Character Creation: Claim the Sky

Went and saw X tonight and now I'm kinda awake, so in order to give my brain something to do I think I'll make a character. No inspiration from the movie (it's tonally, erm, not a fit for this game), but that's fine. 

The Game: Claim the Sky
The Publisher: Monte Cook Games
Degree of Familiarity: None with this particular game, but it's very much in my comfort zone
Books Required: Claim the Sky and the Cypher System core

Claim the Sky is a four-color superhero game using the Cypher System. Cypher has a few expressions of supers, including Unmasked, which I like - it's a more flexible system than I initially realized. The game has an included setting (called "Boundless"), which is basically the Marvel universe with the serial numbers filed off. I kinda like that, though - the problem with running games in an established comic book universe is that everyone has their own expectations about what the world and the famous characters are going to be like, and comic history is so long (and frequently dumb) that you wind up having to do a bunch of world-building by way of pruning anyway. 

SO, with all that in mind, let's build a super-hero! Since I don't have an idea offhand, I'll use their random "generate an origin" table. It says to roll twice and pick your favorite or combine the two, so I'll do that and see what I get.

Hmm. 91 is "survived a disaster, unharmed" and 18 is "chosen one." Oh, well, those actually dovetail nicely. What's interesting is that depending on who/what chose me, I don't need to necessarily have invulnerability powers because it might have just protected me during the disaster. 

You know, I haven't really drawn on oceans as an inspiration for a supers character (at least to my recollection, but there have been quite a few). Swamp Rat was kinda aquatic, but that's not quite the same thing. Anyway, I'll say that my character was caught in a hurricane. Everything near the coast, including his family's home, flooded, and many people died, but as the waves came in and tried to pull him back, something caught him. He found himself surrounded by a glow and he discovered he could breathe, and laughing voices teased him (in a flirty way) and asked if he was a hero or an adventurer. He doesn't know it, but the voices he heard were the Nereids. They granted him superpowers, and so he kinda feels like a chosen one - but of course, the Nereids are capricious, so who knows what they really have in mind long-term? 

OK, decent start. So now I need the usual type, descriptor, and focus (I'm a(n) ADJECTIVE NOUN that VERBS). Let's start with type. That'd be warrior, speaker, explorer, or adept. I don't think speaker is really where I want to go with this guy - it could work, but eh. I usually lean towards explorers, but this guy is saying "warrior" to me. Not about fighting specifically, but definitely a more physical type of character. 

Descriptor, then? I think Charming makes the most sense. My guy is likeable and sexy, and that's how he got the Nereid's attention. 

Focus...this one's a little tougher. Sure, I could pick Explores Deep Waters, but a) that's really on the nose, b) it's not really what I want for this guy and c) I did it with another character. I want this guy - hang on, let's give him a name, at least for his normal life. Terry Houston! So, I want Terry's focus to be a little more on the mystical/divine side of things, I think. Oh, wait, perfect - Channels Divine Blessings. Cool, now that I have all my thingies chosen, let's make all the choices! 

My type gives me 10 Might, 10 Speed, and 8 Intellect. I get to pick whether I want a point of Edge in Might or Speed. I think Might. Practiced with all weapons, and then I get four abilities from the warrior list. OK, well, I want Extra Edge so I have Speed Edge 1 as well. I'll take Physical Skills (swimming and jumping). I'll take Trained without Armor (so I'm trained in Speed defense). And I'll take No Need for Weapons to represent mild super-strength. 

My descriptor gives me +2 to Intellect pool, bumping that to 10. I'm trained in all tasks involving pleasant social interaction, as well as any special abilities that let me influence minds or emotions. However, I also have inability in lore, knowledge, understanding, and willpower. Yeah, this was the right choice for Terry. Oooh, and I get a contact. Well, obviously that's the Nereids. I can ask them for help, but I have to be in the ocean, and they tend to be cryptic and/or busy. 

Finally, my focus gives me all kinds of cool shit. I'm trained in knowledge of godly beings. And then I pick two areas in Blessings of the Gods. Well, this is easy: I want Desire/Love/Health (I can heal with a touch) and Water/The Sea (I can give others the ability to breathe water). 

Right, now I get power shifts. I get five of these puppies, and they're basically just permanent levels of Effort to certain tasks. I want one in Resilience, one in Strength, and one in Dexterity, making me just all-around more physically capable. I'll put one into Power, specifically my "make people breathe water" power - I want that to last longer, and bumped up a step it would last an hour, which is fine. One more. I can take a prodigy shift, allowing me to exchange a tier-one ability for a higher tier one, but eh, I dunno, I like where I'm at. I guess I'll put the last one into Healing, which lets me take an extra one-action recovery roll. 

And I think that's everything but the details! Terry was working in his family's fishing supplies store (probably in Florida; maybe Texas?) when the hurricane hit. After he was blessed by the Nereids, he's become aware of the larger world of superheroes, divinity, and so on, but honestly he's never been terribly good at book-smarts and he has trouble keeping it all straight. Terry does, however, have a good heart, and his new powers allow him to run, jump, swim, fight, and pose with increased ability. 

Terry is a tanned and sleek young man in his early 20s. His hair would probably be darker brown if he lived inland, but he's out in the surf a lot (especially now) so it gets sun-bleached a bit. When he's doing superhero stuff, he wears tight lycra swim shorts and shirt; I'm thinking his color palette is blues and greens. He doesn't wear a mask, but his face always looks a little distorted, as though you're seeing it through the water (another little gift from the Nereids). As a superhero, Terry calls himself Aquamarine (he thought about Beryl or Maxixe, but they're hard to spell).  

That'll do it! 

Character Creation: zauBeR

Already hit my six characters for March, so this one's gravy. Mmm, gravy.

The Game: zauBeR (I have no idea why it's stylized that way)
The Publisher: Letra Impressa
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one, and some dice

zauBeR is an urban fantasy RPG that delves into some "Hitler living in South America" conspiracies (in the game, I mean), but reading it, it's structured like D&D in a lot of ways. The opening fiction and introduction make clear that a) there's influence from Unknown Armies and Conspiracy X and b) English is not the author's first language. It's all simple enough, and it looks playable, but I wasn't wowed. But what the heck, let's throw some dice around my newly clean table and see what happens. 

Same six abilities as D&D, only the range is 2-12, so we just roll 2d6. So: 7, 6, 10, 8, 9, 7. Well, that's awful nice. That gives me modifiers of:

Str 0
Dex 0
Con +1
Int 0
Wis +1
Cha 0

So nothing huge, but nothing that sucks, either. What's next! Education! Here I roll 5d6 and get...13. Well, that sucks. Elementary/middle school. Evidently I was an early dropout. Oh, no, wait! My Int and Wis modifiers apply, so it's actually 14, meanwhile I finished high school! That means I get any one Weapon Skill except Heavy Weapons, and two of any other Skills except for a handful of highly specialized ones. Let's see. Let's assume that my guy was something of a hoodlum, yeah? (I have the overture from West Side Story in my head for whatever reason.) I'll take Short Blades as my weapon, and for the other two, I'll take Athletics and Streetwise.

Next I pick a career, limited by my level of education. Fortunately Criminal is a basic one. My guy is a petty thief/mugger type of guy...at least he was, before becoming at least marginally aware of the mystical nature of the world. Anyway, that means I get to pick Short Blades or Handguns, and since I have Short Blades already that ain't no choice at all (Skills are binary in this game). 

Right, what else? Oh, I get Streetwise, which, like, I have. Hrm. In that case, the book says I can pick any other Skill, so I'll take Performance (dance, probably), and then I'll take Stealth and Smuggling off the list.

And now I pick an elemental path, which is more or less my character class. These become specializations at 5th and 9th level, a la Shadow of the Demon Lord, but of course that doesn't matter much for my purposes. I think I shall make this guy...Path of Earth, I guess. That means he's a rogue, which is pretty on the nose, but I don't want to make him a spellcaster because his Int and Cha (which would give me spell bonuses) are too low, and while I could make him a warrior, I feel like rogue just fits better. 

As a level 1 rogue, I get Rogue Skills (a list of things I can do, like open locks, move silently, etc.); Climb Walls (doy); and Backstab (I can do the sneaky-stab!). The specializations for rogue are interesting - there's Assassin, which is what it says on the tin, but also Explorer and Driver, which are neat outgrowths (ew) of the rogue base class. 

So now what! Hit Dice and Hit Points are really badly explained, and the examples of chargen skip that step, which is dumb, but I think what happens is that I roll 1d6 and add my Con modifier (+1), so that gives me...2. Fuuuuuck. Well, I guess I'm playing Riff, since I'm capable of fighting but gonna go down in one stab. 

Well, if I wear an overcoat, my AC is higher (it'd be 6 unarmored, or 10 with the overcoat). I think I should; it'll reduce my movement but you can't move if you're dead, either. Equipment-wise, I think he has a knife, and anything else I'd want to pick based on the group. 

So who is this fragile little thief? His name is João Silva (this game is, by default, set in Brazil), but his buddies used to call him Folha because he would crumple up like a dry leaf. They don't anymore, because mostly they're dead. João had nothing to do with that; they were all hanging out one night deciding what to do and thinking about where they could get some food, and then someone came along and put them all into a van. João was off having a piss and when he came back, all his homies were in this van driving away. Next day, their bodies turned up in a stack, not a mark on them, all wearing blissful smiles. That was the moment João realized that the world wasn't just full of monsters, it was full of monsters. He's not sure where to go from here (but I think in a group, he might be the sort to pick a PC's pocket and get into the group that way). 

João is a teenager, real skinny (emaciated, you might say), ratty black hair. He hides in a giant overcoat that he stole from a bus station one day. Ooh, maybe that's how he gets into a group - the overcoat has a name and address in it and he goes a-burglin'. 

Anyway, that'll do it!

Slipstream: Radioactive Goop & Orangataurs

Nice thing about Slipstream is that even though we were all super punchy from being up late last night, we can still play this. Here's last time!

We open on the fragment of Avia, in a remote decontamination station. Iris has spent the last few days in a tank of goop, letting the radiation leach out. Zeenia's tub has been brought in, and she's been just lounging about while Oola works with Dr. Chirrip, the Bird-woman scientist, to help cure Iris. 

She only has about 12 hours to go in the tank when Dr. Chirrip looks at her big ol' tech console and frowns. Oola comes over and asks what's wrong, and Chirrip turns around and tells one of the royal guards here to go outside and have a look around. She then tells Oola that there's a weird radiation spike from outside - not dangerous, but happening at regular intervals. Oola quickly deduces that this might be someone looking for them - they do, after all, have enemies. 

At this moment, the door blows open! A band of Earthlings carrying weapons, led by a man in a helmet that obscures his features, enter. The leader points to Oola and says "Take the Rurite alive! The others, capture if you can, kill if you must! Go!" He hurls a grenade at Oola, which explodes into a cloud of gas. Oola manages to resist the effects, but Dr. Chirrip collapses, unconscious.

The bounty hunters rush into the room, and two of them charge over to engage the guards. The other three run at Oola and try to clap her in manacles. They only manage to get one of her pairs of hands immobilized, though. Meanwhile, Zeenia, in her tub, turns invisible and lashes out at a bounty hunter. She only manages to graze him, however (she's not wearing her danger bling). 

Oola throws down an obscuring cloud, and the bounty hunter leader removes his left hand, revealing a mechanical weapon in his arm. He points it at the room and it emits a terrible sonic wave, driving a Bird-Man guard to his knees. At this point, Iris decides she needs to intervene.

She hits the PURGE lever inside the tank, and the radioactive goop flushes away. The tank opens, and she steps out, and shouts "I am Iris Blue of the Daikini Valkryie, daughter of Orchid Blue! Fight me!" 

The bounty hunters fall back out of the cloud and away from Oola, except one, who tries to yank her out (and fails miserably). One of them closes with Iris, but she dips back to the table where her gear is being stored, grabs her sword, and makes short work of the scoundrel. She charges a second and slashes his throat open, a storm of blood and fury with a healthy green glow. Zeenia slithers out of her tub and knocks one of the men against the wall, and Oola activates her new mind control device and orders the leader tell your men to stand down. 

They don't hear the leader speak, but the bounty hunters fall back. Oola continues order them back to your ship. The men start to back out. You stay. The leader falters, but doesn't obey that one (which would effectively be suicide for him). The hunters leave, and the characters hear their ship take off.

Oola helps Dr. Chirrip up, and Iris asks if she needs to get back in the tube. Dr. Chirrip says that it won't help, though - the goop needs to leach all of the radioactivity out, and if the process is interrupted, it can't be restarted. Iris asks if she's dangerous to her friends, but Chirrip says she's not - the radiation levels are too low to be a problem. There might...effects, though.

The heroes jump in their flither and zoom away to the fragment of Vitin, where they mean to intercept the Achilles and learn how it bypasses the Barrier. Vitin is forested, but not lush and full of gigantic trees like Avia. The forests here are thinner and broken up with cities that have been bombed and blasted. The only inhabitants of Vitin are pirate clans, and as the heroes approach, three pirate raider ships pull up to them.

A captain calling himself Frex Invigo demands to know their business. Iris claims that they stole the ship, and they're pirates (but new to the business). Invigo asks the password, and Oola suddenly remembers that Rezzal told them it was "hammerhead." Frex allows them to land, and leads them to meet his brother, Michtitli. 

They find Michtitli on a resplendent golden throne. The heroes tell him what they're here for, and he tell them he can help them find the Achilles. He offers them a wager - beat his champions in a fistfight, or pay him 5000 slips. The heroes agree (though Oola sits the fight out, being a pacifist). 

Michtitli's champions turn out to be three orangataurs, massive carnivorous apes with horns on their foreheads. Iris and Zeenia face off against the monsters, and Zeenia turns invisible. Iris closes with the beasts, but they smack and maul her. Zeenia, however, kills one, then another, and finally becomes visible to bait the last one. It charges at her, but she's far to quick for it, and her tentacle blades strike home again!

The crowd chants her name, and Oola jumps into the ring to help Iris. Everyone wants to buy Zeenia a drink, and the heroes come to later on as Iris heals up and Zeenia sobers up ("I don't want to be a pirate anymore," mutters Iris). Michtitli comes to visit them, and says that he's a Brockian of his word - the Achilles left just before they got here. It's not a fast ship, though, and if they hurry, they should be able to catch up with it.

The heroes head back to their ship to take off. Next time, can they overtake the Achilles, and bring it to heel?!

Oscars: Who Will Win? No One Knows!

Feed the hungry hip-pip-pos! 

Anyway.

Today and tomorrow we clean and cook, and then tomorrow night we eat delicious food and watch millionaires give each other statues. It's pretty cool. 

I have to say, the fact that multiple of my friends refer to Oscars night as their favorite holiday is very gratifying to me. It's indulgent, sure, and there are always movies that get nominated that make me grit teeth or roll eyes. But then, about once or twice a year on average, I get to see a movie that really touches me, makes me laugh out loud, brings me to tears, stays in my thoughts. Since I started antidepressants, I ain't gonna lie, it's been harder to get that reaction because I don't tend to feel as vividly (which, when your primary feeling is "you should jump off of something high", is a good thing), so it's nice when it happens. And indeed, this year there were a few movies that really got to me, so call that a win. 

So, in no particular order, my thoughts and predictions for 10 categories. 

Best Director: Usually I start with acting categories, so why not mix things up? All five Best Director nominees are also up for Best Picture, as is usually the case. Paul Thomas Anderson is here with another story about growing up in the San Fernando valley, but to me it doesn't have the coherence of some of his earlier movies. Kenneth Brannagh is likewise giving us a memoir of his young life with Belfast, and I feel like the movie is a lot more interesting than Licorice Pizza. Jane Campion has the most buzz behind The Power of the Dog, and she's widely believed to be the lock here, but of course our old pal Steven Spielberg is up for the award, too. And then way in the back there's Ryusuke Hamaguchi for Drive My Car.

But like, Hamaguchi managed to take a three hour movie that's mostly a guy sitting in the back seat of a car listening to a recording, all (well, mostly) in Japanese, and make it moving, interesting, and really watchable. Like, it might be my favorite Best Picture nom. I'm perfectly happy with Campion winning because a) women winning two years in a row would be pretty dope and b) The Power of the Dog was a very well-directed movie, but Hamaguchi has my vote. 

My Choice: Ryusuke Hamaguchi
My Prediction: Jane Campion

Best Actress: I finished this category last night, so Parallel Mothers is still on my mind. Honestly, if Pedro Almodóvar had gotten the director nom instead of Anderson, I would have loved that. Penélope Cruz nails her performance as a woman coping with the impossible family situation she finds herself in, but also manages to bring the necessary pathos and passion to the other facets of her life, and that depth of character is pretty amazing (Parallel Mothers was the only movie I cried at this season). And apparently she's getting some buzz here, so maybe she'll take it! 

Olivia Coleman is nominated for The Lost Daughter, which I enjoyed while I watched it but doesn't really seem to have stuck with me. Part of it, I think, is that her character in the movie is a terrible person and it's hard to root for her, but of course that just means Coleman (and Jessie Buckley) did her job. Likewise, Jessica Chastain made Tammy Faye Bakker vulnerable and likeable, without turning her story into a hagiography. Kristen Stewart in Spencer showed us how difficult Diana found her royal existence, and frankly I just love that Stewart got nominated. Nicole Kidman...well, look, I really liked Being the Ricardos, and I thought she did a stellar job as Lucille Ball. I will point out, however, that this category is not terribly racially diverse, and if any of them should have not been nominated, it probably should have been Nicole.

My Choice & Prediction: Penélope Cruz

Best Supporting Actress: LADIES FIRST. This category is, from what I understand, a lock for Ariana DeBose, and well done her. As is often the case in musicals, we may root for the leads, but the foils are often the most interesting characters, and DeBose's Anita was one of the best parts of West Side Story. Honestly the only other performance in this category I thought was truly memorable was Jessie Buckley's (again, terrible person, but as the younger Leda Caruso you can at least see how she's torn between her family, her passion, and her obligation). Not to say that Kirsten Dunst, Judi Dench, and Aunjanue Ellis didn't turn in good peformances (Ellis especially), but thinking about the movies now I'm hard pressed to remember specific scenes involving Dunst and Dench. Anyway, I think the right person is going to win here and I hope she delivers her acceptance speech in Spanish.

My Choice & Prediction: Ariana DeBose

Best Animated Feature: Good crop of movies this year, none of this Ferdinand bullshit. I think Encanto is the clear winner here, but I thought Raya & the Last Dragon did some really cool world-building and I appreciated the message of community and collaboration. Likewise, The Mitchells vs. the Machines was probably the funniest of the bunch (and they managed to sneak in some queer content, always nice). Luca was fun, and definitely included some content on family, pressure, and acceptance that I thought was nice. And, of course, Flee was only animated to protect the identity of the lead, which is some pretty heavy shit. 

In the end I think Encanto is going to benefit from having a theatrical run, Lin-Manuel Miranda's music, the amazing cast, and how goddamn catchy "We Don't Talk About Bruno" is (though of course that's not the song that was nominated for Best Song, for whatever reason). 

My Choice & Prediction: Encanto

Best Supporting Actor: So, right off the bat, I'm not crazy about J.K. Simmons being here. I mean, sure, his portrayal of William Frawley was fun to watch, and Simmons is superb as usual, but this category is all white, and like, no one from Drive My Car? No other actors of color? Not Corey Hawkins? It's nice that Troy Kotsur is nominated (and likely to win), but I think we could have done without Simmons (or, indeed, Ciarán Hinds).

Kodi Smit-McPhee and Jesse Plemmons, both from The Power of the Dog, were both good, though I think Smit-McPhee's performance was by far the better of the two. If someone other than Kotsur were to win, I'd definitely vote for Smit-McPhee, for his shy, vulnerable, and surprising role here. I think, though, that Kotsur provided a really nice emotional center to CODA, and I'm rooting for him.

My Choice & Prediction: Troy Kotsur

Best Actor: Well, a little more diversity here. We've got Denzel Washington as MacBeth (funny, he doesn't look Scottish) and Will Smith as...Serena and Venus Williams' dad. Of the two, I feel like Smith's role was the bigger stretch, actually. Richard Williams clearly loves his daughters and wants them to succeed, but like, he's a bit of a jerk. The movie was a little nicer to him than it could have been, but it wasn't all glossed over, either. I didn't love Washington in The Tragedy of MacBeth, if I'm honest. I found his performance a little flat, although I liked the overall film. 

So what about the other guys? Andrew Garfield nailed his performance in Tick...Tick..Boom!, and Benedict Cumberbatch got to be a real dick in The Power of the Dog. Javier Bardem, I think, turned in my favorite performance in this category as Desi Arnaz, but I think the performance only really works up alongside Nicole Kidman's, if that makes sense (and I guess here's as good a place as any for my yearly gripe that there's no Ensemble Cast award).

My Choice: Javier Bardem, I guess
My Prediction: Will Smith

Best Adapted Screenplay: As usual I have not read any of the source material. First of all, I'm a little grumpy that Dune got nominated here (or, like, at all) because I really thought that it was four hours of setup for the actual story (yes I know the movie isn't that long, but it felt like it). The Lost Daughter had a strong script, and I didn't realize at first that Maggie Gyllenhaal was the one who adapted it as well as directing the movie (well done you!). I think the ending was a little weak, but I dunno. Of the remaining three (CODA, The Power of the Dog, and Drive My Car), I know that Drive My Car was based on a few different stories in a collection, not just the eponymous one, and again, I really love that story, so I think that's where my vote would go. 

Now, as for who's gonna win this? I dunno. Maybe Jane Campion for The Power of the Dog, since it's got so many noms, maybe The Lost Daughter because historically the Academy loves to reward actors for stepping out of their lanes. I think I'm hearing the most buzz for CODA, though.

My Choice: Drive My Car
My Prediction: CODA

Best Original Screenplay: Ah, my favorite category. Here's the weird stuff lives...or rather, should. Weirdest thing we have this year is Don't Look Up, which, not gonna lie, I really loved. It was painful to watch, but as is typical of Adam McKay, it managed to keep everything fast and light enough that it doesn't have time to become a bummer. King Richard I could take or leave. Belfast had a strong script, and it didn't feel as self-indulgent or wanky as some other personal stories - such as, hey, Licorice Pizza. And then there's our sole non-Best Picture nom, The Worst Person in the World, which to me falls into the same category as previous nominees like Happy-Go-Lucky and Another Round - entertaining enough, but like, an exemplar of screenwriting? I dunno. 

All in all, I think there are some weak entries, here. Licorice Pizza in particular annoys me. 

My Choice: Don't Look Up
My Prediction: Belfast

Best Production Design: Not a category I usually talk about, but what the heck. Here we've got Dune, The Power of the Dog, The Tragedy of MacBeth, West Side Story, and Nightmare Alley. I rather suspect that Dune is going to take this, and in fairness the sets and world-building are pretty fantastic. I think that MacBeth is probably too sparse, although I think the choices were made to evoke live theater in some ways, and that's cool (see also Dogville, if you've got the stomach for a von Trier film). West Side Story is a Spielberg production and it shows; everything is perfect and the world is expertly crafted. I personally like the gritty, dirty, dusty feeling of the design of both The Power of the Dog and, especially, Nightmare Alley, the latter because it goes from the grime of a cheap carnival to the glitzier but somehow still noir upscale scene and back again. 

My Choice: Nightmare Alley
My Prediction: Dune

Best Picture: OK. Let's take these one at a time.

Licorice Pizza...man, I dunno. I know that Anderson's movies get recognition and he's made some pretty amazing films, but I didn't enjoy this one much. Some of it is because it's really kind of weak as far as plot goes, some of it is because the main inspiration of the movie is "what if a teenage boy asks an adult woman out and she says yes" (the answer is, she is probably breaking the law, depending on where things go), and part of it is just that although it has some solid performances, it just kinda rambles on and on and never quite takes the risks or reaches the stakes that Boogie Nights did, never gets as weird as Phantom Thread, never resonates like There Will be Blood. 

King Richard is a much better film, but what I keep coming back to is that it's weird to do a movie focused on the Williams' sister's dad when they're pretty damned amazing on their own. And, sure, he planned out their lives, but like...that's fucked up, right? Or is it OK because they actually did turn out to be amazing athletes? I don't know. It's a biopic, it was good, it was well-acted, I don't think it's a Best Picture.

Don't Look Up is not going to win. It's in my top three; I like McKay's work, I like social satire, and of course it's satisfying in a schadenfreude kind of way to know that if the world ends, it won't be my fault because I'm one of the smart ones. I think if this wins anything it'll be Screenplay, which is really where the strength of the film is. 

Nightmare Alley isn't going to win - it's got no buzz behind it, it's long, violent, and weird. But then again, I've seen weird movies take Best Picture, so who knows? This is another of my favorites; I love noir, I love Guillermo del Toro, I love stories set during the Depression. I kinda wish more of the movie had been set at the carnival, but I think this is probably tied for my favorite Best Picture nom this year.

Tied with Drive My Car, as it happens. There is no way this is winning, but holy cats, it's so good. I saw an article written by a screenwriter (I think) who named this movie as his Best Picture choice, and at the time I thought it sounded kind of pretentious. Having seen it, though, it really isn't. It's poetic, it's moving, and it's hopeful. The movie takes the time it needs to present all of the characters' stories, but even as you learn about them, a lot of things remain mysterious - you never get a fully objective view of anyone. And all of that set against the backdrop of a production of Uncle Vanya, just *mwah*.

Belfast is another coming-of-age story, but unlike Licorice Pizza, this one actually has some heart and some blood to it. We get to see barricades in the street and assholes profiting off the misery, and those are things that are still relevant (and becoming more so, I suppose). Brannagh manages to keep the self-indulgent wankery to a minimum (largely because he didn't act in it). I think the wrong performers got nominated, but the overall movie is impressive. I don't think it's going to win, but it's not out of the realm of possibility. 

The Power of the Dog has gotten some mixed reviews in addition to all of the acclaim (Sam Elliot was just badmouthing it, which is a little surprising - what is it about podcasts that makes people run their mouths?). I'm actually not familiar with Campion's work (The Piano came out in the 90s before I started following Oscar movies, and all I know about it is that Anna Paquin won an Oscar at age 11). It was darker than I was expecting, and slower paced, but the performances - Cumberbatch and Smit-McPhee especially - made it work. This is another one that might very well win it. 

West Side Story probably isn't going to win, but I have to say, I thought it was deserving of the nomination. I wasn't sure if it would be or if it was going to get the nom because of nostalgia and because of Spielberg (I think Spielberg got the Director nom because of Spielberg). The choice to keep the Spanish dialog un-subtitled was a good one, as were the changes to the character of Anybodys, the casting of Rita Moreno in the "Doc" role, and the intensity of the very nearly gang-rape scene involving Anita. It can be hard to give older musicals some bite, but this managed.

Dune...fuck me. Look, I've not read the novel(s), and while I've seen the 1984 David Lynch version of Dune, honestly it was so goddamned weird (and I was so very drunk last time I watched it) that I don't really compare it. But I was not impressed by this movie. I thought characters were introduced with very little context, I thought this rather complicated world didn't get enough grounding for a casual viewer, and most of all, I think it violates a pretty important rule of storytelling - if you're not telling us about the most interesting part of the protagonist's life, why not? I know we've got more of these movies to look forward to so maybe it'll improve, but I'm gonna be salty if this wins. 

Which leaves us with CODA. I wouldn't have thought this had as much chance as some of the others, but then it won the SAG for Best Cast, and it's getting some buzz. I think the release on Apple+ may hurt it, too. But at the end of the day, is it a deserving movie? The plot is, after all, pretty basic - child of a working class family wants to go away to college, family doesn't entirely get why that's a big deal. The wrinkle is that, as the title says, she's a CODA, but all that does is highlight the themes of family responsibility. It's a classic plot, and a well-made (and well-acted) movie. If it wins, I think that's fine; if nothing else maybe it'll give some hearing folks some understanding or awareness of Deaf culture. 

My Choice: Drive My Car
My Prediction: CODA

Board Game: Exploding Kittens

Mew! Boom! 

The Game: Exploding Kittens
The Publisher: The Oatmeal
Time: 10 minutes or so
Players: Me, Michelle, Gus, Jenn

Game Play: Everyone gets 4 cards plus a Defuse. The deck is then seeded with [players -1] exploding kittens cards. Every turn, you play a card from your hand (if you want) and then draw a card off the top of the deck. Draw a kitten and you're out (boom!). Last one standing wins. 

A bomb in waiting

The cards allow some deck manipulation; look at the next three cards in the stack, skip your turn without drawing, steal cards from other players, and the like. 

Opinions: The game itself is fine. It's the artwork and the game text that some folks might find objectionable. I have the NSFW version of the game, which has dick jokes and poop and so forth, but if The Oatmeal's art style isn't for you then it's probably not the dicks that are gonna make the difference. For example, Michelle really dislikes this game. The humor just goes right over her head and the she finds the art gross (which, to be fair, some of it is). 

Michelle's about done with this

 

I think the game is fun and perfectly playable, and I think it's replayable enough to not just be gimmicky. The visuals are the only real objection, and it's not nearly bad enough to make me want to put it down and never pick it up. 

Keep? Sure

Character Creation: MASHED

Incoming wounded!

The Game: MASHED
The Publisher: Brabblemark Press
Degree of Familiarity: Haven't played this, but it's PbtA and I know that pretty well
Books Required: Just the one

When she saw that I was reading MASHED, Michelle asked if I was familiar with the show M*A*S*H*. I replied that I'm from Toledo, so I have a little ingrained cultural understanding of the show. But seriously, I haven't watched a lot of it but I've watched some, and it's an interesting point of inspiration for an RPG.

Not to say that MASHED is just an RPG based on that one show. Closer to the truth to say that both the game and the show take their inspiration from the reality of MASH units in the Korean war, which is pretty niche as far as game settings go. But, as I've often said, I think it's wiser to make a game that is unabashedly about something and risk that something being too specific than to try and appeal to the broadest possible audience, because the broadest audience still thinks D&D is the only RPG out there.

So anyway, let's make a character. 

As with many PbtA games, our first step is to choose a playbook. My options here are Angel, Doc, Cutter, Grunt, Padre, or Corpsman. Well, I know I don't want Angel, Grunt, or Corpsman, which leaves me Cutter, Doc, Padre, or Cowboy. There's a whole sub-system in this game about surgery and triage, which may indeed be the most innovative thing in it (which is not to denigrate the rest of the game, just that the surgery system is what made me add it to my "run me" list), so if I were actually played MASHED, I'd probably opt for Cutter or Doc. I like the idea of a reckless but inwardly tortured pilot, though, so I'm gonna go Cowboy today.

I start with one Cowboy move, and I think I want to take rabbit's foot - when I'm transporting casualties, everyone gets +1 Luck. I also start with meat wagon; I get a vehicle that I customize a bit. I think I'll have a helicopter, thanks. It has a weakness and a name. I think that I want it to be loud (everyone can hear me coming and going; no need for Radar's superpower). I'll nickname it Ethel. 

Next, we pick a Role (as in, within the narrative). Bully doesn't appeal, nor does Clown (though it does amuse me that one of the moves is called "Pierce," as in ego, and the Clown is the best at it). Sky Pilot seems a hard fit (it's about being a devout believer, not a literal pilot), though it does seem to lean into what I want for the character. Misanthrope also appeals, as unclean as that makes me feel. I think I'll do Sky Pilot (though since you can change Roles if you get too stressed out or at the end of a Phase, I can definitely see this fellow becoming more of a Misanthrope later). Sky Pilot means I get a weakness, and I shall choose money. My pilot tries to remain devoted to his faith, but like, money makes the world go 'round. 

I select a rank; since I'm a Cowboy I'm pretty much limited to warrant officer. That also gives me two choices for my stat spreads. I shall take +2, +1, 0, -1, as it seems the most interesting. 

And whaddya know, next step is assigning those stats. I'll put the +2 in Luck, the +1 in Skill, the 0 in Tough, and the -1 in Nerve. 

Now we flip over the sheet and do the description stuff. Let's start with the visuals and work up to the personal details. For uniform, we'll say rumpled. For face, soft. For eyes, distant. For hair, slicked-back. For build, stocky. And for voice, loud, since he's used to talking over Ethel. 

Moving up to the other details, we'll say his name is Uriah "Yuri" Young (that his nickname sounds Russian is probably something that would come up in the series at some point, but it's just a play on his first name). Yuri's family is large and pretty religious, and he grew up knowing that he was named after a Biblical soldier but not the particulars. After he became a pilot, he discovered that Uriah the Hittite was a Biblical figure that David murdered after sleeping with his wife, and Yuri had a weird feeling that he was going to get killed for sticking to his principles. That might be why he's such a tightass about money; he knows greed is a sin, but it's a sin that doesn't really hurt anyone, so maybe that's enough to keep him from getting killed by his own troops? Yeah, it's weird. He's had a lot of time to think it over. 

And that'll about do it! 

Board Game: Dead of Winter: The Long Night

So many subtitles. 

The Game: Dead of Winter: The Long Night
The Publisher: Plaid Hat Games originally, now Fantasy Flight Games
Time: Oh, it can be a while. 60-120 minutes, depending
Players: Me, Michelle, Morgan, Gus, Megan

Ignore the bowl of guacamole, it's unrelated

Game Play: So, mostly it's the same as Dead of Winter, which I already talked about. Long Night adds some wrinkles, though. It adds the stuff you expect it would - new characters, new zombies, new scenarios. It also adds rules for bandits, which take up space at locations, and then act as minions to a player if they get exiled (which I've never seen happen in a game). 

Gus doing what they love most, separating out game pieces

The game also adds other little tidbits. You can make improvements to the colony, some characters can set explosives in the barricades, there's a graveyard location where dead characters go, and so on. Overall, it's the same game with some more moving parts. 

Many of those moving parts just kinda shamble

Opinions: So why do a write-up if it's just the same game? Well, because Dead of Winter already has a lot of moving parts, and adding more shit to keep track of does make the game more complicated. It also makes it richer, though, and I don't remember thinking that any of the things that got added were unnecessary or extraneous, just that they give you more shit to keep in mind. I like games like that, though; I like to have multiple angles to approach gameplay from, and I like games that are semi-cooperative like this, so that the game doesn't really default to "do whatever Biff says" where "Biff" equals "guy who knows the game and can strategize." 

Also, we won, so that's exciting

Keep? Yep

Character Creation: Ace Bandages

No, not really. 

The Game: Mummy: The Curse (1st Ed)
The Publisher: Onyx Path Publishing
Degree of Familiarity: None with the game itself, lots with the underlying system
Books Required: Mummy and the World of Darkness core book (you know, thing that eventually became Chronicles of Darkness)

 

Well, for a variety of reasons, this is not a game I was especially looking forward to, but I was hoping that I'd start reading it and it would hook me in spite of my preconceptions. It didn't, but that's not entirely the fault of the game.

Having to write a game within the confines of the WoD (or CofD) system is...difficult, especially if you want to do something interesting with narrative control. WoD has always been a trad system first and last, but it's a trad system that paid attention to narrative control, even if it took a very traditional approach to it (to wit, the Storyteller's word is law). Later games push the boundaries a little (and of course I neither know nor care what's been done in the last few years), but for the most part it's a trad game.

All of which means that when you try to do something like Wraith or, indeed, Mummy, with some meta-game aspects, the system and the game structure (to say nothing of the fanbase) don't always work with you. 

With all of that shit in mind, let's make a mummy. Starting Mummy characters are, as I recall, highly powerful but kind of blank slates, as they've lost most of their memories. That's both easy and difficult from a chargen perspective - easy because you don't have to make as many decisions, but difficult because some players have trouble playing a new character without something to wrap their heads around. I, however, have a theme song because Michelle is a peach. 

That's "All My Ghosts" by Lizzy McAlpine. The song is about a new relationship and coping with previous memories (and perhaps traumas), but hoping that those "ghosts" will pale in comparison to said relationship. It actually works nicely as a Mummy song because any relationship would be a new one. So let's say that my character recently woke up from his deathless sleep and has begun a relationship with someone. As his memories come back and he gets into more occulty shit, that relationship is probably going to go horribly wrong and, at best, end, but y'know me, I love tragic characters. 

(Holy shit, flipping through the WoD book is weird. It's like going back to your old high school and thinking how small but comfortingly familiar everything looks.)

Step One: Concept, but I did that already. I'll shorten it down to "hopeful fool" ("fool" in the Tarot sense).

Step Two: Attributes! 5/4/3. I guess I'll do Physical/Mental/Social? I don't feel like I need anything very high on the social end of things, necessarily, and I think it makes sense that muscle memory comes back fast. Let's put Strength up to 4, and then Stamina and Dexterity at 2. I'll put one each into the Mental Attributes and then the extra into Wits, and then for Social I'll just spread 'em out even.

Step Three: Skills. 11/7/4, prioritized same as Attributes. Hmm. Let's look at this in terms of why my mummy would have had to learn upon awakening, I suppose? Oh, no, it's meant to be stuff the mummy retains over lifetimes. OK, then. Let's go Physical/Social/Mental, I think. 

Mental's easy, one each into Occult, Crafts, Investigation, and Academics. 

Physical, I'll put three into Athletics and Weaponry, two into Brawl and Stealth, and the last one into Survival.

Social, two into Animal Ken, two into Empathy, and three into Intimidation. 

Step Four: Specialties. I think I want an Occult Specialty, but I'm gonna wait until I get into the Mummy stuff and pick something appropriate. I'll also take a Weaponry Specialty in Blades and an Empathy Specialty in Strong Emotions.

Step Five: The good stuff! Mummy template. Starting off with Decree, which also corresponds to which Judge I serve. I can either pick the Judge (which then picks the Decree), or pick a Decree and leave Judge blank, the thinking being I'd discover in play. I think I might pick a Decree and then pick a Judge anyway. 

Heart looks like the obvious choice - they're all about feeling and keeping some form of their humanity, but that feels on the nose. Besides, I think this guy's relationship is out of character for him, so I think I want a different Decree. 

Hmm. A lot of these are close, but not quite what I'm thinking. I think Bull-Headed (lol) comes closest to what I want, so I'll go with that. That makes me Decree Ka. Judges? I'm not actually sure how to choose, since I don't know entirely what role "Judge" would play in a game, but I'll go with Set-Qesu, how about.

And now Guild, the social splat! I think Tef-Aahbi makes the most sense here, although Maa-Kep appeals, too. Nah, I'll go with the former, there's something appealing about the idea of effigies and representational magic paired with all of the specific items mentioned in the theme song. 

Favored Attribute! There's two, and I get to add one dot to one of them. Mine are Resolve and Stamina, and I think I'll add the free dot to Stamina. 

Pillars! I get nine dots. There are 5 Affinities, and Ka (Essence) is my primary, which means it has to be equal to or higher than the rest. I can only have 0 dots in one Pillar. I know these act as prerequisites to the kewl powerz, so I might shuffle these a bit later on. For now, though, I'll put three in Ka, two in Ren and Ab, and one in Ba and Sheut. 

Speaking of kewl powerz, that's now! I get an Affinity from my Judge and my Guild, and then one more of my choice as long as I meet the prerequisites. I then get an Utterance (again, as long as I meet the prereqs) and hey, lookit this, as long as I put dots in all five Pillars, which I did, I get another one. Neat!

The one from my Guild is Model Lifeweb. I'll take Dominating Might as my Judge/decree one. And now I need another!

Ooh, some of these are fun. Enlightened Senses and Charmed Lives are tempting. Falcon Soul Aloft is absolutely something I'd take, but I don't know that it's especially in-concept. Yeah, let's go with Enlightened Senses. That also gives me Common Sense and Meditative Mind for free. 

Utterances! These are more overtly magical thingies, and they're arranged in tiers, so they 1 dot of a given Pillar for tier 1, three dots of a different Pillar for tier 2, and five of a third for tier 3. Obviously I won't be using any tier 3 Utterances, but I can get to a tier 2 if I pick one that requires (whatever) 1 and Ka 3. 

Uh, Dust Beneath Feet, yes please. I would like to swim through concrete and become a giant. And then I'll Rite of the Sacred Scarab. Sure, I only have the prereqs for the first tier, but the first tier is pretty dope (vomit up a magic bug that becomes a protective amulet). 

And now seven dots of Merits, since this is a pre-God Machine Chronicle game. I need a dot of Guild Status, but I don't think I want more than one. This game recycles Arcane from Mage: The Ascension, only it's called Enigma, and I think it fits the character, so I'll take 2 dots. And I think I'll put the other four into Tomb, which means I gotta allocate those points. 

So, we'll say that my Tomb has Geometry 1 - it's just a sarcophagus. I'll put Peril 2 and call it a curse (meaning people get spooked and it might cost them Willpower to open it). I'll take Famous as a drawback; my damn sarcophagus is in a university. It's not being poked at constantly, but it's still hard to access. And I'll dump the last 3 points (1 left plus two from Famous) into Endowments. Oh, wait, I kinda want Radiant, which is 4 dots, so I'll take Ravaged as well. There used to be a scarab on the front of the sarcophagus, but it was chiseled away by a very persistent tomb robber some decades ago. Since then, my mummy can't seem to regain Ba in his Tomb. The Tomb is still very much where he keeps his heart, though, so he regains extra Ab here.

And, finally, Advantages. Willpower is 4, Health is 8, Defense is 2 (boo), Speed is 11, Initiative is 4. This game still uses the old limited Virtue/Vice setup, so I'll take Hope as the Virtue and Envy as the Vice. 

And then I get 20 experience, to reflect that fact that mummies have, well, experience. The book recommends I buy a dot of Cult if I don't have one, so, sure, I'll spend 2 on that (Cult is a Whole Thing in Mummy and I don't feel like dealing with it, so we'll say this dude has a very small Cult). I'll spend 4 and buy Occult up to 2 (oh, I took Sacred Geometry as the Specialty there). I'll spend 4 and buy Crafts up to 2 (that's 10). I'll spend four more and buy Academics up to 2, and I'll spend 3 and take a Specialty there in Architecture. Three left, which is really just enough for the first dot of a Skill or another Specialty. How about a dot of Science?

Finishing touches! The guy's name is Panhsj, which simply means "the Nubian." In Irem, in his original life, he was a sculptor and craftsman, especially adept at making a room seem balanced and in harmony. He's made the acquaintance of Tamara, and I think their relationship isn't really firm yet - more that they see each other at the university or the surrounding environs. Panhsj isn't used to feeling things like this from interacting with people, and maybe he can spare a little time with her? It's just one little lifetime.

That'll do it!

Board Game: Uno

Pretty basic, u know?

The Game: Uno
The Publisher: Mattel
Time: Varies, but ~15-20 minutes is generally a safe bet
Players: Me, Michelle, Cael

Game Play: Pretty simple. Everyone gets seven cards, the cards have numbers and colors. On your turn, you match the face-up color or number, or you draw a card and pass if you can't play it. First player to run out of cards wins. 

Cael awaiting his hand

Special cards allow you to skip the next player, reverse the order of play, force someone to draw cards, or change the active color. There are a zillion house rules, including "draw until you get something you can play," "Draw Two cards can get played until someone can't and then they get all the cards," and so on. 

Opinions: It's a basic shedding game, yeah? Pretty simple and possible to play even if the players can't read (the current decks use symbols instead of words for "skip" and so on). It's an easy game to play to kill time, and it definitely improves with more players because it's harder for one player with a good hand to get on a streak. 

Keep? Sure

Atlantis: Free Falling...INTO SNAKES

Last time was waaaaaay back here. Thus beginneth a new adventure!

The heroes are in Cyrene, Dabba, deciding what to do. Rather, they know they want to go to Khemit and try and figure out the whole "closed borders" thing (with a side order of "free the slaves"). Akala asks around the docks to try and find a ship that will take them east and drop them in Khem, leaning on her reputation as a chronicler of heroes, but that actively seems to turn captains off. Imani, wielding the universal language of money, pays a fisherman (who looks pretty desperate) to sail them down the coast and let them off. "My poverty, and not my will, consents," Ahmose the fisherman says. 

The heroes get on the boat and sail away, sail away. Ahmose tells them that if they see one of the Pharaoh's ships, they'll need to hide - while he doesn't doubt the heroes are brave enough to fight the cipher scarabs, he doesn't want to lose his boat (or, like, die). A little ways into the voyage they do indeed see a ship with a scarab insignia on the sail. They hide below deck, and the ship pulls up alongside Ahmose's boat. A Khem sailor descends and asks Ahomse's business; he claims to be fishing. The sailor opens a small, wooden box and releases a scarab with a magic symbol on its back - a cipher scarab. 

The scarab flies around the boat, clearly looking for stowaways. Eithne, thinking quickly, creates a ward against scarabs around them, and the bug ignores them completely. The sailor takes the bug back and the Pharaoh's ship sails away, and the heroes breathe a sigh of relief.

They reach a strip of beach and Ahmose lets them off. They are confronted, though, with an enormous wall of sand. Rather than push through it, Akala prays to Orunmila to be transported through it. It takes hours, but the heroes vanish.

Akala experiences the teleportation as a rush of images, truth, and color, but this time it's all stinging sand and bites. She sees Orunmila, standing miles tall, in the sand, carrying the characters through. But then a great serpent - Set - strikes his hand, and Orunmila drops them. All of the heroes reappear miles above the ground, falling to their deaths.

Well, not Akala; she can fly. Eithne casts a spell to slow their descent, and it helps, but not enough. Thanos calls up his own magic and flings blood at the ground, attempting to turn it soft and pliant. Instead, he turns the ground into snakes. Lying in the middle of this immense snake pit is...Thanos. 

Not wanting to land in whatever fresh hell this is, Eithne summons wind and blows the heroes off course. They land, hard, but survive. Akala floats towards them, but then sees the other Thanos stand and walk across the snakes towards them. She tries to hurl a chakram at him, but it gets caught on her belt. She calls out a warning, but the doppelganger is already casting a spell.

Winds blow up the sand and flay their heroes' flesh. Eithne casts a barrier in front of them to block it, and Imani hurls her spear through other-Thanos' chest. He snaps the spear and tries to cast, but the snakes behind him start biting him. He points at real-Thanos and rasps "I'll see you. You'll be me," and then collapses dead.

The snakes turn back into sand, and the heroes examine their options. Akala knows Khem pretty well, and figures that heading east is the best bet. They'll probably hit a village before too long - or a slave camp.

Chill: Exciting Research!

Yesterday was the beginning of a new case in Chill. Here's last time. Let's go!

Another day, another gathering of envoys at the ranch. This time, we have Manny Wall, Jordan Ramsey, Melinda Grace, Blake Wheeler, and Samantha Layson. Blake and Manny are the ones bringing the potential case to the group's attention, and it's all about a family-owned sugar beet farm in Nampa.

The Fernandez Family Farm suffered a fire recently; their barn burned down and the fire killed their livestock. All very normal so far, but what Manny has learned is that the family apparently moved their vehicles out of the barn before the fire. That screams insurance fraud, again, maybe normal, but Blake heard through the grapevine that the animals in the barn (two cows, four horses) were mauled rather than burned. 

Maybe it's nothing, but it's enough to check into it, so the envoys pool their various resources and learn what they can about the Fernandez family and the barn fire. 

The envoys learn that the family consists of Bernardo Fernandez Sr, his wife Marta, and their nine children (Bernardo Jr, 21; Maria, 20; Arturo, 17; Emilio, 16; Jesús, 14; Elena, 9; Tomás, 7; David, 2; Luisa, 2). All of them except Bernardo Jr were born in the States (Junior and the parents were born in Mexico, but the envoys only find immigration records for Junior, and guess that Marta and Bernardo Sr might be undocumented). They bought the farm in 2010 and have been running it ever since. They do have insurance, but they haven't filed a claim. There's an open arson investigation, to no one's surprise. 

Blake calls up the large animal vet that usually cares for the animals, and asks a few questions. He learns that the animals didn't behave like big animals usually do in fires - they didn't try to kick their way out. They may have been dead when the fire started. They also all had multiple chunks of flesh ripped out of them, in a bite pattern that the vet had never seen. He sends pictures to Blake, and Blake enhances the images and realizes that whatever did this had a rounded mouth, like a gorilla or a human, but with overlong, thin, fang-like teeth. Also, the flesh around the bites is frozen. He checks the weather and sees that the night of the first (12/4/19), the weather had warmed slightly - it was cold, but not frigid.

This is starting to look pretty Unknown-y. Manny calls up Andy Oswalt, the sheriff 'round these parts, and Andy chats with him about the case. It's pretty weird across the board - it looks like insurance fraud, but there's been no claim. The family seemed upset, but something felt off. Oh, and Andy wasn't able to talk to the parents. Bernardo Jr claims they're both in Mexico visiting family, and it seems like he's pretty much running things.

The envoys do further digging and realize that although things like work orders and so on are all signed by Bernardo Sr, the signature changes noticeably in 2018. Also, the younger kids started having a lot of attendance issues in 2018 - not enough to get CPS involved, but enough that it's been a problem. 

The envoys discuss whether to just go out to the farm or to call ahead, but at the end of the day they decide it's better to use a softer approach. Jordan calls the farm and gets Bernardo Jr on the phone, and tells him that they're looking into the fire but aren't with the sheriff's department. Bernardo agrees to let them come out (he doesn't quite seem to know what's going on, which is probably for the best), and the envoys make plans to head out to the farm tomorrow morning. Friday. December 13th.

Pugmire: Ants Go Marching, Ow Ow

Arf! Here's last time.

The characters meet up at the Pioneers' Guild to meet with Lady Fiona Corgi. Dire is already there gnawing on a turkey leg when the others get there, but Gelert Sausagedog is not with them - he left a note at the Roadhouse that he had some things to take care of and he'd catch up (read: his player was out today). The dogs are invited in, and sit down with Lady Fiona and a bunch of snacks to talk about the Pioneers.

She explains the history of the Guild and what they do. Petunia is highly enthused, as is Sister Peppa, while Dire is willing. Boomer, though, wants to know what's in it for him, or at least whether there are dues to pay. There aren't, though; Pioneers receive a great deal of personal freedom, especially with regards to the treasures they find. The characters agree to become a party of Pioneers.

Lady Fiona tells them that their work in retrieve the treasures of Vinsen Pug more than qualify them to join, but she needs to match them with a trustee. She introduces them to one Magister Bivi Affenpinscher, a gray-muzzled little artisan and author. Bivi shows them the book he's working on, Forest Dogs and their Tales. He reads to them a story told to him by one Hercules Mutt, in the eastern part of the Fearful Forest:

The Thunder Bird is a great feathered beast. It flies between the trees and its cry is not a CAW or AWK or AAAAaaww like most birds, but instead something between a BARK and a ROAR. It eats the flesh of whatever it can kill, and though it be smaller than many dogs, it is yet bigger than you, so beware!

The Thunder Bird lives where the trees grow further apart and the pine needles blanket the ground like a…blanket. There in a huge pine its kind make their nests. Their eggs are made of no shell I’ve ever before seen! I found one of their eggs one morning, and as I picked it up, I felt something move within. I dropped it in surprise and it rolled away into the hollow of a tree, but then the tree burst! Exploded with a horrible BOOM! I was knocked over on my tail, and I could hear nothing but a ringing in my ears.

But then I heard them - the Thunder Birds. And I knew I had displeased them, so I ran back towards the river. They did not follow me out of the trees, and never again will I venture to the pine forest. When you hear BOOM from the forest, ’tis not thunder nor magic, but ’tis the Thunder Birds’ chicks, hatching from their eggs!

Bivi and Fiona tell the dogs that they'd like them to venture into the Fearful Forest, determine whether there's any truth to this story - is there really a Thunder Bird? Are they dangerous? Dire states his intent to find out if the Thunder Birds are edible, and Bivi supports this. 

Fiona gives them a relic called the Master's Eye. This relic - a strap with a plastic clasp and a black plastic box - will allow the Pioneers to see what the wearer sees, so that the Pioneers can see how the party works together. Boomer expresses doubt, but Bivi asks that he allow Petunia to examine it and trust her word. Boomer agrees, and Petunia confirms the relic's function.

The party splits up to gather their stuff and meets back at the docks an hour later. There they meet up with Tony Mutt, a dog formerly of the Whippet family who's a buddy of Dire. He ferries them across the acidic river (flirting with Petunia all the while), and tells them to light a signal fire when they're ready to come back across. 

The dogs start heading into the woods. Dire, being silly, charges ahead and winds up crashing into a tree. He hears a whisper: be careful, foolish dog! The others catch up with him and find him freaking out a bit, and he repeats what it said. The tree talks to them in a hoarse whisper, and Petunia talks to it politely and Dire apologizes for bumping into it. Petunia asks it about the Thunder Bird, and the tree tells her that it has never heard of that creature, but it might be a term that dogs use. It tells them that its older relatives might know something, but they should beware - older trees aren't always so accommodating. The dogs head north into the forest, Boomer and Petunia guiding them.

They eventually arrive at a sunny clearing, created when a huge oak fell. They settle down and make camp, Dire kills and roasts a squirrel, and the others eat the lunches that Petunia bought from Granny Sue. As they're chatting around the fire, though, Dire spots antennae poking out from under the fallen oak. "GIANT ANTS!"

The ant drones surge forward and attack, biting and stinging at the dogs. They catch most of them in their mandibles and start gnawing, but Boomer flies into a rage and smacks the ant down! Petunia uses her Thunderwave spell and kills one, and Peppa calls up a magical mace to defend her, while Dire strikes with his greatsword (and then his short word, and then just his paws).

The battle is vicious and the dogs are wounded, but they manage to kill the giant ants. They quickly gather up their stuff and hightail it out of that clearing, walking through the woods to a place where the trees are further apart and the forest starts to smell of pine. They bed down for the night, and awaken to Gelert Sausagedog toasting some kind of fruit bread on their fire. 

Boomer makes a face at the smell. "Well, you don't have to have any!" says Gelert. 

Next time, the full party convened, we shall learn the truth of the Thunder Bird!

Movie #667: Encanto

Encanto is an animated film from Disney and starring Stephanie Beatriz, John Leguizamo, Adassa, Malumo, Jessica Darrow, Diane Guerrero, Maria Cecelia Botero, and many others. 

In Colombia, the Madrigal family is granted a "miracle" in the form of an ever-burning candle that creates a geographically isolated village and a magical, sentient house. When each born member of the family comes of age (looks like about five or six?) they get access to their own magical room in the house, along with a magical gift. The matriarch of the family, Alma (Botero) doesn't have a gift so much as she's just in charge, and folks who marry into the family don't get one, but Alma's kids all get one and their kids get one...until Mirabel (Beatriz), who, without explanation, goes right up to her magical door to watch it disintegrate into sand before her sad little eyes.

Fast forward a few years, and Mirabel is occasionally bummed that she doesn't have magic but she's happy to be part of the family and wants to make them proud. On the eve that her little cousin Antonio (Ravi Cabot-Conyers) gets his gift, Mirabel sees the house's walls and floors crack and the candle gutter, and she tries to warn everyone, only to get shut down and, if we're being honest, gaslighted a bit. She then goes on a quest to find out what the heck is going on that leads her through various members of her family and how they're not really as happy or as adjusted as they pretend, takes her into the depths of the casita to find her estranged uncle Bruno (Leguizamo), and ultimately leads to the house collapsing as Alma's expectations and repressed grief break everything. 

I really enjoy this movie, partially because it's fun and colorful and lively, and mostly because it's an ensemble movie in a way that a lot of animated (especially Disney) movies don't try to be. Sure, Mirabel is our POV, but we learn enough about Luisa (Darrow), Isabela (Guerrero), Antonio, Bruno, and even Alma to become invested in and recognize their arcs. I also like that there's not really a villain in the movie. Inasmuch as there's an antagonist, it's Alma, kinda-sorta, but you can just as easily say that it's the collective trauma of Alma's past and the fear of losing home and family. 

And then there's the music. Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote the songs for the movie, and every now and then there's a "yep, that's Lin-Manuel" moment, but that's fine, I love his work. The songs are catchy and often earworm-y, but I've seen the movie a few times now and they're also layered and lyrically interesting. 

Anyway, there's a lot to like about this movie. I go round and round with myself as to whether the fact that we never really get an explanation for why it's Mirabel who doesn't get a gift bothers me or not. I think it doesn't, because I think the explanation is that the miracle isn't something granted by a higher power so much as magic that the family developed? Chose? Earned? And that would mean that Mirabel's exclusion would also follow from something in the family, which is fine, but the Antonio gets a gift, too. We could delve into the metaphysics here, but that's probably more analysis than we need. 

My Grade: A
Rewatch Value: High

Next up: The Eternals

Slipstream: Laughable Pirates, Serious Rad-Storms

Once more into the pulpy world of Slipstream! 

The heroes leave the fragment of Arachnea after their pitched battle with the God-Queen of the Spiders,  headed for Avia. Much of the trip is fairly uneventful, but as they approach the fragment of Akwas, Iris feels the ship start to pull. 

Iris gets on the radiophone and sends out a broadcast identifying the ship and the cargo (that is, Zeenia). A voice comes back claiming that their tractor beam is malfunctioning and if the ship could just kill their engines so there's no damage while they sort it out, that'd be swell. Iris asks Oola if it's possible to break free, and it is, but if it's not done delicately the ship might be damaged. Zeenia says to just go ahead and kill the engines - she likes their chances fighting scoundrels a lot better than fixing the ship.

Somewhere in here Rezzal wakes up and asks what's going on. When they tell him, he pretty much confirms that they're being yanked by pirates. Zeenia slips on her danger bling. 

The tractor beam pulls them down to Akwas, and towards a whirlpool in the watery surface. Iris fires up the engines and guides the ship so that it lands on one of the wooden landing platforms on the fragment. As the heroes step out of the ship (well, Zeenia, Iris, and Twoot get out; Oola's a pacifist and Rezzal's a coward, so they stay on board). They can see the great whirlpool caused by the tractor beam, and then three two-man watercrafts (reminiscent of jetskis) surface. The pirates zoom around and demand the characters surrender the princess; the heroes laugh at them. 

One of the pirates fires a net and entangles Zeenia. She shreds it without breaking a sweat (she probably doesn't sweat anyway, being a jellyfish), turns invisible, and slithers into the water. The pirate captain shoots Iris, but her shiny new armor deflects it. The pirates and the heroes trade some laser fire, and Oola telepathically contacts the captain and tells him that it's not worth it - the pirates won't win and Zeenia doesn't play around. He's got more balls than brains, though, and he throws one of those balls at the heroes. It bursts into a cloud of stun-gas, but Iris and Twoot are more than capable of shrugging it off. Twoot shoots one of the drivers of the jetskis and it flips over, sinking and sending the pirates to an uncertain fate. 

The remaining two jetskis zip close to the ship and the captain and another pirate jump off and draw swords. The pirate engages Twoot and slashes at him, while the captain leaps to the platform to engage Iris in some swordplay and banter. But Zeenia bursts from the water and smashes him against the window (Oola mouths "told you so"). He turns around and Zeenia strikes him again, and he calls for a retreat. The pirates zip up on their jetskis, collect the captain and his compatriot, and they all dive under the surface again. 

The heroes decide to get going, but they do want to disable the tractor beam. Zeenia considers diving down and doing it, but Rezzal points out that a tractor beam will draw whatever they toss into the whirlpool to it. He suggests explosives, but Oola isn't down with that (pacifist, remember) so she whips up a device that will short the tractor beam, based on the ship's anti-radiophone device. They toss it into the water and moments later, the waters grow still. They take off and start heading along the Slipstream towards Avia. 

Iris tries to exit the Slipstream around Mechanos, but the wave is too strong and drags them along for miles. They finally burst out of the wave around the two fragments of Andee and Hopp, which make up Septis. Iris rights the ship and heads for nearby Avia, but then they fly straight into a radiation storm.

Radioactive "rain" falls straight through the ship. Oola, recognizing this, calls up her deflector shield to protect everyone, and keeps the character safe...all except Iris, who is flying the ship. She manages to get them out of the storm and near Avia, but then she collapses, sick and bleeding from the nose. Oola tends to her, but realizes that she needs to be decontaminated soon. Zeenia takes the helm and pilots the ship down to Avia, and Oola calls ahead and asks for medical assistance to be ready. 

Next time, we'll see if Iris recovers, and what effect, if any, the radiation has had.

Cairn: Storms! Winter! Fallen Trees!

So here we are in the land of Cairn, once again. Here's last time.

The characters are up in the treetop homestead of the Bredencour family, and the trees are shaken and swaying from the intensity of the storm. Ratatosk starts making preparations to cast a spell to soothe the storm, but needs to clear the front room. Rummy starts singing and Snootabur starts cleaning, all of which help boost Ratatosk's Harmony. 

Snootabur moves the bodies in the front room into one of the bedrooms, and hears the creaking of wooden beams from further into the homestead. She goes to look and finds the dryad of the tree in the workshop (the room that opens to the mined-out trunk, and in turn to the hodag's lair) standing in the room pushing on the ceiling. The roof is beginning to give out. She says that her intention is to break this place apart and let the elements have it.

Snootabur tries to talk her out of it, pointing out that the Knights are likely to die, but the dryad just kind of brushes that off ("oh, you're not going to die, stop being so dramatic"). She pushes up and the ceiling cracks, and water rushes in. Rumdiggle calls up her charm and asks the dryad to stop until the storm abates, and she agrees to that. The Knights breathe a sigh of relief, and Ratatosk casts the spell. 

The storm calms, but doesn't stop entirely. The Knights go to sleep, and wake in the morning to a lighter drizzle. They confront their next issue: cleaning up the homestead so that the dryad can heal. 

Rummy, Snootabur, and Russelet head down into the trunk of the tree to see if they can purify the hodag's lair. They find that the hollow in the trunk is filling up with water, and the bottom of it has some black sludge, probably residual from the hodag. Rummy digs into the bark using the Claws of the Stripefang, and makes a small hole so that the water can drain out. It carries the sludge away, and the Knights head back up into the homestead.

Meanwhile, Ratatosk goes scampering around looking for food. He finds a bunch of acorns and brings them back, and Russelet cooks for the others. The Knights decide that tomorrow they will bring the bodies down to the forest floor (along with any metal tools still left in the workshop). 

The next day, the weather is colder, but the rain has dropped to a drizzle. The Knights quickly work together and fashion a woven basket and pulley to lower the bodies down. Rummy digs out a space under the tree to bury them, and Russelet collects some leaves and beetle shells to make a marker. Snoot creates a trench to draw the water away from the tree, and the Knights call down the dryad again. Her face appears in the bark, and she sleepily thanks them.

Ratatosk, noting that the hodag's body is nowhere to be seen, asks the dryad if she saw what happened to it, but the dryad falls asleep. Ratatosk figures it must not be important, and the Knights head back to Cairn. 

The next day in Cairn, they wake to find a light dusting of snow. Winter has arrived. Snootabur gives the map she made to Hester Woodfolly in the Town Hall, and they decide that come spring they'll find some folks to go back to the homestead and fix it up ("no metal tools, though," insists Snootabur). The Knights settle in for winter. 

Snootabur spends the winter making plans for an earthworks amphitheater. Rummy learns to knit, and spends the time doing that and composing songs. Ratatosk works in his lab, developing potions and, at least once, accidentally setting his tail on fire. Russelet gets to know Juffin Longbottom, the constable of Cairn, a very friendly and jovial groundhog. 

Come spring, the citizens of Cairn emerge to find that a powerful winter storm has blown down trees around Cairn, leaving it more exposed than before. This might be something that the Knights will have to deal with, on their next adventure!