Character Creation: The Watch

I should say up front that I'm doing this game now because the...sequel? Second edition? I dunno is Kickstarting and, as of today, not quite funded. I should also say that I'm quite sure the author would as soon spit on me as look at me, and fair enough, but I'm still impressed with the game and Mars Watch looks pretty cool. 

The Game: The Watch
The Publisher: Peach Pants Press
Degree of Familiarity: None, other than the fact that it's PbtA 
Books Required: Just the one

I don't feel like going down the rabbit hole to figure out where in the early incarnations of PbtA this game came out. I'm actually only interested in that at all because it's one of the "create the threat facing the group" - there are a lot of those, but this may have been one of the earlier ones? Anyway, the basic conceit here is that the Shadow (whatever that is in your game) has infected the land and driven the men - just the men - to violence and despoilation of the world. The Clans (which are enumerated, but not given a lot of detail) broke apart, the civilization fell back, and you're playing a member of the Watch. That is, a woman or enbie task with driving back the Shadow and protecting the people remaining. 

Why the gender strictures? Because the game's about toxic masculinity, which is something I know a little bit about. Without wanting to get too personal, I actually had a very good model of masculinity, because my dad was a gentle, patient man, not prone to outbursts or macho chest-thumping (my mother was another matter, make of that what you will). I, on the other hand, while never having been particularly prone to demonstrative macho-ness, have absolutely been prone to anger and even violent outbursts, and it's something that took me a long time to get over. (And that's all the self-analysis you're getting today.)

 

Anyway, the idea is: 

You can read in the Mars Watch Kickstarter how the author's notions of all this have evolved since coming out as trans, but I'm just rolling with what I have. 

As with a lot of PbtA games, we're starting with a playbook. Here they're all animals (rather, they're named for animals). The game also does something I really like, which is give a list of the playbooks with a one-sentence blurb and a "this playbook is good for players who X". 

Now, if I were actually playing this game, I suspect I would lean toward Bear or Wolf, because I like playing support characters (Wolf also has some interesting relationships with violence that, at the right table, would be fun to explore). For our purposes today, however, I think I want to pick the Fox.

So, starting with name, gender presentation, and demeanor. Gender presentation is, of course, important in this game. I don't mind playing cis or trans women occasionally, though I'm generally more comfortable playing men (which isn't an option here, obviously) or, failing that, non-binary folks. The Fox playbook is very much about moving between worlds (living and dead, or physical and spirit, mostly), so I think I want to lean into that and have my character's presentation be "fluid." I'm gonna name them Teka (it's a choice off the list, and the lists of names are actually constructed to give some thought to the phonology and consistency of the language at work here, which I appreciate). 

Completing Teka's look, I think we'll say they have a, arresting face, ragged clothing, and a distracted demeanor. I like the notion of being half "here", but that means I'm also half "elsewhere." 

Gear! I get a symbol of my clan, which should probably wait until I pick that. I get a token, mark, or scar that shows the price I paid to talk to spirits. I think the fingers on Teka's left hand are permanently crooked, like half-curled into a fist. When they learned to commune with spirits, the left side of their body was possessed, and they managed to get it out, mostly. 

I get a spear, sword, bow, shield, and armor. I get to pick two options off the list to make my gear unique. Let's see here. I'm gonna say my shield is covered in spikes (I just kind of like that imagery), and that my bow is famous for killing the Three Kings. The Three Kings were a pride (pack?) of hyena/lion creatures that were picking off Watch members. The got the nicknamed because the horns on their heads looked like crowns, from a distance. Teka killed them with arrows over the course of three nights, took their horns, and use them to adorn their shield. 

Rank...I can be a recruit, initiate, warden, or corporal. If I were playing this, we could only have one corporal, but of course that doesn't matter here. I feel like Teka is more experienced than a recruit or initiate, so let's make them a Warden.

Normally, here I'd do Ties that Bind (establishing history with the other PCs and giving and getting Camaraderie), but y'know, just me, so moving on!

Clan! I get to pick one, but they aren't given much detail, really just a profession. Clan Dothas are mystics, which would make sense, but I think I want Clan Sharn (hunter/gatherers). Going back to the symbol of my clan, I think it should be an empty basket. The thinking here is that Clan Sharn knows that people are always consuming, and if you're going to keep your people fed, you must treat that basket as if it's always empty.

Stats! I get Cunning 0, Luck 2, Training -1, and Valor 0, and then I get to add 1 wherever I want. I think I want Training to not suck so bad, so I'll bump that to 0. 

Moves! I get two from the playbook. Let's see now. The obvious one is spirit walk, which lets me (as the name implies) walk in the spirit world and do a number of things, but I actually think Teka's experience with possession made them a little gunshy about actually going there. Instead, I'll take eyes in the sky (I can mark an animal and then see through its eyes) and spirit bond (I can open up, the basic social sort of move, with my Camaraderie with that person rather than using Valor, as long as I teach them about spirits).

And that's actually about it! I picture Teka as kind of on the smaller side, but oddly shredded in a "damn, that skinny guy can run/fight/lift" sort of way. Their armor is light, but the shield is heavy, especially with those horn-spikes on it. Teka has black hair and green eyes, and while they don't know it, their left hand flexes while they're sleeping. 

Cool, that'll do it!

Movie #973: Bangkok Dangerous

Bangkok Dangerous is an action/drama flick directed by the Pang Brothers and starring Nicholas Cage (in his "must pay my back taxes" career phase), Shakrit Yamnarm, Charlie Yeung, Panward Hemmanee, and Nirattisai Kaljaruek. 

Joe (Cage) is a hitman livin' that hitman life - no connections, erase all traces of your passing, kill who you get paid to kill and don't worry about the morality of it. Deciding it's time to get out of the game, he books a gig in Bangkok - four separate hits for a crime syndicate - and when he gets there, recruits a young street hustler named Kong (Yamnarm) to be his errand boy and translator, fully intending to kill him when all is said and done.

Things don't quite go that way; Kong winds up getting into Joe's heart a little when he shows more loyalty and gumption than Joe expected, and Joe winds up falling for a deaf pharmacy...employee (I have no idea whether she's actually meant to be a pharmacist or just a clerk), Fon (Cheung). He mentors Kong in self-defense (maybe with an eye towards training him to be an assassin, but it never gets that far), and continues doing the jobs he's there for. And that's fine, because his targets are, as Kong points out, bad men. 

But then Joe is out with Fon and gets jumped by a couple of muggers, and he quickly kills them both, and Fon panics and runs away (I mean, obviously). Joe becomes despondent and goes back to doing his job, but chokes at the last minute because the fourth hit is on the goddamn Prime Minister (Keang Kunsri, I think), who Kong tells him is a good man. His employer, Surat (Kaljaruek) grabs up Kong and Aom (Hemmanee), Joe's informant and go-between whom Kong has been seeing, and Joe has to do the third act bloody rampage to free them! 

So...I actually didn't hate this movie. It's not bad. It's certainly better than the 9% on Rotten Tomatoes it's getting. Sure, it's not really treading any ground that The Mechanic, Leon the Professional, or Grosse Pointe Blank didn't already, but it's very different in tone than any of those, too. What's interesting is that it's a remake of the Pang Brothers' first film (same title), in which Kong was the POV character, was already a hitman, and he was the deaf-mute character (the conceit apparently being that gunshots didn't bother him because he can't hear them). So aspects of the characters get mixed around here, but the broad strokes seem similar. This includes the ending where Joe (Kong in the original) shoots himself in the head, simultaneously killing Surat. 

Second act drags a bit, but not painfully so. There are a couple of pretty effective scenes, most especially the one in which Joe mercilessly dispatches the two muggers and Fon stands looking out over the river, oblivious, until blood spatters her jacket. The action isn't anything to write home about, but it's fine. I actually like that while Joe is a competent marksman, he's not super accurate under pressure (he misses a lot during the river chase sequence). 

The standout performance is Yamnarm as Kong. Cage is playing Muted Cage (as opposed to Wild Cage), so we don't get much of a range from him, but I do like how he portrays Joe during the scenes where he's trying to get to know Fon and bumping up against the language barrier twice (she understands English, but of course speaks in sign). Kaljaruek's Surat is on the verge of being interesting, and I wish he'd gotten just a little more time to react when Joe threatens his wife to get him to back off. 

Overall, though, it's not high art but it's a solid enough action/drama, which is a hell of a lot more than I thought I'd say for it.

My Grade: C+
Rewatch Value: Medium-low

Next up: Barbarian

D&D: The Woodcutter

Last night, D&D! Hey nonny nonny.

Recall that last time, our heroes met a caravan traveling north to Cian, owned by Aindriú, an affable, charming fellow with seemingly limitless wealth. This, of course, raises some eyebrows. Keenan, Clara, and Zook stay with the caravan while Dara, Fearg, and Aisling go on ahead and wind up at the burnt-out remains of the manor house where they fought doppelgangers a long while ago.

The manor grounds now play host to families and travelers waiting to enter Cian (or staying here while they conduct business in the city). The remains of the house have been stripped of anything useful, and the basement is open and exposed, overgrown with plants and moss. The three of them arrive there and talk about Aindriú, and Fearg asks Aisling to lay out her suspicions. Mostly she's concerned about what Dara heard last night - Aindriú talking to someone with a scary, echoey voice. Aisling is concerned he might have made a deal with demons. Fearg agrees that's a possibility and probably they should look into it.

Meanwhile, the caravan continues along. Clara walks, but keeps near the food carriage to grab snacks periodically. Zook and Keenan ride on the open back of one of the carriages, Zook paging through his spellbook, with Maeve snoozing by his side. As they're traveling, through, Maeve perks up, gives a brief "wuff" and scampers off into the brush. Zook and Keenan follow, and as they approach the brush at the side of the road, smell death and putrefaction. 

Zook pulls back the overgrowth and finds a corpse. Looks to be a human man, wearing a green cloak and leather gloves. Large parts of him have been ripped away and it looks like he's been here a couple of days. Something big has been chewing on him, but Zook isn't sure if that's what killed him or if animals got to him afterwards. Keenan takes off the man's glove ("ew") looking for a ring or something that might help to identify him, and only finds that his hands are nicked and scarred; apparently he worked with his hands.

Zook pulls out his keek-stane and casts divination, seeking to know what killed his man. Smoke forms in the lens, and then congeals into what Zook initially thinks is an ogre (the party has battled an ogre before, after all). But the ogre is leaner than the ones they've seen, and has a hungry intelligence in its eyes. And it looks...bluer. Zook ponders this, and remembers a children's rhyme he heard growing up:

Lock the door, blow out the light;

The hungry ogre haunts the night.

Hide and tremble, little one; 

The ogre wants to have some fun.

Hear it scratching at the door;

See its shadow cross the floor.

The sun won't rise for quite a while;

Till then, beware the ogre's smile

Zook remembers the stories about this "ogre" - it's clever and cunning, it can slide under doors as mist, it can change its form to appear human. He figures it's probably some subspecies of ogre, capable of using magic or something. 

In any case, they tell Clara what they've found, and then warn the guards around the caravan. They decide to see if they can figure out which way this thing went, and go back to look at the body. Clara looks around and finds footprints - too large to be human, but wearing boots ("didn't think ogres did that"). But then she finds human-sized footprints walking back toward the road. There are no visible tracks on the road - the caravan has obliterated those - but it looks like the giant thing might have shrunk. They rejoin the caravan and resolve to keep an eye out. If this ogre continued along the road, it might already be in Cian. 

Speaking of Cian, the other three folks happen by a campsite. A woman lies on the ground blissfully gazing at the sky, while a man prods at a stewpot. They chat with Aisling pleasantly, and mention that there's a fellow telling stories to a group of kids (which is where their kid is, so they're happy to have a minute to themselves). Aisling hears "stories", grabs Fearg by the hand, and leads him over to this area. 

And indeed, they find a grizzled-looking fellow in a cloak, sporting an impressive beard, telling the kids a scary story (they only catch the end, but it ends with "and they were never seen or hear from again!"). He greets Aisling and, spotting her harp-lute, asks if she'd rather take over, but she says that she's happy to hear his stories. He was actually about to teach the kids a song, and starts to sing in a growly, tuneless voice:

Lock the door, blow out the light;

The hungry oni haunts the night.

Hide and tremble, little one; 

The oni wants to have some fun.

Hear it scratching at the door;

See its shadow cross the floor.

The sun won't rise for quite a while;

Till then, beware the oni's smile

He then gets the kids to sing it, looking over to a reluctant girl ("honey, sing"). About this time, parents start to collect their kids, as it's getting dark. A couple of the kids remain - one boy mentions that his dad might be asleep after drinking from his "special jug." Aisling stays with the woodcutter and chats. He says that he's from Fiadh, though he heard that song from someone from central Abhaile. Aisling has heard that song, too (she's a bard, she collects them), but she always heard it with "ogre," not "oni." The woodcutter shrugs. "Maybe it was ogre," he says. "I don't know." 

She asks if he's here to sell wares, and he motions back to his wagon, saying that he's maybe hoping to find someone to buy the lot and then resell it. She asks what he's got; he tells her to have a look. It turns out to be wooden objects - ax handles, bows, staves, chairs, and so forth. They wait a while and the last few kids get collected, and Aisling excuses herself. 

The caravan rolls into the area and circles up; Aindriú instructs his people to make camp rather than enter Cian at night and disrupt things. The party reconnects and shares information, and of course hearing about the "woodcutter" raises some eyebrows. Might that be this "oni?" They go looking for him.

They ask around and someone points them toward the burnt-out manor. They get close and hear someone whimpering in the pit. Dara jumps down (she can see in the dark) and finds a little boy in a corner, crying. He tells Dara that the woodcutter put him down here, and said that if he tried to leave, he would eat the boy's sister! The party carries the boy and and he directs them to where his parents are; his parents are already organizing other folks to go find the boy. The boy's sister is there and safe and sound, so apparently that was just a bluff. 

Zook casts dancing lights to light up the area, and of course the gathered people ooh and aah over that. The others take the opportunity to ask if anyone's seen the woodcutter, and they point the adventurers toward the caravan.

They head over there and find the woodcutter standing with Aindriú, chatting. They approach and start trying to feel out who this guy is, and then Zook just cuts out the middleman and casts locate creature, focusing on the blue ogre he saw in the keek-stane. The feeling of magic wraps around the woodcutter - that's him.

Clara tenses and the oni warns that there are an awful lot of bystanders around, but Clara isn't here for his shit and charges. The oni bursts up into its true form, a huge creature carrying a glaive ("where the hells was he keeping that?"). 

I am aware that "oni" is a Japanese creature, but D&D is a cultural mishmash at the best of times

He starts to cast a spell and Zook feels the temperature drop, and decides that's not a great idea, so he counters it. The monster snarls, but Clara is already punching it - even faster than usual, as Zook has put a haste spell on her! Aisling throws a bane on it, and Dara blights it, and its skin goes pocked and withered. Keenan, not wanting to risk throwing fire, hastes Fearg. Fearg rages, charges in, and swings a war pick!

One of Aindriú's guards charges in and swings a sword, but doesn't land a blow. The oni gives it a "you'll get yours" sort of look, but then realizes that there's no way it's going to survive another onslaught. It starts to disintegrate to mist...but Zook counters that, too! Helpless, the oni suffers multiple more punches from Clara, who ends by sweeping the leg and knocking it over. Zook hits it with a magic missile, and Fearg buries his pick in its head. 

The guards and caravan-folk cheer, and Aindriú says that once again he owes the heroes - who knows what the oni might have done if it had been allowed to hunt unchecked. He asks how he can repay them, and Zook mentions that there's a spell he wants to learn, but doing so requires an expensive gilded box. Aindriú writes a note and tells Zook to give it to a particular silversmith in Cian; he'll make whatever Zook wants and bill Aindriú. Clara is happy to just grab some more food...but Aisling wants the truth.

Aindriú sighs, but agrees, and brings the heroes into his carriage. He shows them the box (the one that Dara saw last night), and confesses that there is a magical being living it it. He's not sure what it is. The box did arrive with a messenger bringing him his sister's stuff, but he's not sure where the box came from. He's asked craftsmen across Abhaile, but no one is sure of its origin or indeed the methods by which it was made. As for the creature, when he opened the box it emerged and recited a little poem. He didn't write it down and the creature has refused to repeat it, but the gist was that it grants him three wishes, it can only have one master at a time, and once it grants the wishes it retreats into its box. It's not freed after granting all the wishes to someone. Aindriú has only made two of his wishes.

His first wish was to call up the riches of the earth. He show them a hole in a cupboard and pulls some gems out of it. His second wish, he blushes to admit, was to be charming and loveable - he didn't want to wish to be loved, as he figured that was a wish that the creature could twist too easily. Besides, Aindriú felt it was better to be worthy of love and loyalty than to just get it outright. He says that the creature has been encouraging him to wish to know where his sister is buried, but he's resisted doing that so far. Zook suggests that he could wish his sister back to life, but Aindriú seems uncomfortable. For one thing, he figures the creature would definitely screw with that wish, but more importantly, his sister was a highly principled, spiritual person. He doesn't think she would ever forgive him for pulling her back from whatever awaited beyond death.

The characters take this in and ask about the creature, and Aindriú offers to let them talk with it. He mentions that the creature slipped up once and told him it was not able to lie, but it doesn't have to tell the truth (it can just refuse to answer). He opens the box and sand pours out, spins in a whirlwind and forms into a humanoid figure made of rock, with opals for eyes, adorned with gold and jewels. They talk with it and it confirms that it's from the Plane of Earth (much like the xorn that the heroes met in the Glann Plateau). It says it wants to go back, and the characters ask if it needs to be wished free. It says no, just remove one jewel from the box, break a hinge, crack the lid - any of these would free it.

Clara asks if it would just go home or if it would wreak vengeance on the fleshy creatures. It says that while there are people it might like to smash, it's under no obligation to do so and vengeance is secondary to freedom. The heroes, of course, feel like keeping a sentient being under wraps isn't great. The creature, for its part, makes no bones about the fact that giving away the riches of the earth to this human that gives them away to other humans kind of bothers it. 

The adventurers leave it there, but the feeling is very much that they're going to encourage Aindriú to make his last wish, so that they can free this thing. After all, having a box of wishes just loose on the landscape probably isn't safe.

Character Creation: Playing God

Often something warned against, but I dunno, seems like it might be fun. 

The Game: Playing God
The Publisher: Gnome Made Games
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

This game shares some DNA with Gods & Monsters, inasmuch as it focuses on the "build up a pantheon" bit of this kind of game. It's got some cool ideas and the subject matter, of course, is very interesting to me. The implementation...eh. This game feels like it wants to be a board game with some creative elements, in the vein of Before There Were Stars, perhaps. It also feels like it wants to have its cake and eat it, too; you can play solo, with or without a GM, cooperative or competitive...I dunno. If you want to be that flexible, maybe you need more than 60 pages. If you want to be a short game, maybe you should pick an experience you want players to have and work towards that. 

As long as I'm griping, the character sheet is bananas inky-heavy, to the point that I really don't want to print it. The DriveThru page for the game says something about a printer-friendly one, but I sure don't see it and the author's web page doesn't have downloads. Maybe I can print it in grayscale, but I think all that'll do is eat all my printer's black ink. 

Well, anywho, let's make a god. We start off with an Origin: Apotheosis (I was mortal and became a god), Born of Gods (I was...born of gods), or Primordial (I have always been a god, and perhaps have always been). 

Let's assume we're playing this game from scratch in the vein of the example of play (which I do appreciate), and I'm making a Primordial god. That being the case, I should probably choose some concept that's very basic and elemental as my domain. How about Darkness? I like the idea of being a kind of boogeyman-ish god, but maybe having a peaceful, serene side - the riddle here is that the fear of the dark is the fear you bring with you. (I mean, also there are tigers.)

Being a God of Darkness gives me the Shrouded Wonder, and being Primordial gives me 20 History minus the number of other deities in the game (so 20, unless I ever wind up playing this). Let's name my god Suratesh.

The book presents some Roleplaying Question for both my Origin and Domain, so let's have a look at those. For Origin, I'm asked to consider what I was before the first reality was created, whether I think the multiverse will ever end (and how), and what I think of younger gods. 

Well, I think Suratesh was, as far as he knows, alone in the dark before the world was created. It's not that darkness can't exist without light, it's just that it's all that exists without light - light doesn't create darkness, it gives it meaning and context. So once other gods started showing up, Suratesh watched them and sometimes granted his presence through whispers from the dark. He doesn't mind other gods, but he's pretty sure that eventually, the last light will go out. He's not in a hurry for that to happen, but when it does, it does. 

My Domain's questions ask a little about whether I'm about night or darkness (slight difference there). I think Suratesh is kind of about both - he's the god of darkness, and that means he bleeds over into the day/night/dawn deities a little (if I were playing this, I might try and say that the god of dawn is his child). He's not interested in being feared particularly. In fact, he appreciates people who can go to the dark places and meditate, not be terrified by the sounds they hear. When he manifests, it's as a whisper from the dark, faint but audible if you can calm yourself. He doesn't manifest visually, that's kind of the point. 

Need to pick a symbol. I don't want it to be an animal (like a bat or a cave fish), that's a little obvious. You know, let's make it a Site - caves, dense forests, tunnels, any place with no natural light, that's Suratesh's domain.

And, um, that's it! If I ever get a printer-friendly sheet, I'll upload it. 

Movie #972: Nobody 2

Nobody 2 is the sequel to Nobody, and stars Bob Odenkirk, Connie Nielsen, Christopher Lloyd, RZA, John Ortiz, Sharon Stone, Colin Hanks, Gage Munroe, Paisley Cadorath, and Colin Salmon. 

We start just as the first movie did, with a beat-up looking Hutch (Odenkirk) sitting across from a couple of (probably) Feds (David Lawrence Brown and Denesha Lee-Labiuk), very conspicuously not explaining himself. Only this time, his wife Becca (Nielsen) and a dog are with him! And right here we have the theme of this movie; just like the first one, only this time Hutch's family is present the whole time.

Since the events of the first movie, Hutch has been working off the massive amount of Russian mob money he burned doing jobs for "the Barber" (Salmon). That, however, has resulted in undoing all of the character development we had in the first movie, and Hutch has again grown distant from Becca, his daughter Sammy (Cadorath), and his son Brady (Munroe). Realizing this, he takes the family to an amusement park that you would be forgiven for thinking is in Florida, but is in fact in Wisconsin, according to the wiki. Oh, and he takes his dad (Lloyd) with him.

He's barely there a day before he realizes that the cops here are hella corrupt (I mean, sure), as the local sheriff (Hanks) threatens him for staring a bit. Hutch does his best to make all this fun, but then his son gets in a fight in an arcade, the proprietor (didn't catch his name) smacks Sammy on the head, and Hutch goes back inside to whoop ass. And that results in the organized crime ring that runs this town, run by Lendina (Stone, but she doesn't show up until two-thirds of the way through), gunning for Hutch, until he, his father, and his brother (RZA) have to set up a trap-filled death-maze in the water park!

If it's not apparent, I...kinda wasn't a fan. I wanted to be. I really like Nobody, and I didn't realize until we'd started watching this that it's not from the same director. Derek Kolstad is credited as a writer, but if that's the case I'm not sure what happened. Nobody 2 is beat-for-beat the same movie, just with the set dressing changed. The problem with that is that it necessarily erases all of the character development from the first movie, because that movie ended with Hutch reestablishing himself as a badass but also realizing that he needed to be present for his family, and now we get to see him learn that lesson again. 

As long as I'm bitching: Sharon Stone was wasted in this role. She had a better character arc in Catwoman, even if the movie overall wasn't as good. Here, she just kinda shows up and acts nuts and kills people indiscriminately, and it comes off as a pale imitation of Alexei Serebryakov from the first movie. But again, he had some character traits beyond "bwa-ha-ha evil". 

The action scenes are fine, but they're nothing new and nothing special. There's a fight on a duckboat that's beat-for-beat the same as the bus fight in Nobody, and had me thinking "I should watch that instead." The best sequence in the movie is probably the fight in the arcade, not because the action is amazing, but because we're really on Hutch's side - but then the response gets completely over the top because this town is run by a nutbar with her own private army. 

The takeaway, here, is that I need to go back to not blind-buying movies, or at least sequels.

My Grade: C-
Rewatch Value: Low

Next up: Barbarian, unless I get something beginning with "A" from Toasty today

Chill: Putting the Genie Back in the Bottle

Yesterday we finished a case in our Seward-based Chill game. Here's last time, on we go!

Two of the envoys - Khalil Barnes and Arlo Miller - plus Khalil's brother Hamza drive to Anchorage to visit Anchorage Fast Cash Alaska to see if they can retrieve the ruby stopper for the genie-bottle that was sold there. They enter and Khalil talks to the proprietor, and gives him a story about how it was sold by mistake and he'd like to get it back. The proprietor opens a safe and pulls out a little cardboard jewelry box, inside of which is...a rock. 

Khalil holds it up and asks "is this it?" The clerk does a double-take, drops below the counter to look back in the safe, and starts (Khalil assumes) cursing in Russian. "Problems?"

One thing Khalil is good at is getting people talking. The proprietor tells him that his cousin, Mitya, must have taken it - he's got a fence that he meets in Seward who probably said he could give him a good price. Khalil asks him to call Mitya, but he says Mitya won't answer if he sees him calling. He does give Khalil an address ("he stays with this girl when he's in Seward"). 

Khalil punches this information into the group chat. Back in Seward, at the QCOM HQ, the other three envoys are resting (Amelia Rostov, in particular, is pretty wiped out). But when this info comes through, they rouse themselves, check to make sure there are no djinn waiting for them outside, and head to the apartment building. 

Amelia knocks on the door, and a moment later the woman (Sharon) answers. She isn't especially sure about Amelia (she doesn't read like a cop, but very much reads like someone Official), but Amelia manages to get her to get Mitya. Sharon retreats into the apartment and Amelia sends Tuulugaak Hanta around the back of the building to watch the windows, just in case Mitya runs, but he doesn't, he comes to the door to talk to Amelia (Mercy Williams, meanwhile, stands back in case anything goes really pear-shaped). Amelia gives Mitya the same spiel Khalil used (it's an heirloom, it shouldn't have been sold), and Mitya quickly realizes he kind of has the upper hand in this negotiation. He initially asks for $10K; Amelia talks him to down to $8K. (Khalil, who has a good pension from the Air Force, agrees to cover it.) They send Mitya the money, he hands over the stopper. 

Khalil and Arlo, meanwhile, are headed back to Seward (after dropping off Hamza, who has officially reached the end of his useful involvement here). The other three head back to QCOM. As they're turning down the street, Mercy (driving) spots a guy leaning on a wall near a turn-off and has a sudden urge to turn toward him. She resists it and recognizes that the feeling was strong enough that it was probably an Unknown compulsion, and points the guy out. They pull the car into the parking lot up near the door and Amelia raises a Sphere of Protection. They move to get into the building (which is still warded), but Amelia slips on the stairs. She manages to keep the sphere up, but the djinn ambles over and very affably demands the bottle. 

She shows it the stopper, but it doesn't seem terribly impressed. And now the envoys are faced with a dilemma - they have the bottle, they have the stopper, how do they get the genie into the bottle? Amelia goes into the building to talk with the others, and they look at the bottle and stopper.  The bottle looks considerably older, so they're not exactly a matched set. Amelia turns the stove on and holds the bottle in the fire, but nothing happens - it doesn't even get hot. She tries it with the stopper, and that reacts normally. 

Outside, they see the djinn walk back up with a bottle in a paper bag. He pulls the bottle out - grain alcohol - and starts splashing it around the door and the base of the building. That makes his plan clear - burn the building, take the bottle. He offers to leave Seward, just give him the bottle ("Alaska isn't much fun, really"). 

The envoys refuse, of course, but they need a plan or things are going to escalate. They decide to try and trap the djinn - if they can get a circle around it, maybe they can hold it and figure out how to put it in the bottle. Tul runs out and tackles it (making good use of his Quicken discipline), but the djinn grabs his back and its hands burn through Tul's shirt and into his flesh. Mercy runs out with a folding chair and bashes the djinn in the face, pushing past her feeling of revulsion in hitting what seems like a normal person. The djinn's face bleeds, but not...right...somehow.

Amelia touches its leg and Disrupts, and the djinn dissolves into smoke. It flows a bit away and reforms, this time as Dr. Bellman. Mercy charges it and whacks it again, and it grabs her ribs and burns her. Suddenly everything goes black. 

All three envoys start feeling their way towards the edges of the blackness. Tul has the sudden urge to toss the bottle behind him, and that seems very reasonable, so he does. And just about now, Arlo and Khalil pull into the parking lot. They see the pocket of darkness and the envoys emerging from it, and Khalil runs over and grabs the bottle. He hears Arlo's voice behind him say "throw it here!" but turns around and sees Arlo behind him...and also getting out of the car. 

Not fooled, he shoots at the djinn (nearly hitting Tul, running out of the darkness). Arlo (the real one) grabs the bottle from Khalil and Disrupts, and this seems to hurt the djinn, but it doesn't force him to turn into smoke. It points to Arlo and Arlo feels burns appear over his body, but keeps hold of the bottle. 

Tul tackles the djinn again, and Khalil walks over and shoots it in the head. It dissolves to smoke once again, but this time it flows into the bottle! The envoys put the stopper in...and everything goes quiet. 

"Ambulance please?" says Mercy, the shock wearing off and the burns on her sides flaring up. Khalil calls 911, telling them about the gunshots (he figures it's probable someone already called it in, might as well get ahead of it) and has them send an ambulance. The envoys also call Dr. Bellman, but he gets there in enough time to follow the ambulance to the hospital. The wounds definitely raise question - Tul and Mercy have hand-shaped burns on them, and Arlo is covered with squiggly brands. The medical staff asks for explanations, of course, but the envoys rely heavily on "I don't know how it happened."

Meanwhile, Khalil and Amelia deal with the bottle. They wrap it in duct tape, and Khalil builds a box, puts the bottle in it, and fills it with cement. And then...well, some discussions happen. Some envoys favor throwing it into the ocean, some think that it's better to keep it close to hand so they know where it is. They ask Dr. Bellman to see if SAVE has a Raiders of the Lost Ark-style warehouse somewhere, but in the meantime it's in the QCOM HQ, covered in a tablecloth. 

The envoys still have some legal issues pending, and several of them are pretty badly injured, but they've captured the djinn, so that's victory.

Character Creation: HEDGE

Every once in a while I get to read a game that hooks me from the cover, and continues hooking me through out. Good stuff.

The Game: HEDGE
The Publisher: A Couple of Drakes
Degree of Familiarity: It's structured like Forged in the Dark, it's mechanically based on LUMEN, but I haven't played it
Books Required: Just the one

I'm not sure why the game title is written in all-caps, but whatever, I'm not above a little affectation myself. Anyway, HEDGE is a post-apocalyptic game in which the apocalypse in question was the Fey. You're playing Wardens, people who have some Fey magic and have become part plant (wait what) because they've partially merged with the titular Hedge. 

The game is combat-heavy and tactical in much the same way NOVA is (except that NOVA is diceless and this isn't). It's mission-focused and has distinct phases much like a Forged in the Dark game, and it very much has its own identity and strong aesthetic. I was a little worried it was going to coast on vibes and I'd end up feeling like I do with games like Songbirds (that is, "this is cool but how do I run it?"), but by the time I finished reading the chargen section I was already thinking I might pitch it to my one group when we finish Epyllion. 

So let's make HEDGEhog or whatever! (No, they're actually called Wardens.)

Let's say my Warden's name is, or was, Larkspur. That's easy.

Next we choose a Past. We've got three choices, here: Devoted, Survivor, or Settled. This is who the character was (in very broad strokes) before becoming a Warden. I think Larkspur was Devoted. That is, he was someone that held the Old Ways and tried to keep the Fey from busting down the gates; it didn't work, but he knew the importance of honoring the oaths. That means I get +1 Fate, and I get to pick three Truths about the world (which really only make sense when combined with other players' Truths, but the choices are evocative so I'm gonna do it). My Truths are about the Hedge, specifically.

Before: A Central Well, hidden from the world and slowly fading. I like the idea that the Hedge was on its way out and what the Fey did was a last gasp. 

The Fall: Rampant Growth, the Hedge bleeds and life explodes with titanic vigor. Kind of an extinction burst. 

A Threat: A Wyld hunger grips the Hedge. If she is to survive, you must feed her. 

Neato! Now we choose our Warden, which is kind of badly phrased, because all the PCs are Wardens. What I'm really choosing here is a calling or class or splat, and holy shit these past the Chupp test. Much like the different Sparks in NOVA, they all have slightly different subsystems (rather, they all generate some kind of resource that they can spend for specific effects). I really liked the Bastion when I was reading these, but now that I'm picturing Larkspur I don't know if that works. Let's have another look.

I think I'm gonna go with the Torch. I can prevent Harm to other Wardens, and if I fall in combat ("Fade"), everyone gets fully healed. I think that's in keeping with the "extinction burst" motif we've got going. 

Next we choose 2 Warden Powers. I'll take Arise Light (I can throw a wave of light that either burns foes or heals me) and A Tangle of Thorns (I call up thorns and foes have to hurt themselves to walk through them). That's easy.

Weapon! Now, up there it says I pick it off a list, but that's not quite true. What happens in actuality is that I build it; I can pick the form of my weapon and then add two Tags. What kind of weapon is appropriate here?

Well, I kind of picture Larkspur having a weapon with some reach, maybe something that allows a big sweeping blow. How about a quarterstaff kind of thing? I'll give it the Tags Reach (I can hit foes at Near Range, not just Close, but I do extra damage at Close) and Area Effecting (I can split the Harm amongst any foes in range). 

And that's basically it, other than appearance. The Briarbound Torch (for that's what Larkspur is now) is slight, with tapered limbs are black hair. Purple flowers grow from his shoulders, knees, and elbows, but these burst into purple flame when he uses his powers. The staff, likewise, grows these flowers, but they fall, burning, when he strikes.

Movie #971: Near Dark

Near Dark is a vampire horror movie directed by Kathryn Bigelow and starring Adrian Pasdar, Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen, Jenny Wright, Jenette Goldstein, Tim Thomerson, Joshua John Miller, and Marcie Leeds. 

Caleb (Pasdar) chats up the wrong young lady. Mae (Wright) talks about "listening to the night" and living forever, and Caleb, having never seen The Lost Boys (which in fairness opened around the same time as this movie so that's forgivable) presses her for a kiss and winds up getting a bite instead. He stumbles home, already smoking in the daylight, when an RV pulls up, someone yanks him in, and Caleb finds himself in a new family: A group of vampires.

The vampires' patriarch, Jesse (Henriksen), gives him a week to fit in or else he intends to let his eldest "child" (or should I say...childe? No, I shouldn't) Severen (Paxton) kill him. "Fitting in" here involves killing someone, since that's kinda how these vampires roll. Severen cleans himself up and seduces women to feed on them, Jesse and his vampiric bride Diamondback (Goldstein) pick up hitchhikers, and Homer (Miller), stuck as an eternal tween, lures in people by pretending to be hit by a car on his bike. 

Mae, for her part, seems to rely on her looks to get people alone. She and Caleb hitch a ride in a truck and she tries to get him to kill the trucker (Roger Aaron Brown), but he can't bring himself to do it...so she does. 

Yeah, these vampires are monsters, and that includes Mae, though she's a little more ambivalent about it than the others (and she does like Caleb a lot). The family rolls into a bar, intending this as a final test for Caleb, and slaughter the inhabitants in a truly terrifying manner (like, killing off the people one at a time, and in a such a matter-of-fact way that Jesse has cut the waitress' (Jan King) throat and drained her blood into a beer glass before the bartender (Thomas Wagner) really knows what's happening. 

Anyway, the one survivor in the bar (James Le Gros) is meant to be Caleb's first kill, but Caleb can't bring himself to do it, the guy flees, and the vampires are all set to kill him but get stuck in a hotel as the cops blow holes in it and the sun rises, and Caleb grabs their van and saves them!

Questionable decision, really. Anyway, meanwhile, Caleb's father (Thomerson) and sister (Leeds) are out searching for him, and wind up at the same hotel that the vampires go to after their escape! Caleb winds up getting his family out, and winds up cured by a...blood transfusion. 

This is a really good vampire movie that did not do well at the box office, largely because it opened right around Lost Boys (which...I don't think is better, I think they're about even as movies, but Lost Boys had a lot more money behind it). The vampire family has an obvious dynamic, and watching the behind-the-scenes they all came up with backstories and, most important, figured out the timeline for all of them getting turned. That actually made a big difference, I think, because Jesse and Severen have the clearest and strongest relationship, while Homer is perhaps closest to Diamondback and Mae, and Mae is really the odd one out generally (she's only been a vampire about four years). Caleb is actually probably the weakest character, but since he's meant to be our POV character that's probably pretty deliberate. 

I have a couple of niggles. I think the movie peaks after the bar scene, and the ending sequences where the vampires kind of all die inside of a few minutes feels a little rushed. I'm not sure how I feel about a simple blood transfusion curing vampirism, and I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that Mae has been murdering people and drinking their blood for years (and never really shows any remorse) and then gets cured at the end and we're all OK with that. But then again, I like the really tight focus - we start with Caleb hitting on Mae and he gets bitten pretty much right away, so it's a pretty lean movie. 

What makes the movie, though, is the vampire family's performance and chemistry, and how all that reacts to Caleb. I like that the vampires are strong and deadly, but not particularly smart or supernaturally powerful - they can't turn into wolves or mist or anything, they're just strong and fast. The movie isn't a million miles from something like The Devil's Rejects in some ways, except of course that we're not focused on the bad guys. 

My Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: Medium 

Next up: Nobody 2

Epyllion: The Searscale Springs

Last night, after a quite long hiatus during which we played a whole bunch of superhero games, we returned to the fantastical lands of Dragonia! First session of this game is here, the last one we played (almost exactly two years ago) is here, now you're all caught up, on we go!

We pick up with our clutch reuniting after some time apart. They separated shortly after the events of the last story. They didn't really mean to, they just kind of got busy with their own interests. OB took on an apprenticeship with Vizali, the Forge Master, and has learned to work with precious metals and wood. Zeblek has started performing, bringing the classic plays of Dragonia to the Capital stages. Stars has remained in the Capital, never going far from the Library, except to occasionally visit the wilds to verify details about some creature or other. Toverinn stayed with Stars a while, but then went back to Woodsedge to run with the turferant herds.

But then a dragon that they met during their travels, a Bearded Dragon named Rollatha, approaches them all. The Searscale Springs - a group of hot springs in the archipelago northeast of the continent of Dragonia - has begun to lose its heat, and no one is sure why. The Springs are a place that elder dragons go to cleanse their scales (it's far too hot for drakes, but Long-Tooth Dragons can just about manage). Rollatha remembers that this clutch has some skill in dealing with mystical places that are changing or losing their magic (which is pretty niche as these things go), and rounds them up. 

They all agree for their own reasons: Toverinn is in as soon as the location is mentioned. Zeblek is overjoyed to be back with the clutch. OB knows that dris mentor, Vizali, wants some samples of mineral deposits found around the Springs. Stars has heard of a local creature called the tardisnail that is somehow impervious to the heat. 

The clutch gets back together, travel to the coast, and build a boat. Stars raises concerns about its buoyancy and what they'll do if it sinks (remember dre doesn't have wings), but OB patiently explains all this. Besides, it's not that long of a journey, it's just too long for them to fly (even those that can). They arrive at the docks of Searscale Island and disembark, heading up the hill to a plateau with a bunch of springs. Stars tells the others that dre has read in dris books that the springs' heat causes a chemical reaction in the rocks around the edges, turning them yellow. That being the case, it should be possible to tell where the springs' temperature has changed based on the rock color.

They only see two dragons: an elder with ruddy scales and scars relaxing in the largest pool, and a long-tooth moving around the area, pulling stuff out of pools, and generally maintaining the space. They head down to the plateau and dre comes up to meet them, introducing themself as Mxlar'nishka, the Springtender. Dre welcomes them, and confirms that the temperature has been screwy lately - dre points to the edges of one of the outer pools and shows them that the rocks are yellow, but not all the way around. Weirder still, earlier today the yellow formation was in a different place; it looks like the heat is "moving" diesel (clockwise) around the pools, and pretty quickly too. Mxlar'nishka also mentions that there are caverns beneath the pools, but that Zalor, the Cavetender, is who they should talk to about that. (Dre also notes that the elder dragon in the pool over there is called Daishi, and dre is an excavator back on the mainland and comes here to get clean after big jobs, but that's incidental and Daishi spends most of the day snoozing anyway.)

The dragons start looking about for information. Toverinn climbs into a pool and eases into the heat ("OW OW OW"), but then dris tail gets sucked into a hole in the bottom of the pool! Dre try to dislodge it, but can't. 

Zeblek and OB aren't in the immediate area. Stars paces nervously up and down the bank, but realizing that no help is coming, puts dris bag down and plunges in! Dre reaches Toverinn and starts to pull them out, but looks back and realizes that one dris tomes is about to plunge into the water! Stars gives a little yelp, but doesn't abandon dris clutchmate. Dre pulls Toverinn out, but the book goes ploop, into the water.

OB tries to grab it, but misses, and paws some dirt backwards into Daishi's face! Zeblek jumps in and tosses the book out, but then dris hindquarters get pulled in (Zeblek is skinnier, so more of dris body fits). Zeblek's nostrils close and dre can hold dris breath a good long time, but the heat is uncomfortable and this hurts. 

OB pulls a rope from dris saddlebag of potential and jumps in to get Zeblek out ("OW OW OW"), but the rope is too short and OB has to swim down to hand it to Zeblek. Dre manages to pull Zeblek out and onto the bank. Stars, meanwhile, has taken dris soaked book away from the pools and is desperately trying to dry it out. Once OB has finished with Zeblek, dre joins Stars and rigs up a drying fan, powered by tail-swishes, to help. The book is salvaged, though Stars isn't sure how much of it was lost. 

The water continues to drain out, and Mxlar'nishka, by this point, has heard the ruckus and come over. Seeing the water draining away, dre asks if any of the dragons are skilled in the magic of the stone moon (dre has given up that particular moon). Toverinn is, and calls on the moon - but overdoes it. Crystals form on the edges of all the pools and cover them (the one that Daishi's in, too, but dre just flicks the crystals apart with dris claws and grumbles at the young'uns; dre also isn't happy to have gotten a snootful of dirt, but OB was apologetic). 

Toverinn is pretty mortified, and not only are all the pools covered over but the one that dre was trying to plug empties out with a bathtub sort of sound. Mxlar'nishka groans ("ugh, this is gonna take all night"), and goes to get a hammer to start knocking the crystals in. 

Zeblek pokes dris head into the empty pool and shoves it through the hole at the bottom. It's very dark, of course, but dre can see/feel a river rushing by. Dre pulls dris head back out and reports this, and Stars, having now rejoined the clutch, consults the Geographical Primer on Rivers, Mountains, and Magic Islands to see if this river is mentioned. The river is mentioned, but when the book talks about where it empties out, it gets into the realm of myth pretty quickly - something about a massive creature digging out the riverbeds with its talons. Probably not helpful. 

OB asks Mxlar'niskha about the river. Dre says that dre is aware that there is water beneath the plateau, but always thought it emptied into the sea. Dre suggests talking to Zalor when dre comes up for the night (Zalor always warns against being in the caverns at night, but Mxlar'nishka isn't sure exactly why). OB also askes Mxlar'nishka if dre has some rope (for spelunking), and dre says to look in dris shack up the hill.

Meanwhile, Toverinn climbs into the now-empty pool and uses dris wild speech to talk to the land. Dre realizes that something below them, down in the caverns, is stuck, and by freeing it, the clutch can alleviate the problem with the temperature. 

OB does so, and when dre opens the door, finds a dragon! The dragon is a winged drake, so a bit younger than OB and dris clutch. Dre has deep green, jade-like scales on dris back, but dris underbelly is jet black. OB asks the dragon who dre are, and dre responds "Lokken." OB asks if Mxlar'nishka knows that dre is here, and Lokken says "yes?", clearly lying. OB says that probably they should go talk to Mxlar'niskha about this, and Lokken nods, but then says "Look! A distraction!" and disappears in a puff of black smoke. 

OB grabs a length of rope, shaking dris head, and goes back down to the pools. Dre ask Mxlar'niskha about Lokken, but dre doesn't know the name. Dre are, however, confused at OB's description, as dre has seen a dragon with a black underbelly and blue scales hanging around...

The clutch gathers together and discusses their next move. Clearly the need to go into the caverns. Stars advocates waiting until morning, but Zeblek points out that there's no light in the caverns anyway so why wait? That logic appeals - better to get going on this before it gets worse. 

The clutch gathers their stuff, and prepares to head into the Searscale caverns!

Movie #970: John Dies at the End

John Dies at the End is a cosmic horror-comedy (not a combo you see every day) directed by Don Coscarelli and starring Chase Williamson, Rob Mayes, Clancy Brown, Paul Giamatti, Doug Jones, Glynn Turman, and Fabianne Therese. It's one of those movies that, if I were not a gamer, I don't think I'd have enjoyed as much.

We open with the familiar trope of someone giving an interview to tell their strange, supernatural or unbelievable story. Actually, not that's not true. We open with our narrator, Dave (Williamson) explaining the Ship of Theseus thought experiment as applied to the ax used to behead a corpse, which then reanimates (played by Brett Wagner) and comes after the person who beheaded them, and asks if it's the same ax. Then we start the interview thing, where David Wong is being interviewed by a reporter named Arnie (Giamatti) about his experiences. 

Said experiences go back to him meeting a drug dealer (Tai Bennett) with apparently supernatural powers, and then getting a call from his friend John (Mayes), who has, in the words of Kurt Vonnegut, come unstuck from time (inasmuch as he keeps calling Dave from earlier in the evening even when he's sitting in front of him). It turns out that John has tried a living drug called "soy sauce", which has opened his mind to other realities. Dave winds up getting jabbed with a needle and getting on the sauce as well, and from there we get into the weird, Lovecraftian events in which otherwordly insect-creatures come into our world, infest people to use as puppets, eventually make them explode if they can't use them or they get bored, and continually push John and Dave toward their ultimate goal.

Said goal is to enter another universe (accessed through a "ghost door" that can only be opened using the "phantom limb" of the guys' friend Amy (Therese)), where they discover a largely naked congregation of masked weirdos who tell them that this universe is a parallel one to theirs in which the dominant form of science is "beastiology". Anyway, the place is run by a big flesh-monster/living computer called Korrok (voiced by Keven Michael Richardson), which intends to eat them to absorb their knowledge and then conquer Earth. 

There's a lot more I'm leaving out, but suffice to say that the story is very much a Lovecraft/King story as filtered through millennial/Gen X humor. It's based on a book by Jason Pargin (writing as David Wong), whom I know from his work at Cracked, and the style of humor feels very much like a visual adaptation of a Cracked article. That's not a bad thing, but it does assume a lot of...not knowledge, exactly, but frame of reference? Alternate realities, monsters that you only see out of the corner of your eye, that sort of thing? It all makes a lot more sense if you've read Lovecraft and/or played Call of Cthulhu. 

But with that context, it was pretty fun. Coscarelli also directed Bubba Ho-Tep and there are some stylistic similarities, just inasmuch as it's an insane unreal situation presented in a mostly realistic way. The main difference is in scale (Bubba Ho-Tep is about one nursing home, this is about the whole world and possibly others!) and in the attitude of the protagonists (Elivs and JFK view fighting the mummy as their responsibility and are willing to die to do it; John and Dave mostly just bumblefuck their way through it and their attitude is much more "ugh, fine, we'll save the world." And actually it's the dog that really saves the world). 

The pacing is weird and while nonlinear storytelling is fine, keeping "when" we are in the story requires a bit of concentration, though maybe that's appropriate, given the subject matter. Paul Giamatti is fantastic as usual. I wish Clancy Brown had been given more to do (actually that's true of Therese; her character is fun for the little we see of her, but I think a little more variance from the two White Dudes would have been good). 

Coscarelli's films don't tend to be the most accessible in the world, but I always find them a lot of fun to watch. Also the effects here seem largely practical, and that always goes a long way to keeping me in the movie. 

My Grade: B-
Rewatch Value: Medium

Next up: Near Dark

Misspent Youth: The Tangle Finale

Last night we finished out our game of Misspent Youth that we started waaaaay back...oh, hang on, it was just back in March?

Yeah, at six episodes, this is the fastest we've ever gone through a campaign (though actually Celestial Bureaucracy only went seven and Nation of Christ, which I'm not linking, go searching if you care, went nine, so it's really about standard). That's not a bad thing, of course, it just speaks to how people chose to approach their Convictions. I will say that there were far fewer scenes losses than I've seen in previous games, meaning the decision to sell out didn't come up as much, so I think that kinda trained people to sell out when they could. 

Anyway, this remains one of my favorite RPGs. Into the mushroomosphere!

Our Authority Figures:

• The Hounds, the immense fungus-creatures that we met last session
• The Underground Network, the connected mycelium that makes up the heart of the Tangle
• The Other Caretaker, the YOs killed one of the Tendrils controlling the Hounds last time, but there's still another
• Chad, the kind of dick from the characters' school we met back here, now heavily infected

Our Friendship Questions:

• Sandy asks Sparky: "Do you ever think of just leaving?" Answer: "No, you don't leave your team."
• Sparky asks Quinn: "Do you think those creatures were faster than the van?" Answer: "I mean, we got away, so no, but they were fast."
• Quinn asks Tate: "After all that's happened, is your heart still in this? Are you scared?" Answer: "I'm not scared, I'm mad...but I don't know if it's useful-mad."
• Tate asks Sandy: "How are you doing with watching my not-mom burn?" Answer: "It wasn't your mom, it was just a bunch of fungus."
  

Scene One: What's Up

Sparky's player set this up and chose Quinn's question to Tate: "After all that's happened, is your heart still in this? Are you scared?" Answer: "I'm not scared, I'm mad...but I don't know if it's useful-mad"

We pick up exactly where last session left off, standing around the embers of the fire on which they burned the fungus-creature mimicking Tate's mom. Tate's actual mom is still inside, so Tate goes to check on her. She's a little shell-shocked, and Tate talks her down a little and then says they need to go, so she goes to pack a bag.

Outside, Sparky asks what they should do next, and asks Sandy about finding more ingredients for Tonic. Sandy snaps a little, but then calms herself and says that she's not even sure what parts of the woods are safe anymore - maybe they could find some more chemical methods of making Tonic? They decide to get in the car and head to the Resistance HQ to drop Charlotte (Tate's mom) off. 

As Tate and Charlotte are walking to the car, the YOs notice a soft, snowflake-like thing falling from the sky. Where it alights on someone's hand, the skin goes number, and then they realize that these things are fall en masse. They all start to feel sleepy, so they pile into the car and Charlotte starts driving them to the HQ. 

As they're driving out there, they see people on the street collapsing into slumber, and realize that this stuff is causing the "Torpor Timeout" that the Tangle uses to put unruly people away for a while. Charlotte starts to doze off a little, and tries to put down her window to wake up a little. Sandy stands up and puts the window back up, explaining in detail why that's a bad idea (Pedantic) but Charlotte is still dozy, so Tate stands up...and loses. 

Tate grabs the wheel to try and keep the car under control, but wrenches it too hard and the car spins out and rolls. It comes to a rest in a ditch. 

And here's out Kickoff: The Tangle is putting everyone in Timeout.

Scene Two: Fighting Back

Quinn's player set this up, and chose the Hounds. 

The YOs pull themselves out of the wrecked car and help Charlotte out - she's unconscious and they can't tell if it's from the crash or the Torpor Timeout. As they're getting their bearings, they hear a noise in the background...they figure they'd better get moving.

Fortunately there are lots of unused cars around, so Quinn gets to work on stealing one. She stands up (Untrustworthy), smashes the window on an older car, and gets to work trying to hotwire it. The cliques hears the thump-thumping of one of the Hounds getting closer...but then Tate stands up and wins on Quinn's Conviction, checks behind the sun visor, and finds the keys ("wow, people really do this? How stupid"). The clique loads Charlotte into the car and heads off to the HQ. 

Our First Beat is a Catastrophe: The Torpor Timeout in spread. 

The Question is: Can the clique stay awake? 

Scene Three: Heating Up

Tate's player set this one up and chose Sparky's question to Quinn: "Do you think those creatures were faster than the van?" Answer: "I mean, we got away, so no, but they were fast."

The clique is driving down the road as fast as this car will go, but as they watch they see a hippo-sized fungal quadruped - the Hound - chasing them (we pretty much launched right into the Struggle in this scene). Sparky stands up and, realizing this car belongs to one of his coaches, finds a sack of baseballs in the back and hurls them at the creature (Fast). The balls knock chunks of fungus off the creature, but it keeps coming. Quinn stands up and drives Relentlessly, taking a corner and skidding, but the creature crashes through the windows of a coffee shop to keep up the chase.

Tate stands up and, the erratic driving and the repeated sips of Tonic too much for him, barfs out the window at the thing (Perverse). The barf strikes the Hound and, as it's largely Tonic, eats away at its head! The head falls off...but it keeps coming, and its chest opens into a huge, mushroomy maw. 

Sandy figures maybe they can burn it, even just enough to drive it off, by reflecting the sunlight with a mirror, so she breaks off the side-view mirror and reflects the light back (Sun-Lover). The creature smolders a little but doesn't stop. Quinn stands up and loses...and decides she's had enough.

She stomps the break and screeches to a halt, gets out, grabbing a bat, and douses it in Tonic. When the creature runs up, she beats it until it falls apart, the other YOs watching in horror as she brutally and methodically whacks it until it all stops moving. Having sold out Tough to Vicious, she gets back in the car and they get on their way. 

Scene Four: We Won

I set this up, and chose Tate's question to Sandy: “How are you coping with burning my not-mom?” “She wasn’t your mom, she was just a bunch of fungus.”

The clique arrives at the HQ, but right away something is wrong. The whole building is covered with a thin, almost spider-web like coating of mycelia. The splash a little Tonic on the front door to open a path, and inside they find everyone...asleep. 

The Torpor Timeout spores got in here, but how? There's a filtration system. Sandy stands up and uses his skills as a Scavenger to find out; there's a man crumpled under one of the filter slots, with a clean filter and a dirty filter next to him (he was changing the filter and that's when they stuff got in). Tate stands up and wins on Scavenger, and looks around until he finds the blueprints that Quinn's dad was using. Using that as reference they get the filters working away, and people slowly, groggily, start waking up. 

Scene Five: We're Fucked

Sandy's player set this up, and chose Chad (now heavily infected). As everyone is waking back up and figuring out what happened, Sparky gets a text from Chad, calling the YOs out and making fun of them. Sparky tries to answer somewhat politely, but Tate grabs his phone and answers Chad in kind, saying that if he wants to have this out, they're down! They tell him to be at the bleachers, and then start to tool up.

They grab Tonic and a supersoaker, of course, but Quinn's dad also provides a brush-burner. They raid a liquor store (since the people inside are asleep) and steal some grain alcohol (Sparky marvels at how Quinn knows what to take). And then they head for the bleachers.

Right away they can see something is wrong, because they can't see through the bleachers. The entire space underneath them is taken up with ropes and webs of fungus, and there are people wrapped up like they've been caught by spiders - some of them are Sparky's teammates, some are folks the clique knows from around town (Tate recognizes his mailman, Dylan). Chad, for his part, is standing on the ground but half merged with the fungus, and tells the clique how immensely cool this is - you feel so strong and connected!

Sparky stands up and tries to talk Chad down (Trusted), but Chad steps forward a little and sends out little tendrils toward him. Tate stands up and yells at Chad, telling him how lame he looks and how they've managed to beat the Tangle every step (Arrogant). Chad laughs and laughs a softball-sized puffball at Tate's face; it misses and goes paff on the ground behind him. Sandy stands up and loses...and sells out her last Conviction, changing Sun-Lover to Firestarter. 

She hurls a Molotov into the bleachers, heedless of what that means for the people there. The fungus burns, and the people in the bleachers drop to the ground - there are some broken bones, but everyone lives. Except Chad, of course, who burns alive.

Our Second Beat, then is a Reversal: The clique takes down Chad. The answer to the Question is yes, the clique is very much awake.

Scene Six: Who Wins?

Sparky sets this up and chooses the Underground Network. 

As the fires starts to die out and the YOs start working on getting people mobile (Dylan says his mail truck is parked nearby), the streetlights flicker and the PA system crackles to life. "You've become such a bother," says a hollow, inhuman voice. The ground starts to ripple, and little mushrooms start erupting. The Tangle itself seems to be talking to them.

Sandy stands up and lets her own Cloying scent suffuse her, leading her towards the school building. Quinn runs for the parking lot, but slips as fungus pulls at her feet. Tate stands up and once again berates the Tangle (Arrogant), telling that they, a group of four kids, having been holding their own and fighting back. 

"Didn't there used to be five of you?" says the Tangle. Oof.

Quinn stands up and loses...but no way that's happening. She sells out Outrage to Wrathful and, following Sandy, sees that she's walking towards the window to the principal's office. Inside, the room is covered with blue slime mold, and sometimes it moves...sometimes it thinks, and they can feel it. Almost taste it.

Quinn doesn't wait or think. She throws a Molotov into the room and burns the Tangle's brain. The fire quickly spreads to the school building, but the damage is done - all over town, Tendrils collapse but people who are still human spit out spores and reclaim their agency. The clique has won the episode - and the campaign!

Scene Seven: Dust Settles

Quinn's player set this up and chose Sandy's question to Sparky: "Do you ever think of just leaving?" Answer: "No, you don't leave your team."

The clique is driving back into town to get to the HQ. They see that Tendrils in town have burst, spreading fungus up walls and onto the ground (they note with disgust that Perry's body did something similar). But as they pass Tate's dad's restaurant, Tate sees something - someone in the window, moving as though they're fighting something. 

Tate has Quinn stop and runs in, and finds his dad thrashing around trying to expel the spores in his body. Blue gunk is leaking from his mouth; it seems like whatever remains of the slime mold is here! Tate stands up and pours Tonic into his mouth, trying to encourage him to barf up whatever is fighting him (Family Ties), and Sandy stands up and wins on that Conviction. She, too, helps turn him over and expel the gunk, and he flops against the wall, panting, and pulls Tate down into a hug. 

Aftermath

The YOs have destroyed the Tangle, and over the next few days they find that the Tangle had largely cut their town off, but it hadn't spread far. This was just ground zero for its attack, and they managed to stop it before it got out of hand. The Tangle isn't entirely dead (it's far too hard to kill off every single part of the organism), but now that people know what to look for they can burn the slime mold when it shows up. The clique has defeated the Authority and taken back the world. 

The YOs, themselves, go on in their own lives. Sandy doesn't go back to school. Her free, natural way of living has been hit too hard. She becomes something of a hermit, and starts a power-wash company down the line, never quite trusting people or the natural world again. 

Quinn does go back to school, but things don't go well. She starts her own gang and over time engages in various sorts of criminal activities, stealing cars, breaking stuff, and so on. She does have twins at some point, but eventually she winds up in prison. 

Sparky is offered a baseball scholarship at a prestigious school...but turns it down to go to community college. He eventually becomes a teacher and and a baseball coach, and one spring day sees him trying, in vain, to work with a set of twins (one of whom bonks him with a ball). 

Tate starts working in the restaurant after school, and eventually goes to culinary school. He and his family spend a year in France as he learns the craft, and down the line he takes over for his father, running the restaurant. He also goes to therapy to work on managing his anger, until down the road he's only prone to the same outbursts as any other chef. 

And the restaurant does not serve mushrooms of any kind. Just in case.

FIN

Character Creation: League of Seekers

If I heard this title in a vacuum, I'd think it was a pulpy adventure game in the vein of, well, Adventure! or Temples & Tombs or something. Actually, in a vacuum I wouldn't hear anything at all, but you know what I mean.

The Game: League of Seekers
The Publisher: FeralGamersInc? Broken Rat Games? 
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

This game Kickstarted in 2018, it was apparently on DriveThruRPG at one point because it's in my library there, but it's not available for sale anywhere I can see on a cursory glance. And like...yeah, I can kinda see why. 

It reminds me a lot of Dark Aeons, another thoroughly mediocre Lovecraft-inspired game. There are some kernels of interesting stuff, but for the most part it's not doing anything new, and holy hell does this book need an editor. Lots of sentence fragments, misuse of "effect" vs. "affect", and Strong Bad seriously needs to sing the author his Rhythm & Grammar song about "its" vs. "it's." Interestingly, there is no credited editor. 

But never mind that. The game starts out with a timeline that takes us from AD 730 all the way to AD 1765. I think what we're going for here is something like Unhallowed Metropolis where the supernatural has basically taken over, the history talks about "spheres" opening, but it's never quite clear what those mean. Actually if I wasn't as familiar as I am with Lovecraft (and I'm by no means an expert), a lot of that chapter might miss me. 

So we're playing characters who are "Called" or "Awakened" or "Spunky", I forget what the title actually is, and we're working to help protect people from bad shit. And that's not the only way it's like Chill (which is not mentioned in its list of inspirations, and I find that very suspect) - the game system is roll d%, shoot for lower, graduated success based on how much below your stat you roll.

There's some cool-looking artwork in the book, anyway. Cover's pretty dope. Not sure if having "I'll kill you" in funky letters at the bottom of the cover is really in-tone, but whatever. Let's make a character! 

I got all excited because I saw "life paths", but although you could call this chargen system a "life path" system, it's pretty anemic. Better than nothing, though, and it means I don't have to figure out a concept before starting. 

So first we roll to see if we're a peasant, middle class, or noble. Got an 80% chance of peasant, but let's try it...hey, 95! I'm middle class! I could also be a member of the secretive Akhua sect, but it sounds too much like "Hawk Tuah" for me (I'm kidding, I just don't want to bother with the weird shit today). 

I'll note this stuff down later, I know better than to write anything on a character sheet in a lifepath system until things firm up a little. 

My Dark Knowledge starts at 1d6%, whatever that means. Hey, rolled a 6, that's as much I could know!

I get "Logical" as a Trait, and then I can pick Educated, Respected, or Fencer as a Talent. Hell, let's take Fencer. 

Now we roll for a few things:

Birthplace: Town. (As opposed to a city.) I get Commerce 10, Travel 10, Eloquence 1, Fitness 1. 

Education: Church School! That's an interesting combination with Fencer. I get Arcane 1 and Dark Knowledge d6%...hang on, 5, putting me up to 11, meaning I get a point of Insight (again, whatever that means). 

Early Career: Officer. Well, that makes more sense with Fencer. I get Melee, Toughness, and Sneak 10.

Now we do a Tale of Horror! The way this works is that I get a writing prompt, and I take it an run. I can use it to justify a 5% bump to three Skills, but every one after the first also requires a 5% penalty to a Skill (all justified by the Tale). 

Rolling, my prompt is: "As the moon turned red my own men began to change before my eyes...". 

Well, this implies that we were out on campaign or something. Let's say that I was in command of a platoon or whatever, and I'd sent out scouts the day before to find supplies. They found a small lake that contained what seemed to be clean water, so the men camped by it and drank (I and the other officers stuck to our wine, thanks). The lake, it turns out, was connected to...something. The water changed them, they grew...parts that weren't human or even mammalian. The other officers went mad or were swarmed and killed, but I got on my horse and got the hell out. 

So what Skills are implied by this? I think Travel (which covers horse riding), Stealth (because I got away), and Willpower (because I got away and didn't go crazy) all make sense. I need two penalized Skills, though. Let's say Memory (much of his brainspace at any given time is taken up by what he saw) and Diplomacy (talking to people just doesn't come naturally anymore). 

I get a Statement, which just gives me a bonus in a particular situation. Let's say that "I am well-traveled," which gives me a +10% when "recognising other cultures." I don't think "recognize" is the verb you want here, friend. "Oh, look! That culture is German!" Well, whatever, what's next.

Derived traits! Well, guess I should total my Attributes n' shit. Eloquence, Investigate, and Learned start at 4, Fitness, Subterfuge, and Occult at 3, and Conflict and Mind at 2. I get +1 Eloquence and Fitness 'cause I'm from a town, Arcane 1 from my schoolin'. 

Skill Totals: I...huh. I guess how this works is that, for example, for Eloquence, Learned, and Investigate, I get scores of 20, 20, 30, 40, and 50 that I can put into the Skills. There are 5 Skills linked to each Attribute, so presumably I get that spread in each of those categories? This is never explained, and there's no summary or example of chargen. 

Ugh, fine, that means I have to do this for nine different Attributes. Let's start with Conflict (skipping Arcane because evidently I don't get anything in those Skills). I get 5, 5, 10, 20, 30, which is pathetic, but whatevs. I'll put my 30 into Melee, obviously, since I can fence. I'll put the 20 into Ranged, the 10 into Explosives, and 5 into Thrown and Unarmed. I also get a +10 to Melee, so that's 40. 

Eloquence, I get 20, 20, 30, 40, 50, with a -5 in Diplomacy. I'll put my 50 into Etiquette, my 40 into Diplomacy (making it 35), my 30 into Languages, that leaves 20 in Commerce and Deceive. 

Fitness! 10, 10, 20, 30, 40, with a +5 in Travel and a +10 in Toughness. I'll put my 40 in Travel (45), my 30 in Toughness (40), my 30 in Resistance, that leaves 20 in Acrobatics and Athletics. 

Investigate! 20, 20, 30, 40, 50, let's put 50 into Notice, 40 into Search, 30 into Research, 20s in Track and Detect (side note: Detect, Notice, and Search are all discrete skills? Just...why?). 

Learned! 20, 20, 30, 40, 50. Well, 50 into History, 40 into Academia, 30 into Theology, 20s in Mythology and Medical. 

Mind! 5, 5, 10, 20, 30, with a -5 to Memory and a +5 to Willpower. 30 into Cunning, 20 into Willpower (25), 10 into Memory (5), leaving 5 in Dream and Logic.

Occult! 10, 10, 20, 30, 40, why on Earth is this higher than Mind for a Middle Class person? Was "middle class" even a thing in the 18th century? Anyway, 40 into Demonology, 30 into Folk Tales, 20 into Cults, leaving 10 in Divination and Xenology. 

Subterfuge! 10, 10, 20, 30, 40, with a +10 in Sneak and a +5 in Stealth. What on Earth is the difference between Sneak and Stealth? Oh, there isn't actually a Sneak Skill. Probably it was called that at some point and just never changed, must actually mean Stealth, which means I get +15 there. Cool. 40 into Stnealthk (55, making it by far my best Skill), 30 into Tinker, 20 into Forgery, 10s in Disguise and Steal. 

I get a d4 as my experience die and...OK. Every time I get a critical success or failure, I can roll my XP die and bump the Skill by that much. I actually kinda like that. But the die size is based on Mind + Learned. This means that bookworms are better at improving everything, including, say, combat Skills, and who gets a crit isn't meaningfully different, because you get a crit fail by rolling 99 or 00, and a crit success by rolling under the Attribute linked to the Skill you were using (so at best a 5% chance). 

Anyway, my Damage Bonus is also a d4, my Insanity is 12...wait, do you mean Sanity? 'Cause there's no Insanity Trait on the sheet. Whatever. Reason is "the first number of Willpower" JESUS CHRIST DO YOU MEAN THE TENS DIGIT? Ahem. That's 2 for me. Injury is the "first number" of Toughness (4), Wounds are 12 (but that's true for everyone), and Insight is 0 but 1 for me because I have Dark Knowlege (wwooOOOOooooo). 

Now I get a superpower! I'm Awakened, so I get something quasi magical. It's random, so...03 gives me Corpse Tongue, which keys off of Mind. Great, my lowest Attribute. That means I have to roll under 20 to use it. What's it let me do, anyway? Communicate with corpses and ask basic questions. Well, that's not the worst thing I could have rolled; my guy did see a lot of death. 

Oh, Languages. My Learned is 4, so I speak two, obviously English and French (and I probably should read Latin, too, but there's no way to simulate that and I do not care that much). 

OK, so: Jonathan Nelmes attended church school but didn't really have the temperament to be a vicar. He wound up enlisting and becoming an officer through a combination of luck, cleverness, and fencing skill, and when he was finally given his first squad (I'd figure out what war or campaign he was in if I cared, but a) the history of this world is a little screwy because of the monsters and b) I don't) that's when the "everyone's a bug" thing happened. 

Jonathan used to be very put together and clean-cut. He's...rather let himself go. Scraggly hair, uneven beard, dirty hands, he still wears his uniform but it's dirty beyond recognition. Somewhere in here he discovered he can (unreliably) talk to corpses, and that hasn't helped the old mental state any. 

Right, good, done, not a fan of this one. Also there's no reason this sheet couldn't have been a single page.