Character Creation: Capers Expanded

Capers probably expand if you boil them, I dunno.

The Game: Capers Expanded
The Publisher: Nerdburger Games
Degree of Familiarity: Not zero, for a change! I ran a one-shot some time ago
Books Required: Capers Expanded and probably the Capers book itself

I could have justified not including this on the project, since this is really just and expansion of the base game, but it does have all-new chargen rules in it, they involve lifepaths, and I love those, so what the heck. 

The game itself is still the same superpowered-people-in-Prohibition kind of thing, so I don't need to do a lot of reading to get this going, which is nice because I really wanted to do a character today (makes 50 for the year!) but I'm pretty freaking tired. 

Right, enough whinging, moving on! I need the Capers core, the Expanded book, a deck of cards, and the character sheet. Check-check-checkity-check. 

This is actually like a little mini-game, not dissimilar to the one in Beyonder. I've got 8 Resource Points that I can spend during chargen to alter results. Nifty! I also need to define three Formative Events, and I can do one for each phase or double up as I see fit. 

OK, first thing I do is flip a card to determine Living Conditions when they were growing up. A 2 of clubs means I was destitute. Suit doesn't necessarily matter, but there's an optional sidebar that lets it indicate something about how I grew up, and using that I discover that I wasn't really important to anyone growing up. Maybe I was an orphan or something. I could actually include a Formative Event and have it be my parents dying. Actually let's say that my mom shot my dad (he had it coming, he only had himself to blame) and she got life in prison. My character could have grown up a ward of the state or on the streets, either way would make him pretty destitute. 

I also increase two Traits by one. Well, Agility and Resilience would seem the obvious choices here.

And now we draw for Education. A 9 of spades gives me Grammar School, so I went to school until about sixth grade, give or take. If I use the optional "suits matter" table, I was popular in school and had a strong core group of friends. I'm OK with that. I get to bump up two Traits, but not the two I used before. Charisma and Expertise, I guess? 

Occupation! Same drill, I draw and check the "Grammar School Education" table. Six of spades gives me hunter/fisher. Eh, I'm not feeling that. I'll spend an RP to redraw. Four of diamonds...driver. That's better, but the last Capers character I made was a driver and I hate to repeat myself. One more RP? OH SHIT RED JOKER. That's the bad joker in this game. Fuck a duck. I lose an RP and flip again (so it really just forces me to do a redraw). Ace of hearts, how about that? Street criminal! Yeah, fine. Let's say my guy runs street hustles - three-card monte kind of thing - or fences stolen shit a la Jason Steakums in the beginning of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. 

Anyway, I get to bump two traits. I have to end with the usual spread (that is, one at 3, one at 1, the rest at 2). I think Charisma needs to go to 3, Strength can stay at 1, and Perception gets bumped to 2.

I get two Skills plus one for every point of Expertise above 1 (so three Skills total). Well, Insight, Sleight of Hand, and Deception, obviously.

 

Oh, wait, Formative Events are things you can determine randomly! Well, shit. I've spent...what, 3 of my RP, so I'll spend 3 more and pick "death of a loved one" as my first Formative Event. I'll draw for the next two, though. Let's say that his education was pretty free of Formative Events, I'll take two for the Occupation phrase. 10 of Spades is Commendation/Award. Um. Do I wish to redraw that? I'd almost like to keep it and see if I can make it work. Hmm.

OK, let's redact what I said before and say that this award was a Citizenship Award he got in Grammar School. He was pretty proud of it, until he heard his teacher saying "well, it's not like he'll ever win awards for academics or trophies in sports, after all." (I know, it's so sad.)

And for my last Event, king of hearts gives me victim of violence/crime. Oh, that's pretty perfect. He scammed the wrong guy and wound up with three very large, very angry goombahs kicking the shit out of him. 

OK, now...this is weird. I have to make a choice for each Formative Event, to pick a Power, a Perk, some Trem-Gear...sure, that all makes sense. But I can also use those to pick my Virtue and Vice? But...why would I do that? I get those traits anyway, don't I? It's not like you can not have a Virtue or Vice. I think I'll skip this "choice," since it really doesn't differ from standard chargen all that much, and just pick my Powers (1 Major at 1, 1 Minor at 2, or 2 Minors at 1). 

I feel like some kind of heightened perception or durability would be appropriate. Maybe that would be more Perk territory? Lemme check. Eh, there are some things that would make sense, but they bore me. Let's look at powers, there are new ones in Expanded. And one of them is Enhanced Senses, OK then. I'll take that and take Hearing as the free Boost.

For the other one...hmm. I could take Body Armor, but I kind of want something a little edgier. There's a power in Expanded called Pain Projection, let's check that out. Ooh, yeah, let's do that.

Now let's pick my Anchors (Identity, Virtue, Vice). I think for Identity, I'll pick...hmm. Masochist appeals, but is that a little much? Villain is appropriate, but I hate playing characters like that. Let's take Reveler, with the understanding that it's very much to self-medicate. For Virtue, I'll take Tolerant (people from other walks of life don't faze my character at all). And for Vice...ah, here we go. I'll take Vengeful. He's not out for revenge on anyone in particular (not yet), just kind of has a big chip on his shoulder.

Technically I have 2 RP left; I could have more depending on how my hypothetical GM would view my choices of powers as they relate to Formative Events, but that system isn't spelled out as clearly as I'd like.

I've got 14 hits, my Body and Mind are both 9, my Speed is 30, I start with 3 Moxie, easy enough.

My guy's name is William Bakersfield. Billy Bakes or just "Bakes", if you're pressed for time, is on the short side of average, skinny (more like "frail"), but has pretty blue eyes, an easy smile, and is good at keeping you laughing. Just watch your wallet.

Character Creation: Outgunned

I'm thinking I'm back...to make a character.

The Game: Outgunned
The Publisher: Two Little Mice
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

I have no idea how well the system would work at the table, but that cover is pretty fuckin' cool. 

Anyway, Outgunned is an action-hero game, and on a read, it does a pretty good job of mimicking the tropes of the genre. I was thinking about it in comparison to something like Haven: City of Violence, and how here, you have Grit rather than hit points. You can die, but it's not likely and it's not the result of a death spiral. Overall it looks like it does what it wants to do, and I've heard some positive buzz.

The concern that I have is purely systemic. It requires sets of matching dice, and my experience has been that that's a system that leads to some frustration. But they clearly ran the probabilities, so I think I'd give a whirl. That's like three in a row that I think I'd like to try out, that's pretty good. 

First we choose a Role. There are a bunch that appeal, so that speaks well of the game (also the character art continues to impress). I'm really taken with the picture of the Face in particular:

Yum

So I think I'll use that art as inspiration and say that my face character, whom we'll name Marzio Minelli, made his money in wine. His father was a vintner and took a small vineyard to a thriving business; by the time he died, he owned several vineyards and his four children were all eyeing "the business". Marzio, the second child, was no exception, but he was always willing to share. His siblings, not so much.

So the senior Minelli carved the vineyards up into four discrete businesses and left each one to a sibling, and then died the next month. Marzio settled into the job, learned about the business side a little but let his partner Enrico handle the numbers, as Marzio has always been better at selling. 

Next thing is "personal data," which I assume includes name and age? Age in this game is Young, Adult, or Old, and while it's tempting to lean into the silver fox thing and say old, I think narratively Marzio is still Adult.

Right, next we pick a Trope, which intersects with my Role to kind of give the general vibe for Marzio. For him I think it's gotta be Hot Stuff.

Fill in Skill Points from Role and Trope, which gives me a bunch of 3s (the max) because I'm kind of doubling down on the concept. I get two more points to throw around. I'll put one into Endure and one into Fix. 

Three Feats (two from Role, one from Trope). Definitely need Cash Flow, and I want High Culture. Ooh, but I want Heartbreaker, too. Oh, wait, Heartbreaker shows up under Role and Trope, perfect!

Gear! I get elegant clothes, and a precious item of my choice. I thin Marzio has his dad's diamond pinky ring.

One Adrenaline, one Spotlight, and 3 Cash, and that puts me done! Well, mostly. I need a Flaw and a Catch-phrase. Marzio's flaw is that he's easily distracted by creature comforts - wine, women/men, song, good food, pretty things. He grew up with money and has a fairly flash lifestyle. His Catch-phrase...hmm. I don't want it to be a "we can talk about this" kind of thing, but I want that to be a possible interpretation. Let's phrase it as: "Let's open a bottle, shall we?" That can be read as literally "let's have a drink" or a more threatening "bottle of whoopass."

There we go, now we're done!

Misspent Youth: Father to Son (to Mushroom)

Last night we played some Misspent Youth! Here's last time. We were missing Perry's player; perchance the mushrooms got her.

Our Authority Figures for the day: 

• Melody: A teenager who's part of the Silver Spores. She's a very dedicated recruiter and happy to use unsavory tactics - guilt, flirtation - to bring in other teens
• Gil: The kind of local "district commander," somewhere in the power structure of the Tangle, and one of the Tendrils
• Chad: Melody's boyfriend. Plays football, drives an IROC, is kind of a dick. 
• ???: One of the Slumbering. The whole point of the Slumbering is that even they don't know if the fungus is in them, so the players wanted this kept secret until it happened.

And our Friendship Questions:

• Tate asks Quinn: "Who was the first person we roughed up together after we became friends?" Answer: "Chad, 'cause he's a dick."
• Quinn asks Sparky: "Who's the leader of this group?" Answer: "We don't know yet, it hasn't been tested."
• Sparky asks Sandy: "How did you know what we needed to make the Tonic?" Answer: "I looked for plants that didn't have fungus growing around them."
• Sandy asks Tate: "What's the thing I see you stuff in your pocket and deny you have?" Answer: "It's a paring knife I stole from my dad's restaurant."

Scene One: What's Up

Sandy's player kicks us off and chooses Melody as the Authority Figure. 

We start at the football game for the local high school (go Morels!). The YOs are all under the bleachers, listening to the people up above them stomp and cheer. They talk about the Tonic and what they might be able to do with it, but they aren't quite sure what it's going to do to, say, someone who isn't quite as deeply infected as a Tendril. Tate hears Melody cheering and mocks her annoying laugh, and someone points out that the table with the cheerleaders' water bottles is right there. They could spike Melody's water and see what that does. 

Sparky takes the Tonic and sneaks toward the table. The cheerleaders start heading back over to the table, and Tate stands up (Bad Seed), blocks their way, and starts mocking them. They poke back, but are still heading for water and Sparky isn't quite there yet, so Quinn joins in (Tough). One of the cheerleaders whines for coach Markus and he goes to chase Quinn and Tate away, but Sparky stands up and wins on Tate's Bad Seed Conviction and "accidentally" knocks over the water table.

The clique allows itself to be shooed away, Melody drinks the water, goes out on the field to lead a cheer, and then pitches over and starts expelling fungus from her mouth. She's taken away in an ambulance, clearly alive but...cured? It was a pretty dramatic response. 

Our Kickoff: The clique has discovered that tonic makes people expel spores. 

Scene Two: Fighting Back

Sparky's players set this up, and chooses Sparky's question to Sandy: "How did you know what we needed to make the Tonic?" Answer: "I looked for plants that didn't have fungus growing around them."

It's later that night and the YOs are talking about how to make more Tonic and what it all means. Sparky asks Sandy to teach them what to look for, but it's dark and Sandy doesn't think that right now is the best time. She points out, though, that they need other supplies - coffee filters, containers, and suchlike. Quinn points out that all of this could be found at Tate's dad's restaurant. 

Tate grumbles a bit - the restaurant is called Tate's, but it's not named after him, he's named after the restaurant. It's French fusion and everything has so, so much butter, to the point that Tate hates the smell of butter cooking (Quinn is baffled by this). Tate is willing to let them in to the currently-closed restaurant (he has a key, though his parents don't know it). 

Tate lets them in and the silent alarm starts tripping. Tate stands up and disarms it (Family Ties), and the YOs spread out and get to work. They see a light go on across the street and a woman steps out and stares, possibly with a thin, white, fungi-beard growing? But Sparky stands up (Fast) and shuts the blinds. The woman is clearly still listening, so Quinn stands up (Sneaky), gets everything together in a little wagon she brought, and gets ready to go.

Just then, Tate's phone rings - it's his dad. "Hey, are you at the restaurant?" Sandy stands up and wins on Sparky's Fast Conviction and hustles everyone out while Tate lies to his dad ("no, just hanging out with Quinn!").

We've therefore had our first Beat, a Complication: Tate's parents are keeping tabs on him. Our Question for the episode is: "Does Tate keep his parents' trust?"

Scene Three: Heating Up

Quinn's player sets this up, and chooses the mysterious Slumbering person.

The YOs are out in the field the next day, and Sandy is teaching them to forage and find the stuff they need. They talk a little more about last night and Tate's dad, and how he doesn't cook heavily buttered stuff at home - he's actually a really good cook and he's really nice and it makes Tate mad. Sandy shows everyone how to avoid poison plants (whereupon Sparky comes up holding a bundle of them and asking "Is this poison ivy?").

While they working, they find a man sitting under a tree, apparently snoozing. As Tate approaches he wakes up, and greets them, but is just a little off in his cadence. He recognizes Tate because of his dad's restaurant and Sparky as the pitcher for the Morels, and they all talk a little about being in the Great Outdoors. The YOs start to feel a little creeped out, and start heading home...but the man follows, just a little ways behind them, not always visible but moving steadily. 

Quinn stands up (The One Who Will Set Fire to It All) and tosses some firecrackers behind her, just being a rowdy kid, but the light from the firecrackers occasionally illuminates the man's silhouette. Tate stands up (Pride) and starts bragging and going along with Quinn, furthering the notion that these are just dumb teenagers, and Sandy stands up (Forager) and keeps them moving in the right direction. But they they realize that they're finding handprint-shaped fungal patterns in front of them.

Sparky stands up and loses. The man pops out from behind a tree and Sparky panics and throws Tonic in his face. He staggers backwards and his lips split open, revealing mushroom-like gills. Fruiting bodies emerge from his eyes. He falls against a tree and just continues emitting fast-growing fungus until he's nothing but clothes and mushrooms in a large, man-shaped smear on the trunk.

The YOs leg it back to their clean room.

Scene Four: We Won

Tate's player sets this one up, and picks Quinn's question to Sparky: "Who's the leader of this group?" Answer: "We don't know yet, it hasn't been tested."

Later that night the YOs meet up at the movie theater. They might or might not choose to see a movie, but it's a good excuse to go out. Sparky's arm has started itching due to the poison stuff he touched, and the clique talks about what they saw earlier, how Tonic seems to affect people dramatically differently, and what their next step is. Quinn notes that maybe Sparky should put some on his arm and see if it helps, and Tate suggests drinking it. 

Sparky, never one to not be impulsive, does the little bottle of Tonic like a shot. He doesn't die or explode into fungus, but starts coughing up little chunks of spore-filled mucus (ew). 

People in line start turning to look at him. Tate and Quinn try and put them back in their place ("What? He just has a cough!") but as Sparky keeps coughing, they move out of line and start boxing him in. They start suggesting he get medical attention, and the YOs note that these people are speaking in the stilted, calm-yet-eerie manner than more heavily infected people do.

Sparky stands up and, using his Optimistic Conviction, tries to play this off, but the folks keep moving in. Tate stands up and, because he's Influential, tells them they'll get Sparky to a doctor and tries to move on. The citizens are trying to separate Sparky from the others, however. Quinn stands up (Relentless) and tries to get everyone moving away, but the effect seems to be spreading and other passers-by are taking notice.

Sandy stands up and fails, but sells out Altruism to Unctuous. She explains to the people listening that Sparky just took something that they mixed up and it's reacting with the spores but he'll be fine and right back to being a Silver Spore in no time. The YOs escape and the Tangle-at-large buys that explanation.

 

Scene Five: We're Fucked

I set this up, and picked Sandy's question to Tate: "What's the thing I see you stuff in your pocket and deny you have?" Answer: "It's a paring knife I stole from my dad's restaurant."

The YOs get the hell away from this area and wind up near Tate's (the restaurant). They're standing nearby and chatting when they notice Tate's dad standing outside having a smoke. Quinn makes the mistake of mentioning that she's hungry and Tate ushers them all inside!

He puts them at a table in the break room and asks if there are any dietary issues. Sandy is vegan, of course, and Dad nods and disappears into the kitchen, and then returns with four plates of risotto and a cutting board with fresh bread and butter. He tells Sandy that he had to put this on the menu because they needed some vegan options, but it's pretty good (kind of a primavera flavor profile).

Everyone agrees that it's really good, and Sandy explains that her parents don't let her eat food that they don't prepare - she shows them a bag of the granola they make. She's really tied of sunflower oil and agave syrup as a sweetener. Tate relates, only for him it's butter. Sparky says for him it's pine tar resin - you don't eat it, no, but it's a constant and a reminder of what he's supposed to be. Quinn just kind of feels like the ubiquitous stuff she has to deal with is mushrooms.

Tate's dad reappears and gives them all a cup of tea (really, it's an infusion, since there's not actually tea in it). Sandy stands up and uses her Forager knowledge to run down everything in said tea and make sure it's safe. Quinn stands up and loses, but sells out Sneaky to Untrustworthy and spikes Dad's tea with a little Tonic. Tate notices, but doesn't say anything. This Reversal becomes out second Beat, because Dad collapses a second later. They YOs hustle him into his office without anyone noticing, but this answers our Question: Does Tate keep his parents' trust? Not really.

Scene Six: Who Wins?

Sandy's player set this up, and picks Gil. We pick up immediately after the last scene, in Dad's office. He isn't getting better, and Tate splashes some water in his face. He chokes and spits up some midnight blue gunk. The YOs scrape it up and decide to fake like Dad is drunk so they have an excuse to get out of here. Sparky slips out to the bar to steal a bottle of booze, but gets noticed.

Sandy stands up (Unctuous) and explains that Dad wanted the bottle for a recipe and sent them to get it. They head back to the office, but right then Dad's cell phone rings. Tate checks it - Gil. They realize that Dad may have disappear from the Tangle's "network." Tate stands up (Family Ties) and tries to get Dad moving, and Sparky stands up (Fast) and notices Gil standing outside the restaurant door a moment later. Quinn stands up and confronts Gil, splashing his face with Tonic, and half of said face starts blooming. Gil turns away and the YOs get Dad out of there; Tate stands up and wins on Family Ties. The YOs win the episode!

Scene Seven: Dust Settles/Aftermath

Sparky's player establishes this scene, and picks Tate's question to Quinn: "Who was the first person we roughed up together after we became friends?" Answer: "Chad, 'cause he's a dick." (Though actually, this was only peripherally related to the scene we wound up having, but it was a good scene.)

It's the next day, and they've gotten Dad back to the Clean Room. He's improving, is able to talk again, and has lost his connection to the Tangle. Tate argues with him, pointing out that he's free now, but Dad says that freedom isn't necessarily as good as the sense of connection and belonging he had. Tate stands up and leans on his Family Ties, saying that he doesn't want the Tangle as his Dad, he wants his Dad as his Dad. Sparky stands up and says that, as an Ex-Silver Spore, he knows the price of this "connection." Sandy stands up and wins on Family Ties, and mimics the speech patterns of the people outside the theater who tried to get Sparky to come with them. That's less "connection" and more "assimilation," she says.

Tate's day (his first name is Guy, by the way), finally agrees, and says that he'll help the clique and not reconnect with the Tangle. This makes him the characters' new Exploit. And honestly, if you're fighting mushrooms, you could do worse than having a French chef on your side. 

Character Creation: Monster Truckers

When I was in college I was in a musical called Working, which includes this song:

Every time I read the title for this game, that's the song that plays in my head. 

The Game: Monster Truckers: Long Haul into the Worstlands
The Publisher: TableCat Games
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

This is one of those games with a hyper-specific premise, but that does what it wants to do. I can respect that. In particular, here we're playing monsters (mostly in the Universal mode - vampires, werewolves, mummies, and so on) who are also long-haul truckers in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. See, the monsters declared war on humanity some years back, humanity fought back with necrotech bombs, the whole world got fucked up in a "radiation that also makes you a zombie" kind of way, and the monsters were like "welp, shit" and took a job with the trucking company. 

I don't know that I'd want to run a campaign, but it might be fun for a one-shot. Let's make a trucker!

Bookmarked PDF and a fillable character sheet? Did I just win the fuckin' lottery? 

Step One: Think of a concept. I had one that I was noodling yesterday. You can play ghosts and ghosts can possess people, so I think I want to play an extremely lazy guy. Well, rather, I'm playing the ghost that's possessing the lazy guy. The lazy guy (let's call him Sal) would rather rent out his body to a ghost than get a real job. 

"Wise guy, huh? If I wasn't so lazy, I'd punch you in the stomach."

Step Two: Choose a name. My ghost's name is Grassley. Used to be his last name we he was alive, doesn't seem worth it to have two names now that he's dead.

Step Three: Choose a CB Handle. I think on the CB Grassley goes back "Renter." 

Step Four: Archetype and Combat Style. This is another game were "archetype" is misused, but whatever, I'm not here to police anything. In Monster Truckers, Archetype is either Agile, Brawny, or Crafty, and actually Combat picks from the same choices. I'm gonna say that Grassley is Crafty, but his combat style is Brawny because it takes advantages of Sal's rather large frame.

Step Five: Select a Monster Type. Already know this, I'm a ghost. I get the Intangibility and Possessor Perks and the Stranger Quirk.

Step Six: Add a Perk. I get to pick one off the big list. I'll take Tough Hide and just say that's Grassley turning off Sal's pain receptors. 

Step Seven: Add a Quirk. You lean into these to get Resolve and XP and so on. I'm gonna make one up and say that Grassley's other Quirk is Faded - whereas most ghosts can manifest enough to do stuff on their own, Grassley needs Sal (or some-body) in order to affect the living world.

That's pretty much it! I could design a truck, but the vehicle configuration would depend on the GM and the other players, so I'll skip that. 

As a ghostie, Grassley is nearly insubstantial and invisible, but if you could see him, he's slightly shorter than average, jeans, flannel shirt, ball cap. When he's possessing Sal, he's a large fella with a pot belly, and his eyes glow this weird shade of blue. 

Movie #933: Dangerous Animals

Dangerous Animals is a survival horror/slasher flick starring Jai Courtney, Hassie Harrison, Josh Heuston, Ella Newton, Rob Carlton, and Liam Greinke. 

We open with a pair of tourists, Heather (Newton) and Greg (Greinke) going out on a boat in Australia with Tucker (Courtney), who has them go into the water in a shark cage and be amazed by the experience before nonchalantly stabbing Greg to death and abducting Heather.

And then cut to our hero, Zephyr (Harrison), happily surfing, and then hooking up with a young realtor, Moses (Heuston) and wrestling with catching feelings before Tucker nabs her at a parking lot and imprisons her alongside Heather on his boat.

Turns out Tucker is a serial killer, and his preferred method is to lower his victims into the ocean on a harness, chum the water, and watch the sharks kill them. He demonstrates this on Heather, ritualistically videotaping it, and the next night tries to do the same to Zephyr, but she throws his camera into the drink, which postpones things until he can get a new one.

Meanwhile Moses has figured out that Zephyr has just ghosted him and manages to track her down, but gets captured thanks to Tucker's unsuspecting buddy Dave (Carlton), who gets a fishhook in the head for his trouble, and Tucker takes them both out to sea for feeding time. 

Serial killer movies aren't as thick on the ground as once they were, and this sort of premise was done with 2011's Shark Night, but this is so much better. For one thing, Jai Courtney completely sells Tucker. He's just functional enough to do his job, taking people out for shark tours, but he reads as creepy to anyone (or any dog) half paying attention. But since men usually don't, and since women are conditioned not to follow those instincts, he gets away with what he does (and he's clearly been at it a long time, judging from his video collection). 

But Zephyr and Moses (and Heather, actually) are also characters with some fleshing out. We never learn everything about them - we know Zephyr is American and grew up in foster care, we know Moses is from money but was evidently raised well, and we know Heather is a somewhat sheltered English girl. We don't know their histories, necessarily, but we know their vibe and I think we get a good sense of the characters. 

What I really like about this movie, though, is that it gets both shark and serial killer behavior more right than most movies. The sharks here aren't necessarily interested in eating people, but they've been conditioned to read "boat" as "food" and, hey, if there's blood in the water ya might as well bite something. Tucker isn't the cold, calculating genius we used to see in serial killer movies. He's utterly enslaved to his ritual, to the point that when Zephyr throws his camera overboard he can't kill her until he can find a new one. When he's in control - and on the water - we see him happily dancing, drinking, listening to music and watching his tapes, but on land he's agitated and rushed. 

I have a couple of niggles, mostly about the ending. I didn't think the Pitch Black-esque fakeout with Zephyr getting yanked off the boat and Moses seemingly bleeding out was necessary; it felt like the movie was trying to convince us it was going to be one of the more bleak horror movies and that really had not been the vibe up to then. Likewise, "Ooby-dooby, motherfucker" isn't likely to catch on a catch-phrase.

But generally, it's a well-done, tense movie with some really beautiful underwater shots. I'm so happy Jai Courtney starting doing roles like this rather than pursuing his ill-fated attempts at being an action hero. 

My Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: High

Next up: The Fall of the House of Usher

Character Creation: Fluxfall Horizon

Here's where I'd normally quote the opening titles to Quantum Leap, but I never watched it.

The Game: Fluxfall Horizon
The Publisher: Dave Thaumavore
Degree of Familiarity: None with the game, lots with the rules set
Books Required: Just the one

Fluxfall Horizon is one of those games that I'm sure I liked the premise when I backed it on Kickstarter, but I utterly forgot about it until I plucked it off the shelf to read it. And actually I think it's pretty cool! You're playing a group of people tumbling through alternate realities. When you get to a new one, you get a task, some little thing that needs to be stitched up, and then you can move along. I'm sure that if one were to have watched Quantum Leap, one could see the parallels much more clearly, but I never really did. I will say, though, that the game looks pretty cool and I'll have to put it on the run-me list at some point.

So! In brief, your characters are Lancers, people who, for various reasons, wind up zipping off to other realities and then bouncing around trying to get back to theirs. There's more to it than that, but that's the gist. It's actually a very accessible game, considering it's heavily based on a particular piece of media (I've read other RPGs that are unofficially based on some TV show or movie and if you haven't seen the property it's based on, the game never quite gels). So let's create a Lancer!

(Side note: There is an RPG called Lancer. I have a copy, but I haven't read it.)

Step One: Pick a Type. I like 'em curvy. Ahem. No, we're picking a playbook, here, and there are 10 different ones, but they break down into two expressions of five broader archetypes. So like, if you're playing Corporate, you can be a Junior Exec or a Senior Exec. I think, though, that I want to make a Civilian and be a Tourist. I'm taking inspiration from a weird place, here. I've been playing Hitman lately (in freelancer mode, which is weirdly tense at times), and there's an NPC who shows up occasionally named Jason Portman. We see him in a level set at a very expensive hospital in Japan where he's having plastic surgery to look like a famous model. He's...kind of a douchebag. I don't want to play a character quite as a dickerly as Portman, but I do want someone with too much money and no real idea of what to do with it. 

Step Two: Description. Let's name him Skylar Osae, we'll say he's 25. He's trim, handsome, black hair, tan skin, and he's paid well for all of that.

Step Three: Choose a Secret Objective. Normally I'd only reveal this to the GM, but y'know. There's a list in the book and I could roll for it, but I like "get a selfie with a famous figure." There's no place on the sheet to write that, so I guess I'll just remember it. 

Step Four: Fill Stats. I start with Power 2, Movement 1, Mental 1, Tech -2 and Fluxtech -2. No choices to make, here.

Step Five: Choose Two Specials. There's a list of four on the sheet, I get to start with two. Let's see here. Oh, I very clearly want the first two: that was expensive (I can sacrifice any Special Gear to avoid a physical Condition) and short position (I can raise a small fortune on any commodities exchange in two days' time). 

Step Six: Special Connection. This is an NPC with whom I share a special connection. I could make something up, but there are random tables and I enjoy those. Just a moment, need to dig out some d6s. I get..."current/former subordinate" and "you entered a pact as teenagers and it remains an unspoken bond." Well, that's very interesting. Let's say that Skylar grew up with a girl named Skyler, their parents were best friends, they had a lot of the same interests, and actually they kind of look alike (which, given that Skylar kind of looks like his dad, raises some awkward questions). Let's say the pact they entered was to never try and find out the truth of their parentage. They both pretty much suspect that they have the same father, but suspecting and knowing are two different things. (The fact that Skyler works for Skylar is just because Skylar needed an executive assistant, Skyler was in the market, and obviously Skylar's not going to treat Skyler like dirt just because that's how he treats the rest of his employees.)

Step Seven: Special Gear. I get a transceiver, all-weather durafiber clothing, and a universal translator as basic gear (though Skylar strikes me as the kind of guy who'd insist on speaking in a language he thinks he knows without the translator, just to show off). I get one piece of primary gear, and I shall take...hmm. On the one hand, Skylar might like any of these (basically, a ray gun, a healing device, or a portable sciencey thing). On the other, I feel like Skyler would have made sure he was carrying not-a-gun, so I'll take the Science Box. I get a Safety Bubble, which can inflate around me and keep me safe. And obviously I want an Inflatable Tent, so I can sleep in style no matter when I am. 

Step Eight: Draw or find a portrait. Nah. I think, though, that Danny Ramirez could play him (I just rewatched Captain America: Brave New World last night). 

Step Nine: Choose a Goal. This is, like, the overarching goal for the character, and it's a pretty good chance for Skylar to be not-a-douchebag. I don't think I want to involve Skyler here; that's something that I think would get resolved earlier in the character's arc. Maybe Skylar's ultimate Goal (though he doesn't know it yet) is to "sacrifice to save the Continuum." Not sacrifice himself, necessarily, but maybe his wealth or his position? 

And that's it! Skylar is ready to lance to some weird new world and probably bitch about it the whole time.

Movie #932: Captain America: Brave New World

Captain America: Brave New World is one of the more recent MCU movies, starring Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, Tim Blake Nelson, Harrison Ford, Carl Lumbley, Shira Haas, and Giancarlo Esposito. Like a lot of the recent MCU releases, it's not bad, but. 

Anyway, Sam Wilson (Mackie) has officially taken up the mantle of Captain America and is working for the government, specifically for the former-General-now-President Thaddeus Ross (Ford, taking over for William Hurt, who died in 2022). He has his opening fight set piece against a terrorist group called "Serpent", led by Sidewinder (Esposito), retrieves a "package", and winds up invited to the White House for an event unveiling the contents of said package: Adamantium!

(Turns out that the Celestial that emerged from the Indian Ocean in Eternals is either made of or laced with adamantium, so like, good job Sersei?)

Anyway, Sam brings along as his special guests his sidekick/heir apparent Joaquin Torres (Ramirez) and the US Government's dirty little secret Isiah Bradley (Lumbley). Bradley and several other people in attendance go nuts and try to kill the President, which sets Sam off on a chase to clear Bradley's name, and leads him to a secret prison housing none other than Samuel Sterns! 

Who? Oh, right, the guy that Tim Blake Nelson played in The Incredible Hulk 17 fucking years ago. You know, the one who winds up on the floor of a lab with a big grin on his face as the Hulk's blood drips into an open cut on his head and his skull starts burbling. Anyway, turns out Sterns has been Ross' personal science bitch for the last decade plus, and gave him medicine to cure his heart condition, but Ross didn't exactly do his due diligence on that stuff and Sterns has been dosing him with gamma radiation. This all comes to a head at a press conference and Ross becomes Red Hulk, smashes things up, Cap manages to talk him down by showing him cherry blossoms.

So, like I said, this isn't a bad movie - to my mind there's only been one actually bad MCU movie (Thor: Love & Thunder, if you're interested, though a couple of others came close). I don't even think it's as overstuffed as later MCU movies, especially those built on previous films, tend to be. But there are a couple of rather baffling decisions.

First of all, Shira Haas' character was a weird inclusion. I know that she's meant to be Sabra, but her backstory is different, her look is different, and that name is never used. The movie got some flak for putting in an Israeli superhero, and like, fair enough, but the response was to water down the character (she's an ex-Widow and we're gravely told that means "stay out of her way," but eh?) so much that you'll notice she doesn't even figure in to my summary of the movie. She doesn't impact the story in any meaningful way, and if the powers-that-be wanted a secondary character to act as a foil for Sam, how about fucking US Agent, who's doing the same kind of work on the shadier side of things? If you want a badass woman, how about Ghost? Hell, what's Adrianne Palicki doing these days, could we get Mockingbird back (I don't remember where they left her character in Agents of SHIELD, but I know she was only in one of the earlier seasons). You see my point.

Second, I think the decision to include Ross-as-Red-Hulk was potentially a good one, but it should have been kept as a reveal for the movie rather than splashed all over the marketing. If the marketing had played up the reveal of adamantium, the fight against Serpent and Sidewinder, and the Leader (Sterns is never called that, but we know who he is) using mind control to throw sleepers at Cap, then his ultimate plan to turn Ross into Red Hulk would have been a really cool moment in the movie. But we all knew it was coming, and we knew it was coming at the White House, so the whole affair in the Indian Ocean (which should have been a tense experience) just feels like filler.

And finally...who's decision was it to make this a sequel to The Incredible Hulk? I'm not saying it was the wrong choice, necessarily, but like, if you're gonna do that, and bring back Liv Tyler (briefly) and Tim Blake Nelson, fuck it, bring back Edward Norton Mark Ruffalo and actually have Hulk show up. Even as a cameo, although having Sterns mind control Hulk - or, better yet, sideline him out of respect, because Banner never did anything to hurt Sterns - would have showed more regard for the storylines they're trying to tie up.

OK, so what's the good news? Ford brings across Ross' character in a way that feels respectful to Hurt's performances but doesn't ape him, though I'm really sorry Hurt didn't get to do this. Mackie, Ramirez, and Lumbley have some fun chemistry, though I wish they'd have gotten to get a little deeper (Isiah Bradley doesn't come across with the same bitterness as he did in Falcon & the Winter Soldier, and that's appropriate to an extent, but he veers dangerously close to maudlin sometimes). The action scenes are fine. I do kind of wish Sam had confessed to Torres that Ant-Man kicked his ass once. 

Like a lot of post-Endgame MCU projects, it's got its moments, but it also misses a lot of opportunities and you can see the sanded edges. 

My Grade: C+
Rewatch Value: Medium-high

Next up: Dangerous Animals 

Character Creation: Praedormitium

Dream on. 

The Game: Praedormitium 3rd Ed
The Publisher: Drowning Moon Studios
Degree of Familiarity: None

Books Required: Just the one, and a Tarot deck

Praedormitium falls into the same general bucket as Shattered Dreams, WILD, Dreampunk, and a game called Escape from Dreamland that my son Kai made for Game Chef when he was like 10. You're playing people while they're dreaming and having adventures in said dreams. There's some lore attached, fortunately - you're playing Hypnopomps, people who dream lucidly, and there's a Queen of Dreams (Somnia) who disappeared and her consort the Prince of Nightmares abdicated the throne, so Dreamland is kind of in chaos. 

The system works on drawing Minor Arcana to do "normal" tasks (inasmuch as anything is normal in a dream) and Major Arcana to do more magical kind of stuff. I think it'd work OK in play, though of course the way to know that is to try it. Would I like to try it?

I dunno. I think if I were running a game that has this vibe, I might lean toward Dreampunk or WILD first. If I want a game that uses Tarot for the resolution, my go-to is House of Cards. This game...I was going to compare it to Prism at first, but that's unfair, because Prism doesn't feel done to me. This game at least feels finished, it just feels a little thin. It does seem playable, I just wish there were a little more setting to hook me. On the other hand, with this game plus The Weird, I'm pretty sure I could run something cool. I dunno, maybe I'll put it on the list. 

Although there's no sheet, and that always annoys me for reasons I can't explain. Anyway, let's make a character. 

The first thing we're asked to do is come up with a Defining Statement (well, the text offhandedly tells us to come up with a name, pronouns, and description, but I often prefer to do that last). A Defining Statement is a simple sentence, song lyric, quote, whatever, that sums up the character. The book helpfully gives a few examples. It makes me think of the music quizzes that were popular in the Livejournal era; I miss those. The quote that always managed to find its way onto mine was a line from "Being Simple" by the Judybat: "I want to be good/but good is being simple/simple is forgetting/and I simply can't forget." 

Anyway, it's too early in the day to get maudlin, and as much as I love that song I'm not making myself as a Hypnopomp. So let's randomly pick a song, how about.

"Clementine," by Halsey. Yeah, starting off strong today! This whole album actually has a lot of really awesome lyrical choices (actually, there's a line from this song that also shows up on my music quizzes: "I don't need anyone/I just need everyone and then some"). 

For my Hypnopomp, I shall use as my Defining Statement...hmm. Oh, wait, perfect: "In my world, I'm seven feet tall/and the boys always call/and the girls do, too." So let's say my character is a young person, about 20, working at a movie theater, but like, one of the last old-style, independent theaters in the country (it actually has a mezzanine, which is also referenced in the song). Let's call him Danny Morse. Danny, in the waking world, is a smaller guy, thin, not quite out of his teenage acne, he's a nice enough kid but he's a little boring because he's never really put himself out there and he hasn't done much. But he's a cinephile and an avid reader, and so his head is full of imagery, which makes him a pretty potent Hypnopomp. 

Cool, now I get two Luminous Traits and one Tenebrous Trait. I like the way these are defined; your Luminous Traits are what you are when you're being your best self, while Tenebrous Traits are representative of your worst self. In Danny's case, I think his Luminous Traits are Kind (I would say "Nice", but it's kind of a wimpy word and it's got some bad connotations when paired with "guy") and Unknowingly Brave (I stuck the adverb on there because, again, Danny hasn't done much so he doesn't know he's brave). For his Tenebrous Trait, I think I want Danny to be Lonely. Wait, no, that's not quite his worst self. "Isolated" is better. 

OK, now we need a Tarot deck, because we draw three Major Arcana and assign them Past, Present, and Future. And we get...The Devil, The Magician, and Temperance. Ooh, well, let's say that Danny's Past card is the Devil. The Devil as a Tarot card is about bondage and restriction. I don't want Danny to be an addict, but I think we'll say that Danny suffered from really severe social anxiety all the way through his teen years - he never went to high school, only made friends online, and while a combination of meds and therapy has made him more socially functional, he still feels like he spent a lot of time imprisoned by his own brain.

I'll make Temperance his Present card, then. Temperance is about exactly that, and Danny is balancing his still-present social anxiety with his desire to meet people and be part of something. That leaves The Magician, the card about creativity and applied will, as his Future card, and that's the dream (lol), right? To be able to harness whatever he's got and do something cool with it. 

Dream and Nightmare Motifs are the way that the character influences the dreamscape when they start doing well or badly (in game terms, when they succeed or fail at multiple things in a row). For Danny, I think his Dream Motif is the theater. He loves that building, the architecture, the smell of popcorn, the feel of the carpet, so when his Dream Motif shows up, the dream starts taking on those aspects and you can hear the soundtrack and dialog of whatever movie is on Danny's mind. Danny's Nightmare Motif, though, is a huge crowd, bright sunshine, sweat, no breathing room.

Court! There are three Courts (because the Court of Pentacles isn't a thing that Hypnopomps do, I guess), and each one gives you a different Gift. In Danny's case, it's pretty clearly Court of Cups, which lets me draw a Cup card and apply it to another task if I'm being compassionate or diplomatic. 

And then Hypnopomp Gifts! These are things that Danny can use to manipulate the dream. I get a variable number of them depending on how many people are people, so let's assume that if I were playing Danny there would be three or four other people, so I'd get 3 Gifts.

I want Invert, which lets me turn a Major Arcana card that's influencing things to its inverted position. That isn't necessarily good, but I feel like Danny can make the worst of a situation (anxiety be like that). Definitely want Retcon (lets me replace a card), and then I think Premonition makes sense.

And that's it! 

Danny Morse

Defining Statement: "In my world, I'm seven feet tall/And the boys always call/And the girls do, too." - Halsey

Luminous Traits: Kind, Unknowingly Brave 

Tenebrous Trait: Isolated

Past: The Devil  Present: Temperance  Future: The Magician

Dream Motif: The movie theatre (smell of popcorn, carpet underfoot, sounds from movie)

Nightmare Motif: Loud crowds, bright sunshine

Court: Cups

Gifts: Invert, Premonition, Retcon

Character Creation: Axon Punk: Expanded

Worship at the United Church of Tupac. 

The Game: Axon Punk: Expanded
The Publisher: Sugar Gamers
Degree of Familiarity: I played the first edition of this game a million years ago at a con, but I don't remember much
Books Required: Just the one

Making a "cyberpunk" game is like making a "fantasy" game; by itself that doesn't tell you much, and in fact it probably calls to mind a set of assumptions and inspirations that might be wrong. Say "fantasy RPG" to a lot of gamers and, apart from immediately thinking you mean D&D, they'll probably assume sword and sorcery, high fantasy, probably some Tolkein-inspired races. Likewise, say "cyberpunk" and people will assume you're taking your cues from Gibson, Dick, Blade Runner, and so on (though younger folks might also think of The Matrix). 

Axon Punk is a good example of a game that fits the genre but carries its own inspirations. It's got a setting history that's pretty in line with expectations; there were wars, the whole idea of "nation" fell apart and now it's just Corporations, generally dystopian, characters are probably criminals, but the themes of rebellion are tied in with those of community and the flavor and structure of rap and hip-hop. And as a longtime fan of the genre (of music; I'm fine with cyberpunk but it's probably not my favorite sci-fi), I like the way it's presented.

The United Church of Tupac really is a thing, but I promise it makes sense in context. Let's make a character!

When I made a character for the first edition of this game (frankly I don't know how much really changed, but I don't have the time or inclination to reread Overdrive and figure it out), I made an AI. Suffice to say that the implications of "AI" have changed somewhat in the intervening six years, so I shall instead go the other way and make an Engineer. One of the things the book points out is that yes, all this stuff with the Net is amazing, but at the end of the day it involves a physical machine that has to be maintained, and if that don't work, the Net don't work. As I have become more and more fond of physical media over streaming, I think that'd be a fun character to play. 

Good news: There are Lifestyle-specific character sheets with all the appropriate starting stuff filled in. Bad news: The are much more ink-heavy than I'd like. Ah, well. Also the PDF isn't bookmarked. It is hyperlinked, though, so that's nice.

So my Lifestyle is Engineer, cool. My Background is either Street, Corporate, or Military. I think Corporate. That makes my Instinct "Draw blood to show the superiority of my tech." Sure, sounds fine.

I need a Trouble, and handily there's a table, so I shall roll..."International warrant(s) for arrest." Oof, that's heavy. Sure, we'll say my guy used to be a Corporate engineer and kind of snapped when he came up with a very elegant solution to an ongoing hardware issue, only to have some dick in a suit shoot it down because manufacturing the parts would have required dealing with a concern that the corp didn't like (that may not sound like a big deal, but guys, seriously, you have no idea how cool this fix was). My guy wound up stealing a whole bunch of parts and reselling them, CorpSec got involved, it was a whole thing, bottom line there are warrants for my ass. 

Stats! I can roll or assign. I think I'll roll. We roll 4d8 and drop the lowest, six times. That gives us: 11, 15, 15, 19, 17, and 10. Nothing in the basement, but nothing dreadfully high, either. The array has a higher ceiling but a lower base, so I think I'm good. 

I shall put my lowest stat into Flow (my guy is not fast). I'll put the 11 into Soul (I don't know that many social butterfly engineers). I'll put my 15s into Health and Data Bank, my 17 into Impact, and my 19 into Freestyle. 

Training! I get 10 points to buy Trainings (skills, basically). First tier is 1, second tier is 2 more, third tier is 3 more (so a third-tier skill would cost 6 points). What does my engineer need? 

Well, obviously I need Use Hardware, and as much as I'd love to bump it to 3, that'd eat too many of my points. Or would it? If I did that, I'd have 4 points left, and I could take tier-1 in Use Software, Drive & Pilot, Sneak, and Martial Arts (my Impact is high, and I like the idea of this guy being capably violent). Yeah, let's do that.

I can take up to 2 pieces of Minor Cyberware, and as much as my guy isn't a fan of the Net, I think he's got no problem with this stuff. So I'll take Inset Eye Lenses (I have glasses frames attached to my head that give me a permanent HUD) and Expanded Memory (+5 to Data Bank).

Stuff! I get a Primary and Second Melee and Ranged Weapon. There are suggestions under the Engineer Lifestyle, but I'll tweak a little. I'll take a taser and a small wrench as my melee, and a shotgun and a 9mm pistol as my ranged. And then I'll take a bunch of explosives and an electromagnet. I get reinforced clothing, which gives me 1 Armor.

And that I think that's basically it as far as what I need to decide. We'll say my guy's name is Rainford Udom, but he goes by "Rain Doom" on the streets (or just "Rain" if you're pressed for time). He's on the short side of average, trim build, black hair, and he keeps himself scrupulously clean (what, you think all engineers are grease monkeys?). 

I think Rain's arc would probably involve him solving more and more violent problems and then realizing that the shit he's creating is very limited in scope. But maybe that's what needs to happen so that there can actually be some free enterprise? 'Cause whatever free enterprise is, this ain't it. 

Movie #931: Bride of Frankenstein

Bride of Frankenstein is the immediate sequel to James Whale's 1931 Frankenstein, and stars Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Elsa Lanchester, Ernest Thesiger, Oliver Peters Higgins, Valerie Hobson, and Una O'Connor. 

The movie picks up right where the first one left off. The Monster (Karloff) has fallen into the pit beneath the windmill, whereupon he immediately murders the parents of the little girl he drowned in the first movie (Reginald Barlow and Mary Gordon) and heads for the hills. The good doctor Frankenstein (Clive) himself gets nursed back to health by his new wife Elizabeth (Hobson; Mae Clarke was ill) but is then visited by very clearly evil and probably queer-coded Dr. Praetorius (Thesiger) who convinces Frankenstein to continue his experiments. 

(He does that, in part, by showing Frankenstein a collection of tiny people he's grown from tissue, and other than showing off the SFX I have no idea what that sequence is doing in the movie.)

Anyway, meanwhile, the Monster is romping around the countryside. He gets captured, promptly escapes, and finds his way to an old, blind hermit (Higgins) who befriends him and teaches him to speak. That relationship gets quickly rousted, though, by a couple of gun-toting idiots and the Monster runs across Praetorius, who uses him as muscle to convince Frankenstein to make him a mate. 

And Frankenstein does, creating the titular Bride (Lanchester), but the Bride is immediately repulsed by the Monster just like everyone else is, and the Monster realizes that he, the Bride, and Praetorius are all inhuman ("We belong dead"). Frankenstein gets let off the hook, of course, and flees to be with Elizabeth, so once again he comes out better than the novel.

Oh, the other significant thing here is that the movie actually opens with a discussion between Mary Shelley (Lanchester again), Lord Byron (Gavin Gordon), and Percy Shelly (Douglas Walton), wherein Mary tells the boys that there's more to the story than she told them the first time. I mention that both because I think it's really cool that they added it (particularly as the first movie said that it was based on the novel by "Mrs. Percy B. Shelley"; fuck outta here with that shit) and because the shot of Mary sitting down on the couch flanked by the two men had to be deliberate. No way James Whale didn't think of what might have really gone on at that party.

Well, anyway, depravity aside (aw), the movie is a great example of a director sneaking some pretty subversive material past censors by putting it in a horror movie. Since horror was a genre for pure entertainment, a lot of the contemporary reviews basically said it was good "for a horror movie," but in the many years since, we can look at the movie through the lens of, for one thing, queer cinema and see how the various characters are relationships are coded. Smarter people than me have written about that.

There are some weird tonal shifts - I mentioned the tiny people in the jars, but also the character of Minnie (O'Connor) and the weird comic vibe she brings to her scenes. I'll also say that it's interesting to me that the movie is called Bride of Frankenstein, but the Bride herself has very little screen time, no lines, and does nothing except react to the men in her life right before getting blown up. (It's OK, though, she goes on to join the Creature Commandos.)

My Grade: A-
Rewatch Value: Medium

Next up: Captain America: Brave New World

D&D: The Smelly Swamp-Camel

When last we left our heroes, they had made a promise to the Fey that they were going to hunt down and kill Granny Snowmelt the night hag, just as soon as they left the village of Osclaimid. That in mind, they head east, and the ground gets softer and swampier, until eventually they're walking on a bridge made of wood and rope through the muck of the swamp. 

They eventually come to a homestead where a couple of young children are sitting by the water's edge fishing (as they watch, one of the kids pulls up a chunk of mud that wriggles, and then washes it off to reveal something like a bug but with big claws - the kids call it a "crayfish"). They ask if there's a village elder or someone nearby, and one of the kids turns around and yells "MA!"

A woman emerges from the house and greets them. They ask about Belle's family, and she points them down another bridge. They trundle off through the swamp and arrive at a similar house. A woman in a thin shirt is hanging laundry, and covers herself when she sees the adventures. She called up to the house "Rue! Toss me one of your shirts, please!" and another woman throws a shirt out the window, and then comes to join them.

Turns out that Rue is Belle's older's sister, and the other woman is Rue's wife, Issa. The heroes break the news to Rue as gently as they can, and Zook is sure to inform her that Belle died a hero, protecting her friends and protecting a village from demons. Issa goes to get "the girls," and Rue thanks the heroes. She tells them a little more about Osclaimid - "Osclaimid" is a collective name for the villages and homesteads out here in the swamp, all connected by bridges. Everyone is welcome, provided you don't harm people, buildings, or bridges. She also mentions that sometimes a creature or a disaster destroys something, and then they cut the bridges to that area and let it go. The swamp takes, sometimes.

Issa returns with two girls and they tell them about their aunt. They process, it's hard, and then when things calm down a little Aisling takes the little ones to the water so they can show her how to fish for crayfish (which of course Aisling has never seen). Rue goes over a couple of bridges with a few of the heroes to see her brothers, Yan and Tom, and give them the bad news, and Issa asks Rue to see if they've heard from her cousin Treasa. 

They go deeper into the swamp and find a pair of men doing repairs on a house and arguing about nails. Rue calls them over and tells them what happened; Yan stomps off behind his house and Zook correctly guesses that he never really approved of Belle going off to adventure, anyway. Rue also mentions that the last time Belle was home ("you remember," whispers Keenan to Zook, "we told you, we fought that snake-grow-many-heads-thing"), Yan was away and missed her.

Rue asks if they've heard from Treasa, and they haven't. Rue isn't worried necessarily, figures they'll send a chain ("chain?" "yeah, not much paper here, so there's someone in every village who can remember messages and run to the next village and relay it. If you want your message to get there intact, keep it simple"). Zook offers to look in on her, but Clara wisely points out that it'd be better to wait for morning. Rue agrees - you don't want to be out in the swamp at night.

The heroes all go back to Rue and Issa's house to eat - a stew of mushrooms, crayfish, other fish, frog's legs, roots and so on. Aisling plays some music on her lute and in the distance, someone plays the tune back. "That's how we stay connected," says Issa. "You play, someone answers. Lets us know they're out there." Everyone beds down - half the heroes stay with Rue and Issa, while the other half stay on Tom and Yan's land in the tiny hut. The next morning, they head into the swamp to find what the sisters refer to as the "Irlan Homestead." Issa says that, to her knowledge, that should consist of her sister Treasa, Treasa's husband, his parents, and another woman that Issa thinks might be Treasa's husband's aunt? 

The heroes all cross their fingers and head into the swamp, but as they approach the homestead, it's clear that something is horrible wrong. The building has been smashed in - one wall is demolished, and the back corner of the place has completely collapsed. As they cross the final bridge, too, they smell something unholy. Dara sniffs and figures that the stench is moving - there's something out there.

They also find bodies - a man and a woman in the rubble, another woman towards the back of the building, two more women (one elderly) in a crushed boat on the water side, and Dara finds a man with a crude war pick against the back of the house. The pick is bloodstained and stinks; he stabbed something before he died. All of the bodies look a bit nibbled by swamp rats, but their wounds are from something big and blunt, like a mace. 

"Getting a little tired of being a harbinger of grim tidings," muses Zook. "Maybe you're in the wrong business," Clara suggests, but agrees that bringing this kind of news does wear you down. Brébhin, not the biggest fan of this kind of thing anyway, offers to go back and inform Yan and Tom, and casts longstrider to quicken the journey. As just as she's leaving, the attack comes!

Two creatures burst out of the water, one by the smashed-up boat where Zook and Fearg and pulling bodies out, and one by where Dara is standing! The creatures are huge, bigger than horses, with long necks and tails that end in massive lumps of bone...like a mace.

This, but smellier

One of them glares at Zook...and his heart stops. He collapses, and Clara runs over and punches the thing. Keenan grabs Zook and pulls him out of harm's way, and Aisling throws healing magic at him to revive him. Fearg flies into rage and swings on the monster, and Dara calls up a flame blade and strikes the other one. It swings its tail and hits her in the chest, knocking the wind out of her. 

The first monster swings its tail and it goes whistling over Clara's head. Keenan rolls up his sleeves, gauges distance, and hurls a fireball into the swamp. It explodes and they see a tree fall, but the fire roils up and catches both creatures. Zook follows his lead and throws another, and the creatures scream and try to move. One submerges and is gone, but Fearg catches the other with his war hammer and kills it. 

The heroes all take a breath, and then regret it because this thing smells even worse dead. Brébhin returns with villagers (and more arrive shortly thereafter, because they saw the explosions), and some of the older folks remember stories of the "catoblepas," a swamp-dwelling monster that can crush a man's head with its tail or kill with a single glance! ("Confirmed," coughs Zook.) They pull the bodies from the wreckage into the house and burn the place, and Fearg and some of the able-bodies men shove the dead monster into the swamp. 

Everyone falls back to their homes and the villagers cut the bridges to the Irlan Homestead. Tom says that, in future, if someone wants to build there, they can replace the bridges and make that place part of Osclaimid again, but for now, the swamp can have it. The other villagers return home, and everyone goes back to Tom and Yan's house to rest. They build a fire and show them how to roast chunks of swamp root, peeled and soaked in a sweet sap, so that these "marsh mallows" get toasted and sugar. They also discuss what to do about the other catoblepas.

They aren't sure why the monsters attacked in the first place, but the heroes are worried that the other one might come back - they did kill its companion (maybe mate?). They decide to try and lure it. Aisling does her best impression of the catoblepas' loud mooing call, and gets a response. The call gets closer, and then the thing burst out of the swamp!

But the heroes are ready. Aisling gives it a snootful of magic missile, and Brébhin, Keenan, and Zook follow suit. It glares at Aisling, but she knows to look away, and Dara calls down lightning on it. As the flash of lightning fades, Clara leaps between Fearg and Aisling and kicks the thing in the head, snapping its neck!

Fearg calls the brothers over to shove the thing into the swamp, and Aisling casts a spell to cleanse them ("this smell lingers," grumbles Fearg, "my teeth and lungs are lined with the scum of it"). The heroes bed down for the night.

In the morning, they ask the brothers where they might learn about a hag - maybe there's someone in Osclaimid who's had some experience with them? They mention an old woman that leaves on the edge of the village; she's not a hag, but is "cantankerous," according to Tom. They'll have to take a boat to get to her, but the brothers point them where to go.

They find the boat, and the first batch of them gets on (it's not big enough to hold all seven of them). As they're rowing off, they hear tittering from the trees. Aisling asks if there are pixies there, and after some initial fuckery ("no pixies here!"), one flitters down. They're just making sure that, now that they're leaving Osclaimid, they're fulfilling their oath. Aisling says that they are, they're working on tracking down Granny Snowmelt. The pixie nods and flutters off, and the characters continue their hunt.

Pugmire: Curse of the Cat

Here we are once again in the fanciful land of Pugmire. It's been several months since we last saw our pawed protagonists. 

Peppa Papillon has been doing what she usually does, ministering to the unfortunate, feeding the poor, rolling in mud, often some combination thereof. She's heard whispers that the Inquisition - the more spiritual branch of law enforcement in Pugmire - has been investigating petty theft a lot lately, which is weird.

Dire Newfoundland has been doing some of that, but also going out on the street and stopping crime (he's also finally managed to have the auva shell he obtained a long time ago made into armor). 

Gelert Sausagedog has also been out on the streets, juggling, entertaining, making sure people have heard of him, but also keeping an eye to the ground. He's heard of some new sect or cult, mostly among the rodents, called the Riders of the Collective. They believe in connectedness between the species, which sounds harmless enough on its face.

Petunia Pibble has been chronicling their exploits in the Pioneers' Guild records. As she's mostly been hanging with the more well-to-do, she hears that Princess Yosha Pug (whom the characters befriend waaaay back in our pilot episode) is ill and hasn't left her rooms in weeks. 

Petunia can't ignore such a thing - she calls the other together and says that they need to go and see Yosha, today! They gather up their stuff and head to the palace, and Petunia talks her way past the guards (it's not hard; the Pioneers are kinda famous) and they head up to the princess' rooms.

Petunia knocks and Yosha answers, and right away the Pioneers can see there's trouble. Yosha's room is in disarray - books and scrolls lie scattered around, hundreds of little bits of paper with notes scribbled on them, and a big section of cloth on the wall with sketches and pictures all connected with bits of string. Yosha looks more bug-eyed than usual (which for a pug is no mean trick), and lets them in. She tells them that something out there is following her, and she sees it in the shadows. In here she feels safe.

The Pioneers consider this, and Dire and Peppa immediately note that her rooms are Hallowed (which only makes sense, of course you'd Hallow the princess' room). Peppa sniffs for poison and finds nothing, and then sniffs for evil and, again, doesn't smell anything. She goes outside the room and walks around a bit, and then has the others bring the princess outside...and then gets a tiny, fleeting whiff of something, something deep inside Yosha rather than on her. If Yosha were a tunnel, this would be at the far end.

They talk with Yosha and kind of ease her back into reality a little, and convince her to come out with them to Granny Sue's - she says she'd like some cider. Maybe outside the palace, they can figure out what's going on. 

Meanwhile, over in Riverwall, Hobbes von Shadow, cat therapist, hangs out his shingle. His most important client, of course, is probably Boomer Pitbull, but Boomer is down in his estate far south of Pugmire, and Hobbes has to pay the bills here. His bell jingles and a white cat enters. "Hello?"

Hobbes welcomes him, and the cat introduces himself as Marshmallow von Mau, and asks if they can talk. Hobbes says that he doesn't normally take walk-ins, but he's got a moment, so Marshmallow sits and explains his problem - he's seeing things. Nothing specific, nothing he can identify, but things in the shadows that jump out of his vision if he peers at them. Hobbes asks a bit about his background and lifestyle, and Marshmallow says he moved to Pugmire a few months ago. Back in Mau City, he had a kind of government functionary sort of job, and here he's been made a liaison or diplomat for the Monarchies. Of late, his job has been to sit on a panel to determine sentencing for convicted criminals, when representation from the Monarchies is necessary. 

Hobbes asks if there are other people in Marshmallow's family that he could meet, to try and get a sense of whether there's anything actually in the shadows, probably. Marshmallow says he's living with a cousin, but they can meet later at Granny Sue's Roadside Tavern. Hobbes agrees (but does note the surcharge for a house call). 

That night, the Pioneers, Yosha, Hobbes, and Marshmallow all wind up at Granny Sue's. The Pioneers recognize Hobbes (again, he's Boomer's therapist and Boomer talks about him a lot). Hobbes is a tuxedo cat, dressed simply and not obviously armed or in fighting trim, but Dire can tell from the way he carries himself that he's capable of throwing down. 

The group of them wind up all talking together, and they learn something interesting - Marshmallow and Yosha know each other, because Yosha is on the sentencing panels, too. In fact, a few weeks ago they were on the same panel, that of one Amelia S. Fold, the cat criminal, demon-consorter, and terrorist brought up from Houndton. They were determining whether to send her to the Monarchies to be tried for her crimes there or for her to be imprisoned here in Pugmire (they decided to keep her here, because transporting her overland was deemed too risky). 

Peppa asks who else was on the panel. Marshmallow says it was himself, Princess Yosha, Ruby Labrador of the Inquisition, Viveka Doberman (a round of "ugh" from the Pioneers), and Bivi Affenpinscher of the Pioneer's Guild. Peppa notes that she's heard that the Inquisition is acting weird, and all of the Pioneers realize they haven't actually seen much of Bivi lately. They decide they need to look into this more closely, but send Yosha and Marshmallow to the Temple of Man here in Riverwall - that's Hallowed, and being in a Hallowed space made Yosha feel better.

They head for the Pioneer Storehouse and find Bivi asleep with a book on his face. They wake him up ("ACH - oh, it's you") and ask whether he's been seeing things in the shadows. Bivi admits that he has, but he thought he was just getting old and his mind was starting to go ("Well," says Sausagedog, "there's good news and bad news..."). The dogs suspect, of course, that their old foe the Nagayaga is responsible somehow, but aren't sure exactly what's going on. They send Bivi to the Temple, and decide to drop in on Ruby Labrador.

When they get to the Inquisition HQ, they see a couple of guards frog-marching their old friend Kadjit Brikovy into jail. When asked, the guards say that he was stealing ("KADJIT IS INNOCENT OF-" "hush, you"). The Pioneers argue, saying that he's not a thief, and one of the guards leans in and asks whether Peppa would be willing to swear that Kadjit is honest as a representative of the Church. She is, and they let him go. "Good enough for me," mutters the guard.

The guards tell the Pioneers where they can find Ruby, and say that of late, she's become obsessed with theft and has been micromanaging the investigations. Even now, she's with a contingent of guards rousting the Nippers (the Nippers are a street gang of small dogs; the characters have crossed paths with them before). The Pioneers rush out to Riverwall and find Ruby pacing up and down the street behind a group of guards, pointing crossbows at a house. The windows are boarded up, but every so often a tufted ear is visible - probably that of Clyger Fox, the leader of the Nippers.

The characters manage to get Ruby talking, and realize that she's become obsessive about theft ("people taking things that don't belong to them is a Sin Against Man and-"). This is clearly not the Ruby Labrador that the Pioneers know and worked with before. Peppa can't just Hallow the area, it takes too long, so they do the next best thing - Petunia casts private kennel. The spell calms the area and makes it cozy and safe, and Ruby mellows out enough to know that she's being weird. The Nippers agree to spend some time doing community service with Dire, and the Pioneers coax Ruby back to the Temple (which means that now Marshmallow, Yosha, Bivi, and Ruby are there, so they have enough to play hearts). 

The group of them discuss all this, and decide that they need to talk with Viveka. Bivi notes that he's heard Viveka and Heinrich are on the verge of divorce; supposedly Viveka has taken a lover and has been just mooning about looking dreamy lately. That's a far cry from the paranoia and obsession the others who were on Amelia's panel have displayed. They get some rest, and Yosha pens a note to Viveka so that she'll allow the characters in to see her. 

The next day, the Pioneers meet up with Viveka. And, indeed, she looks...content. Peppa sniffs for evil, and in addition to the just general evil that Viveka gives off (she is, after all, an unrepentant bigot), there's something deeper, something inside her. It's more steady and easier to sniff than whatever is in the others, but not any stronger. Very curious.

Viveka denies that she and Heinrich are having troubles or that she has a paramour, and Hobbes, an excellent judge of character, feels she's telling the truth. But when Petunia asks whether her overall demeanor has changed, Viveka denies is, but Hobbes notes that he guards kind of give each other a look and quietly scoff. Viveka isn't interested in talking further and certainly isn't going to come to a Temple with them, but she doesn't seem to be affected the same way anyway...though she's certainly affected.

The characters decide they'd been talk to Amelia. Petunia, Sausagedog, and Hobbes go, while Dire spends a few days dealing with the Nippers and Peppa casts Hallow on the Pioneer Storehouse, just to make a safe space for them all. Amelia is being kept in a special prisoner a little ways out of Pugmire, so it's an all-day trip.

When they arrive, a large dog named Barney Newfoundland meets them. He checks their weapons and armor, and tells them that they must not use any magic inside the prison, nor can they accept anything from Amelia or pass her anything. She's at the end of the hall, cells are on the left. "You keep to the right."

They walk past a row of cells - a big dog sitting in the dark brooding, a dog pressed up against the bars, grinning ("HI"), a nimble cat crawling the walls and hissing at them ("I CAN SMELL YOUR CATNIP"). And then, at the end of the hall, Amelia S. Fold.

She's not particularly happy to see them, but is willing to talk (not like she has much else to do). They ask about her consorting with demons, and she says that she was never exactly happy about that - it was always a means to an end, and that end was killing Boomer Pitbull. She failed at that (though she did get to see him beheaded, even if Peppa then fixed it, which hardly seems fair), but she does say that when she was sentenced and led away in chains, she felt better - lighter, like something had been lifted from her soul. 

She doesn't know what's happening with the folks on her panel and she denies laying any kind of curse on them (she did spit and curse at them, but in a much more mundane sort of way). The Pioneers leave the prison and head back to Pugmire, still unsure of the nature of what's happening...