D&D: It's Specterin' Time!

Once again, we explore the Dead Valley...and this time, we very nearly become part of it! Here's last time.

Our heroes, having fought and bested the flesh golem in the Blood Pit, decide to fall back and rest. Aisling advocates (strenuously) for going all the way back to the Ettin Love Cave, but the party feels that's too much of a backtrack, so they just go back to the butte where they fought the ghouls. They put their backs up against the butte, and Zook casts an alarm spell. 

And he's glad he did. Near the crack of dawn, the spell activates. The heroes look up in horror and see a horde of spectral creatures appearing out of the gloom! Dara quickly casts a wind wall, hoping that the creatures are even affected by such things. Fortunately they are, and several of them are buffeted and battered. But they can still power through it, and the spectres descend upon the characters.

A couple of them strike at Clara, and she feels not only her flesh chill but her soul darken - these things can kill much more swiftly than other foes they've fought. She lashes out and finds that she can punch them, though she has to hit harder than usual to do any real damage. The other characters, though, find that magic works well against them - Zook hurls firebolts, Aisling calls up a cloud of daggers.

But then another spectral being, this one made of grey smoke, flows over the battlefield. It strikes at Zook and fells him, and hovers above, chuckling gently. Dara casts a spell and raises Zook back up, but the heroes start to realize that they need to end these things quickly. 

Clara leaps into the air and bicycle-kicks the wraith into the wind wall. The spell tosses it up into the air and clearly harms it, but does not kill it. The spectres press their attack and Zook throws fire at them, dropping a couple more, but Aisling falls to their assault. One of the spectres lingers over her, siphoning away her life.

The wraith swoops back and drops Zook. Dara drops her wind wall and calls down a moonbeam, destroying another spectre, but the remaining ones attack and fell her as well. Now only Clara remains, facing two spectres and the wraith.

Clara strikes both spectres with all of the ki she can manage, destroying them, but that leaves the wraith. It looks around at the three dying adventurers, and says "Which of them is your least favorite?"

"You," replies Clara.

The wraith chuckles like a sack of dried bones. "I am not such a glutton to eat the entire feast myself, but you have depleted my chosen. I will take one and leave the rest to live. Which?"

Clara considers the question...and then leaps up and spin-kicks the wraith. She manages to surprise it and knock it back, and then lands and strikes again. The wraith laughs. "So be it! You will all be my chosen!" It lurches forward and strikes, but Clara manages to cling to consciousness. Knowing that this is her last chance to save herself and her friends, she strikes...and knocks the wraith into nothingness. Falling to her knees and spitting blood, she stabilizes Zook, and then pulls her friends' bodies up against the butte and passes out, hoping that nothing else finds them for a while.

They manage to rest and recuperate enough to wake up. "I hate everything about what just happened," mutters Aisling. "Yeah," says Zook,"but we lived." They all agree that if Zook hadn't cast the alarm spell, they would be dead, and that Clara's tenacity saved their lives.

They discuss what to do next. Aisling ventures that maybe they're aren't quite prepared for what lurks in the Dead Valley - they could go back, resupply, and return. They are, after all, running low on rations. Dara points out that food is easy, as she can cast a goodberry spell and keep them fed, but whether they can survive what awaits them is another matter. Zook consults his magic and learns that going back now would be disastrous - the only way out is through. Aisling once again suggests falling back to the cave, but the others would rather press on past the Blood Pit - maybe there's a good spot to rest, and they can't keep backtracking.

They get around the Blood Pit; Dara loses her footing, but Zook catches her just in time. "Thank you, I don't think I'd last in there." "Even as a crocodile," Zook replies. They enter the central part of the Dead Valley, a wide, flat plain with jagged, rocky walls. Everything is eerily quiet and still, like the eye of a storm. They spot a small, square, stone building...but just then see movement out of the corners of their eyes.

The floating skull with the green-fire eyes they've fought a couple of times now emerges from a narrow crevice in the rock. Aisling motions for everyone to hide, but the skull doesn't seem to be looking for them. It floats across the plain to the building, its eyes flare up, and a stone door at the front scrapes open. The skull floats in, leaving the door ajar.

The party decides to find a place to camp out of sightline of the door, and rest. They'll need all their faculties before going into this keep, and they note that nothing stirs in this valley. If everything is afraid of what lurks in the keep, this might be a safe(ish) place to rest. 

They take shifts, and Clara dreams of sinking into icy water, her soul freezing up as her body dies, but wakens rested and refreshed (this was apparently the lingering effects of the spectres' attack). The adventurers head for the door, and Zook calls up his familiar, Edna the spider, to scout ahead.

Edna enters a room with a bunch of floating skulls. They aren't doing anything, just...hovering there. Zook describes this and Aisling surmises that they might be there as a first line of defense or as an alarm, but in either case they don't react to Edna. Zook spots a door to the left, and has Edna check it out. In that room, Edna (and thus Zook) finds a bunch of chests, smashed open and splintered, with weapons, clothes, and coins littering the floor. 

Satisfied that nothing is going to immediately attack them, the heroes enter. As they approach the floating skulls, they can hear whispering - very quiet, too quiet for Edna to have heard. Aisling casts a spell to comprehend languages and gets close to one, and hears it whispering about "Orcus, the corpulent lord of deads, god the dead, giver and taker of unlife." The words bore into her brain and leave shadows and rot in their wake...Aisling backs away. She informs the others that listening to the skulls is dangerous.

Zook notes a door to the left (the one Edna saw), and then another one further into the room, leading off right. The heroes pick their way through the skulls, trying not to get close enough to hear them, but they all winding hearing a bit more blasphemy than they'd have liked. They reach the further door and hear people arguing in the next room. 

"You killed me! You killed me and then you killed him!"

"No! He killed me and then I don't know what happened to you!"

"You're both idiots! You both killed me!"

Zook sends Edna in and she sees three ghosts, bickering and arguing about who killed who. The party decides to check the other door, rather than potentially get into another ghost fight. They pick their way back through the skull room (and, again, the whispers prick at their minds), and enter the room with the smashed-up crates.

They start to investigate, and Aisling bends down to brush some of the debris aside. And then something behind her screams "NO!", and an unseen force picks her up and throws her across the room into the far wall!

The heroes see a spectral figure flicker into visibility, not dissimilar to the spectres they fought, but somehow more grounded and solid. "Good," mutters Clara, "should be easier to punch." She races over to it and kicks it. Zook hits it with fire and Dara whacks it with her shillelagh, and the ghost vanishes into nothing. Aisling picks herself up, and the heroes get back to the search.

They find a lot of silver and some gold, but also a matched set of gold bracelets and a couple of scrolls (which Zook eagerly takes). They also find a skeleton under some rubble, still wearing a vestment inlaid with gold. Most interesting, though, they find two statuettes of carved bone, depicting a man and a woman. The woman wears robes, but the man wears armor - the same armor they fought in the Valley. Might the woman, then, be the owner of the floating skull? Dara pockets the statuettes, Aisling takes the money for later distribution, and the heroes move on.

Well, the scout-spider moves on. The next room contains an organ - a pipe organ, but the pipes are skeletons (partially, just rib cage, spinal column, and skull). The spider gets close enough to see arcane markings above the keys, but Zook can't decipher them. "I don't read music," he mutters. 

"My skills are needed, then?" says Aisling. Next time, we'll see if she can play this organ.  

Character Creation: Arium

A blank canvas, just waiting for the splatter.

The Game: Arium
The Publisher: Adept Icarus
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one (that'd be Arium: Discover), I believe

, 

Arium is yet another setting agnostic, build-your-own world kind of thing, a la Fate, but also Mettle,  Solipstry, and Osiris. Oh, and also Dreamchaser, ScreenPlay, and Spark. You get the idea. 

With that said, I do appreciate that Arium is a slim 70 pages for the Discover book (which has chargen and the rules) and 50 pages for Create (which has the "make your setting" rules. It also has an example of doing so, which I appreciate, but:

Way to sell your game, here

I'm being grouchy, but the game actually looks fine, and if I were going to play one of these "make your own setting hung on a perfectly serviceable but not terribly interesting game engine" kinds of games, it might well be this one. The writing is clear and friendly, if a little chatty for my taste, and the system looks easy enough (d6s, look for 5s and 6s). One thing I think is kind of cool is that if you roll two or more 6s, you get "Control" - you can add a detail to the situation. If you roll two or more 1s, you get a "Complication." But it's possible to get both if you have enough dice, and it's possible to succeed or fail in the underling action and have either or both Control or Complication. 

Anyway, I need a setting, and I don't think I have any of those. The closest we get is:

Not gonna lie, those look like pretty cool settings. I'm gonna make a character for the third one, because it could nice include inspirations such as Something Wicked This Way Comes, Killer Klowns From Outer Space, and the music stylings of the Insane Clown Posse. 

Character creation proceeds thusly: 

So my "step zero" is a concept. Assuming that the tone veers a little goofier, let's say that my guy is a Killjoy. You get too silly at the borders, and the borders start to wibble as the amusement park starts to intrude on Cavendish. That means that the Killjoys are there to stop people from having fun and being silly at the border. It's fine to do that sort of thing inside the province, far away from where the clowns or whatever could hear you, but admittedly some Killjoys do take things a little too far. 

My character is name Parran Killjoy (all Killjoys take "Killjoy" as their surname). He lived near the border growing up and his parents just got a little too jolly one day, the border shifted, before Parran knew what happened, his parents were clowns, stuck forever in the Park. Parran grew up somber, but in his heart of hearts, he longs for color and levity. Just...not here. 

OK, that's a pretty good start. What's next? Determine Character Points! These are determined by what kind of game we've got, in terms of lethality. This setting sounds Heroic or maybe Normal, though what if it was Hardcore and we really do take inspiration from the darkest parts of the sources I mentioned? Yeah, that'll be in interesting. That gives me 11 Character Points.

Purchase Primary Attributes. There are four of them: Mind, Body, Spirit, Heart. I get 11 points. I think that Spirit should probably be Parran's highest stat, so let's put 4 there, 1 into Mind, 2 into Body, and 2 into Heart, and that leaves me 2 that I can spend on other stuff.

Derived Traits! Grrr. I think I'll wait, because if I want to go back and raise something here I'd have to rejigger them.

Likewise, I'll wait on Health and Resistance. Is it really not intuitive to put derived traits, which rely on the other traits being firmly set, at the end of chargen? Lots of games do this and I don't get it.

Extra Qualities/Goodies! A Goody is an object, something that a character could lose. In Parran's case, I think it's his Killjoy Mask. All Killjoys have them; they're half masks covering the bottom half of the face (so no one can see you smile).  I get one Feature and one Flaw for the Mask by default, and then I can buy more if I want. Basically, just beneficial or negative qualities of the object (or me, since the character gets some, too). 

Well, for my Mask, I'll say it Conceals My Feelings. It's very hard to read intent or motive when I'm wearing the mask. For its Flaw, I'll say it Scares the Children. The mask is meant to be frightening and off-putting, but that means that being gentle or convincing is hard.

I think get two Banes and one Boon (since we're in Hardcore mode). Let's say that Parran is Easy to Fool - Killjoys aren't really here to detect lies, which is good because Parran sucks at it. Also, he's got a Terrible Memory. That's pretty self-explanatory. For his Boon, we'll say Parran is Steadfast as a Wall. He's not likely to betray anyone, ever. 

Each of these things gets a mechanical effect, but chosen from a set of three (really four, but the other ones are more expensive). We'll say Conceals My Feelings adds 2 dice to appropriate pools, Scares the Children and Easy to Fool adds an effective 1 to rolls, Terrible Memory applies a -2D, and Steadfast as a Wall adds a 6 to rolls. Neat.

Now, I could add more of these thingies if I wanted, but I think actually that I'm going to put the other two points I had left over back into Attributes. Let's add them to Heart and Body, which leaves me at Mind 1, Body 3, Spirit 4, Heart 3. 

And now I can do derived traits! They're all averages of traits, and they're helpfully on the sheet between the traits they use. The sheet is actually pretty well-designed. And we round up, that's nice. Health is double Stamina (so 6), and Resistance...isn't on the sheet, so it can't be that important.

And that's it! Parran is in his 30s, baldy slightly, wears the grey coat and ceramic mask of a Killjoy. He's looking forward to the end of his tour so he can go have some fun for once. 

Garbage & Glory: Trash Run!

As mentioned, last night I dreamt of San Pedro ran a one-shot of Garbage & Glory. Here we go!

A Mask of raccoons stands before an immense stone staircase, leading up and into the mysterious Munci Wastedisp. Raccoon rumor says that immense mounds of Garbage lie within, promising Glory everlasting to the Mask that discovers its secrets...but no Mask has entered and returned. But this Mask feels lucky!

The raccoons are: 

Zabrina Pistachio, also called Sparklefingers, a Mess Magus. Zabrina is versed in Trash Magic, and has a rubbish (a little animated being made of Garbage) made from a frisbee and a pizza cutter. She's named it Rhumba. 

Hobin Marrow, the Trash Trader, a Pile Champion. A priest and warrior of the Infinite Pile, Hobin can hear the voice of the Pile, leading him on to Garbage.

Junkstin Binber, known as Yesterday's Sensation, a Junk Composer. Junkstin carries with him J.B.'s Kozoo-Pipes of Honkitude, a strange and unique musical instrument that can also fire dried peas as deadly (or at least painful) projectiles.

Mooney Crescentroll, the Doughboy, a Sticky Fingers, who wears the emblem of her namesake on her chest. 

The four of them stand before the staircase, and Zabrina stares at the strange markings above the door. "MUNCI WASTE DISP FL OD GAT 3." The Mask puzzles over this. 

"Well, we're in the right place," muses Mooney. 

"What's a 'flod gat', though?" wonders Zabrina. 

"Whatever they are, there's three of them. We'll have to be careful." 

With that, the raccoons tackle their first challenge: the stairs. Mooney pulls out some rusty nails and uses them as pitons to climb up, and then carves her name into the top step (a crescent moon, and then a crescent roll). Junkstin dares Hobin to carry him, and Hobin tries, but they both tumble back down. Zabrina sighs and looks to the right, and sees that next to the stairs there's just...land. She just walks right up.

Eventually Junkstin and Hobin get to the top, and the Mask enters the Munci Wastedisp. Inside, it's strange and alien. Everything is flat surfaces and sharp angles - obviously the place is made by Ogres. Indeed, Zabrina thinks she can hear Ogre-speak echoing through the halls, but can't get a fix on it. 

They come to a crossroads, and Hobin confidently takes them left. They wind up in a room pile high with bags of trash, but very little Garbage (there's a difference). They root around a bit and find a couple of pieces, but this is a dead end - not the treasure they were promised. Hobin leads them directly across the hall, to a room with a flickering light. There's something beyond it, but they aren't sure what...

Mooney tries to sneak in, but the light is too much and she gets spotted. She hears a voice at the other end of the room. "This is our turf, mask-face." A Rat steps forward. 

Mooney pulls herself up to her full height; she doesn't want a fight, but she's much bigger than a rat. But the rat sneers, snaps its fingers, and three more rats appear. 

The other raccoons step into the room, which should have made the rats back down, but rats are not especially bright. They charge Mooney, stabbing at her with their various pointy implements, and the fight is on!

Zabrina calls upon her Shriek spell to break their minds. Junkstin stands back and plays on the kazoo-pipes, firing peas at them, and at one point manages to hit Mooney in the tuckus ("OW!" "SORRY!"). Hobin leaps into the fray with his staff, but the rats turn on him and stomp on his foot, and he backs up and resorts to magic (specifically his Gibber spell that imparts the terrible and stinky wisdom of the Pile). 

The battle is long and hard (lol), but eventually the raccoons beat three of the rats back. The last one, realizing he's alone, points at them and says "Yeah! You just remember that!" and flees. 

The Mask is victorious, but injured. They rest a bit, and search the room. Junkstin finds a can of badly spoiled pineapple, and uses it to upgrade his Pipes of Honkitude to the Pipes of Toxitude! Hobin rolls about and practices his Wriggling, and in the process earns the name Catastrophic Climber. 

All of that done, the Mask moves on. Only one way left to go! That hall leads to a staircase leading down into dark and echoing rooms, and the guttural voices of the Ogres in the near distance...

The Mask moves into the next room, but the Ogres find them and start stomping around at them! They are chased away, separated, in this maze of identical rooms. They discover, too, that if they move too loudly, the Ogres will hear and move towards them...but only Mooney is capable of moving with any real stealth. 

They can use the Ogres' stupidity to their advantage, however! By alternating their movements, they can each get to the corner room where Mooney is waiting without the Ogres finding them. Back together, they descend once again, into the deepest level of the Munci Wastedisp. 

As they go, the wonder if those Ogres were the mysterious "flod gats". If so, there's still one more to contend with. The raccoons steel themselves and enter the final room...and indeed, there is the biggest Ogre they've yet seen! It is clad in green armor and, horribly, has a pincer on its waist, the perfect size for capturing a raccoon! The room is strewn with cages that carry the scent of raccoon - but no raccoons are in evidence. 

But beyond this horror, there is treasure. Four huge bins of Garbage, the fabled treasure of the Munci Wastedisp. And this Ogre, this blasphemous monster, is shoveling it into a fire!

The Mask knows it can't fight an Ogre, but they also know they have to acquire at least a piece of Garbage each in order to prove to their people that they have gone this deep into the Munci Wastedisp. They realize that they'll have to avoid the Ogre, and so Mooney sneaks into the room and wriggles her way into a bin. Zabrina takes a moment to add blinking Christmas lights to Rhumba and sends it in as a distraction, and then sneaks over and finds an opening into one of the bins, but is too plump to pull herself up into it.

Junkstin scampers in and climbs into a bin, grabbing a piece of Garbage, but he knows he's better as a distraction. He jumps out and starts playing his axe-jo ("Anyway, here's 'Wonderwall'"), and the Ogre stops and stares. Hobin rushes in, taking advantage of his mastery of the Dimdank tunnels, and grabs garbage. 

The Ogre grabs Junkstin and tosses him into a cage, but by this time, between Hobin and Mooney, they have found enough Garbage to cement their legends! They quickly free their comrade and slap together enough Garbage to aid their escape, sending Rhumba to stab at the Ogre with its pizza cutter (it doesn't really do damage, but it's a very weird distraction). 

The Mask rushes up a back staircase and out into the outside world, flush with Glory, carrying Garbage, and with an amazing story to tell the kits!  

Movie #881: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - in this case, the one from 1990 - is an action/comedy/martial arts/family film starring Judith Hoag, Elias Koteas, Toshishiro Obata, Sam Rockwell, James Saito, and the voices of Brian Tochi, Corey Feldman, Robert Rist, Josh Pais, Kevin Clash, Michael McConnohie (bet he's not voicing someone Japanese!), and David McCharen (him either!)

New York is under a crime wave consisting of teenagers stealing whatever they can get their grubby hands on, passing stolen wallets back and forth a dozen times, and then giving stolen goods to dudes in black pajamas and goggles. Ace reporter April O'Neil (Hoag) has talked to some folks in Little Tokyo and learned about the story of the "Foot Clan," a band of thieves that did similar things back in Japan, but no one takes her seriously because, presumably, the name is too silly to believe.

But then April gets jumped by a gang of thugs and who should step in but the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! They beat up the thugs and retreat back to their sewer lair and their giant rat mentor, Splinter (Clash), but April, being the snoop that she is, continues getting into trouble and this time Raphael (Pais, both in-suit and voice) saves her and brings her back to the sewers. 

Things go bad, Splinter is kidnapped, the Turtles hide out with April until the Foot comes calling, her home burns, they escape with the help of Casey Jones (Koteas), a sports-equipment wielding vigilante, they hang out at April's family farm until they can ninja hard enough to learn that Splinter is still alive, they eventually wind up in a climactic battle with the Foot, until the leader of the Foot, Shredder (Saito, voiced by McCharen - dammit!) kicks their shells, and Splinter drops him off a building into a garbage truck, which Casey promptly uses to murder him. 

Typing it all out now, I'm struck by how there are a lot of twists and turns in this movie, and a lot of characters to keep track of. I haven't even mention Tatsu (Obata, voiced by McConnohie - dammit), Shredder's lieutenant, the Borgnine-esque police chief (Raymond Serra), or that baby Sam Rockwell plays one of the head teens in the Foot Clan. 

There are some quibbles I have with this movie. I think having Splinter be the one to beat Shredder at the end, without even much of a fight, was a weird choice. I think having Casey just straight-up murder him was a bit of a tonal shift (though it's kind of in-keeping with, say, the practice of Disney movies of the era ending with the villains getting brutally dead). The performances and the references are highly 90s ("Aw, Kodak moment" isn't something that's stayed relevant).

But they manage to make each of the turtles distinct without drifting into caricature. Leonardo (David Forman in-suit, Tochi voice) is earnest and honorable, but not a huge stick in the mud the way those kinds of characters often are. Raphael isn't just "cool but crude" (as the cartoon would have it), but actually dealing with anger issues and trying to deal with them rather that just being a dick. Michelangelo (Michelan Sisti in-suit, Rist voice) isn't just a vaguely surfer-ish guy, but is actually kind of immature and uses humor to deflect. Donatello (Leif Tilden in suit, Feldman voice)...well, OK, he's a little flatter. He's depicted as smart, but he kind of just winds up as Michelangelo's sidekick because he's not the gadgeteer he'd become later.

Elias Koteas is always fun to watch, even when he's bonding with giant turtles. Judith Hoag was, I think well cast as April. She comes across as capable and driven; she gets damseled a bit, but that's probably to be expected considering the era and the type of movie it is. I still have issues with white dudes voicing the Japanese characters, but again, 1990. 

I used to watch the cartoon, but I haven't seen any of the more recent movies and I'm led to believe that's a wise choice. Better, I think, to just let this very weird little movie be what it is. 

My Grade: B
Rewatch Value: Medium

Next up: The Thing (2011) 

Character Creation: The Mountain Witch

I ran a one-shot of Garbage & Glory tonight, but I've already done that character and I don't want to do the write-up right now, so here we are.

The Game: The Mountain Witch
The Publisher: Timothy Kleinert, I guess?  
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

The Mountain Witch came out of the same Game Chef year that gave us Ganakagok, and it was a game I was always interested in but never got a chance to play. And then back in 2018, the author Kickstarted a new edition of the game, and I backed it, and then about a year after the Kickstarter was funded it just...went dark.

Fast forward to January 2025, when the creator messaged all the backers and revealed that he'd actually had a brain tumor, which, like, kind of impacted his ability to finish the game. He did send out the PDF of the game, and now through a series of good fortune it looks like it might get printed at some point, but I'm gonna do a character now. 

Anyway, that in mind: The basic premise is that we're a group of ronin samurai heading up the mountain to confront and kill the titular Mountain Witch, but we all have dark secrets and dark fates that can be revealed at any time (and must be revealed before we can resolve the story). Mechanically it does some similar things to A Tragedy in Five Acts, which is only coincidental because I'm pretty sure Michelle never read or played this game and I know I didn't. 

So, Step One, we pick a Dark Fate. This is done randomly, and would involve dealing a card, but I don't have a printout of the cards so I'm just gonna roll a d6. A roll of 1 gives me...desperately in love. Cool. I'll contextualize that a little once I do the rest of this.

Next, pick a Zodiac, and this one I actually can select. Hmm. I think I'll go with Rabbit. 

I like the idea of his love being sensitive and affectionate rather than hot-blooded and passionate, but being too timid to pursue it rather than chasing it Romeo-style.

Step Three, I need a name and starting Trust, except we're not going to worry about Trust because there aren't any other PCs to deal with. Let's call him Kinjo Daisuke. The fact that I have a family name indicates that I am (or was) of higher station, but let's worry about that in Step Five.

Step Four: Abilities. I get two Abilities that are kinda standard and then one that I make up that is tied to my Fate. These are mostly mundane skills or gear, and there's a handy list. I want Daisuke to play an instrument, and I think we'll go with the shakuhachi. For the second ability, I'll take Stealth. Daisuke is just naturally good at not being noticed.

My third ability can be more overtly magical, but it has to be tied into my Fate. Normally I could not declare it before play and just figure it out as we go, but since it's just me I'd kinda like to have an idea.

Well, I like the idea of being timid and skittish, but also having sharp senses. So maybe Daisuke can sense danger coming. Oh, but it would need to tie into his Fate. Well, let's say that Daisuke lost his love because he felt the danger coming but froze up, and his lover was killed (probably by the Witch or someone working for him).

And, finally, I answer the two Background questions: 

Why is the character a ronin? Daisuke was a ronin before his lover died. His master committed some terrible heresy and was executed while away at a local lord's home. Daisuke and his fellow samurai only found out when the soldiers came to take possession of all of his master's property and inform them that they were now ronin. 

Why does he desperately need the money? Daisuke (and other PCs) have accepted this job of killing the Mountain Witch because it's profitable. Daisuke needs the money because he has nothing - he's sold everything of value except his katana, his tanto, and his flute. It's this or he starts selling the stuff he doesn't think he can sell. 

And that's it! I picture Daisuke as really skinny, always alert, fidgety, and always sad. He plays on his flute if there are other people around to watch his back, but never alone. 

Movie #880: Taxi Driver

Taxi Driver is a kind of noir-ish drama directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro, Cybil Shepherd, Jodie Foster, Harvey Kietel, Peter Boyle, and Albert Brooks.

The movie is a depiction of the mental unraveling of Travis Bickle (De Niro), a Viet Nam vet going through an existential crisis in New York City. He drives a cab at night and fixates on the "scum" out on the streets, hangs out in adult movie theaters, and just kind of tries to cope with his own thoughts. He meets a young woman named Betsy (Shepherd) who works for the presidential campaign of Senator Pallantine (Leonard Harris) and kind of fixates on her, and she reciprocates for a while. And then he takes her to a porn theater for their second date and she becomes disgusted and leaves.

Meanwhile, Bickle is also watching sex workers around the city, and notices one in particular, a young girl named Iris (Foster). He tries to get her to leave the life, and she's not immediately receptive. Travis buys a bunch of guns and practices quick-drawing them in the mirror, which is where we get the famous "You talkin' to me?" scene. Eventually he goes to a rally intending to shoot Pallantine, but the Secret Service makes him because he's really really obviously going to shoot someone, so he runs, gears up, and goes to rescue Iris, murdering her pimp (Kietel) and several other low-lives in the process.

He clearly intends to die during this, but survives and is hailed as a hero. Iris goes home to Pittsburgh, and Betsy makes contact again, and Travis just drives off into the night, clearly still Travis, but now apparently with an inflated sense of his own importance. 

I don't know if this is Scorsese's best work, but it's up there. It's simple, it's focused, and it manages to end with a feeling of "oh, this is going to get worse" but still feel like an ending, which is hard to achieve. De Niro was young and hungry (and skinny) during this, and he comes off as confused, angry, and just wanting something to do with his energy (that is, he hadn't settled into just playing Vito Corleone/Jimmy Conway all the time). Cybil Shepherd also turns in a great performance; she's clearly attracted to Travis at first (though wary), but when she breaks it off there's a real sense of not only disgust but disappointment.

I always forget how little Jodie Foster is really in this movie, but in the few scenes she has, you can see that she's destined for great things. It's a hard line to portrayed a child prostitute and bring out both the child and the prostitute parts of that, but she manages (and she was only 12 at the time!). 

I remember saying when we saw Joker that it so desperately wanted to be Taxi Driver when it grew up, and I stand by that now.

My Grade: A
Rewatch Value: Medium-low

Next up: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 

Tidal Blades: Eaten or Be Eaten

Last night we played some Tidal Blades. Here's last time. On we go!

It's been some time since the characters defeated the Brotherhood of the Forgotten Hunger and lulled the Dire Suchid back to sleep. They've been hanging out in Angler's Cove, each kind of pursuing different ends.

Faesli has decided that she needs to be more effective in a fight, or at least, needs to get out of the way rather than taking it on the chin so much. She's been learning about adventuring and sparring with folks. 

Hobie has finished their book about the Dire Suchid and sent it back to the Library of Time. Since then, they've set up their cart and acted as a kind of scribe/mail post for Angler's Cove. They've also been thinking more about Garnet - why is this mantis shrimp so smart? (You know, for a shrimp.)

Bait wasn't going to send his dads back to the ship that didn't even notice they were missing. Instead, he wants his own ship. He's been trying to construct one! It...hasn't gone well. Bait is a competent sailor, but that's a very different skill set than being a ship-builder.

Sobek has been helping Bait to try and build the ship, and also putting out feelers for where to buy one. In the interim, he's been arm-wrestling at various bars. 

On this particular day, the crew is washing up on a beach (as we all do from time to time). They were out on a boat that Bait built, and this one was more successful than any of the others - it made it out of the harbor! But two things kinda went wrong. First, the rudder was installed wrong so the ship took them north around the coast (they were trying to get back to the Shattered Reefs). Then, the material Bait had used to lash the ship together disintegrated in the salt water, and the ship floundered.

As they're swimming to shore, Hobie notices something cool - a ship seemingly hovering above the water-line! This is an optical illusion that you can sometimes see on the water...or IS IT?!

Anyway. They wash up on the beach, and Bait grabs a glob of mud and throws it at Hobie. "What was that for?" they demand. "'Cause it's fun," replies Bait. "SAND FIGHT!"

The others oblige. Faesli, who washed up a little further down the beach, walks up and catches sand in the noggin, and Far Steps behind Bait, pouring sand down his shirt. Bait huffs and goes to wash his shirt out, and the Garnet, who'd been exploring around the beach, comes running up to Hobie and jumps into their arms, shaking. 

"What's the matter?" Hobie asks, and Garnet turns one eyestalk back down the beach. Hobie sees something very large start to pull itself out of the sand...

GIANT MUDCRAB! 

The immense crab emerges from the sand and scuttles toward them. Faesli is familiar with these things - they're ravenous, and they're sometimes used as opponents in Colosseum fights. Also, their meat is delicious and they fetch a high price...if you can kill one. Faesli yells out as much of this as she can, and the others try to get running. Sobek, characteristically, gets between the crab and his friends, and the crab snaps him up into its claw and pulls him toward its mouth.

The others spring into action! Bait tries to smack the thing in the eye to give Faesli an opening, Hobie tries to distract it to do the same, but the monster is too focus on its croc-dinner. Faesli focuses and fires a beam of cutting light at it, hoping to sever its claw, but misses. Something in the distance explodes, but the characters don't have time to worry about that.

The crab stuffs Sobek into its maw and starts chomping! Faesli runs up and tosses Sobek a cypher, and slides under the crab. Sobek activates it - it gives his skin hard, crab-shell like properties (and protects him a bit from the teeth). Hobie tries to yank Faesli out from under the crab, but can't get past the legs. Sobek smacks the crab with his hook, and Bait hits it in a joint, forcing the crab to drop Sobek.

Bait dances around to get the crab's attention and it obligingly snaps him up with its claw and stuffs him in its mouth. Faesli scans the creature and remembers that it'll go for the easier source of meat - maybe they could trick it? But Sobek has other ideas. He unsheathes his hook and bashes the thing in the face. Bait wriggles free (fish mucus!) and Hobie yells "CLOSE YOUR EYES!"

Hobie hurls a cypher at the crab and it bursts in a bright flash of light. Sobek and Faesli manage to look away in time, but Bait doesn't, and so both he and the crab are blinded. Hobie tries to yank him out of the way, but the mucus makes Bait too slippery. Faesli, now with a tarn the size of the broad side of a barn, fires her cutting light again and hits the crab on the underside. A sizzling sound, and a delicious smell. "HOT CRAB DIP!" she yells.

Sobek follows up with several blows from his hook, and the crab collapses dead. The characters plop down heavily on the sand, and after a brief rest, decide to stay here for the night, rest up, build a fire, and eat well.

They decide, in the morning, to build a litter and drag the crab carcass back to Angler's Cove - there's still a lot of good meat, and the shell will be worth something, too. As they're getting underway, Garnet wriggles out of Hobie's grasp and heads for the water. Hobie follows, figuring Garnet's just being obstinate again, but she makes a noise that Hobie has never heard.

Hobie can now communicate with Garnet in a very simple fashion, and asks what's up. "Home!" responds the shrimp.

Hobie is startled - they have no idea what "home" is to Garnet. But they don't want to go out on the ocean without a boat. They manage to convince Garnet to come back to the Cove, get a boat, and then go investigate. Garnet might not understand all of that, but she agrees, and the party gets to draggin' the crab.

Character Creation: Wasteland Sagas

All the fear and the fire of the end of the world. Wasteland, baby.

The Game: Wasteland Sagas
The Publisher: The Polyhedral Knights
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one 

This game comes to use from the same company as Renegade City. A lot of the same criticisms apply, mostly that it badly, badly needs an editor. The interstitial fiction is...not great, but it's understandable. I have this feeling it's a game session or two fictionalized, and like, I can't say I've never done that, but I also can't say it's ever really worked. 

Like, that's not great fiction. Lots of telling rather than showing. It sounds more like someone telling someone else about what happened in a movie (or a game session) than an evocative description of this very exciting scene, and all the fiction is like that - not great from a technical standpoint, not very well edited. 

But with that said, this game is worlds better than Renegade City. I got the vibe the author was going for right away, there's a vibrant and fleshed-out world and setting. It doesn't get into how we got to this post-apocalyptic point (the setting chapter basically says "I dunno, probably bombs or diseases or something") but that almost doesn't matter because that's not what's interesting about games like this anyway. 

I'm not saying I'm interested in playing this game necessarily, but that's mostly because there are other games that do this better. But if I wanted a post-apocalypse, mutants-n-motorcycles, radiation and deprivation style RPG with a trad system, I could do worse. (I could also do better, of course, but that's not the point.) 

Yeah, the system is percentile-roll-low, so that's fine. Let's make a character and see how long it takes me to figure out that I actually do hate it. 

PDF's not bookmarked, that's not a great start. (Rather, it is, but the bookmarks are just chapter headers and they're not labeled, they're just "Chap 1", so that's pretty useless.)

Always happy to have this chart, though

Right, let's pick an origin type. I think I wanna be a mutant today. BLEARGH. That means I get:

 Neat. On we go to Attributes! I get 42 points to split up. Is it one-for-one? Yes! Also, Attribute sets the base percentage for attached skills, so for instance if I have a 1 in an Attribute, the attached skills start at -5% (meaning I'm in the hole if I want to buy them). 

OK, well, guess I should think a little about concept. I get a free minor mutation, so maybe I'll pick that and see where it takes me. Ooh, I want Illuminations. I can light up a particular part of my body. As much as it's tempting to make it my butt...

I think I'll say I can produce bioluminescent chemicals in my salivary glands and light up my head. I can control the color and brightness, which is silly, but whatever, it's cool as hell that I'm a human glowstick. My mutant's name is Rave (he's not sure why). 

OK, back to Attributes. I think Rave is a scamp, y'know? He's a rascal. Prankster, not above lighting his head up and pretending to be a signal flare or something. Yes, that might get someone killed, but Rave doesn't necessarily understand that (I think he's fairly young). I think we can spread points out pretty evenly, maybe pump Charisma up a little? There are 7 Attributes, dividing the points evenly would give me 6 in each, but I think I'll drop Technical (which shouldn't be an Attribute) down to 3 and pump Charisma up to 9. That means my Skills in everything except those two will start at 3%, Charisma skills will start at 5%, and Technical skills start at -1%. 

Derived traits. That means these can't change right? (Ha, I'll bet.) Hit points is (Str x 2) + (Con x 3) + Will (well, actually it's written without the parentheses, but I suspect they're meant to be there). For Rave, that means 30 HP.

Defensive Bonus depends on whether I'd like a bonus to dodge and parry, or damage resistance. Um, Dodge/Parry, please. I get a +3% to Dodge/Parry.

Heal rate is half my Con, or 3, HP per day.

Perception is Willpower x 7, plus or minus anything from Benefits or Weaknesses WHICH WE HAVEN'T DONE YET grr. I know, I know, change the fuckin' record. Anyway, Rave's Perception is 42. 

I speak two languages, so English and Mutant, I guess? (Why is "Mutant" a language? Are they a culture? Are they not allowed on the surface of New New York? Is Turanga Leela their leader?)

TWO! FOUR! SIX! EYES! MUTANT PEOPLE SHALL ARISE!

Anyway. And then there's a section called "Additional Derived Traits." What...? 

Shock is 12 (I have to roll 12 or better on a d20 to not be in shock if I lose too many HP. Why is this a d20 when everything else is a d%? Why, many things?)

Movement is twice Agility (12) plus a third of Strength (2), or 14. Where are you getting these formulae?

Initiative is Agility plus half of Intelligence (15 in my case). 

Toxicity is, in addition to a song by System of a Down, (Con x 3) + Str + Will + 3 (because I'm a mutant). So 51, for me. 

Damage bonus (GOOD GRIEF WHEN WILL IT END) is nil because my Strength is just average. 

I start with 3 Luck, but actually 4 because I'm a mutant and they are famously lucky. 

Finally on the next bullet point! Weaknesses and Benefits. I can take the former to give me points for the latter, but only to a maximum of 10. Well, let's get Weakin'! 

Let's take Bioware Rejection, since I wasn't gonna take any anyway. Curious, sure, I'll take the 3 point version. Impulsive, sure. That's 7 total. That's fine. For Benefits, let's take Literacy (in English), Night Vision (since I can always have a little light as I need it), Read Person (I have insights!) and Professional Talent (I get a +10% to 4 skills from a list). 

For the Professional Talent, I'm gonna take Child of the Wasteland and take my bonus in Climbing, Navigation, Plant Lore, and Tracking. 

And now, I get 83 Skills Points. Each point spent on a Skill gives me +10%, to a maximum of 70%. I get bonuses from Attributes as mentioned, plus the bonuses for Professional Training. Let's do this. 

I think I'll do what I normally do and list the Skills I want and then assign points. I want:

Athletics
Blades
Bow
Climbing
Dodge
Fast Talk
Lock Picking
Mutant Power
Navigation
Plant Lore
Persuade
Riding
Sleight of Hand
Tracking

So, I could put 5 into each one of these and still have 13 left over. Oh, wait, I need Stealth. There we go, now I only have 8 left over. Let's crunch the numbers. I'd start with 53 in everything except Fast Talk and Persuade (57) and Lock Picking (49), before considering my Professional Training bonuses. With 8 points left, I can take Traps up to 49, and with the remaining 3 points, I'll bump Fast Talk to 67, Dodge of 63, and Sleight of Hand to 63. Cool. 

Oh, this is cute. There are also non-leveled skills which you either have or you don't, but I don't have any idea how to buy them - no costs listed. Guess they're not that important! (Also, there are a bunch that should be leveled. You're telling me Crafts is a skill with no gradation?) 

Let's do Mutations real quick. These work like Benefits and Weaknesses; I can take negative ones to get points to buy positive (but my Illuminations doesn't count). 

Well, I'll take Dependency as a minor. I need to eat certain plants to keep my lightshow working (also my body needs them to survive). There's another one called "Nervous Ticks," which I'm not going to take, but it annoys me that no one edited this game. Anyway, I'll also take Seizures, which isn't something I think would necessarily be fun to play, but what the heck. That gives me 4 points for positives. 

I like Imitate Sounds; being a mimic sounds good for Rave. And then..ooh, Venom Spit. That goes with my theme, actually. We'll assume that in addition to creating luminescent spit, I can create poison spit. 

And finally, I get a Combat Technique for Blades and Bows, because they're over 50%. For Blades I'll take Close Quarters (I get a bonus to fighting in, well, close quarters) and for Bow I'll take Critical Shot (I can't move, but I can do extra damage). 

And that's it! I think Rave is pretty normal-looking for a mutant, but his jowls are slightly enlarged (he kinda looks like he has the mumps). He has a habit of humming, but with his extra mass there it makes a rhythmic "oomp oomp ommp" kind of noise. He's got thin red hair and blue eyes, but when he lights up his head you can see his skull and he's got a habit of imitating a preacher he grew up around who had a really deep, scary voice. 

Wildsea: Explosions on the Wildsea!

Back to the trees! Here's last time.

Three of our wildsailors - Rozek, Kazera, and Tztik - head into Dusty Fields to search out Wir, the ektus slinger apparently looking to find an kill an ironbound named Lod (that enough nonsense words for one sentence?). Rozek and Kazera find Lod in the market; he's heading off the strip into another area of town, probably going home.

Tztik spots Wir lying on a rooftop aiming a pistol at Wir, and slithers up to another rooftop to watch (Tztik doesn't have any particular regard for Lod, and is interested to see where this goes). Kazera tries to talk Lod into getting out of the street. Lod is suspicious, however, and just then a bar opens up and a bunch of people stream out to watch a fight. Lod winds up on the other side of the chaos to the characters, and Wir, no longer having a clear shot, rolls of the roof out of Tztik's line of sight. 

Tztik repositions, and Lod moves away from the crowd. Rozek and Kazera have a quick "Fezzik, please?" "EVERYBODY, MOVE!" moment, and catch up with him. Just then, a small metal sphere rolls out of an alley towards Lod (and therefore the others). 

Kazera steps in front of Lod just before the sphere explodes. It releases shrapnel, which dings the ironbound a little and puts holes in Rozek's furs, but also releases a blast of electricity that demagnetizes Kazera's rivet swarm and scrambles her brain. Pieces fall off of her as she stumbles back, trying to gather herself up.

Tztik, meanwhile, surges off the roof and finds Wir in the alley, taking aim with her pistols. They drop down onto her with a club ("NO ONE HARMS OUR CREW") and knocks her down, but she pops back up and points a gun at them and another at Lod. Tztik faces off and focuses their psychic energy, pushing into her brain, and she winces, and then flees. Tztik rejoins their crew and helps gather up Kazera, and they head for the ship.  

But where, you might ask, is Chamberssen? Chamberssen staggers off of the ship a little after the others leave. He's still hung over (too much blacknut whiskey) but the hammering from the work being done on the Heart of the Seeker isn't helping. He wanders into town, perhaps thinking of getting another drink, when in the distance he hears a muffled boom and some electrical discharge. And then, a moment later, a much bigger BOOM from a different part of the town. He looks down and realizes that the float is coming apart.

Dusty Fields, you'll recall, is composed of multiple ships all joined together, surrounding one hub, the upended Move's Chorus. But something has disrupted the integrity of the place. Chamberssen realizes with horror that in its current condition, the Heart isn't going to survive if its dock goes away. He tries to signal to the crew working on the ship to secure it, using the strange mirror he traded a tzelicrae merchant for (back here). He fumbles, however, and drops it into the wildsea. 

The others get back to the ship, and realize what's happening. Tztik decides to find Estramu, the closest thing Dusty Fields has to a leader. When they get to Estramu's place of business, however, they realize that was the site of the explosion. An ironbound carrying its own arm staggers out, and Tztik asks where Estramu is. The ironbound tells themm that Estramu was in the room when the explosion happened; anything left of him is in there.

Tztik pushes their way into that room and finds only destruction. They also spot a chunk of a box embedded in the wall, and recognizes the markings. That box was the one the fightersap was housed in - that, apparently, was the source of the explosion. Just then, they hear a voice - Estramu! He tells Tztik to look around and find what looks like a chunk of mast ("that's my back"). He tells Tztik to carry it to the Move's Chorus, and Tztik surges through the town, moving through and between spaces and ships, until they get to the central ship.

Once there, Estramu focuses and pulls together a rudimentary body from debris on the ship. He tells Tztik that by his reckoning, they have about four hours before Dusty Fields comes apart entirely. He starts coordinating people as best he can, but tells Tztik that he'll need help.

Tztik obliges and finds some of the seams of the float, spreads out, and starts lashing them together with spider-silk. Meanwhile, the others have been informed of the situation, and they get to work as well. Chamberseen heads to Estramu and has him sketch on a piece of canvas where the seams are and where they need to focus their efforts. Rozek brews a powerful tea to keep everyone awake (it has the effect of making those who drink it loud and enthusiastic, but that's fine). Kazera goes out into the float and rallies her fellow ironbound to keep the float together.

The night wears on - Rozek mixes up some powerful glue to fix the joins, Tztik makes more silk, Kazera and Chamberssen rally the works. Chamberssen checks over the work to make sure they aren't missing anything, and Tztik shouts a Whisper - "CHORUS OF MINDS."

For a few moments, all of the consciousness on the float are linked. Reading any one person's mind isn't easy, but everyone can coordinate efforts. Tztik feels that they have tasted divinity, creating a hive mind with complex minds, and shudders in satisfaction. They also try to grab Wir and Lod's minds and put them in a "room" to hash out their differences. But that doesn't have the desired effect. Wir focuses and learns all she can about Lod, and Lod just tries to get away. Whatever the animosity between them, it's not a misunderstanding.

Kazera, for a moment, switches minds with Lod, and looks down at the sleeve of that nifty-looking cloak he was wearing. She realizes that it's not just a cool pattern, it's a map...and then she snaps back to her own body. 

The crew just has some cleanup to do - Rozek and Charness treat folks who were injured in the work. Chamberssen goes to the Move's Chorus and tries to find Estramu, but can't. He focuses on the fading group-mind, and realizes that Estramu's own mind and soul, spread out over the entire float as it was, was catalyzed to allow that melding. Estramu, then, is gone.

Chamberssen heads back to the ship, and on the way realizes he's being followed. He sits down and pretends to be confused, and the person following him actually approaches - Lod. He asks for passage off this place, since there's an ektus who's trying to kill him. Chamberssen brings Lod back to the Heart, and they agree to get Lod away (they're headed to the Emerald Wheel, and Lod says that's fine). They also ask about the cloak, and Lod says that it's a map, and he'll be glad to tell them all he knows as soon as they're out on the wildsea.

The crew spends a few days resting while the repairs to the ship are complete. Chamberssen gets the map of Dusty Fields that he and Estramu made and gives it to Estramu's crew as a memorial, Kazera and Rozek try to rest and repair, and Tztik delves deeper into their own minds... 

Character Creation: Garbage & Glory

Every time I see/think of this game I get this song in my head. Anyway, since I'm running a one-shot of this game next week, I oughta make a character.

The Game: Garbage & Glory
The Publisher: Wet Ink Games
Degree of Familiarity: None, but it's the same basic system as Heckin' Good Doggos, which I have run
Books Required: Just the one 

Yes, in this game, we are raccoons going on adventures, turning trash into magic or treasure or weapons, and building our legends so that we may scurry into history! 

OK, so after scrabbling around in the unbookmarked PDF like, well, a raccoon, I discover that the first thing I'm meant to do is give myself a name and a title. I need some sort of concept, though. Thinking back, I've only had one significant raccoon-related experience in my life. I was camping with Heather many years ago, we were sitting by the fire roasting marshmallows, we heard a noise behind us. I turned around and shone the flashlight toward it, and caught a raccoon, and he just kind of froze and gave us a look like "who, me? Nah, man. I was just...walkin'" before he zipped off. 

So we'll say my raccoon lurks near invasion points where Ogres come into the Wilds. They come, they set up temporary Cabins, they bring food and Trash, and then they skedaddle. My raccoon's name is Jawbry Jones, also called Sticky-Fur (because he's been known to snatch marshmallows right out of the paws of Ogres unless you can prove otherwise). 

And now we pick a Calling, which is more or less a class. Well, as much as I'd like to use magic, I think Jawbry is pretty clearly Sticky Fingers (thief/rogue sort of thing). I get to pick one Calling Ability and one Calling Skill from a choice of two (in each category), but then I can't ever have the other one.

Well, I know I want I Am The Night as my Ability, both because it's so much fun to say and because it's absolutely the right power for Jawbry (I can spend a Glory card and vanish!). The other one is about lock-picking, which is fine but not where I'm going here. For my Skill, I'll take Strike From Nowhere (if I start a turn hidden, and I hit a foe with a Guts attack, it reduces their Attribute to zero, which isn't necessarily an instant takedown but it's pretty damn close). 

Attributes/Skills! As a Sticky Fingers, I get two in each of my Attributes (Brawn, Smarts, Guts) and then four more to distribute. I want my Guts to be high since it's what I'll use for Strike From Nowhere, and since Brawn determines speed that probably shouldn't be low. I'll put two into each of those, winding up with a respectable 4 in Brawn and Guts and a...kind of laughable 2 in Smarts.

Skills! I'm already trained in Hurl and Scrap (not Sneak? wtf?), and then I get two more Skills that I'm trained in and five actual dots to put in Skills. I'll be trained Sneak because it's absurd that I'm not already, and...Trick appeals, but it's a Smarts Skill and my Smarts kinda Sucks. Wriggle would be good, as would Snoop. I think I'll go with Snoop.

OK, so now I'm trained in five Skills. I could put a dot into each of them, I guess, which would give me ratings of two in Hurl and Scrap. No, wait, that's silly. I'll put two each into Sneak and Snoop, and the last one into Strike from Nowhere. There we go. (Seriously, though, why do the thief characters not get Sneak? Is it a typo? What do the ranged fighters get? No, wait, I see the problem. Rubbish Ruffian, which is the kind of duelist class, comes before Sticky Fingers in the book and gets Scrap and Hurl, and my suspicion is that Sticky Fingers is supposed to get Sneak and Scrap or something like that and they just didn't change the template before the book went to print. Been there. Anyway, I'm not changing Jawbry but I'll make a note of that for when I run it.)

I get a melee weapon and a ranged weapon; I'll take a knife and a bow, respectively. I think Jawbry's knife is made out of one of those fancy marshmallow roasting spikes (the handle, anyway) and the bow is made of another one, just extended out and strung with...um, string. 

I get three Garbage cards and two Glory cards, and normally I wouldn't both but I can immediately use them like XP, so I think I will, actually. For Glory, I get two of Hearts and a four of Clubs. For Garbage, I get king of Hearts, two of Hearts, king of Spades. Neat, what's all that mean?

OK, I can buy Skills and even Attributes with Glory, but all I have enough to do is buy a new Skill training because of how the cost progression works. However, Garbage can be used to increase traits, if the cards are face cards or Aces (and I have two Kings) and if less that half the cards used are Garbage. As such, I could spend three cards (both my Glory cards and one of my Kings) to bump up one of my 1-dot Skills to 2, should I so desire. 

But I think I'm not gonna, actually, because in play those cards would be more useful to be spent in other ways, so I'm gonna leave Jawbry as is.

Jawbry is a big fluffy fellow. His face floof is always a little sticky (marshmallows, man), but he keeps his hands clean, which is ironic, because it's his fingers that are supposed to be sticky. Jawbry is very much of the opinion that if something dangerous sees you, you've already done something wrong. (That's not to say he never gets spotted, just that he recognizes that it's a fuck-up.) 

On to garbage & glory!

Movie #879: The Running Man

The Running Man is an 80s sci-fi/action/comedy (kind of) starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, María Conchita Alsonso, Richard Dawson, Yaphet Kotto, Marvin J. McIntyre, Mick Fleetwood, Jesse Ventura, Professor Toru Tanaka, Jim Brown, Erland Van Lidth, and Gus Rethwisch. It's only a "comedy" in the way that most of Arnie's earlier action movies are - he kills people and then quips.

It's the distant, futuristic year of...2017 (oof) and the USA has become a totalitarian state, which of course is ridiculous satire and could never...yeah. Anyway, Ben Richards (Schwarzenegger) is a cop (boo) flying a helicopter over a food riot and is ordered to kill all the protestors. He refuses, is subdued, and then is blamed for the ensuing massacre. He escapes from prison and is quickly recaptured, and given to the TV network (a subsidiary of the Department of Justice) for their hit show, The Running Man.

On this show, convicted criminals and dissidents get dropped into a combat zone and try to escape before colorful gladiator-like "Stalkers" chase them down and kill them. They ain't never seen nothing like Ben Richards, though! Ben, his co-prisoners and revolutionaries Weiss (McIntyre) and Laughlin (Kotto), and the woman he abducted during his first attempt (Alonso) kill off the Stalkers and broadcast the unedited footage of the massacre, which convinces everyone to throw off their hated oppressors!

I really like this movie, but I suspect that's largely nostalgia. There are so many things that don't make any goddamn sense in the movie, not least of which is - if that's unedited footage, why are there so many camera angles, including shots of the helicopter from the outside? And my favorite, if Ben Richards has such regard for life and refuses to harm a helpless human being...how in the fuck did he become a cop in this regime in the first place? 

But never mind that. We get to see Arnie battle his way through the Stalkers, from the hockey-samurai Sub-Zero (Tanaka) to the opera-singing Dynamo (Van Lidth) to the chainsaw psycho Buzzsaw (Rethwisch) to, finally, the guy with the flamethrower and the jetpack (Brown), and he's got a stupid line for each of them. The overall effect is this is Baby's First Dystopia - the Network is cartoonishly evil, happy to kill stunt actors in the process of faking Richards' death. Our personification of that evil is Damon Killian (Dawson), the effortlessly charming front man of The Running Man. Meanwhile, we've got the plucky resistance that just needs to obtain one MacGuffin (in this case, the "uplink codes") to get "the Truth" out to "the People." (For extra fun, two of those revolutionaries are Mick Fleetwood playing himself and Dweezil Zappa playing...Steve.)

It's such a perfect encapsulation of 80s thinking, because it takes a story that actually has some nuance and confronts some issues about capitalism and bread and circuses and gives us Arnie yelling "Hey, Light-head! Hey, Christmas Tree!" at a fat dude wearing what appears to be armor made of Lite-Brite.

I am very much looking forward to the new version coming out, not because I don't like this version (I do, but again, nostalgia) but because I'd love to see it follow the source material a little more. (Said source material is a novella by Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman.)

My Grade: C+ (it is not a great movie)
Rewatch Value: High (but I love it)

Next up: Taxi Driver 

Movie #878: Nosferatu

Nosferatu is (in this case) a remake of the classic 1922 silent film, directed by Robert Eggers and starring Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Bill Skarsgård, Emma Corrin, Willem Dafoe, and Simon McBurney. 

It's the story of Dracula, more or less (which was also true of Murnau's version in 1922). A young man named Thomas Hutter (Hoult) gets sent to a faraway land to sign the ownership papers for a new home for the strange Count Orlock (Skarsgård), while his new bride Ellen (Depp) waits feverishly for his return. However, Ellen has had "fits" since she was young, and after Thomas leaves they get worse. She stays with Thomas' rich friend Harding (Taylor-Johnson) and his wife Anna (Corrin), but winds up having to be tied to the bed as she dreams every night of something horrible. 

Meanwhile, Thomas' boss Herr Knock (McBurney) goes absolutely jangle-pants crazy (he's in the Renfield role here). Orlock imprisons Thomas and leaves him for dead, but he escapes and makes his way back to London Wisburg, just in time to see a "blood plague" arrive and start killing citizens. Harding's friend Doctor Sievers (Ralph Ineson) enlists the help of one Dr. von Franz (Dafoe), a brilliant physician and occultist, and eventually they all figure out that the only one who can stop Orlock is Ellen...by sacrificing her blood, body, and life to keep him busy until dawn. 

So, plot-wise, it's not beat-for-beat Dracula but it's close enough. It is, however, so different than any version of Dracula I've ever seen or read. Orlock is not a suave, sophisticated gentleman like Bela Lugosi or a romantic, tortured figure like Gary Oldman (or a full-stop hottie like Frank Langella, for that matter). He's a fucking walking corpse. You very rarely see him directly, mostly it's his silhouette or shadow and that loud, awful, wheezing breathing as he growls and slurps his dialog. When we do see him, his flesh is pocked and rotted, and when he's in his coffin he has maggots on him. 

But even beyond being obviously walking dead, this vampire is probably the scariest I've seen in a movie because his power isn't portrayed the way it usually is. Vampires in movies are often portrayed as physical monsters - they're strong, fast, violent, maybe fangs and claws, maybe shapeshifting, maybe hypnosis or mind control, but they have to be in the room with you to harm you, at least. Orlock is an unliving curse on everything around him. Coming to Wisburg means a load of plague rats arrives with him. His threats are delivered as ultimatums, and his whole vibe is "you are all beneath me and I tolerate you exactly as much as I must" (except Ellen). His best and most terrifying line in the movie sums him up: "I am an appetite. Nothing more." 

The rest of the cast lives up to the melodrama, going from terrified to grief-stricken to righteously angry, but what I find compelling is how they all seem to know they're fucked. Even as Taylor-Johnson's Harding insists that this disease that killed his wife and children is a natural but horrific plague, you can tell he knows better. Likewise, Thomas goes after Orlock hoping to kill him in his coffin, but realizes pretty quickly on that the only way this ends is if Ellen gives her life. And she does, seducing him and keeping him busy sucking her chest (yeah, this vampire bites chests as often as necks, and omg the sucking sounds) until the sun rises. And we don't even get the satisfaction of seeing him burn. He just...dies, spitting up blood and rotting splayed out on her body.

Eggers' movies are beautiful and horrifying, and holy shit does the man know how to frame a shot (actually, props for that probably also should go to Jarin Blaschke, his cinematographer). The use of color, light, shadows, and sound (THE SLURPING) in this movie are amazing. It takes a lot to disturb me in a movie, but even on a second watch Nosferatu is more disquieting than actually scary. 

It's interesting to me that a movie that is essentially a double-remake manages to be one of the more innovative and original takes on vampire-in-cinema that I've seen.

My Grade: A
Rewatch value: Low (THE SLURPING)

Next up: The Running Man 

Character Creation: Cortex Prime

Sounds like the MacGuffin in a sci-fi film.

The Game: Cortex Prime
The Publisher: Woof. Um, nowadays I guess it's Dire Wolf Digital
Degree of Familiarity: A fair bit. I've run a few of the games using the system
Books Required: Just the one

There's a lot going on here. Cortex has been a thing for a long time; it was the proprietary game engine of Margaret Weis Productions, which mostly did licensed properties. These included Leverage (which I've run), Marvel Heroic (which I've run), and Smallville (which I have not run). Oh, and Serenity and later Firefly. 

The problem, though, with licensed games is that the licenses expire, and then you can't sell 'em no more. So MWP ran a Kickstarter to create Cortex Prime, which was basically the Cortex system presented in a modular format. It did very well - 2700 backers, close to $85K - but it ran into problems. I'm not sure why or what specifically happened, all I know is that the estimated delivery for my pledge was April 2018 and I marked it received in May of 2024. 

The system was sold off, first to Fandom, then to Dire Wolf, and along the way one of the products was a bunch of Spotlight Settings (which were produced) collected into a softcover book (which was not). There's some bad blood, and I have no idea if the game is still getting any support. 

All of which is a shame, because it's a really good system. Like I said, I've run a few different iterations and read a bunch more, and there are slightly different permutations in each one. Marvel, f'rex, uses a "doom pool" to represent the growing chaos of a situation, and if it gets too big, the GM can spend 2d12 out of it and end the scene (this concept shows up in Wearing the Cape, actually). Leverage puts more emphasis on Skills, which Marvel doesn't really have in any meaningful way, and a heavy focus on flashbacks. And so forth. Cortex Prime presents all of these options and tells you how to put them together to make a game work the way you want, and it manages to do it in a clear, concise, and well laid-out book. 

Also, there are a bunch of settings for it (the aforementioned Spotlights), which...I have not read, because I have a life (I know, shocking) and I don't need to for this project. I went into reading Prime preparing to run the next phase of my superheroes game and thinking "eh, I'll check it out, but really I'll probably just run Marvel Heroic" to being excited about putting together my own customized version of Marvel Heroic that better does what I want the system to do. 

If I have a gripe, it's that there should be a building tool for making character sheets, since what's on the sheet varies greatly depending on what rules you use. But for the included settings (in the Prime book; I don't know if the Spotlights do this) there are custom sheets. Praise Jeezle. Not fillable, but you can't have everything.

So with that in mind, which setting would I like? My options are Hammerheads (a love letter to Thunderbirds), Trace 2.0 (a police procedural), and Eidolon Alpha (fantasy game in which you play an endarch, chosen of a powerful spirit). 

Gotta say, of the three, Eidolon Alpha sounds most interesting to me, so I'll make a character for that.  

So the first thing I do is pick an endarch archetype, which is which of the great eidolon spirits I'm down with. There are 10, but five them are antagonist only, so that helps. I think I wanna be a Chimera. That means I get the distinction Chimera's Mutarch. That gives me Fear, Fire Breath, and Shapeshifting as powers, and a couple of SFX (basically an area attack with Fear and I can spend plot points to rereoll defense rolls with Shapeshifting). 

Step two, I get one Role at d10, one at d8, and one at d6. Guess I should think about concept a little. I like the notion of a mad priest of fire, one whose idea of "cleansing" is "set everything on fire and see what people save." But part of that is because he knows that the Hydra cult (the Chimera's enemies) can be anywhere - they multiply quickly, and so the counter to that, as far as my guy sees it, is to be ready to burn it all. So I'll put my d10 in Priest, my d8 in Warrior, and my d6 in Scout.  

Attributes! I have d6 in all of them, and then I step up the highlight attributes from my eidolon and d10 role by one each. Let's see, for Chimera that's Grace and Guile, and for Priest that's Guile and Reason. I can then, if I'd like, step something down to step something else up. Hmm. I kinda do want a higher Courage, so I think I'll step Guile down to d8 and put Courage up. That gives me d8 in everything but Vigor, which remains at d6. 

Note my endarch distinctions, I did that. Oh, I get to unlock one of them. I'll unlock the Fear one, thanks.

Choose one role distinction. Does it have to be for Priest? Yeah, it should be. I don't love any of the ones listed, though. I think Prophet of Fire is about where I want him to be.

And then I get one more distinction that I make up. Hrm. I like the idea of him knowing that the Hydrans are dangerous from experience. His home was infiltrated and then overrun, but then a bolt of lightning started a fire and burned out the snakes. Of course, it burned the village, too, but that's life. His third distinction is Ready to Burn it All. 

Give him a name. The book suggests Greek or Hellenic names. I'll call him Meleagros, after the hero that hosted the Calydonian boar hunt (and was immortal if a particular piece of wood went unburnt...it didn't). 

Meleagros is now in his 20s, and has burns over his shoulders and arms. His hair is thick and black and lustrous (but remember, he's a shapeshifter), and he wears a robe clasped with a burnt piece of wood. He's perhaps a bit of a pyromaniac, but he's not going to set dangerous fires just to watch them burn. Not just. 

Cool, that's pretty much it! Looking forward to running this.

D&D: The Necromancy Practicum

"We're learning a lot about the undead," one of our heroes noted in last night's game.

Our heroes continue their trek through the Dead Valley. They wake up after an uneventful, if smelly, night in the Ettin Love Nest, put themselves together, and soldier on (Aisling stops to cast Prestidigitation a couple of times to mitigate the smells on them).

They pass by where they fought the empty armor and the glowing skull, and find that while the armor is still there, the skull fragments are not. Clara examines the armor and figures that it must be pretty expensive - it's heavy plate, inlaid with red embellishments. Whoever made it was not only a skilled smith but an artist as well. They know that the skull called the armor-creature "Gárbhan", so figuring maybe they could determine who that is at some point, they divide up the armor pieces and take it along. Zook takes the helm, Aisling takes the chest pieces, Clara takes the legs, and Dara takes the arms. 

They press on, and in the distance they see a group of very tall people. No, as they get closer, the people aren't especially tall, they're just standing on a long, flat chunk of rock (think "butte" if it was only 10 feet off the ground). The figures are ashen grey and standing stock-still.

This spooks them - everything they've seen here has been dead, hostile, or both, so there's no reason to assume this is a meditation circle. They quickly discuss what to do, and Zook is very much in favor of throwing a fireball into their midst and letting the chips fall as they may. But while they discuss it, a familiar, cackling voice arises from the canyon wall. 

"Oh, this is boring!" shrieks the skull. "HEY! WAKE UP!" The grey figures rise up to their full heights and turn towards the heroes, and Zook hurls his fireball.

The blast explodes in the midst of the creatures, burning them and driving their stench out with delightful notes of burnt hair. It doesn't kill them, however. Dara calls down a moonbeam and fries a couple of them, and Clara sprints to the skull, leaps up, and punches it, cracking it. Aisling beats on her drum and throws bane spells at a few of the monsters (and the skull), but the skull responds with fire.

Specifically, it spits a green fireball at the heroes. Clara is safely out of the way, and Aisling is quick-footed enough to catch only the edge of it, but Zook and Dara and felled immediately. The creatures charge into battle, but most of them were far enough away that they can't reach the heroes. A couple of them get to Clara, however, and Clara notes that one of them is bigger and nastier than the others...and its stench is burning her nostrils.

However, Clara is a halfling, and halflings can power through poison stench. She leaps up and roundhouse-kicks the biggest one, breaking its neck. Aisling beats her drum and wakes up Zook, and then throws a hypnotic spell at the monsters, which...doesn't do anything except get their attention on her. 

The skull laughs and spits magic missiles at her, and the creatures attack. One of them claws Clara and she feels her muscles try to lock up, but she powers through. A few of them bite and snap at Aisling, but only one gains purchase. A couple of them claw at Zook, but he quickly casts a shield spell and they harmlessly gnash against it. Dara, however, is still down, and so one of them pounces on her and starts gnawing. She won't last long this way!

Zook downs a healing potion and casts a pool of grease under the feet of the ghouls (that's what they are, OK, they're ghouls) attacking Clara. They slip and land on their butts, and Clara stomps their heads into mush! Aisling, figuring when all else fails, use magic daggers, puts up a cloud of said daggers and shreds a couple of them, and calls a healing word over her shoulder to Dara. The skull laughs and spits fire at Clara, and the ghouls continue their assault, this time dropping Aisling. 

Dara gets up and turns herself into a crocodile, and grabs a ghoul in her mouth (the taste is awful, but the ghoul yelps in pain). Other ghouls continue to attack, and Clara stomps another one's head to paste. Aisling pulls herself up, but the skull casts a magic missile at her and drops her again. One of the ghouls claws Zook and he collapses, his muscles seizing up. He manages to stand back up again, though, and throws scorching rays at them, while Dara snaps at one in croc-form. 

Clara runs to the main melee and finishes off the ghouls attacking Aisling's prone form and trying to chew croco-Dara, and Dara, realizing she has no enemies in reach, changes back to her elf-form. The skull, now the only enemy present, cackles maniacally, and Clara runs at it, leaps up, and delivers two decisive punches, shattering it.

And now it's a pile of bone fragments...again. Zook gathers them up, grinds them in a pestle, mixes them with water in a bottle, and puts it in his bag. That oughta do it.

The heroes move on a bit, and then rest. But as they are rising from their rest, Zook feels the bottle in his pack start shaking. He looks, and the bone powder is reforming! He smashes the bottle and stomps the bones back to powder, and then splits it up, buries it, and Aisling says mean things over the mounds. He keeps one bone fragment on him, just to make sure that it can't reform. That oughta do it! 

Moving along, the heroes reach a point where the canyon walls get narrow. In a very small passageway, they start to smell something foul. 

Most things here smell foul, actually, but they've started to pick up the nuances. There's the biological, sweat-and-other-fluids stink of the Ettin Cave, the chemical putrescence of the ghouls, but this just smells like old blood. They notice that the ground slopes away into a pit along the side of the canyon, and at the bottom, coagulated blood, flesh, tissue. Aisling guesses this is some kind of disposal pit for undead creatures that have been hacked or decayed beyond usefulness, but wonders if it might serve as a regeneration or spawning pit. Either way, they aren't interested in leaving it as is.

Zook wonders if it might burn, and hurls a firebolt into it. He gets a response - a head bobs to the surface, but then they realize it's attached to shoulders, and then a torso, and finally a very large humanoid body, stitched together with thick black thread, surges up out of the blood pit!

It charges up the embankment at them, and Zook immediately recognizes it as a flesh golem - dead meat animated by evil magic. "Use magic!" he yells, knowing that conventional attacks won't hurt it, and throws magic missiles at it. This works - the missiles leave wounds in muscle and flesh, and it howls in pain. Following his lead, Dara calls down a lightning bolt...and the heroes watch in horror as the wounds heal. 

Clara realizes that unfortunately, as mighty as her punches are they aren't going to do much here. Aisling casts a cloud of daggers around the monster and the daggers cut its flesh, so that works. The golem reaches them and slams its massive fists down against Dara and Clara, and Zook throws more missiles at it. It moves out of the cloud, and Aisling yells at Clara to knock it back in. She wall-runs around the others and kicks it, but it's too sturdy and doesn't stumble.

Dara calls down a moonbeam, and that works, too; it sizzles the creature's flesh. But it keeps lashing out - but cutting words from Aisling ("Yer just a pile o' flesh!") make it miss. Clara grits her teeth and kicks it again, knocking it down and into the daggers, and Dara shifts the moonbeam.

But still the golem attacks! It punches Aisling and then grabs her, trying to drag her back into the pit. Dara drops the moonbeam, not wanting Aisling to get burned, but Zook throws caution to the wind and throws scorching rays at the monster.

It lets Aisling go and howls! The fire melts the stitches holding it together, and it collapses into parts, its head rolling down the hill back to the pit.

The heroes fall back, not wanting to navigate the narrow pass in their state. As they rest, the bone fragment Zook was carrying starts to hum, limned with green fire, and then flies off into the distance. Dara figures that some kind of magic to break the curse animating this thing is going to be necessary - but do the heroes know that kind of magic?

In the distance, they hear a familiar cackle. The skull isn't done with them yet.