitch" resonate pretty heavily). Fezzik the giant doesn't have as strong an arc in the movie, but Andre the Giant loved the experience because no one looked at him twice during filming. And, of course, Rob Reiner and William Goldman had tried for years to see this movie to fruition.

Sure, Buttercup could stand to do a little more, and sure, there's a bit of discomfort when you think about the fact that since Wesley is now the Dread Pirate Roberts, that apparently means he kills a lot of people, but again, fairy tale. These aren't things the viewer has to worry about because they're not things that the story thinks are important.

I have to say, too, that having read the book that this is based on, I'm really glad they went with the approach they did, rather than taking the whiny protagonist self-insert Goldman used in the book. That would have been a pity party start to finish, whereas the movie as it stands is just a story about love in simplistic, childlike terms.

My Grade: A
Rewatch Value: High

Next up: Princess Monoke

Shadow of the Demon Lord: Arise, Homraz!

Today we "met" (zoom!) for another session of Shadow of the Demon Lord.

Last time, the party cleared the fifth stronghold of Nar, but in the process, the twins (Veni and Genevieve) were accosted by dwarven militia. They escaped, naturally, the slippery little devils.

Some weeks later, Dagmar, Bashir, and Mayfly all walk through various doors (into a glazier's shop, a garden, and a little mini door of unknown providence, respectively) and find themselves in a stable. The stable holds thousands of stalls, each one housing a pale horse, and his name who tends them is Father Death.

Father Death greets the characters and says that he wished to congratulate them on killing the Herald of the Demon Lord, Crusius. They ask him what else needs to be done, and he says that the Shadow of the Demon Lord can be driven back, but doing that requires finding where it's falling. Mayfly mentions wondering if it was designed to be the key of Crusius, or if the lock was designed around it, and Father Death says that they could ask Mayfly's creator, if they'd like. Mayfly declines.

Dagmar asks if Queen Moira was a demon, and Father Death says no, just a woman. Dagmar laments that; it would have been easier to reconcile themself with the murder if Moira had been evil. The group notes that if anyone knows where the Shadow has taken root in the Holy Kingdom, it might be her. Father Death has them mount some of his horses (except Mayfly, who rides with Dagmar) and they zip across the skies to the Underworld.

Along the way, they see the Urth as Father Death sees it - billions of tiny lights, and every so often one turns blue and Death seems distracted. Bashir asks what happens then, and Death responds that someone just died and he had to take them to the Underworld, too. Bashir remarks that this is impressive, and Father Death replies that you have to be able to multitask to be Death.

They arrive at the gates to the Underworld, and Death warns them that staying here for any length of time might have side effects for the living. They wander the tunnels, noting the many restless shades, people apparently made of blue smoke that are slowly losing their coherence. They find Queen Moira's shade sitting on her throne, and Death tells them that to talk with her, they'll have to give up some life.

Bashir and Dagmar cut their arms and bleed into her smoke, making the Queen solid for a moment. She recognizes them and asks what they're doing here, and all three apologize - they didn't know what Genevieve was planning, though they should have realized or at least suspected it. Moira asks if Genevieve has been brought to justice, and they say that she's escaped for the moment, but Moira notes that it wouldn't change anything anyway.

The characters ask her if she knows about the Holy Kingdom's demonic infiltration. She tells them that the relationship between the Church and the monarchy has been tenuous for a long time, but previous rulers were happy to be figureheads. She, however, wanted to actually do something for the kingdom, and was trying to shift the center of power a bit. Her spy, Oballa, has a better sense of where the bodies are buried, so to speak, and she was going to get that briefing after she met with the characters.

Dagmar asks if there's a way to convey to Oballa that they've spoken, and Moira recites a two-part phrase in High Archaic, which she and Oballa use as an identifier.

At this point, Father Death notices an orc wandering through the tunnels. Bashir recognizes him as Homraz the Glorious, a former pit fighter turned mercenary (for his party, Homraz recognizes Bashir as one of Drudge's guards). Father Death asks how Homraz got into the Underworld, and Homraz notes that he's not the smartest of orcs on the best of days.

Father Death suddenly stiffens up and says "Wait, something's...I'll be back." He vanishes, leaving the characters more than a little concerned. Queen Moira, the last bit of blood running out of her, stands up and starts shuffling down the tunnel. They ask why, and she says "We're free. We're rising back to the flesh."

This is not a good turn of events. The characters mount their pale steeds and head for the gates. When they get there, they find that Father Death is covered in a horrible, viscous shadow, spilling out from a crack in the world. A massive demon stalks around him.

And that's all Homraz the Glorious needs to see. He charges in and smacks the demon with his ax. The demon grabs him in its huge pincer claw, but Homraz flies into a berserk rage and chops off said claw. The demon teleports over to the others and slashes at them, but Homraz keeps coming. Bashir makes his way to Father Death and attacks the shadow-goop on him; it seems to work, but it's a process.

The demon continues teleporting around and ripping up Bashir and Dagmar, but Dagmar shoots it in the throat and Homraz chops a big hole in it, and finally Bashir crushes its skull with his maul. Smaller demons emerge from the void as the characters beat away at the shadow holding Father Death fast, but they manage to sever it and Homraz crushes the little bastard.

Father Death tells the characters they need to round up the fleeing souls, so they mount the steeds and chase down the shades, driving them back into the Underworld ("yah!"). But the Void is still there, roiling like an angry sea. Mayfly enters Divine Ecstasy and tries to determine how to banish it, but can't quite figure it out. Dagmar points their magic knife at the Void, and learns that it can be banished from here, but not how.

Finally, they do what they all do best: Mayfly and Dagmar shoot it, Bashir and Homraz smack it, and all the while willing it to close and begone. The Void shrivels up and vanishes, and Father Death thanks them - they've saved him from falling under the Shadow and saved Urth from whatever that would have resulted in.

The Shadow of the Demon Lord falls in two more places - the Holy Kingdom and the Empire of Caecras. Drudge is under the Shadow, hence the fall of the Empire and the rise of the orcs, but the rightful king is Horus of Tear. The characters decide to go there, to try and suss out the situation with Horus, rather than risk going back to the Holy Kingdom where they're wanted criminals.

They emerge from a gateway (courtesy of Father Death) into the countryside of Tear, and begin a long walk to the nearest city.