Movie #599: Road House

Road House is a late-80s action flick starring Patrick Swayze, Sam Elliott, Kelly Lynch, Ben Gazzara, Marshall Teague, Sunshine Parker, Jeff Healey, Kevin Tighe, and John Young. 

Dalton (Swayze) is a professional bouncer and cooler living in New York. He's something of a legend on the bar scene (I mean, I guess if you work in bars, there might be people in the profession that gain a reputation, though "famous bouncer" just sounds odd on the face of it), and is hired away to a small town in Missouri by a businessman named Tilghman (Tighe). Tilghman has a bar called the Double Deuce and the locals are just way too rowdy. The house band is pretty dope, though, seeing as how it's the Jeff Healey band (Jeff Healey plays a supporting role as Cody, a friend of Dalton's). 

So Dalton gets there, disrupts everything by firing the bouncers that suck/deal drugs/bang patrons in the stockroom/steal, and this means he runs afoul of Brad Wesley (Gazzara), Evil Bad Guy and owner of the world's douchiest name. Wesley owns this town, see, and he's not gonna put up with anyone coming in here and preventing him from openly extorting everyone in town. 

(A slight aside: One of the things Wesley brags about is that he's been good for the town, bringing in shit like a 7-11, and soon there's going to be a JC Penny. And I'm like, does he think he's going to walk into a JC Penny and try to extort them for 10%? 'Cause I want to see that scene.)

Anyway, Dalton falls in love with an ER doc (Lynch), his mentor Wade (Elliott) comes to visit to help out, and while they continue to annoy Wesley, Wade gives Dalton some very good advice: Fucking leave. Wesley is nuts, he's quite happy to blow shit up/burn shit down to keep his power base, and unless you're willing to make this personal, you should bounce (but like, "bounce" meaning "leave," not "bounce" meaning "kick troublemakers out of bars"). Dalton does not bounce, Wade winds up stabbed, and Dalton goes on a rampage in Wesley's mansion, culminating in the best moment in the movie that doesn't involve Swayze or Elliott:

Road House gets slotted into the "so bad it's good" genre sometimes, but I think it kinda works. Sure, there are some things that are flat-out ridiculous (Brad Wesley literally blowing up buildings without any response from any authority comes to mind; sure, he pays off the cops, but like, he pays off the DAs, the judges, the firefighters, the ATF?). The reason I think it works, though, is that the movie takes enough time to let us get to know the supporting cast and see the town (and the bar) working and changing. Wesley isn't just stealing money, he's squeezing a community, and because the movie doesn't shy away form letting us meet the people of that community, there's actually some weight when the auto parts store burns down or Emmett (Parker) nearly dies in a barn explosion. 

Likewise, while we never quite learn about Dalton's past entirely, we learn enough to know him and what he's about. The only thing that really rattles him is when people bring up the fact that he killed a dude, and then when he has to do it again (when facing off against Teague's Jimmy, whose super-power is that he escaped from a GI Joe cartoon), there's some emotional payoff. 

As is often the case in movies like this, the romance is the bit I find difficult. Not because it's entirely unfounded (there are some ethical concerns with doctors dating their patients, but eh, she stables his side once at the ER and there's no hint that that the doctor/patient relationship goes any further), but because Kelly Lynch doesn't actually seem that interested, even when she's clearly supposed to be. Also the spray tan isn't really doing her any favors, but that's a small point. 

This is all more analysis than Road House probably deserves, but then, the first cut of the movie was supposedly 3 hours long and went into the supporting cast a lot more, and I'd...actually kind of like to see it, so what's that say?

Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: High

Next up: Road to Bali

Character Creation: Terror Thirteen

Happy Thanksgiving Eve! Here's a character from a game that has nothing to do with Thanksgiving. Gobble gobble.

The Game: Terror Thirteen
The Publisher: Anansi Games
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one, and it's a free download

Terror Thirteen is a horror game that focuses, according to the book itself, on Gothic horror, dark romance, and Victorian-style stories. I can get behind that. Horror is a many-splendored thing, and a focus on a particular flavor of horror (or at least some knobs you can tweak to focus things yourself) is a good idea.

Reading the book, Conflicts are determine who gets narrative control, which is fine, kind of works similarly to Misspent Youth. Reading the example of play (and thank you from the bottom of my little heart to the author for an example of play that actually illustrates how play works), it looks like the Narrator's stakes in a Conflict might run up against that old bugaboo of investigative games, the old "if you don't win you don't find the clue," but that's a real superficial reading, so I might be wrong. What I did note was that consequences for Conflicts and so forth translate to Statuses, so if you go off by yourself you've got the Alone Status, and doing that can add Hope to the pool, which is a shared resource to influence die rolls. Likewise, there's a Terror Level that rises, and once the Terror Level hits 13, the Greater Evil (OMG So Many Capitalized Words) can awaken. Tension mechanics in horror games are cool. 

So! With all of that in mind, how does chargen work? It's point-buy! Sweet Christmas, my favorite! And there's not one but two examples of chargen! The setup for the example characters is 1931 London, and the characters given are a psychiatrist and her brother. I believe I shall make a character within this paradigm, how about. 

In contrast to the more straight-laced and, one might say, stuffy characters that we're introduced to, I believe my character will be an enthusiastic participant in the Bright Young Things movement. Likewise, I have a theme song courteously provided by Michelle ("Needles & Pins," The Searchers).

(Older song, but by no means contemporaneous with the setting.)

The song suggests to me someone who has gone through a break-up and either been transformed and learned from the experience, or who is getting some extreme sour grapes. Maybe both. I shall say that my character is, like many Bright Young Things, a socialite and comes from money. His name is Wendall Bateman (his friends call him Wendy). 

Let's assume Wendy is an Average Joe, and as such is built on a 100-point base. Costs for things are in a handy table: 

And I don't have to worry about Occult Skills or Dark Powers 'cause I can't take 'em. 

Stats! 3 is Average, and I've got four to think about: Body, Mind, Soul, Charm. I'm thinking Wendy needs Charm to be high and the others can be pretty much average, so let's just Charm to...is there a max? There is, it's 5, although one of the example characters goes to 6 in one of her Skills (booo). Well, assuming they mean it about the maximum, I'll put Charm there. That costs 22 points (16 for the first four, 6 for the fifth). Ugh, spendy. Average in the other three would be 36, for a total of 58 points spent. 

Skills! I can't take Occult Skills, so what do I want?

Art 2
Art History 1
Athletics 2
Bluff 2
Boxing 2
Debate 2
Endurance 3
Etiquette 3
Firearms (Large) 1
History 1
Literature 1
Music 1
Perception 3
Philosophy 1
Put-Down 3
Riding 1
Seduction 3

That's 32 points, and it gives me a smattering of fairly useful things, plus some things Wendy's better at by dint of going on drunken nighttime adventures in London (I like the idea of him being able to play the dozens and win social combats). I've spent 90 points, ugh, getting low.

Backgrounds! I think Wealth is here somewhere and I need that...yep, that's a Background. I think Wealth 2 is plenty (hey, second rich character in a row). That leaves me 8 points, because the other Backgrounds are kinda eh. I do need to buy some Bonds, though, so let's think about Wendy's story. 

Wendy, in contrast to another young hedonist character I made not long ago, isn't jaded or nihilistic or in too big of a drug-fueled haze. He's young - just 19, let's say, and he's out with his friends all the time, going to fancy dress parties or otherwise galavanting around London. I think he was courting a young woman named Patricia, and they were talking about getting married (their families didn't seem to disapprove), but then one day, Patricia wrote him a letter saying they had to break it off and she could never see him again. He doesn't know why, but he's heard rumors that she's remained on her country estate, and has been seen with a very well-dressed, but unknown, young man, possibly from the Continent (there's a hook, Narrator). 

Now, I could take Patricia or my broken heart as a Background, but I'd rather have her as a Bond, because there's a system for resolving those in a few various ways. So I'll take Patricia, My Lost Love as a 4-point Bond, leaving me 4 more points. I'll put two into a Bond with the Bright Young Things movement, and the other two...hmm. There's no Streetwise Skill, but the book does say that the Skill list isn't exhaustive, so let's take 2 points in Streetwise. 

That's all my points, then. Wendy is young, smooth-faced, sandy-haired. His father died in the Great War, and his mother never really recovered, so he's not terribly close to most of his family. He likes them well enough, but they do seem melancholy a lot, and he was a brimming optimist before Patricia broke his heart. Now he's...a little more circumspect, a little wiser, and still smarting a little, but still totally down for dressing up as a mongoose and going on a treasure hunt. 

And that's it!

Slipstream: Pirates and Rock-Men

As the dumpster fire that is 2020 enters its last few weeks, our intrepid heroes of space opera continue their trek...

When we last left our heroes, they were on a merchant ship bound for the fragment Mechanos, where Zeenia intends to buy a ship in order to go after her kidnapped paramour. But explosions rock the ship, and the Lion Woman noble that was traveling near them charges into the ship's interior to see what's going on. And what's going is...space pirates!

The pirates have blown a hole in the side of the ship (remember this is pulp, so there's no problem with the vacuum of space or anything) and are boarding. Lady Roara, the Lion Person, charges in with her vibro-knife as her bodyguards fall to a hail of ray gun fire, and Zeenia is close behind, brandishing her sword. 

The pirate captain, a crystalline alien, steps forward, ray gun in hand, and says "Attention! I am Officer Ioptis, and I am taking this ship and all its cargo! Surrender!"

Iris, not to be outdone, blows a hole in the wall (since the only door to the room with the melee is pretty choked), steps through and delivers her challenge: "I am Iris Blue, daughter of Orchid Blue, of the Daikini Valkyria, and you are not taking this ship!" 

Ioptis sneers, and yells "Get her!" and the battle is joined. Oola stays in the back and offers support, and the others battle with blades. Ioptis fires a shot at Roara, and misses, and then charges into battle with Iris (who's already holding her own against three pirates). He stabs Iris and laughs with evil glee...

...but behind him, Zeenia beheads one of the pirates. She slides into Ioptis' field of vision and throws the head at him, and tells him to withdraw. Ioptis, not at all expecting to see that, falls back with his surviving pirates and they slide down their magnetic cables to their ship...vowing vengeance.

But the ordeal isn't over yet! The captain's voice comes over the announcer as the ship goes into a flat spin. The characters strap themselves in and the ship crashes on a barren, rocky fragment, with no sign of life anywhere.

Roara thanks the characters for their help, and Oola patches Iris up some. The characters hang out while Captain Amet and his people work on the ship, but it's badly damaged and it takes some time. Iris patrols the area trying to make sure the pirates aren't going to circle back, while Oola tends to the other passengers and Xeenia walks around with her sword trying to look noble. And then they hear a scream from one of the passengers!

A small group of rock-men are converging on the ship. "Heretics! You have trod on our sacred ground, and must be punished!" they roar. Xeenia steps out in front and tries to get them to parley, but one of the rock-creatures just strikes at her, shoving her back. Iris fires her ray-gun at one of them, but misses - she's not in good shape, despite Oola's ministrations.

Oola, however, saves the day. She gets the attention of the one of the rock-men and assures it that they're going to get off this fragment very soon, just as soon as the ship is fixed. With Roara backing her up, they convince the rock-men to stand down, and they tell the characters they have until "the plains settle," whatever that means, to clear out.

It's close, but Amet manages to get the ship functional just as the rock-men are waking up and starting to converge. The ship takes off, and some time later touches down on Mechanos. Roara takes her leave of them, but tells them to visit the fragment of Simba, the Lion Man homeworld (no, not kidding), because her father will want to thank them for fighting alongside her. 

Next time, however, it's time to buy a damn ship.

Character Creation: API SW

Some alphabet soup, there.

The Game: Apocalypse Prevention, Inc (Savage Worlds Edition)
The Publisher: Third Eye Games
Degree of Familiarity: Pretty conversant in Savage Worlds, never played API
Books Required: Savage Worlds Deluxe Edition and the API book

Apocalypse Prevention, Inc is...well, I did a character for the first edition of the game way back in 2013 (a simpler, more pleasant time in so many ways). The game didn't especially grab me and I couldn't tell you much about the system, but it was also quite a while ago and I've never actually played the game, which is about the only way a system sticks with me. Reading over that character now, it looks like the conversion to Savage Worlds will simplify things quite a bit (usually does). 

The premise is the same, though. It's not a million miles from Hellboy, concept-wise. The characters work for the titular organization trying to...prevent apocalypses, I guess. We've got a bunch of playable races, many of which are broadly called "demons," but the game uses that as shorthand for "supernatural beings." One of the choices is Spectrals (ghosts), and I was thinking about that, in light of my theme song.

Oh, right, my gf Jenni gave me a theme song! Happens to be a song I already knew and loved. 

So, at first glance the song would seem to point to making a human character, and maybe it does, but the line "Some people think I can solve them" kinda points to something else, maybe? There's a race called "oracles," which are demons that can see the future, but bring luck. I think that works. Now, they're listed as "illegal playable races," so does that mean API just kills them out of hand? Let's see!

Ugh. Well, no, it doesn't say that. It does say that API might keep them contained with "powerful luck magic" to make use of their ability to see the future. Gotta say, the systems here...aren't great. I mean, I don't know, I haven't done a lot of design with Savage Worlds and I could be totally wrong about this, but penalizing certain skill checks isn't something I see a lot in SW books, but it pops up a lot in these characters. Also, the oracles' propensity for bad luck is mechanic'd by having everyone around them suffer a cumulative -1 penalty per day that caps out at -4. In SW, a -4 penalty is some shit; that's the equivalent of needing a raise on every check just to be successful. Also, when does the reset happen? If the oracle fucks off for a day, does the "clock" reset? I can think of a couple of more elegant ways to represent this idea. 

Well, anyway, since I'm not going to play this game, I'm going to make an oracle character and just not worry about whether it's "illegal." Let's assume my character, Dante Brown (it's not his real name, of course, because he's actually an extradimensional demon), works with API because he stumbles into their missions by "accident" (really, of course, he's following his visions). He's kind of a wandering sage, happy to help API keeping the world from ending or other demons from killing a lot of people, but he doesn't trust the organization at all. He came to Earth because of a dream he had involving a shady (like, literally shady, not sketchy) valley covered in moss, and buried in that valley was an artifact that API is going to need to like, actually prevent an apocalypse. But he doesn't know where the valley is or when he's actually going to see it, so he keeps up with API. Once he finds the valley, though, he's going the hell back to his home dimension. If possible. 

Dante is, like all oracles, pale skinned and has dark hair. Unlike most oracles, though, he's husky. Still has the pointy ears and the weird diamond shaped eyes and the third eye on his forehead, but he's not fine and willowy. Bit of a chonk, is what I'm saying. He favors hand-knitted sweaters. 

Cool, so, as an oracle, I get Future Sight and Path of Fortunes (I have to say, I don't grok the magic system here, gotta dig into it again) as racial Edges, and Blackouts, Fickle Fortune, and Outsider as racial Hindrances. Groovy, on to Attributes. 

Now, Vigor is doubly expensive to raise at chargen, which blows. I'm tempted to leave Agility at a d4. That'll limit my Skills a bit, but oracles also get a +1 to all Fighting and Shooting rolls, so I have a little bit of an edge there. OK, I'll leave Agility at d4, I'll bump Smarts to d8, Spirit to d6, Strength I'll leave at d4, and I'll put Vigor up to d6 (which costs 2 points, so that's all 5). I might bump up Strength later, though.

Skills! They're not on the sheet, argh. No matter. API uses Guts, too. Let's see. Guess I need to figure out how magic works in case I need a Skill for it.

Oh, lord. OK, so it looks like you need a Spellcasting skill (no word on whether you need an Arcane Background Edge, but it looks like not), but then it also looks like every spell counts as its own skill, and you can raise a given spell to add upgrades? Also, it says that you need an Edge to cast spells, but then a bunch of the races say you get access to a given Path - so does that mean I don't need an Edge to cast Path of Fortune spells? Oh, wait, you don't need a Spellcasting skill, just a separate skill for each spell. Blah.

The two 1st Circle Fortune Spells are nicely simple, though - Hex (-2 to an action) or Luck (+2 to an action). I guess I'll sink a d4 into each of those (I don't get upgrades until d8 and it's not worth it). 

In addition to that, I'll put d4s in Fighting, Gambling, Healing, Investigation, Lockpicking, Notice, Persuasion, Stealth, Streetwise, and Tracking. Oh, Knowledge (Occult) sounds good, too. That leaves me one more point; I'll stick that in Knowledge, too.

And now Hindrances. Are any of the ones in API worth taking? Actually, yeah. I like Combat Fear (I discard any initiative card higher than 10) and Shy (-1 to Intimidation and Persuasion rolls). I can take one more Minor. I'll take Quirk - he's always knitting. Yes, that means he could stab a bitch with knitting needles, but he'd rather not. They're expensive. 

That gives me 4 "points" to play with. I'll bump up my Strength to d6 with two of them. Would I like an Edge? Ooh, wait, I forgot a Training Package! Just basically a few Skills for free, nothing fancy. I'll take Good Cop, which gives me Persuasion d6 and Streetwise d4 for free, and frees up 2 skill points for me. Oh, also, I get Illegal as a Minor Hindrance automatically, so I don't need to take Quirk. I like it, though. I'll ditch Shy. I'll put those other two points into Fighting to boost it to d6. 

Anyway, do I want an Edge? Actually, yeah, I think I do. I'll take Rich - Dante won the lottery shortly after arriving on Earth. Not, like, a 10-figure Powerball, but enough that he doesn't need to work and he doesn't worry about driving around and getting in adventures. (And also, it means when he's on mission with API folks, he pays for everything, which goes a long way towards them not killing him.)

OK, then! Charisma 0, Pace 6, Parry 5, Toughness 5, and that's me done! I actually quite like Dante, though I don't necessarily fancy playing this particular game. Although I don't know, I'd probably give it a whirl if someone was running it. 

Chill: GTA

Today we got on Zoom and played Chill, last time is here, here we go. 

We left our envoys on the side of the road. We pick up the next morning. Mohammed's body has been taken to the coroner, and Vicki's father is in the hospital. He's gotten a bunch of stitches and the doctors think they managed to save his fingers (there was some doubt). Vicki spent the night at the hospital. Dylan, too, has been admitted - he broke down after seeing Mohammed die, and he's under psych observation. 

The next morning, Manny gets up and drives around for a while before going to get coffee and visiting Vicki. Beth Anne likewise gets up and heads to the hospital, as does Jennifer. They meet up in the lobby and decide to take it easy this morning and meet up later in the day to continue their investigation. 

Beth Anne starts going through her journals - she kept these logs of her "adventures" from when she was young, when she hung out with her "imaginary friend" Jaworsky. Jennifer asks her about the black shape she saw enveloping Beth Anne last night, but Beth Anne isn't entirely forthcoming. She and Jennifer look through these records, and Jennifer notices a black shape drawn in the margins, kind of similar to what she saw law night. She also notices that some of these "adventures" read like someone starting to exhibit signs of schizophrenia, but then, some of them look like records of Unknown investigations. Beth Anne, meanwhile, notes that sometimes a detail will come up in one "adventure" and then become relevant in a later one. 

They're looking for details that can help with this case, but it's eluding them. And then Beth Anne hears a whisper - You've seen this before. Don't you remember, Bethy? Beth Anne answers, and proceeds to have a full-on conversation with this unseen voice while Jennifer watches, disconcerted. She finally asks Beth Anne what's going on and tries to get her to open up, and Beth Anne nearly does, but then stops herself. Jennifer uses Telepathic Empathy and realizes that Beth Anne is not afraid of the voice in her head, it's familiar to her. It's also not controlling her, but there is definitely an Unknown presence here. 

Meanwhile, Vicki and Manny are cruising around, and Manny winds up driving to the scene of the fight last night. Manny and Peedee get out and look around, and find that the dogs came from across the road (so heading from the park), but one dog ran into the road and then the others followed. It looks like one deliberately acted as a decoy to get the car to stop - these dogs are smarter than they thought. Manny and Vicki try tracking the paw prints back, but they lose them in a field before the Military Reserve park begins. They decide to call in the others. 

By this time, Jennifer and Beth Anne have left the hospital and are getting coffee. They walk over to the park and the envoys start looking around. Vicki gets out her GPS and notes where the attacks have taken place - it's actually a pretty small area around Military Reserve. They start heading across the field (most of which is mowed and maintained, but some is pretty wild and has patches of dandelions and other weeds). 

Vicki Senses the Unknown, and feels some residual presence around the field - but a much stronger presence around Beth Anne. She notes this and asks why it's happening, and uses Follow the Strings to confirm that Beth Anne isn't being mind-controlled or possessed (she's not). Beth Anne, however, panics and runs. The other envoys chase her, but don't manage to catch up, and Beth Anne runs toward the park and arrives at a place called Friendship Square, a house for rent for meetings and overnights and suchlike.

She sees some young girls, maybe 11 or 12, getting out of cars with sleeping bags. Looks like an overnight. Beth Anne, though, is still panicked. She runs over, jumps in a car, and drives off. The car's owner, of course, pulls out her phone and calls the police, and despite Manny's best efforts to keep things under control, things look bad for Beth Anne.

Beth Anne north into the Military Reserve, but ditches the car by the side of the road and runs off into the park. She ends up at a Military Cemetery and stops, trying to calm her brain. She gets a text message from Jennifer: "You're a monster. If we catch you, we'll have to kill you. Just keep running." The voice in her head speaks up again: I'm sorry. 

Beth Anne argues with Jaworsky, and he claims that when "something like me" is destroyed, it goes somewhere too horrible to contemplate. Beth Anne refuses to believe it, so Jaworsky shows her: A blasted hellscape where the air bores into one's skin. Beth Anne sees people (rather, creatures) that she recognizes: June Stevens, the poltergeist. Franklin Wray, the ravager. Casey Lynch, the draugr. They're all being tortured, forever, in horrible ways. As she sees all of this, Beth Anne repeatedly denies it. "This isn't real. If SAVE knew about this, they wouldn't do what they do."

The other envoys retrieve Manny's car and drive up the road Beth Anne took. They find the car, surrounded by cops, but no sign of Beth Anne. Vicki Senses the Unknown again, and follows the feeling to the cemetery, where they find Beth Anne wandering in a haze. Jennifer uses Telepathic Sending to contact her, and Beth Anne comes out of it. The envoys express their support, and Beth Anne asks about the angry text that Jennifer sent...but Jennifer shows her the text she actually sent: "hi Beth Anne, its Jennifer. Look, we're really worried about you. I know that you dont trust all of us, I really wish you would've at least let me in so that I can help you. Please, we dont want to lose another teammate. The police are after you, let us in. Please call me or message me so we can come find you."

The envoys head back down the road, intending to get some dinner and maybe talk this out, but they see a myriad of emergency lights at the Friendship Square. They pull in and see cop cars, ambulance, the works. They also see two stretchers with dead bodies being wheeled out - too tall to be children, fortunately. Manny spots the cop buddy he talked to yesterday, and asks him what happened. The cop is dazed and horrified. Apparently, the dogs attacked again, this time breaking down the door of this place and killing the two adults on the overnight. A dog also bit one of the girls, but she was the only one injured. Manny asks permission to talk to her while she's getting her arm seen to, and he and Jennifer go over and question her (gently).

The girl tells them that they heard dogs barking, and then the door broke in and dogs started biting Ms. Mary and Ms. Laurie. Ms. Laurie told them to go upstairs, and they did, but the girl crept back down the stairs to try and help and saw the dogs savaging the adults. Then one dog ran up and bit her, but immediately dropped her arm, sneezed, looked sick, and all the dogs ran off. Manny asks if the girl wears jewelry, but then notices a grass stain on her wrist. Jennifer asks, and the girl says that she was wearing a bracelet made of dandelions - one of the other girls in the troop made them. 

Beth Anne and Jennifer talk to Iris (said other girl), and Iris says she made dandelion bracelets for all the girls, but ran out before she could make them for the adults. Most of the girls took them off or lost them before getting back into the house, but Chrissy's (the girl who got bit) apparently stayed on. Jennifer asks Iris about the attack, and she starts crying, which prompts one of the cops to shoo Jennifer and Beth Anne away.

The envoys fall back to the car and talk about what's happening and whether they need to talk to Iris more, and Vicki hears Beth Anne mutter "leave her the fuck alone." She asks Beth Anne why so hostile - sure, they can leave Iris alone, but as Manny notes, that's a little out of character for Beth Anne. Beth Anne clarifies: she wasn't talking to them, she was talking to the voice in her head, which had expressed an interest in Iris. 

Tired and worried, the envoys decide to head to Vicki's place to crash. Tomorrow, they'll check the field again and see if they can figure out what's happening.

Masks: Gimme the Car, Issue Five

And today we played Masks, probably for the final time, sadly. Here's last time.

Jade Eagle and Pyre head to the Eyrie to try and find the Pyre's ship. Jade Eagle's sanctuary works on magic rather than technology, so using Pyre's tablet/key fob as a sympathetic link, they try to home in on the ship and FLICKER. They find that it's moving through dimensional coordinates, but not through physical space. It's still in this dimension, though, almost like it's calibrating. 

Meanwhile, Moonlight heads home. He finds his sister in his bed, asleep, and tries to wake her, but little kids sleep like bricks. Looking at her, he sees her in a river on an inner tube, and she looks over and says "Charlie, come swim!" He wills himself out of this vision, and wakes her up. They negotiate a bit about her getting to play in his room, and she leaves. Charlie notices notifications on his social media - something's happening downtown. AEGIS has closed off an intersection, but there's nothing in evidence. He texts the other two that this might bear watching, and Jade Eagle texts back "Meet you there!" She and Pyre fly off.

They arrive at the downtown intersection and talk briefly with Agent Conners. She shows them the sky above said intersection with a filter - the ship is there. Pyre turns into a storm cloud and flies off, and sends out a blast of energy that disables the cloaking device, making the ship visible. He also sees Intrepid standing atop it, and wraps him in a bubble of metal. Jade Eagle, meanwhile, flies over and pulls the ship down to ground level. This works, but sends out a blast of force that knocks all the AEGIS folks off their pins. 

Moonlight teleports in (increasing his doom track!), and Jade Eagle grabs the Pyre-bubble and pulls it down to the ground. Pyre opens a window, but Intrepid isn't there - Jade Eagle hears him back on the ship. Pyre flies after him, but Moonlight takes a more thoughtful approach and uses his newly acquired dark visions power to figure out what Intrepid is doing. He realizes that Intrepid is using the ship and FLICKER to realign his own dimensional signature and escape this plane of existence. Doing so will destroy the ship, but won't result in any other damage. 

Moonlight informs Jade Eagle of this, and advises that they just let Intrepid succeed so he'll leave. Jade Eagle agrees, but says they'll need to convince Pyre. Pyre, meanwhile, has slipped through the ship's walls and is trying to interface with FLICKER, but FLICKER seems to be gone. Not-FLICKER activates the ship's defenses and expels Pyre, and the others explain what they've seen. Pyre, furious but seeing the logic, says that every ship created by his people has a "blueprint", so that the ship can be recreated if necessary. He flies up to the back of the ship to get the panel, but Intrepid blasts him with arcane energy and knocks him away. 

Moonlight flies up and tells Intrepid what they have in mind - he can take the ship and get out of here, they just want the blueprint. Intrepid agrees, and Pyre retrieves the data cube. The ship reaches the dimension signature it needs, and Intrepid vanishes into the Multitudes. Pyre turns away as the ship disintegrates, and hears FLICKER says "good-bye."

Pyre collapses in grief, and Jade Eagle comforts him. Pyre says that there's a myth on this planet about a bird called a "Phoenix," which dies and then rises from its own ashes. He holds up the data cube containing the blueprint for the ship (and for a new intelligence), and says that his new ship will be that phoenix. 

Movie #598: Rise of the Guardians

Rise of the Guardians is an animated film from Dreamworks starring Alec Baldwin, Hugh Jackman, Isla Fisher, Chris Pine, Jude Law, and Dakota Goyo. It's pretty underrated, in my opinion. 

The Guardians, beings of (entirely western) childhood folklore, protect the children of the world. They consist of Santa Claus (Baldwin), the Easter Bunny (Jackman), the Tooth Fairy (Fisher), and the Sandman (who is mute and communicates with little dream pictures over his head). As their old foe Pitch Black (Law), the Boogeyman, emerges to threaten the world's children, the Man in the Moon names Jack Frost (Pine), who has been bumming around the world causing trouble for 300 years, as a new Guardian.

Turns out, each Guardian has a "center", which is what they actually protect. Santa ("North," to his friends) is the Guardian of Wonder, Tooth is the Guardian of Memory, and so on. Jack, we find out, is the Guardian of Fun, and got the job because he sacrificed his life to save his sister's. 

The arc of the story is mostly Jack coming to terms with being named a Guardian and recovering his memory, but also with the whole group protecting the children of the world and very nearly losing out to Pitch's scheme to convert dreams to nightmares and replace belief and joy with fear. The metaphysics of the story are a little fly-by-night (because those kids stop believing really easily, but the team is able to recover their full power based on one little gang of kids in Michigan standing up for them), and I've always thought that breaking out of the purely European/American framework might have been interesting, but I really love this movie.

I love it because each of the Guardians is a badass. North is a huge, tattooed, Russian warrior. The Easter Bunny is Australian (Hugh Jackman said he tried to slip in as many Oz-isms as he could) and hurls boomerangs with deadly accuracy. Jack Frost rides the wind and summons blizzards and snowballs, and so forth. The magic is constant and impressive, and each of the Guardians has a style and a set of powers that do remain pretty consistent. 

Likewise, the relationships between the Guardians are pretty fleshed out - North and Bunny have a rivalry over whose holiday is more important, Bunny resents Jack for blizzards on Easter, and so forth. Sandman is the quiet center of the group, and I love that it's him that Pitch targets because his influence is clearly worldwide and constant (there's a nice throwaway line from one of the kids: "You're lucky you even have dreams like that anymore"). Jude Law lends a lovely tempting menace as the Boogeyman, and manages to go from terrifying to comical pretty organically as Jack grows into his role as the Guardian of Fun. 

Essentially it's a superhero team-up movie, and I love those. I wish the movie had done better at the box office, because I'd love to see a sequel (preferably where Pitch joins the Guardians after he realizes that fear isn't necessarily smothering and bad, and Halloween is awesome, and where the antagonist is La Llorona because grief is a really awful emotion), but I rather doubt that's happening.

My Grade: A-
Rewatch Value: High

Next up: Road House

Character Creation: The Underground

Well, the winds haven't blown our house to Oz yet, so let's make a character.

The Game: The Underground - A Sam & Fuzzy Roleplaying Game
The Publisher: Damocles Thread Development
Degree of Familiarity: None, though I was pleasantly surprised how accessible the book is
Books Required: Just the one

I bought this game because I was (at the time) friends with one of the creators, and like many of the games I buy, it kinda sat on my shelf for a while until I felt motivated to read it. I'm not generally a fan of RPGs based on existing properties, because there's a barrier to entry. If it's a TV show or a movie, that's one thing, because watching is less brain than reading, but when they're based on books or comics (particularly comics with an 18-year backlog), that's a bit much to jump into.

But with that said, The Underground has an introductory section that lays out the world, the tone, and the history in enough detail that I feel like I can make a character, but not so much that my eyes glazed over. The writing is tight, too, and although it's a humor game, it's obviously written by someone who understands how to write humor (humor games often are not).

Anywhichway, the basic idea here is that there are humans and inhumans, and there's a mysterious Committee that controls both the Surface and the Underground, down to the pop culture. The current head of the Committee is a dinosaur called Mr. Rexford, and some of the other factions include the Kingdom of Catopia and the Vampire Council. So it's kind of a mixture of the World of Darkness, Candycreeps, Paranoia, and any number of other RPGs that have a secret world being gate-kept. 

Making a character is a 9-step process, so let's get to it. 

Step One is to pick a species. I can choose one of the existing ones or make one up. Let's have a look. Oh, OK, so making a new species is actually hella easy; it's just a matter of giving a bonus to one Attribute. Well, I really like the description of Catopia, so I'll make a Catopian. As a Catopian I get a +2 Notice, but I can only wield small weapons. Makes sense. 

Step Two is Background. Background is just whether my kitty grew up on the Surface, the Underground, or first one then t'other. I'll say he's an Undergrounder. That sets my Cope at 2 and my Deal at 8, but I don't know what that means yet. 

Step Three is Faction, and I don't feel like being a special snowflake, so I'll say my character is a Catopian citizen.

Step Four is Attributes. Cope and Deal are already set, but the other four I get to assign. I have 11, 8, 5, and 3 to assign, and I have a +2 to Notice. Let's see. I think I'll put my 3 in Notice, actually, because with the +2 I get 5 which is about average. I'll put my 5 into Buff, my 8 into Tough, and my 11 into Quick. I'm a nimble kitty!

Step Five is Skills. I get 8 points to divide up, but I can't take more than 2 in any given Skill. My job will figure into this somehow, too, though. Oh, wait, that just deals with what I can raise later. No worries. OH WAIT NO I get a bonus to 4 skills when I pick a job. Still doesn't affect this part.

OK, then, I'll put 2 into Athletics, 2 into Grub (vittles most tender and feasts most fancy), and one each into Close Combat, Entrepreneur, Stealth, and Vehicle (yeah, man, I can fly that thing). 

Step Six is Powers, but I don't actually get any at chargen, so on we go.

Step Seven is jaerb. What do I want my kitty to do? Something food-related, I think. SHIT YEAH COFFEE RUNNER. I get a bonus to Athletics, Evasion, Grub, and Vehicle. I also get the Caffeine-Fueled Rage power, which allows me to burn through a task quickly. Sounds about right. 

Step Eight is hobby. This is optional, but I want to take Early Adopter. My cat is always upgrading his phone and other gadgets. I get a bonus to Construction for that.

Finally, Step Nine is Strangeness, which is set by my background and species at 2.

Cool, all I need now is a name and a description! My cat's name is Witchery Woogins (he goes by "Woo"). He's a tuxedo cat with blue eyes, and he likes to joke about being overdressed when he's naked. In the Underground, he dresses for his job as a coffee runner, and prides himself on getting coffee to his customers fast, hot, and frothy! 

I think Woo would get into an adventure by colliding with one of the other PCs and hanging around with them until they pay up for the coffee they spilled. Woo isn't the cleverest of cats, but he's fast and he knows how to make a damned good cuppa. 

And that's me done!

Cairn: Up the River

Today we played Cairn. Virtually, of course, because absent actual leadership in this country the pandemic numbers are surging again, but hey. Both parties are the same. 

Anyway, it's been a couple of months since our fuzzy heroes talked a dryad down from being Dire. Ratatosk has been making invigorating potions and sleeping draughts, and he and Russelet have found a way to soak arrows in the latter to make sleep arrows (though they haven't really tested them yet, Ratatosk is pretty sure they'll work). Rumdiggle continues to sing at the Cider Mill Inn, and Snootabur is tending her worm farm. 

On this particular evening, a lazy, warm, summer dusk, Ratatosk is hanging out with Asta Ringrunner, his mentor. Ratatosk has noticed that Asta seems preoccupied, and as the sun starts to set, Asta tells Ratatosk to run an errand for him - go gather up his three compatriots and bring the to the Observatory. 

Ratatosk scampers off and finds Snootabur tending her garden. They get into a brief discussion about compost materials before Ratatosk remembers why he's there, delivers the message, and zips off.

He runs into Rumdiggle on her way to the Inn and tells her to go to the Observatory as soon as she can; she goes to the Inn and arranges for someone else to do the entertaining for the evening. Ratatosk finds Russelet at the archery range he's set up near the Inn, and tells him about the Observatory. Russelet flutters off and listens to the gossip in town, and hears that Professor Puddleleaf (who runs the Observatory) has been building something near the river, but no one knows what.

The characters meet up at the Observatory and are welcomed in by Professor Puddleleaf, a beaver and absent-minded inventor. Asta Ringrunner shows up as well, and Puddleleaf shows the character his problem - a tetrahedral crystal with a purple sheen and a pure black sphere in the middle. It radiates Disharmony and makes them all uncomfortable. Puddleleaf admits that he made it to absorb the Disharmony in Cairn, and it was working, but now it's started to leak. His research indicates that the druids at the Rock Circle could probably help destroy it, but the Rock Circle is a long ways off. Puddleleaf has built a boat to travel up the Swiftwater River to the base of Highpeak Mountain, but then he would need to travel overland to the Rock Circle. He knows that the characters are stalwart Favored of good character, and he needs help getting it up there. 

Snootabur agrees, but does ask Puddleleaf if he's realized that this isn't the way to work through Disharmony. He sheepishly acknowledges this, and the other characters agree to come along. Puddleleaf asks them not to reveal the true purpose of the trip, and they all decide to leave tomorrow night.

The characters spend the rest of the night and the next day preparing. Snootabur asks Whistle Shimmerborn to tend her garden. Rummy tells Alyere Loregood, who runs the Cider Mill Inn, that she'll be gone a while. Russelet has his protege Ladd Ringtail keep the rumor mill from getting too worked up, and Ratatosk prepares multiple bottles and sample jars. 

The next evening, they meet by the river and Puddleleaf unveils his boat. He says he didn't have a chance to name it, so he asks the characters for idea. Rumdiggle suggests "Cairn on the Run," but Snootabur points out it's really on the river, so Cairn on the River it is! They climb about and head up the Swiftwater.

A few hours in, they feel a thump below the boat. Russelet and Snootabur keep their footing, but Ratatosk and Rumdiggle tumble towards the edge. Snootabur catches Ratatosk and Russelet tosses a bag of provisions in the way to stop Rumdiggle from falling in. He takes to the sky and spots two shapes swimming by the boat - they look like beavers. 

Rummy and Ratatosk peer over the edge of the boat, and the beavers surface quickly and yell "ARRRRGH!" at them. Rumdiggle, in the way of her people, faints dead away. Ratatosk leaps straight up and grabs a tree branch to keep from falling in the water, and scampers along the treeline keeping pace. Snootabur swings her staff at one of the beavers, but it submerges out of the way. The beavers start taunting Puddleleaf about his Observatory and his inventions. 

Ratatosk, from the tree, bops one of them with an acorn and tells them to leave them alone. One of them looks back and says, "yeah, who are you?" Ratatosk hucks another acorn and says "I'm the squirrel throwing acorns at you!" He jumps off the tree and lands on the boat, and calls up the spirits of the river to propel them away. 

Russelet, up in the sky, swoops down and catches up, and as day breaks the characters moor the boat and try to get some sleep. They wake up feeling a little grouchy and drained - the prism is having an effect. As they set off down the river, Rumdiggle starts playing her lute and singing, and the others join in. Russelet notices Puddleleaf standing on the bow of the boat looking forlorn. He walks up to the beaver and engages him in a discussion about how sound carries different underwater, and what kinds of musical instruments you could use making use of that. Rumdiggle points out that he could also slap his tail on the water to keep the beat, and Puddleleaf tries it, and gets into the song, too.

They're having a grand old time, and Snootabur, standing at the front of the boat, notices a pearlescent web spanning the river. She nocks an arrow and shoots it, breaking it in half, but Ratatosk, eager for a sample, grabs it and sticks fast. The characters notice a weaver (a big ol' spider) crawl out of the rocks on the bank and start hauling in the web. Russelet fires an arrow and snaps the web, and the boat drifts on as the spider starts rebuilding its net. Ratatosk scrapes the webbing off his paw, excited about a sample but less so about losing fur.

They make camp again that morning, and as they're doing so they hear something very large approaching. A ripper (bear) emerges from the woods and lumbers down to the water, drinks a bit, and then slaps a fish out of the water and eats it. Ratatosk and Russelet head into a tree, but Rumdiggle, resisting the urge to faint, walks up to the bear and talks to it (she's a shifter, and has an affinity for rippers). She can't exactly converse with it, but she lets it know that she's friendly and she means it no harm. She indicates the boat and says that they'll be on their way soon, and the bear starts walking toward the boat...and the prism. Rumdiggle intervenes just in time and convinces the bear to watch over them as they sleep. The bear cracks open a big dead tree to reveal a feast of termites, which of course makes Rumdiggle and Snootabur very happy. 

The next evening, the ripper snuffles at them and heads into the woods, and they get back on the boat, feeling, again, a little worn out. Puddleleaf tells them that they should reach the end of the river sometime before the next sunset, and then they'll need to travel overland. None of them are much looking forward to that leg of the journey...

Movie #597: The Ring

The Ring is a supernatural horror movie starring Naomi Watts, David Dorfman, Martin Henderson, Brian Cox, and Daveigh Chase. It's based on a Japanese movie which is based on a Japanese novel, but I don't know nothing about that.

Two teenagers, Katie and Becca, (Amber Tamblyn and Rachael Bella) exchange an urban legend about a videotape that kills anyone who watches it seven days later. Turns out poor Katie watched it a week ago, and indeed, dies shortly after their conversation. Her aunt Rachel (Watts) is a sassy investigative journalist, and so her mother (Lindsay Frost) asks Rachel to find out what the hell really happened to Katie. And thus begins a quest that leads Rachel, and then her ex Noah (Henderson), and then her (their) son Aidan (Dorfman) to watch the tape, each one getting the eerie phone call relaying the message: "Seven days."

I enjoy this movie. It's a fun, scary ghost story, and framing it as Rachel's investigation into what's happening and letting her experience the progressive haunting that follows is pretty effective. Also, for a movie that needs to unfold over a week but keep the tension high, it does a good job (now, it does that by only showing us relevant bits on the days leading up to Rachel's "deadline"). The backstory behind Samara (Chase), the unfortunate girl whose murder turned her into a powerful specter, is simultaneously haunting and tragic, and her relationship with her mother (Shannon Cochran) dovetails nicely with Aidan's rather strained relationship with Rachel. And we get to see a menacing and kind of sad performance from Brian Cox as Samara's father (I noted, with some amusement, that his haunted comments about "the things she'd show you" were pretty similar to the ones he'd make the next year in X2). 

A movie about a cursed videotape seems kind of quaint in 2020, but I think that as the movie ages, that feeling is going to fade and we look at VHS in much the same way we see microfiche and other outdated media in other movies - not something still available but laughably out of use, but a technology from the era in which the movie was made and therefore part of the story. 

Never seen the sequels, so I don't know if they hold up, but The Ring remains one of my favorite "this could be a Chill case" movies.

My Grade: A-
Rewatch Value: Medium-high

Next up: Rise of the Guardians

Slipstream: The Beginning

Alternating games on Monday nights has been a thing for a long while with my groups (slightly different groups on different Mondays). For a while, it was Promethean/Feng Shui, and then Timewatch/Blades in the Dark, then Marvel Heroic/Legend of the Elements, you get the idea. 

When COVID hit, the Marvel game went on hiatus because the players weren't up for doing it virtually (for a variety of reasons). The plan was to come back to it when we could.

But then one of the players, and one of my closest friends, Matt Karafa, passed away in May (not of COVID; he had medical issues long before the pandemic). Going back to Marvel didn't feel right. Reassembling that group at all really didn't feel right, not right away. 

Anyway, long winded way of saying that recently, we decided we did want to start another game. We're keeping it small - just three players plus me. We decided to once again use the Spark method to choose a game:

• Michelle chose Travels with My Father, for the feeling of foreigners in a foreign land
• Sarah chose Eureka, for the sci-fi slapstick
• Amanda chose Wynonna Earp, for gay-demon-hillbilly fun
• I chose Postmodern Jukebox, because I like taking somber/serious songs and re-imagining them 

 So, given all that, I laid out some possibilities, including Golden Sky Stories, Hollow Earth Expedition, and Bulldogs! In the end, though, Slipstream won out, because we've got some Flash Gordon fans here. 

The characters, then: 

• Zeenia! Zeenia is a noble from the planet (well, fragment) Zeebor. She's a capable combatant, but she can't breathe well outside Zeebor's atmosphere and she's kinda hard of hearing. Also she's a noble, and used to that kind of treatment. Zeeborites are jellyfish-like folk, by the way.
• Iris Blue! Iris is a Valkyria, a capable warrior herself. She is, as she's prone to announcing loudly before diving into the fray, Iris Blue, daughter of Orchid Blue, of the Daikini Valkyria! 
• Oola! Oola is a Rurite, a four-armed people from a fragment called Ruros. She, like all of her people, is a strict vegetarian, and she is also a total pacifist. She's possessed of an insatiable curiosity, however, and she's a practitioner of weird science - she's developed a visor that allows her to communicate telepathically. 

So these folks have arrived on Zeebor and are witnessing the Joining of Zeenia and her betrothed, Zeemar, in an arranged ceremony that will join the two halves of the Zeeputian Basin. But just as things are getting underway, a ship bearing the colors of Queen Anthraxa swoops down, disgorging her awful Primal soldiers as well as one of her handmaidens! The handmaiden lands on the platform where the ceremony is taking place and zaps Zeemar with a weapon that immobilizes him, while the Primals charge into the crowd, brandishing swords and spears. 

Zeebor charges over and tries to free Zeemar, but the handmaiden easily deflects her tentacles. "Prince Zeemar is now the property of Queen Anthraxa," she bellows, "and I, Erif the Strange, her handmaiden, will deliver him!" She activates a jetpack and flies off, leaving Zeebor swearing vengeance and/or rescue.

Iris screams "I am Iris Blue, daughter of Orchid Blue, of the Daikini Valkyria!" and blasts one of the Primals with her ray gun. Oola, unwilling to fight, backs up and lets the royal guard do their thing The guards wade in with ray guns and painsticks, and the Primals attack with their weapons.

Many fall on both sides, and both Iris and Oola are badly wounded, but finally the Primals are routed and the civilians protected. Zeebor's father finds her and brings her and her friends somewhere they can be healed. Zeebor swears to rescue Zeemar, and asks who will join her. Iris pledges her blade, and Oola, while she doesn't fight, recognizes this great injustice and wants to help right it. 

Zeebor's father tries to take her out of it, but she won't hear of it. Finally, he tells her that if she's really going to do this, she'll need a rocket ship. He'll pay for it, but there's no facilities for making or buying them here - she'll need to travel to Mechanos. 

Some days later, the three of them are on a Gyptosian Merchant ship bound for Mechanos. The lounge contains other travelers, the most interesting of whom is a Lion Woman (an aside: the Slipstream book refers to her as "female Lion Man" and like...c'mon) with a bodyguard. He watches the characters and notes their weapons, and Iris gives him a respectful nod. Zeebor is dealing with her bubble helmet and trying to cope with how dirty the seats are, and when the other passengers hear Iris call her "Your Highness" there are whispers. 

But then the ship lurches, and metallic clanging sounds resound through the hull. The Lion Woman, clearly someone of means, snarls about this being intolerable and charges through the door, presumably to go complain. Just as the door closes, though, an explosion rocks the ship! 

Next time, we'll see what's blowing up!

Character Creation: The Horror Game

I needed something relatively quick today, so here we go. 

The Game: The Horror Game (no, seriously)
The Publisher: Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr.
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

This game makes me a little tired. Not because of what it is (a cheaply made, self-published homebrew; that's fine), but because it's yet another example of reinventing the wheel. It's meant to be a rules-lite way of playing the horror genre, specifically slasher-like horror, and the author talks about how it eschews detailing the stats of a scenario or a monster and focusing on the narrative flow. And I'm like...yeah. See also Slasher Flick (published a year before this) or any number of games since. Maybe I'm just salty because the title of the game makes it impossible to Google. 

And I dunno, as I think about it, I'm softening on games like this a little, because it's very easy to be judgy about self-published games and how they tend to make "innovations" that have been done a decade plus before, but the reason I know about those innovations is because I actively went out and collected RPGs. I did that because I'm in the position of having enough disposable income to buy books, and because I was part of the industry for 20 years and knew the people to talk to (and trade with, when possible). But now that I'm not, now that I'm just a normal consumer in the hobby, am I going to be privy to the same direction of RPGs as they inevitably shift in focus? I don't know, Kickstarter is a thing, as is IPR, so probably. 

Anyway, this is already more words than this game probably deserves, but I do love horror games in general, so let's see here. In addition to having a really terrible title (seriously, do you want people to buy it?), the character sheet is the most boring thing I've seen in quite some time. Whatever, let's see how chargen works.

Christ, first chapter is an extended "what's an RPG" thing. I usually like these, but this one is so 90s, complete with the list of "problem players." Fuck me running, I don't miss this. The Munchkin, the Real Man, blah blah. I guess I'm kind of over the type of game writing that says "look, we know these people are jerks and they don't do this right, but what are you gonna do? Get a normal hobby? Not likely, nerd." Anyway. 

OK, this game resembles Slasher Flick, Horrors, and Fear Itself inasmuch as there's not a default setting, so the game would require the GM to say "OK, y'all are all cheerleaders" or whatever. The example that's mentioned is small town in western Kansas, and that sounds fine. The game offhandedly mentions that a character be "a student, a tailor, that kind of thing" and "tailor" kinda stuck in my head. I don't think I've ever seen a tailor in a horror movie, certainly not in a slasher movie, so I'm gonna make a tailor. 

My character is Dylan Raille. He's just been hired on at his uncle's shop, and is planning on taking it over when his uncle gives up and heads for Couer d'Alene or something. Dylan is early 20s, shaggy black hair, glasses, kinda John Oliver energy. 

Starting with Attributes, because sure. There are five (not six, even though the word "Attributes" on the sheet is the same size as the things below it, which is visually confusing), they all start at 9, and I have 3 points to add to them. 

Reading through them, I'm struck by three things. First, there's no stat that covers manual dexterity; I assume it'd be Agility. Second, the book tells me that characters in horror movies are always completely stupid, which is the kind of observation that people make if they haven't watched any good horror movies (along with "the black guy dies first"; actually, there's rarely a black guy present to die first, which is a different problem). Finally, the word "loose" is used in place of the word "lose," which is one of my special bugaboos and make me cringe. 

But anyway, I'll put one of my points into Luck and the other two into Intelligence. 

Cool, now I get three skills. One is Tailor, obviously. I'll say Dylan knows how to handle a motorcycle just because a) it's kind of unexpected and b) it'll increase the chances of him getting beheaded, which is cool. Finally, I'll take Chemistry, because why the fuck not.

Next would be disadvantages. They'd allow me to take more skills, but I kinda don't want any, and the list of disadvantages (which are just examples) are mostly phobias along with shit like alcoholism and obesity. Quick, name me a horror movie where obesity plays a role in a protagonist's death? (I'm sure there's at least one, but again, not really a staple of slasher movies.) Anyway, I think I'm good. 

Equipment, well, I figure usual pocket stuff, a measuring tape, and a little sewing kit. Done and done.

That's me done, then. I gotta pick something more fun for the next one.

Masks: Gimme the Car, Issue Four

Mask! Woo! Last time here.

Moonlight and Ilijah Intrepid are in Halcyon Cemetery, and Sol swoops in on them. She hovers in front of Moonlight, glowing brilliantly, and tells him that she felt him grow stronger - and she has, too. (Last issue, Moonlight used his powers and increased his doom track, y'see.) She flies toward him to embrace him, and Moonlight throws up a shield to block her. Sol become angry and blasts white-hot plasma at him. Figuring that she'll calm down if he gives a little, he tells her that he'll drop his shield if she'll drop her attack. She agrees, and floats down to talk to him.

They have a discussion that's very similar to the one they had before - she wants him to embrace their "merger," but Moonlight wants to just be himself for a while and isn't in any hurry to meet his doom (I mean, who is, really?). Sol claims that Moonlight acting as a hero means that he is using his powers and therefore courting his end, and says that perhaps he's just scared. Moonlight responds harshly and says that he's not scared, and wishes she would leave him alone. Sol flies off, saying "you want to be you? Fine." Intrepid, who's been watching and munching popcorn, asks who that was. "Someone from school," answers Moonlight. 

Meanwhile, Pyre and Jade Eagle are floating in space. Pyre still has the tablet-like device that (normally) allows him to control his ship, but it's not responding and he can't do much with it out here. Jade Eagle concentrates and opens a portal into her sanctum, the Eyrie, and they fly back through it...but then the portal remains open and starts sucking everything into space. Pyre turns himself to metal to try and block the portal, but it just breaks him in half and sucks him through. Jade Eagle tries to get the portal under control, but can't quite manage it. Everything slows down, and she feels wings envelop her. The Great Jade Eagle speaks to her, and asks what is happening. She says that she's trying to get this under control and save her friend, but she can't quite manage it. The Eagle tells her that she needs to take control, and she can - but if she doesn't want to try, he'll bring Pyre back and close the portal. Jade Eagle musters her strength and orders the portal to close, and it does (though Pyre returns first, fortunately). 

Moonlight texts Jade Eagle and arranges to meet back at the Nest (Pyre is already on his way; he needs to use Moonlight's computers to jury-rig a way to help FLICKER). Jade Eagle stays to clean up, and Moonlight zips away, figuring that Intrepid isn't going to be a big threat. 

Pyre smashes through the wall and furiously goes to work on the computer. Moonlight arrives and grouses about the wall a bit (Pyre doesn't care, he's in the zone), and then goes to meditate. Pyre manages to make contact with FLICKER, but she's having trouble resisting the malicious code infecting her. Pyre writes in some code to help her, and she manages to strengthen herself, but the anti-FLICKER presses a "button" on her avatar and Intrepid appears behind Pyre.

Pyre whirls around just as Intrepid flings a bunch of tiny wires from his gloves. Pyre lets loose with a torrent of fire that melts the wires and sets the room on fire. Intrepid tosses up a wall of ice to protect himself. Moonlight, meanwhile, realizes the place is on fire and enters the room. Seeing Intrepid, he calls on his shadowy powers to manipulate the electronics Intrepid is carrying and disables all of his mechanical devices and geegaws. Panicked, Intrepid punches himself in the nose and smears blood on a ring, vanishing (some of his gadgets are magical, not technological). 

Jade Eagle arrives (with smoothies!) and asks what the hell happened, while Pyre gets back to work. FLICKER - looks like normal FLICKER - appears and says that they've managed to drive out the malicious code. She just needs Pyre to enter his top-level password to burn out the rest and make sure it can't get back. He gives it...and the screens go dead. Pyre realizes with horror that he's been had, and a voice in the back of the room whispers "Yes!"

Pyre, furious, whirls around and hurls lightning at the voice. The lightning frames Intrepid's silhouette, and he catches the lightning and reactivates his gadgets. He starts to say something, but Jade Eagle tackles him and pins him against the wall. Pyre changes to metal, makes his fingers into long claws, and launches himself at Intrepid, trying to take his heart out.

Horrified, Moonlight puts up a shield (earning more Doom for showing mercy). It slows Pyre down, but he crashes through it. Jade Eagle sees him coming and covers Intrepid with her body, and Pyre's claws bend against her invulnerable flesh. Intrepid, suddenly realizing that Pyre was trying to kill him, pulls his coat around himself and vanishes. 

Moonlight calls out Pyre on his behavior - if he wants to be a hero, he can't go around murdering people, no matter what they've done. Yes, this was personal, but that was still unacceptable, and if Pyre is going to be that bloodthirsty, Moonlight is going to have to stop him. Jade Eagle, too, tells Pyre that this can't continue, and that he needs to call his dad about the missing ship. 

Pyre, cowed, raids the supply room for some tech and phones home. He talks to his father for the first time in a year, who asks if he's hurt. Pyre says he's not physically hurt, but he's lost FLICKER and he's heartsick over that. His father says that if Pyre wants to get FLICKER back, he should try, but to remember that any action carries with it a reaction, and to make sure that the reactions are something he can live with. The device shorts out, and Jade Eagle, who was there for the exchange, puts a hand on Pyre's shoulder. Pyre whirls around and hugs her. "Sometimes I think you're older than you are," says Jade Eagle, as the credits roll. 

Movie #596: Resident Evil

Resident Evil is a horror movie based on the video game of the same name, starring an especially wide-eyed Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Colin Salmon, Eric Maibus, Martin Crewes, James Purefoy, and Michaela Dicker. It's directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, the same genius who directed Mortal Kombat. 

The evil Umbrella Corporation owns Raccoon City (population nearly a million, so it's bigger than Cleveland) and runs a secret evil research base underground. One fine day, the computer that runs everything (because obviously) goes nuts and kills everyone, and Umbrella sends in a group of Bad Ass Commandos in Black, led by...um, One, I guess (Salmon). They find an unconscious Alice (Jovovich), who has no memory of who she is or why she chose to wear big-ass boots and a rockin' red dress. Turns out she's an operative for Umbrella, and as the team descends into the Hive, they find Spence (Purefoy), also an operative and Alice's fake husband, and Matt (Maibus), supposedly a cop in Raccoon City.

Surprise! The Hive is full of zombies, the Red Queen killed everyone to prevent the T-virus (which causes the zombie-ness) from escaping, and the team is promptly mostly killed/infected, Spence betrays them, and Alice and Matt are the only ones to make it out (and Matt is infected by a big ol' licky monster, and is put into the "Nemesis program," which I'm sure means something to fans of the video game). 

As the last sentence probably indicated, I have not played the Resident Evil games. I'm loosely familiar with the premise, but I also know that they've been remade and that the games change tone a lot. The movie feels very much like a basic bug hunt/action-horror movie. It's not so much a zombie movie as it is using zombies as a standard enemy, because zombie movies tend to use the zombies to bring out tensions between human characters. This movie has that inasmuch as Spence is the bad guy, but that plotline gets resolved in about a scene and a half when the Licker eats him. 

We've got some good performances from the leads (Salmon, in particular, and I wish he'd have lasted longer). Michelle Rodriguez appears as one of the badass commandos in one of her early roles, and definitely brings some personality to a role that could have just been "Vasquez in Aliens". Overall it's a pretty bog-standard action-horror movie, but it's got some fun moments and it's brainless enough. I have no idea how well it represents the property (I'm led to believe "not especially well"), but honestly I don't much care. 

My Grade: C
Rewatch Value: High

Next up: The Ring

Character Creation: Cypher System

Sure, let's do a character for something fun and easy, since it's not like "fun and easy" have any other place to live in 2020. 

The Game: Cypher System
The Publisher: Monte Cook Games
Degree of Familiarity: Some. I ran The Strange for a while before tragedy cut that game short, and I'm going to start running Predation soon
Books Required: Just the one, but, well, it's weird.

So, Cypher System is a setting-less system. Like GURPS, you don't just make a "Cypher" character, you need a setting to base it in. Unlike a lot of such games, the Cypher core doesn't have sample settings, but what it does have is a multi-page example of play. It's not a hugely detailed bit of world-building, but it's enough, I think - it's sci-fi opera, alien races, mind control spiders, that kind of thing. 

Actually, the example of play deals with a race called the Muggariks. We know they're tall and thin, they're claustrophobic and don't like locked doors. I'll make the Muggarik dude the PCs in the example rescue from the mind-spider, as though I was joining the game late because my pool game ran long at the jazz club. 

First thing is to choose a type. Since the group as it stands doesn't have a speaker, I shall say that Owani, my Muggarik, is a speaker. As a first-tier speaker, I get 8 Might, 9 Speed, and 11 Intellect, and then 6 additional points. I'll put 4 into Speed and the other 2 into Intellect (Muggariks are quick, but not necessarily beefy). My Effort is 1, my Intellect Edge is 1, and I can carry 2 cyphers at a time. I'm practiced with light weapons. I get four abilities as a speaker. I'll take Interaction Skills (trained in persuading and seeing through deception), Erase Memory, Understanding, and Encouragement. 

I don't think I wish to muck about with flavor, so I'll move on to Descriptor. Is there a "recently mind-spidered" one? No, but Mad hits some of the same notes. Why not? I get +4 to Intellect, and I get sudden bursts of insight whenever the GM feels like it. I also behave erratically (which can fuck me out of XP, which is too bad). I'm trained in a knowledge skill, which I'll called "Alien Fauna" (the thinking here is that it's kind of like Tania Saulnier's role in Slither; he's made contact with a mind-controlling race and now has some limited ability to access what that race knows). I also get an inability in resisting mental attacks. Ah, well. 

Focus! There's a handy list of foci appropriate to sci-fi, so let's see what Owani would be good for. I hate to fall into the "aliens are geniuses" cliche, but what the hell. I'll go with Calculates the Incalculable. I get Predictive Equation (if I study a thing, I get a difficulty reduction for rolls involving it) and I'm trained in math. Neat.

That's pretty much it, actually. We'll say that Owani was pretty much a normal Muggarik crew member until he was possessed by the mind-spider. Most of the time, if you kill the mind-spider or remove it, the host just kind of goes blank and then wakes up with no memory of what happened, but Owani somehow retained a connection to the horrible thing. It gives him knowledge and perspective he wouldn't normally have (including an instinctive understanding of mathematical models and predictions), but it also means he's not quite as stable as he was. If I were playing Owani long-term, I think his descriptor would change at some point as he either embraces or rejects the influence of the mind-spiders. 

That'll do it!