Character Creation: Gravemire

Trying to step it up to 10 characters a month for the rest of 2022 so I hit 100, so far so good, this is 10 for September. 

The Game: Gravemire
The Publisher: Clawhammer Games
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

Gravemire is Southern gothic horror, and it's got a solid pitch - you're in a town called Scarstone, the town is slowly dying, and it's surrounded by a swamp that's been overtaken by a kind of Mist/Annihilation sort of scenario. You go out into the swamp to do jobs of various sorts, and probably die. The game is highly lethal by design, and actually has a specific scene set aside for when a PC dies. I'm down with that, of course.

What I'm less down with is the lack of a character sheet. The thinking is that everything you need to know about a character can be fit on a post-it note (so sayeth the book; I sayeth that it might fit on an index card, but a post-it would be a bit cramped), and that's perhaps true, but there's something nice about having all the info about a character in a format that everyone at the table shares so that everyone knows where to look when you ask for a particular roll. Also, the GM in the game is called the Dealer but it uses dice, not cards. I just think that's odd.

But in any case, last character of September. On we go! 

My character's name is Winthorn Pepper, but everyone calls him "Pep". Pep is here in Scarstone working for a big fancy New Orleans lawyer name of Charlie Stills. Mr. Stills hired Pep to track down some fellow who'd just inherited a lot of money. Pep found the guy's body outside of Scarstone, and wired Mr. Stills about what happened. Stills wired back "who killed him dont come back till you know," and Pep is still here, so that's how well that's going. 

Right, good start. Skills, then. I get 15 SP, which I can use to buy skills (a-doy), but also to raise my Health. Skills are arranged in 3 tiers. Tier one skills are highly specialized, tier two less so, and tier three are broad like "Combat" or "Stealth." Conveniently, the tier is also the cost, so if I wanted a level-3 tier 3 skill, it'd eat 9 points. 

Pep is clearly someone you'd hire to track someone, so he needs a skill to reflect that. I think Tracking People is probably specific enough to be tier two, not one, so I'll take +3 there, which eats 6 points. 

Figure that not everyone wants to be found, so I'll take a tier one skill reflecting Pep's ability to threaten people into coming with him. Convincing Threats, maybe? Just +1 will do it. 7 spent.

Gotta back up those threats. Fisticuffs sounds like a tier 2, so I'll blow 6 more there. That's 13 spent. I'll put two into Health, which boosts it by 1. 

Now I can take an Aversion and get more points, if I want. I actually don't think I do; I like the idea of Pep being pretty even when things start out and him cracking organically over time (or, y'know, just dying). 

And finally, I answer four questions:

1.  Pep hopes to find who killed Simon Phipps, the young man he was sent to find. He's gotten a few leads in Scarstone here and there, but all the evidence he's collected leads him to believe that the person(s) responsible are beyond the Border.
2. Think I covered this already.
3. Pep didn't think he was hiding from anything, but sometimes he gets the feeling that Mr. Stills blames him for Phipps' death. But he didn't have anything to do with it! He couldn't have...?
4. Pep is afraid of a truth he doesn't remember, or a fate that he's taken on but didn't deserve. 

And that's pretty much it! No sheet to attach.

Winthorn "Pep" Pepper
Health: 8 Willpower: 10
Skills: Fisticuffs +2, Tracking People +2, Convincing Threats +1 

Slipstream: Un-Poisoned Lions

Back to the Slipstream! Here's last time.

Our heroes, having obtained the antidote to the Death Dust and rounded up an army of Bird-Men, head for Simba. As they approach the home fragment of the Lion-Men (and therefore Abbas), they see that it is surrounded by a contingent of Anathraxan warships! They can break through, but two ships block their way.

They swoop in to do battle, Iris Blue piloting the Darkwing. Rill, one of the Bird-Men, mans the rocket gun and Abbas the ray gun, and they prepare to fire. Zeenia looks ahead at the ships and recognizes them. One is called Queen's Grace, and has a reputation for speed. The other, though, is called the Ovipositor, and is equipped with a teleportation device that the crew uses to send Primals aboard other ships.

The Darkwing flies in and closes, and Hwoot, the first mate, fires the nose-mounted tangle gun at the two warships. They're flying side by side, just close enough that the tangles lash them together and force them to take time to cut the tangles before they can do much else. Iris hits the static burst...and is electrocuted!

Craw, one of the crew, knocks her off the button (she is fortunately unharmed, just a little crispy). Iris calls to Chirrp, the ship's mechanic, to fix the damn thing, and he springs into action. But just then, six Primals materialize on the Darkwing, draw swords, and rush to the attack!

The Bird-Men and the heroes battle it out with these scoundrels, but the battle is long and difficult. Zeenia doesn't have enough space to unleash her tentacle swarm, and backs up, not wanting to hit any of her fellows. Iris charges into battle and Abbas lays a couple of them low, but one of the Primals stabs Nary, the ship's medic, running him through and killing him! Craw leaps to avenge his friend and carves the Primal into ribbons, but the damage is done.

Hwoot, now at the helm, pulls up alongside the Ovipositor and attaches the magnetic cables, allowing Zeenia to board. She slips onto the warship and sees that the only two remaining crew are a pair of Earthling men. She sidles up behind them and kills them both.

Over on the Darkwing, the characters finish off the Primals while the other Bird-Men take shots at the Queen's Grace, but don't quite manage to do much damage to it. Abbas, Chirrp, and Anburn board the Ovipositor (which Zeenia has decided to rename The Egg Ship), and Anburn flies it while Chirrp checks out the teleportation device. He figures he can make it work if Zeenia wants to zip over to the Queen's Grace. Abbas demands to go, too, to join in glorious combat.

Chirrp hits the button and both heroes are turned inside out and then reformed. They stagger out of the teleporter, badly wounded, and Zeenia heads back to the washroom to clean out her helmet (she inked all over it). Abbas grabs the controls to a ray gun and starts firing at the Queen's Grace - no more of this teleportation nonsense.

Iris decides that since the Queen's Grace is busy with the Ovipositor Egg Ship, she'll take this opportunity to try and break the blockade. She puts the pedal to the proverbial metal and swoops down to the fragment, unleashing the antidote. The cloud of medicine spreads quickly over Simba, bringing the Lion-Men back to health, and the Primals fall back under the swords of the attacking Bird-Men. A few hours late, the Queen's armada has fled, and the Pride Council has recaptured Simba.

Once the heroes have healed, they are made official heroes of Simba. Lady Raoora offers her hand (paw?) in marriage to Abbas, Parda (who appeared way back here and then we kinda forgot about) makes the same offer to Iris, and a young field medic named Gruff is offered to Zeenia. The heroes all politely decline - Iris and Zeenia are promised to others, and while Abbas is willing, he is still on a quest to hunt down and kill Queen Anathraxa and will not take a mate until that goal is complete. If he lives, however, he would be honored to marry Raoora. 

Likewise, Zeenia can't marry Gruff (she is, after all, on a never-ending quest to save her fiancé Zeemar), but offers for him to come along with them. They all wind up celebrating and drinking together, and Gruff and Zeenia get along like a house on fire and he joins the crew (as her Sidekick!). The heroes are also gifted artifacts - Abbas is given an ornate corselet. Iris is given Lord Raoora's laser sword, and Zeenia is given a strange piece of tech. It's a teleporter disc - the teleportation device (which the heroes move from the Egg Ship to their own) can home in on it. The tactical applications are limitless! 

The heroes have struck a major blow against Queen Anathraxa - what adventures await them next!?

Chill: Love It When a Plan etc etc

Today we finished up a case! Here's last time. 

Our heroes (minus Emily, who got it into her head that this plan was going to fail and bugged out) gear up and head to the parking garage, as described last time. They set up in the bottom level. Jordan draws a circle in motor oil, and just saves the last little bit so she can activate the Line of Defense discipline and hopefully trap Ti Papa. Jennifer gets her bow and posts up behind a car with a clear shot of where they hope to lure the vampire, while Dylan finds a similar vantage point and prepares to use his protective disciplines. Samantha stands out in front as bait, and BB lurks behind a car near her. They pour salt in a line to block the stairwells, and then they realized that even if they catch Ti Papa...then what do they do with him?

They go back over what they've learned about the vampire, and figure that a stake through the heart might work, burning him might work...but Dylan also discovered that old Louisiana legend about spinning someone at a crossroads to prevent them becoming a vampire. They don't have the time or the means to obtain a casket, but BB and Samantha are pretty handy so they head to a Home Depot, buy some lumber, and build a coffin. It's not fancy, but it'll work.

It's a few hours - Ti Papa apparently plays his set - and then they see him walking down the ramp. He spots Samantha and asks what she wants signed, and whether she plays an instrument - he needs to rebuild his band, after all. Samantha pulls out a handkerchief that her grandmother gave her, and Ti Papa approaches...and then time stops.

Samantha is the only one that sees him move, but she's powerless to move her body. He flows up to her and bites her neck, and she stumbles, but is not badly hurt. Time restarts and the envoys leap into action. Jordan closes the circle, Dylan throws a Mental Shield over everyone, and BB zips over and pours out a line of salt across the ramp to this level, just to add another barrier. Samantha reaches into her pocket and crushes a handful of mint, but her ring gets caught on her jeans and she isn't able to throw it in Ti Papa's face.

BB runs into the circle and tries to shove Samantha out of the way, but she misreads his cue and plants her feet. Ti Papa laughs and knocks their heads together, but he's not laughing long. 

Jennifer takes a moment to aim, gets herself into position, and fires. 

The arrow flies right between Samantha and BB's heads, strikes Ti Papa in the chest, and pierces his heart. He falls, and lays immobile. The envoys, a little surprised, pick him up and put him in the casket, throw a bunch of mint, garlic, and salt in there with him, and load the casket in the back of the truck. They head back towards the ranch, and find a lonely crossroads.

They unload the casket, carry it like pallbearers, and spin it around. As soon as the casket spins 360 degrees, it gets a lot lighter. Worried that Ti Papa has turned to fog again, they put it down and Jordan draws a Line of Defense around it. They open the box and find his clothes, the arrow, the mint/garlic/salt slurry (ew), and a handful of dust. The vampire is gone.

They take the box back to the ranch and burn it, just to be on the safe side. Darnell comes out and asks what they plan on doing with the guy in the silo, and they go down to check on him. They discover that Aaron has aged - he looks maybe in his 80s now, and is weak and frail. He refuses all help, though, and walks out of the ranch and off down the road.

The envoys have done pretty much everything they can to keep themselves out of trouble. BB leaves the country and heads to his native Australia for a bit, while Jennifer and Dylan head to Chicago (Dylan is thinking of getting a job out there and just coming back to Boise when necessary). Samantha takes a trip to Louisiana to visit family, and Jordan...well, she's a fixture at the ranch. 

A couple of days later, a deputy shows up to ask if anyone at the ranch knows the old guy they found dead in the woods a mile or two down the road. They're having trouble identifying him (the animals got to him before anyone found him), so the picture is a little upsetting. Jordan looks at the picture of Aaron and shakes her head. "Can't help ya," she tells him, taking perhaps a little solace in the fact that it's not a lie.

Character Creation: Wu Xing: The Ninja Crusade

I'd make an "Ask A Ninja" joke but honestly who'd get it at this point?

The Game: Wu Xing: The Ninja Crusade
The Publisher: Third Eye Games
Degree of Familiarity: None!
Books Required: Just the one

I made a character for the second edition of this game some time ago, largely because I had that version in hard copy and it's a big pretty book and I found it easier to read than the PDF, but society has rules, so gotta do a character for this edition, too. 

I admit I have not done a close reading of Wu Xing, nor have I reread the 2nd ed in a while, but I don't see a lot of difference other than the 2nd edition being cleaner and having better production values. I'm sure the system has also been tweaked, but I'm equally sure that unless I compared them in play I wouldn't know.

In any case, we're in a fictionalized pseudo-Japan, there are a bunch of ninja clans that could easily be early White Wolf splats, there have been several wars involving ninjas and now the powers that be are trying to stamp them out entirely, so we're in a war for survival! Let's do this!

See what I mean about the WW thing?

Step One: Concept etc. I do not have a concept, and as such, I shall turn to my good friend "who's paying attention to the group chat" and ask for a song. I have not long to wait! Thanks, Travis!

That's Robert Palmer's "Bad Case of Loving You." Not the first song I'd have thought of for this game, but that's what makes this fun. The song is obviously about a romantic relationship that is, perhaps, unhealthy - the lyrics hint at the participants not really being fully honest or true with one another. That sounds like something I could wrangle for a ninja character. Let's continue and see what happens. 

Passion is basically a personality/motivation archetype kind of situation, and Love is one of the choices, so that's easy. Element is actually more of a personality thing, and while Fire would seem the obvious choice, I'm gonna go with Metal because metal depletion makes you a wallflower ("you think I'm cute/a little bit shy"). This means I start with Yin 2, Yang 1, and I get a combat bonus that is printed on the sheet thank you. 

Clan is the other concept-related decision. There are 10 of them (well, 10 clans and then Ronin, the "caitiff" of this arrangement), so I believe I shall roll a d10 and ignore Pack of the Black Moon, since that's what my 2nd ed character was. 7, count 'em down...Virtuous Body Gardeners. Ooh, these are the ones with magic tattoos. I'm good with that. Free Specialty in Arts, Fighting Styles are Tiger and Crocodile (dafuq is Crocodile style?), and my favored wushu are Way of the Inked Skin, Way of Fire, and Way of the Warrior. No clue what any of that means yet. 

I also get a clan gift of Item Assimilation, which allows me to absorb small objects as tattoos and reclaim them as needed. The clan drawback is that I'm all scarred and inked up, so I'm easy to recognize as a Gardener. 

Step Two is Attributes. There are 6 of them and I get 30 points, and it's one-for-one until I crest 8 points, which I don't think is gonna be a big problem. 4-5 is average, so I can be an average Joe Ninja by spreading out my points evenly, but eh.

Well, drawing on my passion of love and my element of metal, I'm thinking that I want this guy to be physically strong and unyielding, which means Charm can probably be low to average. Let's stick that at 3. I'll put 7 into Power and Vigor (17 spent), 5 into Insight (22 spent), and 4 each into Agility and Intellect. 

Step Three is starting Skills and Skill points. I get 30 Skill points plus my Int score, so 34 points, and then I get Discipline, Legerdemain, Stealth, Survival, and a Primary Fighting Style at 1 rank for free. What do I want to be good at?

Well, I think I see this character as being in love with a ninja from another clan - maybe the Living Chronicle, since the Gardeners are an offshoot of that one and there's some tension. I think they met when my dude was on guard duty, hiding in the shadows and watching a ninja-friendly village. That would imply high levels in Stealth and Perception, so I'll jack both of those up to 7 (costing 13 points because I have a free point in Stealth). I'll put 5 into Arts so I can take advantage of my free specialty and put that in Charcoals. That's 18 spent. Oh, shit, probably should take some Fortitude. Let's say 6 points? 10 left. I'll put 4 into Crocodile Style because then I get a Technique, and I want Creeping Movement. 

Six points left. Oh, dammit, I need Athletics, and why is that separate from Acrobatics? Grar. OK, 3 each into Athletics and Discipline. 

Step Four is select wushu. I get 5 levels to pick from my clan's three wushu, so let's see what's on offer. 

Ooh, well, I definitely want Ink Touch, since it's the gateway to some of the other cool powers. I want Withdraw Weapon, which lets me pull weapons out of my tats instantly, and I want Artful Defense, which lets me absorb an incoming weapon. That's 4 of my 5 levels right there. I'll also take Cauterize; I can heat my body up and seal wounds to stop bleeding. Now, where the heck do I write these on the sheet? Oh, wait, there's a third page I didn't print. Ugh, OK. Actually, y'know, I'll just write the names on my front sheet, I'm running low on ink. 

Step Five is Bonus Points. Ooh, and I can take Drawbacks to get more. Let's do that first. 

I want Enemy to represent my problematic relationship. I'll just take it at 2 BP because I don't think she's trying to kill me, it's just that our relationship is not really sanctioned by our clans and we have this habit of running off to be together at inopportune times. I'll say that an incident involving improperly mixed inks left him Easily Poisoned (3 points). Sure, fuck it, I'll take Shy for 2 points. That's 7 BP, that'll do. Let's spend 'em!

Skills are one-for-one, so that's handy. I have 17 BP to throw around. I feel like I do want some Acrobatics, so I'll put 4 there. I'll put two more in Athletics to take me up to 5, and I'll do that with Discipline too. That's 8 spent, 9 to go. I'll spent 4 and buy Intellect and Agility up to 5. Five points remaining, let's look at Gifts. I like Natural Brawler, I'll take that. And then I'll take Ally 2 - also representing my lady-love. 

And now we figure out derived stuff! I...will just fill those in, remembering my -3 to vs. poison. 

Shin Miura was recruited into the Gardeners at a young age, and his ability to remain still and observant was cultivated into being a skill sentry. He's not as combat-capable as some other ninja, but it's widely acknowledged that he's got the potential to be a potent warrior...if he'd just stop chasing after Kazue. 

Kazue and Shin have been lovers since they were teens, and while she went and joined the Living Chronicle and he joined the Gardeners, they're still very much in love. Or at least, Shin feels that they are. Kazue is deep and unknowable, and Shin's more patient than a lot of others would be.

Shin is tall and stocky. Like all Gardeners he's scarred and inked, but he favors shading in his tattoos (he also prefers to make art with charcoals). He's interested to see if he can bind dust or even broken glass into a tattoo to fling at an attacker, even though that has the potential to go very wrong if someone screws it up.

That'll do it!

Character Creation: Corvid Court

That's a lot of alliteration. 

The Game: Corvid Court
The Publisher: Gila RPGs
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

Corvid Court is a quick little game in which you play "birds" (are they actual birds or people in a bird-themed cult? The game is deliberately vague on the point and it'd work either way). It's built on a stripped-down version of the same system that Spire runs on, and there's very little setting - hell, the whole game is barely 20 pages. It's in the unfortunate position of being perfectly playable, but like, Blades in the Dark is right over the there, and Spire itself hits a few of the same notes (without the birds, of course).

That said, it reads like an ashcan version of a game - something that could get fleshed out into something really cool, but it would probably play just fine as-is. Let's make a birb! (This is hella quick.)

First thing we do is choose a class: crow, raven, jay, or magpie. I'm thinking raven. Ravens are distance fighters (as opposed to the up-close-and-personal crows), and comfortable with tech. I know I go in for snipers and marksman and throwers a lot, but y'know, caw. 

And now I pick one of the three abilities on the sheet. Hrm. Unlock doors with a touch or burst into a flock of ravens and fly away? Think I gotta go with the latter, that's just awesome. 

Then I pick three pieces of equipment, which don't have a mechanical effect, necessarily. I want a huge, bulky, tattered black cloak, a long-barrelled telescopic one-shot rifle, and boots that can clamp to a surface. 

And that's actually it. I pick this guy (I'm assuming not actual birbs here, obviously) is a tatterdemalion, but without the color. His cloak looks a little like the black coat that Bruce Campbell wears in Darkman (yes, I know Liam Neeson stars, Campbell shows up in the last scene and that's the look I'm going for), and he keeps his face wrapped in coal-black rags. His rifle fits together in a rather janky way, and whatever the hell it uses to fire doesn't sound or smell like normal gunpowder, but he can shoot it accurately and the thing on the other end tends to die, so what's the difference? The Bird Court knows him as Ramshackle. 

And...done! 

Movie #694: Shutter Island

Shutter Island is a psychological-horror sort of thing directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Emily Mortimer, Michelle Williams, Jackie Earle Haley, Max von Sydow, Patrica Clarkson, Ted Levine, holy shit, the list just goes on.

Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) is a US Marshall who arrives on Shutter Island, a mental institution/prison, with his partner Chuck (Ruffalo) to search for a missing patient, a woman named Rachel Solando (Mortimer). Rachel apparently just up and vanished from her room, but like, it's an island, how far could she get? But there's a hurricane coming...and who's this weird German scientist named Naehring (von Sydow)? Why does this give Teddy, a WWII vet, such big Nazi death-camp vibes?

Teddy goes to work peeling back the layers of this onion, learning and revealing more about the island, its history, the doctor in charge (Kingsley), his own partner, and the nightmares he keeps having of his dead wife (Williams), until it all comes to a head in a lighthouse where Teddy learns the truth. He's here because he killed his wife, because she killed their children, and his mind snapped and created this fantasy rather than deal with it all. (Spoilers for a 12-year-old movie, I guess.)

Shutter Island is nicely gothic in its sensibilities, and we get a good feel for the island and its topography as the movie goes along. It also does a nice job of ratcheting up the paranoia as Teddy gets closer to the truth, and therefore his mind pushes him further into delusion. 

With that said, as with a lot of Scorsese movies, I feel like there are some bits that could have been tightened up a little. Ted Levine's character doesn't seem to add much to the proceedings, and he's just one more weirdo getting lost in the shuffle by the time he shows up. Characters tend to pop in, have one pivotal scene, and then pop out again, and that's not bad, I guess, but it does make a lot of the characters feel kind of one-note. The nightmares of Michelle Williams and the Dachau concentration camp blend reality and delusion, but I do wonder if the movie plays fair by the audience - watching it this time and knowing the truth, I didn't see a lot of clues that hinted as to the reality of the situation. 

But, with that said, DiCaprio turns in a good performance; this was kind of a warm-up for Inception, in some ways. Mark Ruffalo has a real knack for being worried and understated, and of course Ben Kingsley is perfect as usual. Michelle Williams has a real standout scene in her final scene with DiCaprio, too.

My Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: Medium

Next up: Sicko

Character Creation: The Wildsea

It's pretty uncommon that I get a game in the mail and immediately want to read it, but here we are.

The Game: The Wildsea
The Publisher: Mythworks
Degree of Familiarity: None (yet!), but it's not a million miles from Blades in the Dark
Books Required: Just the one

Well, it's not the first post-apocalyptic RPG I've seen that a) has the world covered in forest and b) refers to said forest in nautical terms (that'd be Summerland), but it's definitely the best realized. We play as wildsailors, folks on ships cutting (literally) their way through the treetops of the Wildsea, bringing cargo or passengers or just exploring. 

Like Blades in the Dark, The Wildsea manages to strike that precious balance between "enough setting to feel like a place you can explore" and "enough room to feel like the world is yours." So let's make a character!

Let's see. Chargen can either be "quickstart" or "freeform," and the difference is mostly that if you're doing quickstart you're choosing from a predetermined set of lists rather than just doing whatever you want. I think I'll actually do quickstart because I like the narrowing of focus it provides. 

OK, so, that in mind, I must first choose a bloodline, an origin, and a post, and make various other choices from that option. I don't have a concept because this game doesn't so much pass the Chupp test as send it postcards from orbit, so let's just start with picking a bloodline and seeing where that takes me.

My options are ardent (basically human), ektus (cactus-people), gau (mushroom people), ironbound (constructs made of wreckage and ghosts), ketra (mutated fish people), mothryn (moth people), and tzelicrae (a billion spiders in a trenchcoat). As much affection as I have for the "colony of creepy-crawlies" type of character, as seen waaaay back in my Hellas character, I'm gonna go with ardent and keep my weirdness in origin. 

OK, so, as an ardent, I get two Aspects and there are a bunch of dope choices. I'm gonna go ahead and decide on my origin and post, though, just so I know a basic direction. 

So, for origin, I'm picking anchored. That is, I died and returned as a semi-corporeal spirit (or maybe a sentient story?). For post, OMG I LOVE SEVERAL. Um. 

Well, let's narrow it down. I like the idea of a ghostly corsair. I think it'd be fun to take one of the weirder posts, too, like mesmer or tempest. Navigator, also, has some appeal. Yeah, I think I'll do that. 

OK, so I'm an ardent anchored navigator! As such, I get questions to consider from each of my facets:

So with all that in mind...my guy was part of an undercrew, working on a ship whose captain had gone a little mad. They strayed too close to the Conflagration, a huge ever-burning fire in the north, and the ship wound up catching fire (something in the fire exploded and spat up burning chunks of wood; one landed on the deck). The navigator of the ship, realizing that they wouldn't be able to put out the fire, steered it towards the Conflagration to avoid the fire spreading out into the wildsea. Many of the crew, my guy included, jumped over and were lost to the tangle. 

He was pulled down into the lower branches, and doesn't remember exactly when he lost consciousness. All he does remember is resurfacing some time later as another ship (very carefully) looked for survivors of his. There were a few - a few that actually did survive - but my guy came aboard this rescue ship with a newfound respect for the navigator who, in the face of terror and death, considered the lives of everyone on the wildsea, not just his own ship. His anchor, a gale flute, belonged to the now-dead navigator, whose name he never learned.

Since then, he's learned to become a navigator and to merge, after a fashion, with a ship. He reads the waves by touching and feeling them, and by listening to the winds rattle the decks. He's forgotten his living family, forgotten why he became a wildsailor in the first place, if there really was a reason. He hears ancestral spirits on the waves and rumors of weirdness when in port, but doesn't think of himself as a distinct being anymore. He's part of the wildsea, just as every other sailor is.

OK, decent start. Let's pick some shit! Again, I get two Aspects each from my bloodline, origin, and post. For Ardent, I'll take Ghostsight (easily communicate with spirits; makes sense) and Ironclad Mind (I'm immune to hallucinations, mesmerics, and mental compulsions). 

For anchored, I'll take...ooh, decisions, decisions. How about Spectral Variance (I can become insubstantial) and Mortal Needs (I don't need to eat, drink, sleep, or breathe).

And, finally (for Aspects), Navigator. Well, I know I want Hullsight (I can see as though I'm anywhere along the outer hull). And...oh, man, a bunch of these are awesome. I think the one most in-concept is Journeys Unfinished (I automatically know the destination of any wrecked or sink ship I come across). 

OK, neat. Now I'll do Edge. I get one Edge from each facet, and Edges are...just kind of approaches or bonuses? Like, Veils would give you a bonus to do things sneakily. For each of my facets, I get to pick from three. The question is, can I double up? No, these are binary. OK, then! I'll take...Tides, Veils, and Sharps. 

Skills & Languages! (By the way, this game takes language and fluency seriously and I'm here for it.) I get a choice of five for each facet, once again. 

So, for ardent, I shall take a point each in Hunt, Sense, Wavewalk, and two in Chthonic. For anchored, I shall take a point in Old Hand and Signal, and then two in Delve. And for Navigator, one more in Wavewalk, one more in Delve, two in Outwit, and one more in Old Hand.

Resources! I pick two from ardent (I'll take a Copper-Colored Chart and Stone Fragments), two from anchored (I'll take Glowing Plasm as a specimen and Back from Beyond as a whisper), and two from navigator (Ship's Timber as salvage, and Dawn Over New Waves as a whisper).

Drives! These are motivations for the character. I get one from each. Ardent: Make amends for ancestor's wrongs. Anchored: Protect the wildsea from fire (that's not one of the choices, but I don't want either of them). Navigator: Discover a great secret of the distant waves.

And, mire. These are quirks or traumas that can bring you down. Ardent: The call of Under-Eaves grows strong. Anchored: Your material control wavers erratically. Navigator: The waves seems callous, unpredictable. 

All I need now is a name and a description. I'll say that his name in life was Zerata, but after he became an anchored he chose to take a name in Chtonic, so now he goes by Charid. Charid is still dressed in his undercrew garb (simple pants, worn leather shoes, open vest) but now wears a sporescarf with hastily scrawled chart-markings on it. He's got a scent of woodsmoke about him, which a lot of folks feel is a bad omen, but there's not a lot he can do about it. 

I feel like in play Charid might eventually "die" again and return as an ironbound, furthering his transformation into a ship. It might also be interesting for him to reconnect with his living family and discover who he was before he died, because he doesn't really remember. 

Character Creation: Fantasy AGE

Nice, simple, familiar system today.

The Game: Fantasy AGE
The Publisher: Green Ronin Publishing
Degree of Familiarity: Ran Blue Rose for quite a while, which uses this system
Books Required: Just the one

Fantasy AGE is just the Adventure Game Engine (AGE) in its base form, so it's the same system as Blue Rose but with standard fantasy tropes instead of the nifty romantic fantasy that makes Blue Rose so special. That's not a knock on Fantasy AGE - it's a perfectly good trad fantasy system and I like it a hell of a lot more than a lot of others. 

The book has a sample setting that I quite like - it's hardly epic in scope, but it's clean and accessible, which is just as good. Highfalls Swale is a community of several towns in a deep valley, it's got a gate at the northern end where visitors come through, and the book mentions that Swalefolk can be suspicious of outsiders, but still hospitable (like, suspicious but not in a creepy "we don't like yer kind round here" sort of way). 

This gives me a character concept, actually. Highfalls Swale, and specifically the town of Road's End, gets visitors and merchants, and strangers get interviewed by the captain of the watch and the town scribe. I think there's also another position call the Speaker, someone who is meant to be fluent in various dialects and languages that visitors might use in order to aid in translation and welcoming. So I'd like to play the current Speaker's apprentice, a young man named Marric (it's one of the sample names listed for humans and I like it). Marric is an orphan, grew up in an orphanage in Road's End, and as such he's simple known as "Marric Roadender." 

So that's Step One done. Step Two: Abilities! The book wants you to generate these randomly in order and then swap any two you'd like, so let's try it. 

Accuracy 1
Communication 1
Constitution 1
Dexterity 3
Fighting 3
Intelligence 1
Perception 0
Strength 1
Willpower 2

Hrm. I'm gonna swap two of these, because I want those 3s in Intelligence and Communication. Otherwise, looks fine.

Next step, choose a race, human, that's done, there's no place to write it on the sheet boooooo. As a human, I add one to Fighting (putting it up to 2). I get to pick either a Dexterity (Riding) focus or a Constitution (Swimming). Hmm. I think Riding, just because Road's End is a good hike from any large body of water. My Speed is 10 + Dexterity (which is 11). I speak Common (and will need some other languages, but we'll get there), and then I roll twice on the Human Benefits table. I get two Communication focuses, Deception and Persuasion, which is perfect.

So now I roll for social class and background. I'd rather choose it, but hey, wouldn't we all. Outsider class, Criminal Background. Ooh, why not. Kind of a rags to riches sort of story, relatively speaking. Criminal either gives me Communication (Deception) or Dexterity (Lockpicking), and since I've got one I gotta take the other. 

Class! I wanna be a mage. Yes, rogue would be a natural fit, too, but fnah. My primary Abilities are Accuracy, Intelligence, Perception, and Willpower. I start with 20 + Constitution + 1d6 (roll...3) Health, which is 24 in my case. I get Brawling & Staves as Weapon Groups, and then into class powers!

Arcane Blast lets me throw a magic missile kind of thing. Arcane Device is a focus for my magic, and I'm gonna make it a wand (Marric isn't a fan of having big clunky things like staves around). I start with 16 Magic Points, and I get to pick a starting Talent from a choice of Chirurgy, Lore, or Linguistics, a-doy.

Oh, and I get two Magic Talents and four spells. Let's pick those! I get two spells from each Talent, so what kinds of magic should Marric have learned? No real mental magics here. I think a city boy and former thief like Marric would have learned Shadow Arcana. That gives me shadow dagger and shadow's embrace spell. And then for my other magic Talent, I'll take Divination Arcana. The first two spells there are bloodhound and blood mark (I can mark a target with a drop of blood and then track them), and I feel like Marric really isn't a fan of this kind of magic, but traditionally it's the first thing the Speaker is taught. If you talk with a visitor and you think they might get into trouble (their fault or otherwise), you prick your finger with a special ring and then shake their hand or touch their shoulder, marking them. Marric finds the whole thing invasive and gross, but he had to learn it.

Gear! I love how simple this is. I get traveler's clothes, backpack, waterskin, my wand, and a weapon that I'm trained with. Normally that'd be a staff, but I'm also trained in Brawling so I'll make it a gauntlet. Just a leather glove with some reinforcement so it hits a little harder. If I really need to throw down I'm using magic anyway. 

Defense is 11, Speed is 11, ain't got no armor and therefore no penalty. And that's...pretty much it. Normally I'd come up with ties to other PCs, but y'know, just me. I feel like Marric's mentor, the current Speaker, would need to be an important NPC, and I think it should be someone who saw the magical potential in this little scamp and taught him, but forced him to learn Divination before the "cool stuff", like throwing shadows around. 

Marric is in his late teens. Scrawny from growing up in an orphanage, but cleans up very nice and can bluff his way through most situations. Doesn't care much about his day-to-day appearance but keeps his Speaker robes meticulously clean. 

And that'll do it!

Character Creation: Simple Superheroes

Yet another supers game!

The Game: Simple Superheroes
The Publisher: Compose Dream Games
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

As I've said a zillion times before, I love superheroes, superhero movies, superhero RPGs. To a lesser extent, I like comics, too, but honestly I find the endless(ly stupid) continuity a bit much to keep up with. I like a story with an end point, which is why I like movies, and also why I enjoy RPG campaigns that end eventually. 

Anyway, none of that matters because Simple Superheroes isn't very interesting, nor is it particularly simple. It's got a nifty cover, though. 

Well, I should clarify. It's not complex in the sense that it has a big robust point-buy system. It's just not simple in that the text is hard to read and boring, and there's a lot of abbreviation that makes everything look like we're writing things in shorthand. To wit: No list of powers, you just assign one of your Talents (everything's a Talent) a rank, an ability category, and an intent. So if you want to be able to teleport like Nightcrawler, I suppose you'd assign that a rank (probably pretty high), a category (Mobility), and an intent (Functional). So it'd get written "5-bamf [Mbl:O]". 

And that's fine if you know what all that gobbledygook means, but it's in no way "simple." Also, since everything is broken down by intent, rules-as-written I couldn't use that power to dodge an attack without taking another Talent that would be like 3-teleport dodge [Mbl:D]. Which is silly and weirdly granular. 

Anyway, I picked this game to do a character for because the dot was falling off, so I'll get that satisfaction, anyway. 

Right, so I need a superhero concept. The game supposedly can scale to various levels of super-heroics, but the foreword of the book indicates that it was originally meant for gritty, street-level stuff. Cool, I don't have too many of those kinds of characters in my project, I don't think (most supers game lean four-colored, other than like Cold Steel Wardens). Thinking about someone who would be useful on the mean streets of [wherever], and with the note that I've been watching Sandman of late, I think I want a character who can put people to sleep as his superpower. This isn't a martial artist or a gun-toting Punisher type, he's more of a "talk to you from the shadows" and then you feel your eyelids get heavy kind of thing. The temptation to make his hero moniker "Melatonin" is great, but I ain't gonna.

Well, where do we start? Everything is a Talent, and I can pick a well-rounded, standard, or focused array. I feel like his sleep power should be fairly high-ranked, but does that mean 4 or 5? Let's assume that it's the thing he does really well and take the focused array: 5, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2. 

I know I want my sleep inducing power to be my 5, so I'll start with that one. I guess that'd be...hmm. Brains or Sensory? I guess either would work. Let's call it Sensory. 5-induce sleep [Sns:O]. 

UGGGGH. I just read ahead a bit and there's a discussion on how to structure Talents that gets into, for example, punching through a wall. If you want to do it, you can just take a strength power. If you want to do it and not break your hand, you have to take a toughness power.

OMG. IS THIS WHY YOU THINK PEOPLE PLAY SUPERS GAMES? TO HAVE STUPID ARGUMENTS ABOUT HOW POWERS WORK? THAT'S WHAT REDDIT IS FOR.

Anyway. I want a power that makes people ignore him, so let's call it 4-mental invisibility [Sns:D]. 

Cool, what else? Well, I figure I'd want him to be able to project his voice to come from anywhere, so how about 3-ventriloquism [Sns:F]. Likewise, maybe a way to confuse his foes. 3-befuddlement [Brn:O]. 

Kinda like the idea of him being a skilled lockpick, too, so 2-lockpicking [Acr:F]. And, finally, I think it'd be cool if once he sees you, he has an instinctive sense of where you are until you sleep again (including under his power). 2-dreamer's mark [Sns:F] (I guess that's functional, though you could make the argument for offensive). 

So now for Superpower Finesse. This is actually an interesting idea and it's a shame it's kind of half-assed. The idea is that for every Talent you have in a specific theme, you get a rank in this, up to a maximum of the highest ranked Talent. So my talents are themed around sleep, I suppose? If so, then because "induce sleep" and "dreamer's mark" (and maybe "befuddlement," since it works by making people sleepy and in a dream-like state"), I'd have a Finesse of 3-sleep. Could also take misdirection as a Finesse? I guess? Could I count befuddlement twice? Screw it, I'm just taking the one.

Now for Values and Relations. These are motivation kinds of things, and I get three ranked 2, 1, 1. Let's see now. Guess I need to figure out who this guy is. 

The obvious inspiration for a sleep-themed hero is dreams, but I'm gonna go with something a little more...visceral, I suppose? My character is a gravedigger (which nowadays means he gets to use a backhoe in addition to a shovel). His name is Reid Maples, and one afternoon he was digging a grave (it was too close in proximity to some other plots to use the backhoe) when he felt a profound sense of fatigue wash over him. It wasn't the weary, stressful, mental exertion of modern life, but the full-body, heavy, physical exhaustion of being able to fall into dreamless sleep. And then he woke up under the crescent moon in the open grave he'd dug, and heard men talking and whispering to each other.

Reid still isn't sure who those guys were; by the time he pulled himself out of the grave they were gone. But he's discovered three things. First, he can call on that feeling of restful slumber to incapacitate enemies, sending them into peaceful sleep. Second, he can also stop that feeling just shy of sleep, granting the much less pleasant physical exhaustion but restless mind that results in befuddlement and his "invisibility." And third, his own sleep is black, dreamless, and deep, but it is not empty. There's something in the void that helped him get these powers, and Reid does not know why. All he knows is that there are people out in the night who should be resting...one way or another. 

There, that's dark. We'll say Reid works at Sunny Hills Memorial Park, a huge cemetery in [city]. That's a 1-rated Relation. Rest for the wicked is a Value, and that can be the 2. And, finally, there's a gal who works in the cemetery office named Amy that Reid has been crushing on for a long time. They eat lunch together most days, and while Reid doesn't know it, Amy is starting to suspect that Reid has more going on than he's letting on. 

OK, cool. Now I need a weakness. I'll say that Reid's powers don't work on people that can't sense him in some way. They have to see, hear, or touch him (presumably smell or taste would also work, but ew). He basically has to risk revealing himself to put someone to sleep.

Cool, all done but the details. When Reid is out doing super-stuff, I think he dresses in black, but has bright red sewn into the lining of his coat to draw attention quickly. He wears a black mask on his eyes and a scarf or gaiter over his mouth, but lets his black hair fly free. Criminals have started calling him a lot of things - Sandman, the Boogeyman, Dracula - but he calls himself Requiescat. 

That's me done!

Character Creation: City of Mist

With gorillas, perhaps. 

The Game: City of Mist
The Publisher: Son of Oak Game Studio
Degree of Familiarity: None with this game specifically
Books Required: Just the one

City of Mist is an urban fantasy PbtA game, notable in part because the book is goddamned huge. Most PbtA games are slim, 6x9 paperbacks, and this one is a 500-page beast. That's only odd because it's not the kind of game I'd have thought needs a book that big, but reading it I didn't feel like it was padded. It's actually very compelling stuff.

It's not unfamiliar stuff; the idea is that you're playing Rifts, people who are incarnations of Mythos - fairy tales, urban legends, even literary characters (the example of chargen is Don Quixote). The Mists of the title are the forces that cover up Mythoi stuff, making people not only forget but distracting them at the last second so that they look at that weird bird rather than the literal monster scampering down an alley. 

Comparisons to World of Darkness games, and to Dresden Files, are kind of inevitable. WoD, in particular, has a lot of versions of "the Mist" across the various game lines (it's even called that in Changeling: The Dreaming), but it's usually kind of a kludge to hand-wave why the supernatural stays secret. Here, it's a much more present and motivated force, and it plays into the theme of investigation and trying to figure out who you really are, as well as balancing the mythologist and mundane (Mythos vs. Logos). In some ways this game is what I wish Beast could have been, but y'know, that ship has sailed, crashed upon the rocks, sunk, rotted, and become driftwood. 

Anyfuckingway, let's make a character. Step One is Concept, not uncommon, but this has very specific questions. To wit: Which legend has taken root in me? and Who am I in my everyday life in the city?

City of Mist requires a bit of consideration for the backdrop of the game; I could just make a character for the game in general, but there's a sample setting in which a big sinkhole opens up and fills with water and the Mists just kind of fills in the world around it and creates "Lakeside Drive," and people who died in the disaster are just sort of forgotten or written off. I like the idea, and thinking about characters that might be interesting in that setting, the Lady of the Lake came to mind.

Now, the Lady of the Lake, as is typical of mythological characters, has a lot of different roles and variants depending the tale and the period. The role that I find interesting is the keeper of prophecy, holding a powerful weapon or advantage for a hero (who ultimately betrays her, again, depending on which version of the story you've got). So the answer to the first question is "the Lady of the Lake."

So what's the Logos? I think my character used to be a super of one of the apartment buildings that is currently at the bottom of the lake. When the Mists rewrote everything, they made him the super of a different, nearby building, but he's got all these keys on his ring that are to the other building...anyway, the answer to the second question is "apartment building super." 

And now into Step Two, Choosing Themes. I get four, and the balance between them determines how deep into the Mythos I am. I think I want two of each, making me a Borderliner, because I think the slide into the comforting waters of Mythos vs. the dry, grating reality of Logos would be a strong conflict for this guy. 

So which themes do I want for Mythos? Relic would make sense, if I'm the keeper of some kind of Excalibur. Divination would also fit pretty well, as would Adaptation. Hmm. I think the "sword" is either metaphorical or it's at the bottom of the damn lake, but either way it's something I could get for the hero, not something I just carry around. We'll take Adaptation and Divination. Defining those a little more, I want Adaptation to be at home under the water. Divination is more based on seeing destiny or, more precisely, what a "hero" needs to achieve that destiny. We'll call it I know what you need.

How about Logos, then? I think Routine (taking care of the building) and Possessions (tools and keys) are the best choices.

And now on to Step Three, Themebooks. Each of those themes I chose has a mandatory question, and then a bunch of questions, of which I can answer two (so three total). Each of those gives me a "power tag," which gives me a bonus to rolls when it applies. And then I get a weakness tag, which comes from another question. On we go!

For Mythos questions, I have to identify a Mystery, and then do the power tags. 

Adaptation: The Mystery question is How does your Mythos adapt to the circumstances? But really, I think his Adaptation is more about being able to function underwater, as the Lake is his real home (Mythologically speaking). So I think the Mystery here is "What's at the bottom of the Lake?"

First power tag question is: What Mythos power allows you to respond differently to every situation? These tags are meant to be specific, so ethereal water spirit is fine. 

Next question: What attitude or emotion lies at the core of your adaptive powers? My guy is forever waiting for the champion to come and ask him for help. I feel like some power relating to patience or time might fit here. Ooh, how about always know when I'm needed. 

Finally: How can you enhance or weaken others with your powers? I like idea of him being able to put the strength of water behind or against someone. Power of the tides (sure, lakes don't have tides, piss off). 

But, gotta have a Weakness tag question. What are your powers of adaptivity dependent on? Well, the Lake, obviously. That's pretty limiting, but I like the idea that he's much more powerful around or in the Lake.

On to Divination! Let's do this in the right order this time. What allows you to uncannily know things you wouldn't normally know? Well, knowledge of others' needs, obviously. Not desires, but needs - how to help them fulfill their destiny. That in no way means they want to do so. 

What advantage does your divination give you in a fight? I can know your fears, since in a roundabout way, a fear is born of a need.

What new frontier of knowledge lies at the edge of your divination? I can see the heroic potential in anyone. 

Weakness! What is beyond the reach of your divination? I think my guy can't see people's pasts, only their needs and, to a limited extent, their futures. Your past is your own. 

Mystery! Who is the champion for whom I wait? Someone gotta take this sword!

On to the Logos Themes, starting with Possessions. What is the most important thing in your possession? The ring of keys, obviously. It unlocks all the doors in my current building, but also all the doors in the sunken building. 

What other important item is in your possession? A big heavy toolbox. 

What item completes a set with your other power tags? A big ol' flashlight. 

But, Weakness. What technical or practical flaw do your items have? Metal, and therefore heavy & clanky. 

And instead of Mystery, here we have an Identity, which is an absolute statement that gets to the motive behind the possessions. I don't want it to reflect on his responsibility, since I'm sure that'll come in Routine. How about Everything can be restored (or rediscovered, but that's implied).

Speaking of that, over to Routine! First question is What do you do with your time? and building superintendent is the obvious answer. I think I'll make it superintendent/handyman, though.

Next, What did you learn on your daily activities? Easy; all the secrets in the building. 

And finally, Where do your go to carry out your routine, or where do you go to escape it? I think it'd be cool if the basement of the building he works in now has a water pipe that connects to the Lake. Secret entrance to the Lake.

Weakness! At the end of the day, what are you left with? The work never ends because more things always break. 

And, the Identity. "It's on my list."

And that's basically it! I still need a name, however. We'll call him Chris Niven. Chris is in his 40s, wears reading glasses (on a strap, thanks, he's lost more than one pair), and only wears the coveralls if he knows he's got a dirty job to do that day. When he dives into the water and gets more into the Mythos side of things, I think his body fades and glows a little, and because, if not androgynous, then a bit ethereal. He's never dived all the way down into the Lake to look through the sunken buildings, but he knows they're there, and at some point, he'll need to go - or show someone the way. 

That'll do it!

Slipstream: This Fragment Sucks

(So, um, I don't ever mean anything by these silly post titles. The last one wasn't meant to prescient, I swear.)

Our heroes are in an underground laboratory and, while they are victorious, they're pretty beat up. Abbas regains consciousness as Zeenia is tossing medical stuff around looking for something to help these solids, and bandages up himself and Iris. Zeenia searches the area, and finds a ray gun (perhaps a little heavier than the standard?), a couple of weird glass canisters with amber liquid and nasty-looking needles, and a metal container labeled "Death Dust: Antidote." Abbas also grabs the big ol' rifle that the Primal captain used against them - he won't be needing it!

The heroes are elated to have found the cure (if that's really what it is), but they don't have time to savor the moment. Iris feels a weird rumbling, and then the ground starts shaking. The heroes find some glass tubes in the next room with big red buttons inside. Abbas shoves a Primal corpse into one and hits the button, and the tube jettisons out of the caverns with a shoop. 

The heroes pile into the other two and escape just as the tunnels cave in! They shoot up into the air and the tubes deploy parachutes, carrying them gently to the ground. But now they're in the middle of Boroosh, the rocky, inhospitable fragment, and they don't know where their ship is.

Zeenia activates her radiophone to send out a ping, and Iris flies up into the air to get her bearings. She can't see the ship, but figures out which way to walk. Abbas shoulders the canister and they start trudging. Zeenia laments that she has lost her scooter again. 

They come across a patrol of Borooshians and try to hide, but they're spotted. One of the Borooshians points a rifle and demands that they identify themselves, which of course thrills Iris because she would have done that anyway. The patrol finds Iris a little too intense to want to pick a fight, and after a little questioning, they believe the characters' story about having to abandon their ship and then getting lost in the caverns. 

Another few hours of walking later and they come to a crevasse - to wide to leap and too deep to climb through. Iris decides to fly ahead and see if she can find the ship, while Abbas and Zeenia head along the crevasse to a point where it narrows enough to jump. They do find that point, but just as they approach it, a Borooshian quaker, a huge lizard-carnivore, leaps from the sand and snaps at them!

Zeenia strikes at its underbelly, but Abbas just shoulders that huge gun she took and fires at it twice. The first shot stuns it, and the second one blows out the back of its head. The creature slumps forward with a thump, and Abbas grins. "That's two!"

Meanwhile, Iris arrives back at the ship, but something is wrong. It seems to be surrounded by smoke. As she gets closer, though, she realizes that it's actually a swarm of little golf-ball sized insects, and Rill, one of the Bird-Man crew, is lying on the ground motionless. Iris fires the pistol that she took from the lab and discovers that it's a plasma pistol, burning through the bugs and scattering them. They swarm over and sting her, but she fires a couple more times and disperses them. She drags Rill (fortunately still alive) inside, where she discovers the other crew members unconscious and surrounded by bug corpses. 

Iris fires up the ship and homes in on Zeenia's ping, and picks her two companions up. They get the hell off this fragment and head for Avia for help. 

There, they learn that these little bug things cause allergic reactions in Bird-Men, but the crew will be fine after some injections of the anti-toxin. The heroes deliver the antidote to King Boolar so his scientists can try to analyze and replicate it, along with those weird amber-liquid things.

The next day, Boolar takes them to meet Dr. Macaw, the Bird-Men's most brilliant scientist. Macaw explains that the injectors are "Lazarus injections," capable of restoring the recently dead to life. What's more, the antidote will work, curing a poisoned fragment in a matter of hours. Boolar says that Simba is under siege by Queen Anathraxa's forces, but he can provide 30 warships as well as ground troops. Dr. Macaw confirms that curing Simba will use up the canister, but he already has a batch of the antidote cooking. 

The heroes decide that waiting is unwise - every day they delay, more Lion Men die. It's time to save Simba!

Character Creation: Spell the RPG

This is a concept that, upon reflection, I'm surprised I'd never seen before.

The Game: Spell the RPG
The Publisher: Whimsy Machine
Degree of Familiarity: None, but I've played a lot of Scrabble
Books Required: Just the one, plus some Scrabble tiles or similar apparatus

Spell the RPG comes to use from Whimsy Machine, the geniuses behind Fight Item Run, and is really more of a game system for spellcasting than anything else. By that I mean there's not really a default system or even a default tone. You can play it light and silly, or you can get really dark with it if you want (though reading it I think I'd lean more to the former). 

Anyway, the central conceit is that when you cast spells, you roll the appropriate stat, total the dice, and draw that many letter tiles. Based on what you can spell and what you are trying to do, and what stat you used, that magic will look different. You can also spend Potential to make spells part of your permanent repertoire. 

That's interesting on its own, but you can also deliberately misspell words or turn letters so they resemble other letters, playing with the metalinguistics of orthography in order to force the magic. Doing that can have consequences, which I really enjoy, because it takes a form of creativity I know that some players would get into and makes it an explicit part of the setting. 

I feel, however, that this book needed a bunch more examples of spellcasting, because there are barely any. This is something Fight Item Run did right - everything has an example and the game is easy to figure out (and I have, and I've run it, and it's a lot of fun). 

Anyway, let's assume that we're in a modern fantasy, Dresden-esque kind of world (maybe not quite so focused on hard-boiled detectivey kinds of things), and go from there. The book says that Speakers (the folks that do this kind of lexomancy) can be roughly grouped by motivation, and I like the folklorists, Speakers who are interested in the oral tradition and its role in spreading stories. I personally love urban legends (love/hate might be more accurate term; I love that they act as cautionary tales in their overly ham-handed kind of way, I hate that they so often replace rational thought and contribute to the idea that anecdote is just as good as data), so let's make a character who's an urban folklorist, tracking down the stories that might have come to life from being told too much. His name is Whitney Woods, but prefers when people call him "Woody." 

So, filling out the first bit of the sheet: His motto is "take from a story only the wisdom that is in it" (paraphrasing Mark Twain). His age is "old enough to know better" (I could just give a numerical age, but eh). His interests are stories, folklore, rumors, exploration, and gardening; I picture Woody as having a garden that he returns to after an exploration to help recenter. His look is "dad-like," he's got a beard and thinning hair and a bit of a paunch. His philosophy is Folklorist, for reasons I discussed already. 

Now for the numbers. We've got 12 Impulses and 12 points, but doing 1 in each is not a great idea. Better to have a few that have 4s or even one at a 5, because it gives you some power behind your spellcasting. 

Impulses aren't physical/mental/social traits; they're actually more like Approaches from Fate Accelerated. So how does Woody prefer to approach things? 

Well, I definitely want some points in Calm; Woody prefers to not let things get out of control. I think I can leave Daring at zero, Woody's not in this for thrills and honestly he'd rather things stay chill. Feeling? It's used to act on emotion, so I don't think I want it to be zero, but it's not Woody's main thing. Focus, though, that's probably important. Focus has to be, well, focused, so let's say his is "Urban Legends." Grit, nah. Hope, yah. Reason, probably. Renown, Scheme, and Style can all be zero. Trust, though, that really needs to be Woody's thing. 

OK, so, putting numbers to this, I want ratings in Calm, Focus, Hope, and Trust, and I wouldn't mind ratings in Reason and Feeling. Let's put four into Trust, I want that to be the big one. Three into Hope, two into Calm and Focus, and the last one into Feeling. 

Now, this is weird. The character sheet says that I'd get 5 (or 10, if a one-shot) Potential Points to raise stuff, but the character creation section does not mention this. Well, I'll stick to what's in the book, I think.

Anyway, that means it's time to build some spells! I get two permanent spells, and for that I need to generate some words. First I pick an Impulse; I think I'll do on with Trust and one with Calm (yes, Hope has more dice, but I feel like Calm would be the more active Impulse). Let's do Calm first; this is meant to represent the first spell Woody ever cast. I have Calm of 2, so I take two dice, set one to 6, and roll the other. That comes up 3, so I get 9 letters to build my word(s) for my Calm spell. 

My 9 letters are: K, W, U, N, V, J, T, H, E. Just my luck to get the high-point letters. Happens in Words with Friends all the time, too. What can I spell that would be a good representation of a spell Woody would cast instinctively? OK, got it. His spell is "WE THUNK" - the idea being to skip to the point when everyone has "thunk" about things and gotten over being angry. 

And now the Trust spell. Again, set one die to 6 and roll the other three. Only 8 on three dice, geez. I get 14 letters. Oy. Q, G, E, T, W, W, O, A, O, V, C, E, E, A. Well, at least I got more vowels. Screw that Q, though. 

OK, his Trust spell is "WAVE TO ACE EGO." It's based on something very simple, the act of waving to someone to indicate "I see you, you go ahead." In magic terms I think it would create a kind of synchrony for the people that fall under it, allowing them to act in harmony.

Right, now I get four levels to put into these spells. I think I'll split them evenly; 2 and 2.

And that's actually it! I think Woody's magic would be pretty subtle, and involve getting people's attention and getting them talking as way to facilitate magic. I also think Woody would favor flannel shirts and look a little like the dad from The Mitchells vs. The Machines, if perhaps not quite so intense.

Cairn: How Long Has That Crystal Been There?

Fuzzy animals and seaside shenanigans! Here's last time.

The Knights have joined the circus! They travel with the Stormriver Circus out of Cairn and head west along the coast, heading for the town of Crystal Rock. Along the way they play a bunch of the smaller villages; at one point they have to head inland due to the road being washed out. They end up in the village of Marshflat Puddle, which has never been on the circus' route before, and the villagers just love it.

As they're about a day out of Crystal Rock, they cross paths with a band of pika traders. Summa Stormriver (owner/operator of the circus) calls a break in the travel so that folks can trader, if they want. Russelet Leatherwind talks to an enchanter about the possibility of turn bug chitin into armor, and the enchanter muses that he'd be best served to make the armor and then enchant it. Russ mentions that keeping the stuff together has been a challenge, and the enchanter suggests looking for a particular plant that has sticky "buds" that it uses to catch bugs. 

Ratatosk Longberry trades for some weird sheets of brittle papery stuff made from seaweed. The pika say that they often crumble up into salads, but you can also wet it slightly and wrap other foods up in it. Ratatosk is, of course, fascinated. 

Rumdiggle Sunsong finds some minstrels and trades some songs. They recognize her as the composer of "Yeet the Noodle" and ask about the adventure that led to that song. They also ask after Professor Puddleleaf - it turns out they traded him a crystal some time back?

This gives the Knights pause (not paws, they had those already). That crystal was the thing that prompted the trek to the north ending up at Rock Circle, and that adventure also ended in Puddleleaf going Dire and running off. They ask where the crystal came from, and the pika say that they traded for it in Crystal Rock from an otter named Billet Tiderunner. 

The Knights (and the circus) move on, and arrive at Crystal Rock the next evening. They can see boats coming in as the sun sets, and then a scout spots them and a cheer goes up. A mouse from the town scampers in and talks with Sumna, and she summons the "officers" of the circus (including the Knights). It's too late to set things up now, so they'll start at first light. For now, the inn in town is welcoming them, so Sumna encourages everyone to go there and get a bite to eat. Barlet Bluescale, the gecko business manager, mentions to Snootabur Shadowbough that this place has the best cricket pie. 

Everyone heads into town and goes to the inn. Snootabur gets a table for the Knights, while Ratatosk goes to the bar and meets Luli Inkytail, the meerkat owner of the inn. He orders a salad, other folks order drinks and foods, and the party gets going. Rumdiggle notes that the music here is a bit more percussion heavy than she's used to, and there's a pika playing some kind of weird musical instrument that looks like a forge bellows! They invite her to play along, and of course she's happy to.

Ratatosk gets his salad and starts chomping - it's got leaves and seeds from plants he doesn't recognize, but it's tasty. After he eats for a bit, though, he realizes that some things are moooooooving veerrrryyyy sloooowly...he walks up to the bar and asks about the salad's ingredients. Luli tells him that the seeds (from an aquatic plant, they're called "fishbuttons") are a mild hallucinogen, but you'd have to eat a lot of them to get any dramatic effect. About that time, another meerkat pokes his head out of the kitchen and asks Luli (his mother) who grabbed the salad that was on the counter. See, he spilled the bowl of fishbuttons into it...

Luli tells Ratatosk that he's not in any danger, but he needs to make sure to stay hydrated. She hands him a pitcher of water and sends him back to the table.

Billet Tiderunner arrives at some point and Ratatosk was going to talk with him, but is still unstuck from time. Russelet goes to sit with the otters (they're all sharing a big plate of steamed fish) and asks about the crystal. Weirdly, though, neither Billet nor any of his compadres know a thing about it. Ratatosk eventually recovers and asks as well, but doesn't get any more information.

Eventually the party winds down. Rummy sleeps on the beach near Memm Nightriver and his animals (his daggertusk, Oof, is charging up and down the beach splashing in the shallows). Ratatosk and Snootabur share a room at the inn, and Russelet flits off to find the highest point he can. Everyone gets up at first light after far too little sleep, and discovers why this place is called Crystal Rock.

An immense crystal spire rises up out of the water - it wasn't visible in the dark, but now the sunlight hits it and it spreads sparkly colors all over the village. Rummy hates it immediately (TOO BRIGHT). Ratatosk asks the meerkat presently behind the bar (Luli's husband Clothair) about it, but he doesn't seem to know about it. He glances out the window and sees it, and kind of has an "oh, yeah, forgot about that" kind of reaction. Very weird.

The Knights spend the day working on setting up for the circus and exploring the town. Sumna informs the troupe that they're only doing night shows here since the citizens fish during the day, to the unmitigated joy of Rummy, Russ, and Snoot. Russ spends some time with Crau Leatherwind, working on spectacles, and he and Ratatosk recruit Clothair's youngest son Wiggle to show them where those sticky plants can be found.

Snootabur, concerned and/or curious about the crystal, finds an old mouse sitting in the town square and strikes up a conversation with him. He's very friendly and polite, and remembers Snoot's name and what she tells him about the circus, but he cannot hold a thought about the crystal in his head. The conversation goes in circles, and it's all he can do to remember the thing exists at all. Snoot finds Rummy on the beach with Memm and brings this up, and Memm says that he's never really asked the villagers about the crystal when he's been here before. Sounds like a magic-y thing.

The shows come around and the Knights perform; Ratatosk oversees fireworks, Rummy sings with the band, Snoot tumbles with the acrobats, and Russelet does his trick shots. When the shows are over, Ratatosk catches sight of Billet and asks if he could perhaps bring some water plants to him (he can swim, but not well and he hates it). Billet invites him out on the fishing boat tomorrow, and Russelet asks to join - he likes to fish, and plans on having them get as close to the crystal as they can.

Snootabur finds a shop run by a mole named Dalfi Fivefinger. She sells jewelry made of shells, but also some strange, beautiful pieces of glass called "Footsteps of the Bright Ones," formed when lightning hits the sand. Dalfi remembers more about the crystal than anyone else, and it still isn't much - she remembers that it's always been here, that it glows in the dark and sings in the wind, and sparkles in sunlight, but can't remember any legends about its creation or any myths about it. 

The Knights all agree that this is weird. Tomorrow, they decide, Russ and Ratatosk will go out on the water with the otters and see what they can find, and Snootabur and Rummy will go to the Temple of the Bright Ones and see if the priest knows anything interesting.

Character Creation: Interface Zero 1.0

Some days, my "do a character for every edition of a game" policy comes back to bite me.

The Game: Interface Zero 1.0
The Publisher: Gun Metal Games
Degree of Familiarity: Not much
Books Required: The IF0 book and some edition of Savage Worlds; I think it's written for the Explorer's Edition

See, now, this is an instance in which the phrase "dog's breakfast" would not apply because it's not a confused mess. There's just a lot in this game and I think some darlings probably could have been killed at some point. But, then again, there are also at least three editions of this game in this rules set alone, so maybe it gets tighter later on? 

Anyway, Interface Zero is a cyberpunk game and it follows most of the usual tropes you find in such games. If anything it leans a little more on the 'punk side of things, because there's a great deal of attention paid to the quality of your cyberware and what that means for you as the poor schmuck that had it implanted. And that's cool. But you can also play a robot, or a simulacrum (different thing!) or a person with animal DNA spliced in (a "hybrid"), or an AI, I think? (I mean, technically a robot is an AI.) 

Unlike a lot of Savage Worlds games, which are into the whole brevity thing, IF0 has twenty pages of history, a full chapter of rules changes and additions from standard SW, and then later another twenty pages of "this is the world we live in." It's a lot. It feels like a lot to read. Like any RPG that deals with geopolitics on any level and was written pre-Trump years, it's amusing to read the history, although in this game the USA succumbs to a second Civil War and fractures into five nations, which, um. You guys better not have gotten this right.

Anyway, I think we made characters for this game as part of a playtest once upon a time and then for whatever reason didn't wind up playing. I also seem to recall that none of us were terribly enthused by the idea, but I don't remember why exactly. It's by no means the worst cyberpunk game I've ever seen, it just doesn't do much to excite me, but it looks perfectly playable. Ah, well, let's do a character.

Chargen is a lot more involved that most SW games, despite IF0's insistence that they kept things "lightning fast." We start off with race, which is basically "human or robot" but there are some variations to both. I want to make a Simulacrum, because I read the races yesterday and that's the one that stuck in my brain. Simulacra are vat-grown humans, but (here's the weird bit), they're implanted with fake memories and histories. My question is why. Like, if you can implant a human being with a fake history and therefore the memories and the experiences that come with it, then why not be up front about what the sim is and avoid the trauma of it discovering that later? My guess is because it makes better stories this way (and it's undoubtedly more in-genre).

Well, I'm gonna say my sim was a laborer, working off-planet on a mine (oh, add "solar system colonization" to the shit this setting includes - like I said, it all fits but it all feels very busy), and somewhere along the way discovered he was a sim. He quit the job and got back planetside, and has kind of slid into a downward spiral of depression and existential dread. You know, a real fun guy to be around. 

So, anyway, as a simulacrum made for labor, I start with a d6 in Vigor but I also start with the Loyal Edge (since labor sims are made to be steady workers). Otherwise I'm just human. Groovy! On we go.

Attributes! The usual deal, 5 points and a d4 in everything (except Vigor, in my case). Given his history, we're gonna put a d8 in Strength, a d6 in Agility, a d8 in Vigor, and a d6 in Smarts. The d4 in Spirit is, perhaps, due to the recent soul-crushing discovery that everything he knew was a lie.

Skills! I get 15, and this being an old edition I don't get the "base" Skills. I do get a free d4 in Hacking, however.

Climbing d4
Fighting d6
Guts d4
Knowledge (Mining) d4
Notice d6
Piloting d4
Repair d6
Shooting d6
Streetwise d6

That's 15, damn I'm good. I speak three languages plus English, so I'll say he speaks Hindi, Mandarin, and Portuguese (the three most common languages in this brave new world). No place to write that, however, so I'll just have to remember it.

Aaaaaand now the book wants us to do derived traits, even though that's like icing a cake while it's still baking. Yes, I am gonna bitch about this every time I do an SW character. Skipping for now.

Edges! I get a free one for being "human," of course. Oh, but I like to take Hindrances first, actually. Let's do that. I'll take the Glitched (Major) Hindrance; cyberware is more likely to fuck up with me. I think that's probably something my whole batch had in common, hey GM, there's your plot hook. I'll take Death Wish and say that he wants to die after he figures out where he was created and meets whoever it was that programmed his memories. And, one more Minor. Hmm. Let's take Poverty, why not.

OK, on to Edge(s). Oh, wait, hang on, I forgot I have to pick an occupation. My guy isn't really skilled for much of it, but I'll be a Sanitation Worker, how 'bout. Normally that would give me 10,000 credits, but as I'm poor, I only get half. Also, I think I get the shit end of the stick (lol) because I'm a sim, and the union isn't sure whether I count as an android or not. 

Right, back to Edges. None of the new ones in the IF0 book enthuse me, so we'll stick with SW classic (that is, Explorer's Edition). Well, let's take Quick (I throw back anything lower than a 5 in initiative draws). Figure that he's got good reflexes built in. That one's free, though, and I don't see any other Edges that intrigue me, so I think I'll boost Agility to d8 and bump Piloting to d6 and Fighting to d8. 

So now can I do derived traits. Parry and Toughness are 6, Pace is 6, Charisma is usually 0 but -2 if I'm acting outside my function as a laborer, which is...weird. I mean, that simulacra are meant to stay in their lane, sure, but how often would I apply a Charisma mod? I guess if I were doing social stuff, but I'd be shit at that anyway. 

I could go shopping, but eh. I don't have enough money for cyberware, really, and it'd be glitchy with me, so I'll stick with the standard TAP array that all characters get. I do need a name, though. I'll say his name is Ashvin Patel. He's named for the seventh month in the Bengali calendar, and lately he's begun to wonder if he's got 11 more siblings...

Ashvin is has brown skin, black hair, and a kind of surprised expression a lot of the time. Not "surprised" like "here's a puppy!" but more "your boss wants a word with you." I picture him as morose, but not angry, and he keeps to himself. He obsesses over his origins and his implanted memories, and he's picked apart everything that he can remember for clues as to where he was created, but he's afraid to actually do any real digging because what if he's defective and they render him down for parts? 

I think that'll do it. Whenever I get around to doing 2.0, I'll made a character that's cyber'd all to fuck, for a change.