Character Creation: Afterlife

While the Romanesco freezes (what a terrible soap opera) lets make a dead person. 

The Game: Afterlife: Wandering Souls
The Publisher: Angry Hamster Publishing
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

Afterlife is about people who die but have no memory of their lives, and are attempting, while wandering the titular afterlife, to piece all that shit together. That's a simplistic explanation, because I'm leaving out a lot of the really interesting details of the game, but that was enough of the premise to hook me. I love ghost stories, and I love ghost-adjacent stories, and I have a soft spot for games that make chargen an ongoing part of the game. Reading Afterlife, I was struck by a lot of superficial similarity to a game I wrote for Game Chef 2017 called Liminal (this was before an RPG called Liminal came out on Kickstarter and did quite well, and I'm in no way saying that either Afterlife or Liminal was influenced by my game, just that Afterlife seems to draw from a similar well). And since the game I wrote is never gonna see the light of day, it doesn't matter a dingo's kidney. Moving on. 

I almost took Afterlife off my chargen list after reading it, because character creation here is explicitly something you do in concert with the GM as your character is riding the boat out to limbo. But I think I can make it work, it'll just mean reading some of the GM section, which, let's be honest, the only way I'm going to experience this game at a table is if I run it anyway. 

So! Were this an actual game, my GM would explain that I'm dead, I don't remember how I died, I'm on a boat, and I'm heading to a place I don't belong. I get three dice called "Clarity" that I can use if I don't like any of the results that come up during the chargen process, so I'll grab those.

Phase One: My Life Was... I roll two dice (1d6 twice), and I get...3 and 1, which means this:

The weird little quasi-A symbol means that's a question my GM would ask me, the weird R are things I record (stats, in this case), and the DM is Death Mark. Every character has 9 Death Marks, and those are the things you figure out in order to pass on.

("In a Week" by Hozier just started loudly playing in my head.)

Oh, fuck it, let's get brutal with this. I remember falling and landing hard, being unable to move. After days (hours? a week?), something found me dying and immobile - my pet and companion, Rust. He stayed with me for a time, and then ate my soft bits. As I breathed my last I remember my skull cracking under his jaws. 

Good start! Let's move on to Phase Two: What I Learned.

Here I'm told to roll 2d6 five times, but what they mean is roll 1d6 twice, five times. First number gives a list, second a bit on that list to read (it's not hard to figure out in context, fortunately). So! First roll: 1, 6

Well, that's not exactly in keeping with my last bit. I love it, though. Normally I wouldn't know the stat choices associated with the choices (and they're not directly adding to Body, Mind, or Soul, but to the linked Attributes, which isn't the most intuitive thing in the world, but whatevs). I think in my character's case the last option, "My mind is elsewhere," makes the most sense. On we go! 3, 5

Oh, my. Um, "At another person's side," please. 5, 1

Hmm. I think what they mean is "I couldn't care less about them," but I know the phrase has entered common usage like that, much like "literally" now means "emphatically" as well as what it actually fucking means. I think I want that option, though. I feel like this character disconnected from the things in his life that went wrong rather than getting all angry about them. And my Death Mark is a moustache, or a "mustache" as we say here. 6, 2

Well, that's fun. Definitely taking "and fled for my life." Last one: 1, 6, which I already rolled, and the book says to switch the numbers in that case, making it 6, 1.

Ooh, man. Umm. Let's do "with something valuable," just because I feel like it's not the obvious choice.

That's this phase done, meaning I'll have 2 points to spend in Mind and Soul Attributes, and 1 to spend in Body. 

Phase Three: What I Know Now... Same basic idea, roll two dice and use them to consult tables. These things are things my character felt about himself. First up: 6, 3: I could never sit still. Death Mark: Ants. 

2, 2: I was a sinner. Death Mark: Line of crosses.

3, 1: I was a loner. Death Mark: Teardrop. Well, that all falls nicely into place. 

Now we calculate things. And...now it's getting a little confusing. (My kingdom for a chargen example, though I admit in this game it would be a little weird.) No, wait, I found what I was looking for. Linked Attributes can be 0, and there are two types of pools, Concept and Vitality, which are calculated in slightly different ways. They're not labeled as such on the sheet, though. 

Well, anyway, I get two points to throw into Mind and Soul, and 1 more to throw into Body. For Body, I'll put my point into Withstand. That makes my Ferocity 1 and my Health 2. 

For Mind, I'll put one point into Percept...no, actually I'll put them both there (since these are verbs, it probably should be Perceive, but whatever). That makes Lucidity 1 and Hunger 3. 

Finally, in Soul, I'll split the points between Create and Understand, and leave Charm empty. That makes Generosity 3 and Will 4. 

Neato! Now I determine my Approach, which is Shield, since it's based on the highest Core. I'm meant to describe said shield. In my case, I think it's an oblong shield made of fire, empty in the middle (so you can see through it), but growing hotter if you approach it. 

Talents! Rolling dice again, I get: 1, 1. In play, the Boatman would now show me an obsidian claw or a haggard tome, and I'd pick one. I think I gotta go with the claw. That gives me the Talent of Beastspeak, which for a Shield means I can summon shadowy beasts to my side, fucking dope. I can pick a cobra, a lion, or a vulture. I'll take the vulture, I think. 

Curiosa! These are things lying about in the boat that I can pick up. I get two of them. I get 5, 4 and 1, 5. That gives me...a hamster onsie, which allows me to turn into a hamster once per session. What the shit. I think I'll look at the alternate list for something less dumb. Lightweight one-person tent that fits into a fist-sized bag. Um, yes please. And then the other one is a unicorn horn with one last magic spell. Sure, why not? 

I get a bunch of stuff based on Death Marks, too, which go on the second character sheet and I'm not writing them in, but let's have a look!

• Cracked Skull: Regain a point of Generosity when you spend time alone in nature. Nice.
• Cocktail Glass: Reduce the challenge you face by 1 when in a large group of people. 
• Twin Shadows: Reduce the challenge by 1 when performing forgery or mimicry. 
• Mustache: Regain a point of Will when you defeat a foe (so this is the type of mustache one twirls, got it).
• Forked Tongue: Spend a point of Will and the NPC believes your lie without a check. 
• Blazing Fire: Reduce the challenge you face by 1 in life or death situation. Holy hell, that's broad.
• Ants: Trick: Barriers pose little threat to me. 
• Line of Crosses: Trick: I manipulate fire. That's...interesting.
• Teardrop: Trick: I summon water. 

Very elemental feel to this guy. I just need a name (which might be more what he's called than his actual name). I'll say his name is Carrion; maybe he goes by Carey. Carey is dirty, smells of loam and blood, and wears a bandana or scarf covering his head. He's afraid to take it off. 

I think that'll do it! Have to say, I'd have to read the at-the-table mechanics more carefully, but for chargen alone I'd run this. 

Movie #639: Se7en

Se7en is a noir/detective/horror movie directed by David Fincher and starring Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, Kevin Spacey, and Gwyneth Paltrow. 

Somerset (Freeman) is a jaded homicide detective a week from retirement in an unnamed American city. He gets saddled with an ambitious and enthusiastic young detective named Mills (Pitt) from "upstate", and they wind up investigate the murder of an obese housebound man. Somerset correctly intuits that "this is beginning," and asks his captain (R. Lee Emery, in probably the most reserved role I've ever seen him in) to take him off of it, but he refuses. And, lo and behold, the next day a prominent lawyer is found murdered with the word "GREED" written on the floor in blood. 

Mills and Somerset grudgingly work on the case. Somerset approaches it as an intellectual challenge, but has no real intention or hope of catching the killer. Mills is still gung-ho about his job as a policeman and catching the bad guys, and gradually Somerset starts to feel some enthusiasm, even if he won't admit it. Meanwhile, Mills' wife Tracy (Paltrow) confides to Somerset that she's pregnant but isn't sure she wants to bring a child into the world if the city is where it would have to grow up. 

More murders, and then the detectives finally track the killer to an apartment, whereupon he opens fire on them and flees. The next day, he shows up at the station, and John Doe (Spacey) insists on taking Mills and Somerset to see the final two bodies in his masterpiece. He takes them to the middle of nowhere, and, well, we all know what's in the BOOOOOOXXX. 

I really love this movie. Sure, it's bleak, it's brutal, and the ending is a complete downer, but it was fuckin' gutsy to let the movie end the way it does. The studio wanted a high-speed chase across the city to save Tracy, but Pitt, Freeman, and Fincher all threatened to walk. I know, too, that Se7en occasionally gets referenced as influential on later torture-porn horror like Saw, but that's not really fair. There's very little onscreen violence in the movie, and plenty of people coming into the scene afterwards, picking up the pieces, and trying to make sense of it (Somerset refers to this as picking up diamonds on a deserted island, which is a notion I used as inspiration in a short story called "Diamonds" some years later). This kind of helplessness in the face of evil runs through the whole movie, right up to when Mills shoots Doe and the cop in the helicopter (John C. McGinley, I think) desperately says "somebody call someone!"

The other central theme is desensitization. Somerset is completely numb to the city and its horrors, to the point that when Tracy and Mills are obviously struggling with their new home and the surrounding environs, he says "well, you get numb after a while" as though it's something to look forward to. Even his decision to remain on the force at the end of the movie (which was a rewrite, BTW, the original ending just had the screen going to black after Mills shoots Doe, which I don't like, I think it'd be too abrupt) isn't motivated by a change of heart based on what he's seen, but just, I think, that what he's been through the last week has disturbed him enough that he wouldn't be able to enjoy retirement. That is, sense of responsibility - obligation - rather than a true belief that he's capable of making any real difference. 

The performances are top-notch, but like, look at the cast. There are elements of a traditional buddy-cop movie, but that genre gets subverted pretty effectively - look at the conversation between Mills and Somerset on the way to the Sloth victim's apartment where Somerset mentions he's never fired his gun in the line of duty, and Mills talks about the one time that he did, which is clearly still affecting him. Like all good examples of noir, Se7en isn't careful with humanity, but it's not dismissive of it, either. Things break, but the pieces remain. 

My Grade: A
Rewatch Value: Medium-high, weirdly 

Next up: Secretary

Character Creation: Tetrarch

Can't all be A material, as my friend Dr. Karafa used to say.

The Game: Tetrarch
The Publisher: Inglorious Rabble Games
Degree of Familiarity: None. Even less now I've read the book.
Books Required: Mercifully, just the one

I'm trying to alternate games I have in hard copy with games I have in PDF so I wind up doing more of the PDF games, since I have so many more of them (consequence of bundles, y'see). As such, the other day I asked Michelle for a letter. She gave me "T", so I looked at some of the stuff I had on PDF in that letter: Tribe: Humanity's Last Hope, Toonpunk, TROIKA!, and then I saw Tetrarch, which indicated that it uses a Tarot deck rather that dice. Well, cool, I thought. I love Tarot-based games, let's give this one a look. I have since come to regret that decision.

Red Flag #1: The book is 364 pages. Now, I'm not saying that a good RPG can't be quite long - Red Markets is huge, and that's a really tight game with no wasted space, f'rex. But a Tarot-based game being that long, I dunno, just kinda worried me. 

Red Flag #2: The editing is shit, and that's evident right off the bat with the "Forward" of the book (it should be "Foreword", and yes I've made that mistake, too, and yes, I was rightly called on it). Sentence fragments, passive voice, and just plain gibberish follow. And then we get to...

Red Flag #3:

See what I mean about the editing? Also, this game was published in 2020. Anyone making a game in 2020 should know that not only are their multiple games that use cards rather than dice, there are multiple ways to "roll dice" without actually rolling dice. I can't really think of a "slew" of challenges that come with using dice, anyway. 

And finally, this game doesn't use a Tarot deck. It uses a custom deck, and each player requires "a set of fate decks." Fortunately, you can use a standard playing card deck rather than their goofy-ass pseudo-Tarot. 

Anyway, let's get this over with. 

The first chapter is called "Character Creation," but it begins, with no explanation or preamble, with an example of play that explains exactly none of the terminology and is just as badly edited as the rest of the book. Congrats, Tetrarch, you actually made the example of play, typically one of my favorite parts of an RPG, useless and impossible to read.

OK, skipping that, we get a discussion of what the titular "tetrarch" means, and what aspects are (the four elements, kinda; plasma, aether, cosmos, entropy). Each of the aspects is written up like a splat might be in a WoD game, inasmuch as it explains how each of them relate to "Warriors of Ra" and "Magi" and so on, but since we have no idea what any of that means, it's hard to follow. Moving on.

Now we get an explanation of their original Tarot deck from a divination or symbolic perspective. This is not helpful for character creation, at least not yet.

And then "Casting: The Core Mechanic" followed by several sub-headings that have nothing at all to do with the core mechanic, but instead extol the virtues of RPGs in general and explain (badly) why they have rules at all. 

OK, it looks like the core mechanic involves drawing a number of cards equal to the sum of some traits, separating them by aspect, adding the numbers up, and comparing that number to something, but I would not bet my life on that. Still nothing about chargen.

Here's the conversion chart between their "Tarot" and a standard deck of cards. I think it's adorable they think anyone playing this would buy multiple copies of their weird-ass deck rather than just use standard cards.

Ooh, we've started talking about the character sheet and the Talents (core attributes, seems like). Perilously close to something useful for chargen. 

HOLY SHIT SOME CHARGEN INSTRUCTIONS. I'm to check with my Weaver (the GM) as to which of three methods we'll be using to choose traits. Fucking hell, is one of them random? Yes indeed, thank goodness. I draw cards and compare them to a table to get my scores. I can either assign as I go or draw and then assign the scores as I wish. I'll do the latter, I suppose. My draws: AH, QH, 4H, 8S, 7S. Shit hand in poker. 

OK, let's figure this out. Hearts means Plasma, Spades means Entropy. According to the table, Plasma is 1 and Entropy is 4. Well, that's some shit. Whatever. I'll put 1s in Agility, Acuity, and Focus and 4s in Vigor and Mettle. Haven't made a bruiser in a while. 

Now what? Aspect. I pick Entropy. That boosts my Mettle by one, making it 5. Fine. What's next?

Well, what's next seems to be race or species, but there's no header and no instructions. Back before aspect there's a little paragraph saying that if I wish to, I can draw randomly for aspect, species, class, and origin. These terms are not defined, nor am I told that I can choose one, but the inference is that I can. Fine. For species, I'll take Anubi, they've got sharp teeth and are built for the hunt. Fun fact: "Species" isn't on the front character sheet. It's on the extended one, but...why?

All right, so class, I guess? Except it's called "profession" now? (Jesus.) Standard of War, for the Warriors of Ra. (Why Egyptian suddenly? WHY NOT). They're hunters and warriors, why break precedent now. 

Now, the next thing should be origin, right? WRONG. It's "core stats," which are derived traits. Are the writers ESL, perhaps? Anyway, Ankh is 1, Body is 12 (all talents added together), Initiative is 3, Movement is...Agility + Base Movement. What the fuck is "Base Movement?" No idea. Probably species-dependent, but it's not mentioned in this chapter. Defensive Threshold is 10 (Vigor + Agility + Mettle), Spirit is 12 (again, all talents summed). 

OK, now origin. Well, let's look ahead to the next chapter and see if the species write-ups give me more data. They sure do! I get +1 Vigor for being Anubi, my Base Movement is 6 (so my Movement is 7), and my Size and Damage are assigned here, too, but I don't care. 

Anubi live in the city of Anu, and arrange themselves into extended families (Packs). The Dijar Pack is the biggest and nastiest, so I figure my guy is part of that pack. He gets +1FS on a Martial skill, whatever the hell that means. 

Oh, and then the Profession chapter also tells me a few things, such as my Skill allotment. It is fantastic to me that this game was put up for sale on DriveThru and apparently no one ever proofread it for flow, clarity, or like, the difference between "where" and "were." 

Right, moving on. Still need an Origin. OMG. I can roll for an origin. Did you get that? In this game that doesn't want to use dice because they might roll off the table, we've got a percentile chart to pick origin. I can't even. I'll say Military origin. I start with a weapon of my choice. 

Languages, I get my national language (Anapa) and one other, I'll choose Thebian because it's the "official" one.

Fuck me, it's an alignment system! I can choose one of four or make my own. I'ma make my own. My guy's morality is "Soldier." That is, when you're following orders, that's the highest good, and going against them is immoral. When not acting in official capacity, you work to protect your people (where "your people" might be a wider or narrower group depending on the situation). That's already more nuance that this deserves. 

Personality traits and gods don't appear on this character sheet (again, they're on page two, which I'm not going to print), so let's say my guy is a loyal soldier because he's not really bright enough to be much else. He worships Ra, obviously. 

Skills, and then pleasegodsaywe'redone. OK, I think I get these skills at Novice rank, though it does not say so. Whatever. I get 1 Knowledge Skill (of course they're not in alphabetical order), so I'll take Craft (General). 1 Physical Skill (that's dumb, I'm a warrior), I'll take Strength Training (it says that the prereq is +1FS common Vigor, but I have no idea what the hell that means). 1 Mental Skill, I'll take Intimidation, obvs. And then Martial! Woo! 4 of these puppies. I'll take Blunt, Great, Edge, and 6 Sticks (which is an anubi-specific martial art). Incidentally, there are guns and computers here, too. I got the impression this was a sword-and-sandal game, but now I remember it's modern sword and sandal. Whatever. My guy's a close-up fighter. 

Oh, wait, fuck, I have one more skill, which I guess I could take from anywhere. I'll take Assault Rifle, why not.

And I think that's it! Or if it's not, I'm done anyway! My Anubi is called Silak. He's big for an Anubi (close to 9 feet tall), and wider than they usually are. He grew up as "the big guy" in his litter, and everyone assumed that made him a brute, but also the one that would protect his littermates and fight for the Pack. Now he's a soldier for said Pack, and if this were a better game, his arc would probably involve being ordered to do some awful shit and coming to terms with what that all means, but in this game, he's basically King Shark in the trailer for The Suicide Squad pointing at his hand and going "HAND."

Fucking done. 

Slipstream: Poppin' Bubbles

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

The characters, having been taken into a small building with Brrip'k'chok, the Nivekian priest who identified them as "saviors." He explains that he really did have a vision, it just didn't involve them. His vision involved the Sky Devil (whom the characters quickly identify as Queen Anathraxa) and her imps. Said imps (Primals) have come to Nivek, killed the guardians of the Oracle in the jungle, and have taken over. He doesn't know what they intend to do. He asks them to investigate, and says that he will provide an experienced guide, a warrior named Kk'kree'chak ("call me 'Kree'"). He also gives Iris a laser sword - a powerful weapon that Queen Anathraxa has outlawed. 

Kree escorts them into the jungle, and guides them through the trees. It takes days, but they finally approach the Oracle. Before they get there, though, Kree steps in a bit of slime and looks horrified. He points up, and the characters see huge nests. "Krell Wasps," he says, as they swarm in to attack. 

Zeenia turns invisible, Iris lays about with her new laser sword cutting wasps in half, and Oola uses her new tech to put a bunch to sleep (whereupon Zeenia cuts them in half). It doesn't take long to drive them off, and the characters move along. 

They finally arrive at their destination - the Oracle, a huge concrete statue of a lion with a human head and wings (it's a fuckin' sphinx, OK?). There are Primals crawling on it, placing packages around strategic points. There might have been a chance for surprise, but suddenly Iris goes glassy-eyed and runs out in front of the statue. The others shake off their surprise and follow, and the Primal captain yells at his troops to keep at their work and let the sentries handle this rabble!

The sentries, metallic spheres of doom, fly in towards the characters. One launches a grenade but misses. The Primal captain shoots Zeenia and stuns her, and Oola activates her tech and puts one of the Primals to sleep. Zeenia shakes off the laser blast and stabs at a sentry, damaging it, and Kree blows it up with a laser.

Meanwhile, Iris sees a vision: three feathers, one black, one gray, one white. A gloved hand grabs the white feather and the black feather grows larger, while the gray feather sheds a tear. Her vision clears and she realizes where she is and what's happening, and she leaps to battle! She scales the Oracle and faces off against the Primal captain. The captain is horrified to see her carrying a laser sword, and roars in challenge!

The Primals finish placing their mysterious packs and leap to battle! One hurls a spear at Oola, while two more slide down the statue and land in front of the now-invisible Zeenia. Oola, her tech now drained of power, tries to stay out of the line of fire. Zeenia lashes out with tentacles, but all she manages to do is distract the Primals a bit. The remaining sentry fires at Kree repeatedly, but I couldn't fucking roll better than a 2 it can't seem to hit him. 

Up on the statue's head, the captain slashes at Iris and she drops her sword. He picks it up, and one of the Primals tells him that the explosives are placed! He tells them head for the ship, and he stays behind to continue his battle with Iris. The Primals bug out, and Kree spots one in a makeshift palisade - obviously where the detonator apparatus is housed. 

Zeena strikes the sentry with her sword, but in doing so reveals her position. It turns on her and blasts her with a laser, shattering her bubble helmet. She starts exuding water and collapsing, unable to breathe, as Kree fires a shot that destroys the sentry and then another that fells the Primal about to activate the explosion. 

The captain and Iris continue their deadly dance, and finally the captain flees to his ship. Iris fires a shot at his hand, hoping to make him drop the sword, but fails, and she is far too honorable to shoot him in the back. She collapses, wounded and dejected, and confused about the vision. 

Oola finds Zeenia dying, and quickly alters her own spacesuit and helmet to let Zeenia breathe. Oola patches up the others and disarms the bombs, and Kree sends a message to his species for help. 

As the characters wait, they discuss the vision and their next move. The feathers seem to indicate the Bird-Men, and they know that Prince Craw is in league with Queen Anathraxa and Prince Boolar has been kidnapped. Who is the gray feather, then? It might be King Throx, but they aren't sure. Also, they were hoping for a vision related to the Death Dust. When they get back to the Nivekian city, Brrip'k'chok tells Iris that visions from the Oracle tend to show you what you need to know, not necessarily what you want to know. They take this to mean that the Avian prince should be their next endeavor, and they head out into the Slipstream, first to go back to Gemopia to pick up Zeenia's "danger bling," and then up to Avia to investigate the kidnapped prince.

Predation: Argoraptoryourself

Our penultimate session of Predation, alas, due to a player's impending move. Ah, well. On we go! 

To say it's been a while is something of an understatement, but last time, the characters were in a lake surrounded by SATI cyberdrones. Tallahassee drops one with her command of machinery, Omaha shoots one out of the air, Sebi runs up Betty's back and claws one to pieces, and Betty herself crunches one in her mighty jaws. The rest of them bug out, and the characters start heading east, away from the forest fire and the Chrysalis, until they finally find a place to rest. 

In the morning, they discuss their options. Tallahassee is interested in making some cyber-modifications to Kevin, but she needs a lab and some equipment to do that. She knows that there are SATI bunkers around here, so maybe they could find one and take it over? Some of them are abandoned, after all. Dakota agrees that it would be a good place to hole up and avoid notice for a while, and Buffalo, while he's not generally keen on SATI stuff, is willing to give it a shot. He doesn't know about any bunkers nearby, but he goes out looking for clues and, later in the day, finds an area by a bend in the river where nothing seems to be grazing. Dinosaurs seem to be avoiding it, which is a pretty good indication that there's something human-related here. He heads back to the others.

Meanwhile, Tallahassee sketches ideas for armor, electrical shock fields, and guns that she might kit out Kevin with, and Omaha removes the cyberdrone that Betty crunched from her teeth. In the process, she studies the tech and learns a bit about how it operates, which she figures will come in handy. Dakota and Sebi go hunting, and return with small adorable mammals to cook. 

Buffalo informs them about what he found, and they all bed down, figuring they'll go looking for this place in the morning (as it's a bit of a trek). 

In the wee hours of the morning, though, they're awakened by Kevin shrieking his fool head off. They all wake up and see that they've been surrounded by a pack of argoraptors, all wearing control collars - which means they're from SATI. 

Chirp! Bite!

Kevin stands in front of Tallahassee and screams, keeping a couple at bay for a moment. Buffalo uses his expertise to calm one, and Omaha mind-links with it. She sees that these creatures are doing what they're trained for and are acting to please their master. That doesn't obviate the immediate problem, though - a couple of them lunge at Dakota and bite her a bit. Sebi grabs one by the collar and slams it to the ground, and Klio lumbers over and tries to smack one, but just manages to scatter the fire a bit.

Buffalo and Omaha both remove a collar from a raptor, and Buffalo manages to befriend the one he calmed (not to the point that it joins the fight against its pack, but it sits back and contemplates its life choices). Dakota brandishes her sword and slices one up a bit, and Sebi swings the one she's got by the collar around. Klio stomps on one's tail and keeps it from attacking, and Kevin and Tallahassee try to attack the two snapping at them, but Kevin winds up knocking Tallahassee's gun away. 

Tallahassee responds by sculpting Kevin and making his teeth bigger, and sends him to bite one of the raptors. Dakota slices the collar off one, and Sebi rams another with the one she's got by the collar. The fight is mostly a stalemate, but then a swarm of cyber-drones swoop in. Buffalo smells ozone, and realizes that the argoraptor pack was just to corral them. The teslasaurs are on the way. 

Buffalo throws down a cypher that blacks out of the area to surveillance, and Omaha, using her newfound understanding of how these drones function, finds a safe route through the trees and away from the raptors. Some hours later, the characters arrive at the place that Buffalo found. Next time, they'll see if there's really a bunker here, and what wonders might lurk inside.

One-Shot: tremulus

Ran a one-shot, now you get to read about it. Or not, y'know. 

It's 1938 in Louisiana. Meet the characters!

• Franklin Weed, the Heir: Recently learned he has inherited his family's ancestral home in the Louisiana town of Ebon Eaves. Franklin knows very little about this side of his family; he's been living in New York.
  
• Emily Montgomery, the Detective: A private detective and bodyguard of Welsh descent, hired by Franklin to investigate his family's history in Ebon Eaves.
  
• Ms. Margaret Ackenberry, the Dilettante: A local busybody and socialite in Ebon Eaves, rarely seen without her driver Strickland and her dog Marquis.
  
• Dr. Cassandra Nabokov, the Alienist: Recently took over the Weeping Angel Asylum in Ebon Eaves, looking to make a study of children that murder their parents. 

Ebon Eaves has some odd history. Back in 1922, a hobo named Magilligan derailed a train and ran it right through a hobo camp. Something on the train exploded and a cloud of toxic fumes rolled through town, resulting in several deaths due to respiratory distress. And then, a year later, a young woman named Jessica Wayne killed her parents. She was hanged for the crime, but then three years later, her younger sister Gossamer murder the pastor of the Seven Sons Nondenominational Church - the church that had taken her in after her family's death. Gossamer is now a resident at Weeping Angel.

On this particular day in May, Cassandra is doing her rounds with her assistant Steve. She gets to her last stop - Gossamer Wayne. Looking at her notes, she realizes that her predecessor didn't spend a lot of time with Gossamer. In fact, her last session was almost a year ago. She sits down with Gossamer and tries to get her talking about her experiences, and she gives responses that seem pretty rehearsed about her parents' deaths. But when she starts talking about the pastor, she gets more agitated and frightened. Cassandra presses a bit, and Gossamer talks about the pastor's eyes being "blooms," and then starts repeating "they spring up like flowers and wither away; like fleeting shadows, they do not endure." She lunges for Cassandra and slams her against the wall, clearly trying to relate something, but then Steve and an orderly rush in to restrain her.

Cassandra doesn't let them put her in a straightjacket, but does sedate her. At that point Gossamer is able to talk a little more clearly. She says that the flowers come from the grass, and the grass comes from blood...and then she passes out.

Franklin, meanwhile, is at his home poking about in the basement. He finds a cellar door that he didn't know was there, and pushes it open to the outside (the exterior of the door was overgrown to the point of being obscured). He walks up the stairs and finds himself on the south end of the property, facing the old abandoned rail yard. He knows that there was some kind of disaster here years ago, but not the particulars. 

He walks down the slope towards the rail yard, and notes that in the rail yard, the grass looks red. He leans down and compares the grass there to the grass on his property. The red grass is tough and almost serrated. He walks into the grass, and is shocked to see it start to move. It wraps around his feet and reaches up into his pant legs. Disturbed, he retreats back towards his house.

Emily speaks with Father Will, the priest at the Catholic church here and an old friend of hers. She asks about the Weed family and what he can tell her, but he says that they aren't Catholic and he doesn't really know much about them. He does know that they had money tied up in the railway hub, which they lost in the disaster in 1922, and of course the market crashed a few years later. He recommends that she go and talk to the pastor at the Seven Sons church, since the Weeds attended there when there were still Weeds.

Emily goes to the church and speaks with the pastor, who insists she call him "Adam." He's bright and friendly, and invites her into the church. She's surprised to find benches rather than pews, and that they're arranged in a circle - apparently he preaches in the round?

Adam is able to confirm much of what Father Will aid, and adds that many of the Weeds died when the toxic cloud came off the rail yard. He also mentions that the last surviving scion of the family killed himself in the rail yard, which was how Franklin inherited the house. He recommends that Franklin attend service here and says he'll be happy to talk with him then, and Emily thanks him and heads out. She notes that when she leaves the church, she suddenly feels a threat abate, as though by leaving she is no longer in danger. 

Margaret has decided to offer to throw a cotillion at the asylum! She and Strickland (and Marquis) gather up the materials, as well as some appropriate clothes, and make the offer to Cassandra (along with a hefty donation). Cassandra picks some of the residents who are likely to be able to handle this sort of socialization (and has Steve sew up the pockets on the clothes), and the cotillion gets underway. Gossamer, still a bit drugged, comes down with an orderly and talks with Margaret briefly before heading for the finger sandwiches. Marquis, meanwhile, catches a rabbit and takes it behind one of the cars to snack on it. 

Cassandra and Margaret chat for a bit, but then they hear a scream. Marquis has jumped up and bitten one of the residents, and is worrying at her arm. Cassandra rushes over to disengage him, and Margaret yells at him to let go. He does...but then he charges her. Margaret bops him on the head with her cane and he snaps out of it, and he horks up the rabbit and looks contrite. 

Margaret and Strickland take Marquis away, and Cassandra and Steve work on getting the residents calmed down. Steve informs Cassandra that they have a problem - Gossamer is missing. Cassandra studies the diary of the Wayne sisters, and deduces that Gossamer might be interested in the Seven Sons church or the rail yard, as she mentions both frequently in the diary. She lets Sheriff Henry know this.

Meanwhile, Margaret has decided to go to the cinema to calm her nervous. About three-quarters of the way through Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, the theater manager stops the film and informs the audience that the police need to look around the theater for a moment, but everything is fine. Margaret catches Sheriff Henry's eye and asks him what's going on, and he tells her - Gossamer Wayne has escaped from the asylum. 

Margaret goes to use the facilities, and finds an usherette bound and gagged and wearing the very dress that Gossamer was wearing earlier. She explains that Gossamer ambushed her and stole her clothes, but she doesn't know where Gossamer went. Margaret has Strickland drive her to the asylum to collect Cassandra and inform her of these events, and together they drive out to the Weed house to see if Emily is willing to help out (being a detective and all). 

Emily is willing to help, and Franklin tags along as well, not willing to be left alone in the house. Since the Sheriff is likely to head to the Seven Sons church, they decide to go to the rail yard; it's near by, after all. They drive into the rail yards and split up. Franklin and Emily start walking back towards the Weed house, while Strickland, Margaret, and Cassandra walk towards the remains of the central building. 

Margaret and Cassandra look around the building, and Cassandra thinks she hears a floorboard creak. She calls out for Gossamer, but doesn't find anything, and notes how thick and red the grass is here. A rat scampers across their field of vision, and Margaret notices that Marquis doesn't seem to care or even notice it. 

And then, out in the dark, they hear a gunshot, and realize that they don't see Strickland. 

Meanwhile, Emily and Franklin are looking around, and Emily spots footprints. She points them out to Franklin, who doesn't see them at all, but assumes he's just not perceptive enough and tags along as Emily follows. But then they hear a gunshot, and they rush toward the noise. 

Both groups arrive at the same time, and find Strickland, lying dead in the grass. He has apparently shot himself in the head. Margaret breaks a bit, and keeps insisting that they help him up and give him medical attention. Franklin talks her into giving him Strickland's gun (she unloads it before handing it over), and Cassandra looks around and finds Strickland's flashlight. He apparently threw it at something, and then was so badly frightened that he shot himself. But why?

Just then Emily sees footprints appearing in the grass, and fires her shotgun in that general direction. Everyone starts, and Marquis slips his leash and runs. Cassandra talks Margaret down and they all head back to the car, where they get Margaret and Franklin situated. Cassandra and Emily head back for Strickland's body (and the keys), and carry him back toward the car.

Meanwhile, though, Margaret and Franklin see and hear strange things. They see something dart across their field of vision, and then Margaret hears a sinister voice singing "Big Rock Candy Mountain." She cries out for Magilligan to shush up and begone, and tells Franklin to get her box out of the glove compartment. Franklin, afraid what that box might contain, refuses, and Margaret gets it herself (poking him in the stomach with her cane when he tries to stop her) - it's a rosary. 

The others get back, load Strickland's body into the trunk, and drive back to Weed's house. They all go inside and Margaret calls the police, telling them there's been a terrible accident. The sheriff is out looking for Gossamer, of course, but they say they'll get the message to him as soon as possible. 

The group of them sit in the parlor for a bit, and then there's a knock at the door. Emily checks, and is surprised to see Adam, the pastor, there. She opens the door (with her shotgun at the ready), and Adam says that he's here on behalf of the police - he was deputized earlier tonight, since Sheriff Henry needed some extra bodies to look for Gossamer. Emily isn't sure whether she believes that, but she is sure she doesn't trust him, and they need an actual police officer anyway. She tells him that and shuts the door, and Adam, a little confused, walks away. 

But when Emily looks again, his car is still there and she doesn't see him. She tells the others this, and then checks the basement again (worried that someone might come in through the cellar door). She finds something odd - a hat on the steps leading to the second floor. She recognizes the hat - it's the kind the ushers at the theater wear.

She tells the others and Cassandra moves to head upstairs. Margaret goes along, but Emily decides to stay downstairs with Franklin (since her job is to protect him). They find footprints in the dust leading into a room that clearly hasn't been cleaned yet, and an open window. Looking out, they see someone in the distance moving, but very slowly, as though they're dragging something. Cassandra spots a pool of blood near the house, and drag marks leading into the grass and toward the rail yard. Whoever it is doing the dragging is quite pale - Gossamer. 

Cassandra informs the others and they all head out to look for Gossamer (Emily is reluctant, as she has no particular loyalty to Adam, but she and Franklin decide to accompany Cassandra and Margaret at least to the edge of the Weed property). They follow the drag marks and see Gossamer dragging Adam's body. Cassandra runs toward her to tackle her, but Gossamer hurls a hammer at her and knocks her down. Emily fires her shotgun and wings Gossamer, who screams and runs.

Cassandra regains her composure and follows Gossamer, and Margaret keeps up as best she can. Emily has Franklin tend to Adam as best he can, and follows, reloading. Franklin, for his part, sees that Adam is bleeding from a head wound, but is alive and regains consciousness. 

Cassandra tries to talk Gossamer down and is almost successful, but then Emily steps into view with her shotgun and Gossamer gets all worked up again. Margaret tends to her wound, but Gossamer panics and tries to run. Margaret trips her with her cane, and the others restrain her. 

They take Gossamer back to the asylum, and take Adam to a doctor. Gossamer later informs Cassandra that she felt that she needed to offer Adam as a sacrifice to the Blood Grass, by burning him. Adam tells Franklin that he really should attend service at the Seven Sons church, and Franklin agrees. And the red grass grows thick and full, and starts to spread outside of the rail yard. 

Character Creation: Würm

Ugga-bugga, says the caveman. 

The Game: Würm
The Publisher: Nocturnal Media
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

Actually, the book makes very clear that the characters involved (Neanderthals and Cro Magnon) are much more advanced, linguistically speaking, than grunts and gibberish. That said, nothing says they couldn't use "ugga-bugga" the way we use "yadda yadda" or "more or less." "How far is the bush with the tasty berries?" "Four miles, ugga-bugga." Anyway. 

In Würm, you play, simplistically put, cavemen. It's a translation of a French game, and it very much shows in the sentence structure. I actually think it could have used one more pass from a native English speaker to clean up the language a little, but it's by no means unreadable, just a little hard to parse at times. I really like the central premise and the setting (35,000 years ago, pretty accurate archaeological info, except some light magic and supernatural shit). I did find myself wondering how a campaign of this game would go, but I think if I had the right group it could be a lot of fun for like a 10 or 12 session story. 

Anyway, character creation seems pretty quick, so let's dOOOOooooOOO it!

So, the first choice is: Long Man or Bear-man? That is, Cro Magnon or Neanderthal. I think I shall go with Bear-men. Means I'm a little shorter than the Long Men, my features are a little, um, bulgier, and the type of tools I can use are different. 

Clan and Tribe are things that the GM would provide in play, so let's say he's part of the Black River tribe (it's described in a sample scenario in the book). 

Gender and age are next. Well, I want to be male, and age is rolled (1d6 + 10). 12, which probably puts me right out of my initiation ritual (or about to start it, if we did it in play). 

Strengths are next. Würm doesn't have stats per se, instead there are aspect-like things that modified certain actions (XP, too, doesn't let you buy shit, but instead lets you modify rolls in play, which is really interesting). 

So I start with 3 Strengths. One comes from my People, and I choose the other two. As a Bear-man, I can pick Heart of Ice or Strength of the Bear. Well, Heart of Ice gives me a bonus to resist pain and cold, and since I'm basically Mr. Freeze in real life, I like that. I also want Softness of the Otter, because, well, otters; that gives me a bonus for calming folks down and giving first aid. And just to keep the theme going, I'll take Fins of the Salmon (bonus to swimming and fishing). Seems appropriate, if I live on a river.

At this point I could take a fourth Strength if I take a Weakness, but eh. I like that this guy is a young man who hasn't had a chance to get kicked in the face by life yet, so I'll stick with what I have. 

I start with 3 Experience (which refreshes during play and, again, gets spent to influence rolls). I get 30 Stamina. I start with the basic Craft skills of my culture, which is...Mousterian, which means I get Wood craft and Stone craft (flake flint knapping). I start with 6d6 Prestige to split between Bravery and Generosity (hang on), 22, so I'll say 18 in Bravery and 4 in Generosity (which is much harder to get). 

Equipment! I get clothes and weapons appropriate to my culture, which probably means a stone knife for slittin' up fish. Ooh, and a fishing spear. 

And other than a name, that's it! I'll say my young fisherman is called Ki'e (probably it's derived from their word for "fish" or something). He's tall for a Bear-man, has a mop of brown hair and amber eyes, and he's known for being able to dive deep into the cold water to fish. He's already had a couple of drowning scares, though, and his father has warned him that if doesn't learn his limits he's going to wind up staying underwater. 

That'll do it! Gotta say, no idea how it would play but chargen is nicely simple. 

Character Creation: Kidworld

Sometimes, I start reading a game for this project and it's so interesting, well-written, or innovative as a game that even if it's long, I feel like I want to finish the book. This is not one of those cases.

The Game: Kidworld
The Publisher: Vajra Enterprises
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

So, I want to say up front that one of the reasons I couldn't get into this game is because violence against children is one of those things that I generally request is not part of games I'm playing in. I respect that it's a potentially evocative source of horror and that not everyone has the same reactions as others (which is why I included monsters like the Bloodybones in Chill, even though I'd never use it in my own games), but 90% of the time it's not something I want to include in my RPGs. (I say "90%" because once in a great while I've been at tables where people are willing to treat that kind of horror respectfully and it can make for really powerful stories.)

Kidworld's premise is that a disease killed off most of the adults and struck the rest blind. Children and teens retain their sight, but lose it as they get older and go entirely blind by age 17 or so (and characters start taking sight penalties as they get older). That by itself is a pretty cool post-apoc premise, but then it starts getting a little iffy:

Not a great set of options. The other thing is that adults in the setting can temporarily regain their sight by eating children's eyes. There's a snippet of fiction in which an adult shows up to a kid enclave, convinces them he's OK, then bashes all their kids' heads in with a rock and scoops out their eyes (whether they survive the head bash or not). And like, is that supposed to emulate something that could or should happen in this game? 'Cause I want no fucking part of it. 

Anyway, I'm gonna make a character because rules are rules, but I'm not real interested in looking into this game any further. I can make an adult character or a kid, but I'm gonna make a kid because that seems much more interesting. 

So, Step One, as is often the case, is concept. Part of that is picking an age. Step Two is explicitly "Age." 

Do people not use the chargen system, or have someone who didn't write the book do so, before going to press? 

Anyway, I want to make a kid who kills adults. Fuck it, if we're going horrific, let's do that. My kiddo is aware that some adults eat the eyes of children, some of them want to enslave children, and maybe some of them just have kids' best interests at heart...but those aren't dice he's willing to roll. He's also aware that his vision is going to start fading as he gets older, and when that happens he's planning on walking into the goddamn ocean. (Would that actually happen, or would he, like many people, get more conservative - in this case meaning "willing to literally feast on the young" - as he got older?)

His name is Rollo, he's half white and half Japanese (no particular reason other than I've been playing Ghost of Tsushima). Let's move on to...

Step Two: Age. Important note: the default setting of the game is 4 years after the Plague hit. Kids start taking penalties to sight at age 11. I could cope with my homicidal li'l guy being 10, I think, which would mean he was about 1st grade or so when the Plague appeared. He has very much grown up with this as his normal, then. This means I get 3 "Cognitive Deficits" (I'll rant about that in a minute), 60 Attribute points, and that "points per Attribute" is ~6.5, and Health Attribute Points is 9. Not entirely sure what all that means, but on we go.

Step Three: Cognitive Deficits. 

Argh. There is so much wrong with this simplistic, ageist, "kids r stoopid" bullshit that I can't even begin to unravel it all. Anyway, I have to pick three of these things, so let's find the three least ridiculous ones. Nope, that didn't work, they're all awful. OK, we'll take Injuries are Deadly, Just World, and Evil Strangers.

Step Four: Attributes. I have 60 points to spend. Max is 20, minimum is one, but for some of them, I can't go higher than 10 (my age). Also, there are apparently traits later on that can alter these scores, which I really appreciate them saying up front. So let's see:

Adjustment: How well-adjusted to the fucked-up world the kiddo is. Hmm. I feel like Rollo is functional enough, but not perfectly so. I'll put 5 here for now. 

Agility: Standard attribute, I'll put 10 in. 

Awareness: Basic perception shit. Let's say 8. 

Charm: Likeability and so on. I'll put 2 in for now. 

Endurance: The usual shit. Let's say 5. 

Intelligence: Ah, another game system tries to quantify intelligence. I'd be more forgiving if they didn't just tell me that all children from ages 4 to 15 are "cognitively deficient" in some way. Anyway, I'll put 5 here. 

Speed: Run, jump, leap, 5 points. 

Strength: Muscles, punch damage, etc. 3 points. 

Willpower: Resistance to emotional manipulation. 10 because it's capped. 

Still got 7 more. I'll bump Strength to 5 and Agility to 15. 

And then I get 9 points to split up into Health attributes. 3 across the board, I don't care that much. 

Step Five: Character Class. Oh, goody. Well, there's no "killer" class, so maybe Feral? Let's check. Nope, that doesn't work, that's for kids who have basically never been part of human society. I think Radical makes the most sense. 

Dunno what a lot of that means yet, but on we go. 

Step Six: Skills. Ah, I see. I get 100 points for Skills, but the costs are set by my class. Maximum for a skill is 5. Well, let's see how best to murder! 

OMG, there are too many Skills. Well, let's see which are cheap for me as a Radical. Athletics and Naughty are relatively cheap, while Scholastics, Sensory, and (fuck) Combat are hella expensive. Dammit. Well, I'd like:

Climbing 2
Prowling 2
Archery 2
Shelter Making 1
Traditional Crafts 1
Trap Making 1
Knife Fighting 3
Read/Write 1
Knot Tying 1

That all puts me 1 point over. Maybe I can get more Skill points with Disadvantages? Yes I can, so I'll just leave myself one point over for now and fix it when I get to that step. But first:

Step Seven: Equipment. Well, not making it the last step makes it more likely I'll do it, I suppose. I have 25 cans of food (which is the currency nowadays), and 10 cans of food (CF) worth of weapons and armor. I know I want a bow, so let's see if I can do that. I can! A bow is 6CF plus 1CF per four arrows, so let's just blow the 7. Three more cans for weapons, and I want a knife. A hunting knife is 5CF, that's fine. I have 23 CF left. Three for 30 feet of climbing rope. Backpack (1CF), boltcutters (5CF), duct tape (2CF). 12 left. Anything else I really want? Not really.

Step Eight: Ads/Disads. I can take a max of 30 points of disads. I don't know if I will, but I would certainly like more Skill points. 

Well, I'll take a deadly allergy to shellfish, why not. That gives me 8 points (and I'll spend 5CF on an epi-pen, while I'm thinking about it). Enemy: Community, shit yeah. We'll say that Rollo killed a member of an eye-eater community and now they're looking for him (well, I say "looking", but y'know). That's worth 9BP.

Aw. Lonely. It's only worth 1BP, but I like it. That gives me 18. 

OK, I'm not gonna take it, but there's a "Stutterer" disad that has an accompanying skill that you can take called "Not Stuttering," and apart from the fact that it should have been called "Fluency," that's about the most realistic depiction of a stutter I've seen in an RPG, I think. So, cool, they got that right. 

Anyway, I'll take Shy (3BP) and that gives me 21. That should be good, I think?

Each BP gives me three Skill Points. I need one Skill Point to get me out of the hole, and then obviously I'll need to throw some more around. I'll put 3 BP towards Skills, which gives 9 Skill points, one to put me even, and then 8 more and I'll buy a level of Tracking. 

OK, with that in mind, I want to look over Advantages. Oh, yeah, Done-It-All. Basically Rollo doesn't risk an Adjustment check for doing shit to survive because he has already. And...no other Advantages I really want. Cool. So I have 17 more BP to spend on Attributes and Skills. They're one-for-one for Attributes, so let's check my Skills against the Attributes and see what I need to be better at. 

Well, many of my Skills rely on Intelligence, which is only 5. I'll bump it to 10. That's 12 BP left. I'll buy up Awareness to 10 (10 BP left), and then I'll dump the other 10 BP into Skills, which gives me 30 Skill points. I'll spent 15 to buy Archery up to 3, and I'll bump Climbing to 3, Prowling to 4, and buy two levels in Running.

Oof, that's enough of this. Rollo is only 10, but knows that within the next couple of years his vision is going to start to go. He plans on keeping other kids safe from adults as long as possible, and he'd really like to find a better bow in order to make that happen. His inclination in a normal world might be to be a little more bookish, or at least more intellectually curious, but in this awful world, all he knows is that some adults murder kids for their eyes, but an arrow in the throat takes care of that. 

Atlantis: Cult of the Weeping Lady

"Cult" is such an ugly word, which is why I used it. Here's last time.

The characters have been split up (as it, wasn't really their idea). Akala, Eithne, and Imani are with the women of the undersea society of Elapia, while Thanos is led to the building where the males live (the "man shack" as we took to calling it). The men are nervous around Thanos - they aren't used to Andamen other than Tritons. Thanos smiles big for them, but remember that his teeth are huge and sharp, and this just frightens the men more. They start murmuring amongst themselves, but the only word Thanos catches is "sacrifice." He decides to go back down the tunnel and see what his companions are up to, but he doesn't want to alarm the fellows here, so he casts an illusion of himself to stay behind and slips into the tunnel. 

Meanwhile, the others are talking with the head priestess (or at least, the one whom the others seem to defer to). Akala has figured out the Elapia dialect enough to communicate reliably, so she asks a bit about the history. She's told that Elapi was a city above the waves until the Great Cataclysm, when it sank into the sea, and the goddess Oshún heard their prayers and saved them. Akala avoids blaspheming like she did before with the little Triton kid, and listens to a bit more. All women are considered priestess of Oshún, and men live separately until a woman has need of one. Akala tells her about the demon that they killed and about the city above theirs, and the women seemed politely disinterested. Eithne and Imani, though, notice that the other women don't seem entirely in agreement when the head priestess denies there being any other demons down here...

Thanos creeps up to the temple and uses his magic to talk with Eithne briefly, telling her that he is concerned that they (or maybe just him) is going to be sacrificed. Eithne communicates this to Akala, who asks about the worship of Oshún in practical terms, and the priestess offers to show them. She leads them down the tunnel (Thanos turns invisible and follows) to the fields, where a few other women are tending the crops. The head priestess leaves, and Akala, Eithne, and Imani try to work the land a bit. They're all pretty bad at it, though, until one of the women shows them. She explains to Imani that working the land is worship, and shows Imani the area in the crops where she herself gave birth. Imani smiles and nods, but this all feels very culty to her.

Meanwhile, Thanos slips up behind the head priestess and puts his blade to her throat, demanding to know if he is meant to be sacrificed. She denies that, and he believes her, but the conversation doesn't go further because a huge crocodile-like creature barrels in from the water and bites down on them both, screaming "THANOS!" He recognizes it - it's the creature he wounded back in Acheron.

Thinking quickly, Thanos spins around and hits the monster with a blast of magic that sends it spiraling away into the deeps...but it's carrying the head priestess with it. Thanos has just enough time to notice that before he passes out. 

The others decide that they've had enough worship and they'd rather keep swimming around the city, so they take their leave and swim over to the building they saw with the claw marks. Akala notes that the claw marks definitely aren't from the demon they killed, and Imani, headstrong as ever, swims into the building to look around (as does Eithne). Inside, they find carnage. Multiple bodies, all men, all with their hearts ripped out. Eithne deduces that this monster was probably a natural creature at one point, but was changed via magic (though not any time recently). They decide to swim over to the man shack and see what the men of Elapi really think about being used as a snackrifice. 

Akala talks to the men and learns that, according to legend, Oshún blessed this place with water that was sweet, and filling, and made all manner of things grow...up until someone broke their promise to never blaspheme against her. Then she withdrew her blessing, and the creature is meant to be some kind of test from her. Akala disputes this (it's not really in character for Oshún), and the men agree that it doesn't seem to be helping in any event.

And just then, the corpse of the head priestess falls into the tunnel, followed by Thanos' gladius. Eithne spots the creature swimming away, and Imani strikes out after it and stabs it. It turns and snaps at her, but Eithne hits it with a bolt of magical lightning. It bites Imani and swims toward the man shack, as Akala taunts it and tries to get the men to take up arms. Eithne casts a spell and forces its jaws open so Imani can escape, but Imani is poisoned and feels herself weakening. That isn't enough to quell her bloodlust, though.

The creature speaks and tells the assembled men that it was sent here by Set, not Oshún, and Thanos is here to harvest hearts along with it. All of these outsiders are here for their hearts, in fact! The men start chattering in terror, noting that Thanos does indeed have big crocodile like teeth. Akala tries to talk sense into the men, and Imani attacks again as Eithne slices at its tail with a water-blade. The creature swims away, however, having planted the seeds of suspicion. Imani tries to follow it, but loses her strength. She finally manages to shake off the poison just as Eithne reaches her.

Back in the tunnel, priestesses arrive with a casket containing Thanos' body. They drop it in front of the characters and are horrified to see the body of their head priestess. They take her body and tell the characters to stay put, that they need to discuss this and figure out who's lying. 

Eithne casts a spell on Thanos to help his body metabolize the poison, while Akala patches Imani up. The men withdraw, afraid of the characters, and they collect their thoughts and rest.

Cairn: Talons and Treetops

Finally managed to play Cairn today. Woo!

The characters are in the forest, trying help the Quickbough Clan deal with their hawk issue. To wit, the hawk has been driving the squirrels away from a storage tree. The characters have a look, and decide to use some rope to slide the goods down the tree and get them away, since the hawk doesn't seem to be around (after Rummy scared it off). 

Ratatosk scampers up the tree to the knothole where the stuff is kept, and Russelet flies up and looks for trouble, but sees none. As Ratatosk looks down the tree and tries to get things set up, though, a shadow falls across him. He turns and sees...the hawk.

Yipe!

The hawk swipes at him with its talons, and Ratatosk falls back. Snootabur and Russelet fire arrows at it. Snootabur's wounds it, and Russelet drives it back and it jumps off the branch and flaps. Rumdiggle starts singing (she's too far away to scare it, and she's out of Magic Points anyway). All of the Knights feel a sinking feeling in their stomachs - Disharmony. 

Ratatosk blows sneezing powder in its face, and Russelet fires another arrow at the bird's eye. The arrow doesn't kill it, but does stick in its eye and it flies away in pain. 

The squirrels cheer for the Knights, and then immediately start getting all their stuff out of the tree. Ratatosk talks to Oyalla Quickbough (the young squirrel they saved from the hawk last session), and learns that the hawk killed her uncle Berntower last autumn and just left his body at the foot of the tree. Russelet, deep into Discord now, tricks some squirrels into a shell game to try and boost his Harmony, but it doesn't help all that much. He does, however, hear some of the squirrels referring to the hawk as "Ashfeather."

The Knights split up a bit; Snootabur and Rumdiggle go back to Cairn and try and get some rest. Russelet flies off a bit and goes looking for the hawk. He finds it - Ashfeather is by the stream, standing on a big flat rock, tearing a frog apart angrily. Russelet decide to try and trick it and lead it into an ambush, but he loses track of it and then the hawk divebombs and grabs him. He stabs the hawk in the foot and it lets him go, and Russelet crashes into a thicket and passes out.

Ratatosk, meanwhile, is trying to learn more about Berntower's murder and the hawk, but the squirrels are busy and he can't quite keep up. He takes a breather on a high branch, but the wind blows the branch and exposes him to the sky...and the hawk swoops down and claws at him.

Fortunately, Ratatosk is a druid. He casts Thornsting and the branches get all pointy and lash out at the hawk. Ashfeather screams and flies away, and Ratatosk heads to a lower branch. 

At dusk, Snootabur and Rumdiggle meet up with Ratatosk (who has just snorted some Enervating Powder to stay awake). They don't see Russelet, which worries them a little. They head into woods and track him (through blood trail, which worries them more), but find him by the brook, fishing. They talk about the hawk, and Russelet suggests that since hawks are diurnal they hunt the fucker down. But of course, he's still in Discord...

Character Creation: Cold Shadows

In honor of Black Widow finally opening this week, I wanted to do an espionage-themed game, and this is the only one I have left in hard copy (probably I have some in PDF, but I don't feel like searching through them to find one).

The Game: Cold Shadows
The Publisher: Gallant Knight Games
Degree of Familiarity: None with this game, though World of Dew, which I have run, uses effectively the same system
Books Required: Just the one

Cold Shadows is an espionage game in which the characters are working for "the Agency," which at start of play has one single "Division" but can get more as the game progresses. Many of the related terms are similarly generic ("Director," "Agents," and so on), and as such it'd be easy for the game to feel a little flavorless, but I didn't get that sense as I was reading it. 

Normally the group would create the Agency before making individual characters, but I've read the appropriate sections and it's by no means impossible to make a character without an Agency, it just means I'll be fudging some decisions that the group would normally have made. 

So! First thing I choose is a name and a codename. I'll say his name is Lyle Manning (it's not his real name, but that's fine). His codename is Mangrove (I have an idea for this character being a recruiter or a trainer or something, and I like the idea of his codename being a big tree with a dense root structure). 

Next is Role, and lookit that, Commander is exactly what I want. Mangrove has a number of soldiers under his command. His unit is nickname "Swamp Rats" because, well, they're under Mangrove, but they're trained in all kinds of terrain. I think Mangrove is very much a Floridian, though. 

Virtues! There are six, but I only get 5 (one is my weakness). You know, I think I'll put my Weakness in Athleticism and say that Manning is disabled somehow, so he can't do the physical bit of spycraft like other Agents (he's not completely unable, he just doesn't get Virtue dice for Athleticism risks). For the others, I get one at 4, two at 3, two at 2 (and then I'd normally raise our Agency's favored one, but I don't have an Agency so let's just pretend it's Athleticism, which sucks but life's like that). 

Well, as a trainer and leader, I think my 4 has to be Charisma. I'll put my 3s into Perception and Resolve, and my 2s into Violence and Intellect.

Next would be Aspects. Now, again, this is something that would really depend on the group, because the Agency should have four Aspects and I pick three of them to apply to Mangrove. That's fine, I'll just pick three. 

Aaaaand, why aren't these in alphabetical order, yatatata? Anyway, I definitely want Teamwork. Flip the Enemy is also good (basically, Mangrove understands that all armies are made up of soldiers, and soldiers' loyalty has limits). For the last one, I don't think I could play a Floridian and not take Hold My Beer. Oh, wait, no, "Hold My Beer" doesn't mean what it should, it means the Agents like to drink. Learn your fuckin' idioms. That's OK, Wilderness Survival Training is perfect. 

(Also, Aspects are in alphabetical order, but Teamwork is printed first as an example in the same format as the other Aspects, so it's hard to tell.)

Now I pick a Background, which gives me an Advantage. I want Military as Mangrove's background. For my Advantage...I'll take Up Close & Personal. I can do more damage with a knife (I'm seeing a Tommy Lee Jones in whatever that movie with Benicio de Toro was, where he played an ex Special Forces trainer who had to hunt del Toro down). 

Trust and Cover. I get 2 Trust, and that's it for that. My cover is going to be as a military base commander (easy, right?). His name is John A. Ames. 

And then I get one more Advantage. I'll take Insight, so I start at Role Rank 2 instead of one. 

And that's it! I picture Mangrove as a tall, thick sort of guy. Looks very much like a high school football coach, and can switch from "caring dad" to "inspiring coach" to "loud DI" in seconds. He's good with tradecraft and can kill a motherfucker in seconds with a knife, but his real passion is training new recruits. He doesn't know it, but the reason the Agency likes him is that he's also good at getting other folks to flip, and at ferreting out traitors. 

And that'll do it!

Character Creation: STaRS

Black Widow isn't until tonight, so in the meanwhile:

The Game: STaRS (Simple Tabletop Roleplaying System)
The Publisher: Charlie Cohen
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

First of all, I've had this song in my head since I started reading this game. I knew that song from a dang Coke commercial, but it turns out it's about doing drugs and partying. 

Anyway, STaRS is a GURPS-like system in that it's setting agnostic and has an easy-to-say acronym. It's very much movie themed (check the character sheet), but unlike a lot of little indie homebrews, it actually addresses the fact that there are a zillion RPGs out there:

The answer they give to the question is "it's simple and you can pick up and play quickly," which is by no means unique among RPGs, but at least it's not "our game doesn't have classes or levels, which is so original!" 

System-wise, it's a d10-roll-low kind of thing, with every two points you beat your target by giving an additional degree of success. I don't love single-die systems generally, but at least degree matters here, which my dearly departed friend Matt Karafa would have been able to explain better than I can. 

Anyway, there's one sample setting in the book, called "Cowboys in Fairyland." It's basically a Western except there are portals to, well, Fairyland in the West, and white people being white people decided to steam in there and take over, Manifesting their Destiny all over the place. There are some things about the presentation I don't love (some exoticization of indigenous folks, f'rex), and the fairy-folk are dwarves, elves, and goblins, which makes my eyes glaze over, but I have to admit that the notion of running railroad tracks into Fairyland is a pretty cool visual. So, sure, let's make a character for this setting. 

Oof. Looking more into it, it looks like elves, dwarves, and goblins are analogs for various Native cultures? Like:

Goblins

Elves

Dwarves

Erm. OK, well, anyway.

Part One is "planning your character." I think I'd like to be either a goblin or a changeling. I think we'll go changeling, actually. I figure my character is the child of a goblin father and a human mother, born in the Utah territory not far from the Ghost Valley called La Puerta. His name is Cesár Rios, now 18 or so, black hair, tan skin, and the pure black eyes characteristic of goblins. 

Goblins are expert crafters and they have some power over fire, including being able to prevent gunpowder from igniting. I think I'd like Cesár to be a gunsmith, but not necessarily a great shot. Like, he knows how to strip and reassemble a gun, how to alter the sights and make it more accurate, but he himself can't hit the broad side of a barn when he's actually holding one. He's largely self-taught, and in his little town he repairs and customizes guns for folks, but going to see him is a dirty little secret because he's a changeling (they call his mother terrible things). 

OK, Abilities, then. There are 10 of them, I start with 5 in each, and I have 3 XP that I can spend to raise them (1-for-1). I can also lower them to get more XP, minimum 3, maximum 6. OK, then. 

Agility seems like it should stay at 5; it's full-body stuff like riding and melee combat. Awareness I kind of want to bump to 6 (I like playing perceptive characters). Dexterity needs to be high, so I'll spend my other two and bump it 7. Everything else is 5 unless I want to lower something. Let's see. 

Oh, Manipulation can be lower. I'll drop that to 3. Cesár gets tongue-tied and he can't lie for shit. I'll use those points to bump Wits and Will to 6. 

Traits, then. I just get 3XP straight up to spend on these, and I could, in theory, buy the goblin Minor Power, but that's to create or snuff fire and I don't see it for Cesár. Instead, I shall blow one on Skill: Gunsmith. And then...Hmm. I think I want Cesár to be able to turn a gun into a Weapon (so it gets a bonus and it's story-important), or otherwise alter guns to do cool shit. That's probably a Moderate Power, which requires 3 points, but I'll also say that he has a Drawback - he can't actually use a gun for shit, and always misses if he tries. 

And that's pretty much it, I think. Nice simple system, the sample setting isn't bad, but they really could've used a sensitivity reader.