Character Creation: Cavaliers of Mars

 Hey, let's see if I can do this game without having panic attacks the rest of the day. That'll be a fun game.

The Game: Cavaliers of Mars
The Publisher: Onyx Path Publishing
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

Total accident that this follows Blood Red Sands, which has some of the same inspiration. Cavaliers is "a game of adventure on a dying world." It's arranged like a Savage Worlds book in a lot of ways; a bit of setting up front, character creation, and then the meat of the setting with an emphasis on plot points for use in play. Which is cool and all.

The system looks interesting and deliberately designed, which is always a plus. Reminds me a little of Marvel Heroic, actually. The opening chapter is written in character and it's readable and interesting, which is hard to pull off (it's also short, which is good). I don't know that it's memorable, sadly, because a day later I can't really recall much about it other than the basic conceit. The later setting chapter have some more depth and spice to them, though.

Well, let's make a character and see what happens. My amiga Amanda gave me this song for a character theme ("Trouble," The New Respects):

Actually, if Mars is a dying world, then this song works pretty well. It's a plea for trouble to leave the singer alone, but she also points out that she's tried to live right and it hasn't seemed to work, because shit keeps piling up and is it all really worth it? There's a kind of "normal person pushed to the edge" vibe that I kind of like, there.

Character creation fits entirely on one page - two with an example - although of course there's a lot of context missing. I need to pick an Origin from one of five possibilities: Court, Street, Bazaar, Caravans, or Dust Towns. I think I'll go Dust Towns; from the song I'm getting a kind of wasteland vibe. No place on the sheet for Origin, cool, cool. 

Anyway, I need to name my hometown, but it's not clear whether I'm literally making one up or picking one, and it's not like there's a list. Oh, wait, there's a bit on this in about 20 pages (a "see p. 41" would have been useful, here). OK, there is, in fact, not a list of Dust Towns, but we do get some info on them and I'm making one up. I also pick a question from a list of six to answer, but I think I'll roll for it, actually. "Bandits raided your town in the middle of the night, killing several elders. How did you help the town?" I think my character drove off the bandit's mounts, leaving them stranded as the sun rose. The townspeople caught them and hanged them, but of course that didn't bring the elders back. 

Given that, I'll say that our town is in the northwestern bit of the Cimmerian plains, because I like the description of it and the idea of a fungus that grows on the dead. The Dust Town I'm from is called Stench (the fungus seeps into the water and makes it smell and taste awful; it's not harmful, but it's no fun. You get used to it).

That's Origin, then. Now I pick a Career. Well, I think Laborer makes the most sense, right off the bat. No place to list Careers on the sheet, cool, cool. Oh, no, wait, Careers are Traits, so they can listed there. So is Origin, and it starts at a d6, but the line telling you to rate your Origin as d6 is easy to miss. Right, got it, this is quite a bit like a Cortex game. Oy. I start with a d6 there. I think specifically, he was raised as a farmer (fungus, obvs, growing variants of the corpse-eating shit that are edible). 

Next, I define a relationship with a friend, a lover, or a possession. Hmm. I'll say he's got a whistle he stole from the bandits. It's too high-pitched for people to hear, but many animals seem to respond. The whistle is a d6 at the moment. 

Second Career! Or I could bump Laborer to d8. Hmm. I think Scavenger, actually. That's a d6 for now.

Another Relationship. This one is meant to be to another player's character, but of course it's just me, so I'll say that there's another scavenger out there in the wastes named Siris. Siris and I are rivals, but we'd never do anything violent or truly mean to each other, and we trade goods sometimes. That relationship is a d6 as well.

Third Career, or I can step up one of first two. I'll step up Scavenger to d8, I like the way that's heading.

OK, now I step up any two previous traits (or one trait up twice). OK, I'll bump Laborer up to d8 and Origin up to d8. 

And then I name a Trouble. Is this also a Trait? No other slot for it. Doesn't seem to be, there's no die assigned to it. Ah, well, there's a notes section. I think my guy's Trouble is that he's Losing Faith in People. He grew up in a small town where folks had to rely on each other, but everyone was so gung-ho to see those bandits die. Maybe people are just all bloodthirsty assholes, at the end of the day?

Motivations and Methods! These are basically your main stats. Interesting to do them at the end of chargen, but kinda makes sense, really - background first, with mechanical weight, and then the "core" stuff (mechanically speaking). Anyway, the Motivations are For Love, For Honor, and For Self, while Methods are With Cunning, With Force, and With Grace. I get a d6, d8, and d10 to split between each set. 

Well, I think that For Honor is his d10, at least for now. For Love and For Self...I think I'll put them at d6 and d8, respectively. Love and friendship isn't his big motive, and it's getting weaker.

Methods: Well, Cunning is clearly the d10, and then I think I'll put Grace at d8 and Force at d6. 

Paths! These give me XP. No spot for them on the sheet (jeez, this is not especially well-designed). Well, anyway, I'll take Path of Lamentation (I get XP when I commemorate something lost) and the Path of Bloody Knives (I get XP when I kill shit). I think that's enough conflict between paths that it shows off his inner conflict of wanting to be useful but becoming more misanthropic (lord, this would be hard to play, I hate misanthropy). 

Talents! I get four, two of which have to be from my Careers. Well, I'll take Scrapper (I can bop somebody good with a hammer) and...hmm. I think I'll take Friends in Low Places. It wasn't my initial thought, but I think I like this guy kind of slowly falling in with criminals, and letting that accelerate his slide towards disliking people on principle (or not!). 

And then two more, which can come from any list. I'll take Taste of Poison (I'm from Stench, after all), which allows me to identify poisons. I'll take Blade Carrier, too (I always have a weapon or useful item on me).

Just a name and a description, then! His name Yain. Lean, black hair that falls in his eyes, perpetually bored or annoyed expression, but every now and then you can catch him smiling at people (parents and children, couples, other expressions of the good side of humanity). He has no love at all for bandits and pirates - stealing from the dead is fine, they don't need it, but stealing from the living is just a slower way to murder. Yain is 100% anti-murder...but that position is softening (note the Path he's on). 

And that'll do it. 

Character Creation: Blood Red Sands

Kinda got out of my rhythm, here. I blame Subnautica. 

The Game: Blood Red Sands
The Publisher: Galileo Games
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

Man, this game breaks my heart. Not because of any criticism I have of it - far from it, I'd really love to play it. The problem, though, is that it's GMless and competitive, and the only way it would work is if all players read the book, learn the rules, and (here's the biggie) take initiative. I have some players who could do it, but I don't think I could get them all into the same group, much less the nine times it would take to play through a Saga. Alas. Maybe someday. 

Anyway, Blood Red Sands is very much a sword-and-sorcery, kinda Conan/John Carter inspired sort of thing. It's meant to be violent and brutal, and players are encouraged to play to win. That's so uncommon in an RPG; mostly we're told that the story or the fun is paramount, and the rules should be jettisoned if need be. Even in PbtA games, where the rules aren't treated as optional but there's fewer of 'em, the game is a "conversation" and collaboration is key (one of the principles of most PbtA games is "be a fan of the characters"). 

Here, however, there's a winner and a loser, and if you lose a Saga you're outright told that you kinda suck at this and you get a penalty if you play another Saga. With the right group, I can see this being a lot of fun.

Anyway, I'm gonna make a Hero character. We start by building the Hero Component (everything in this game is made of Components, each of which is made of dice, each die has an Aspect and a Trait). I need to use six dice to make this Component, and I get a set of dice: 4d10, 4d8, 4d6, 4d4. 

Well, I need to have at least a little bit of a concept before I start, but at the end of the day every Hero is a lone wanderer looking to take revenge on one of the Witch Kings.

OK, cool. I want to play a kind of "Dark Wanderer" character, someone who can't speak. He's simply called "the Silent Warrior". Long cloak, hood over his face, walks hunched over so he's taller than he looks at first. Good start, now I can think about Traits. I need one of them to be a d4 because I get one Legendary Trait to start, and it has to be a d4, and I want to put it here rather than in the next step. It has to relate to how the Silent Warrior became an aimless wanderer. I think I want him to be the last survivor of an assault by one of the Witch Kings on his home, and because it's just me, I'll say that Witch King was Aedina, Eater of Magic. Her forces drained the life from the village, and my character was left breathing in the choking fog. He survived, but his voice was gone. I'll call that Trait "Stolen Voice." Needs an Aspect, which should pretty clearly be Fortitude (rather than Force or Finesse).

Right, that's done. Now, five more Traits! I want the Silent Warrior to be a grim, unrelenting warrior, and I think it'd be cool if he didn't usually use weapons, at least up close. Have a bow would be cool, though. I also want him to have no fear of magic (not to say it can't hurt him, he's just not afraid of it and resistant to it). Let's set up his Traits this way:

Relentless in Battle 1d10 Force
Needs No Weapon 1d10 Force
Does Not Fear Magic 1d10 Blessed (this is a Sorcery Aspect, so I have to discard my last d10)
Marksman and Hunter 1d8 Finesse
Terrifying Countenance 1d8 Force

Cool! Lots of Force. So now I get a Feature. Features are external things; weapons, mounts, and so on. I want a companion, a terrified old man that the Silent Warrior pressed into service to be his voice. For some reason that we'd probably want to explore in play, he can "hear" the Warrior's intent and desires. He's terrified of the Warrior and wants to be free of him, but feels he can't, at least not yet. His name is Greymoch. 

I need to give Greymoch 2 to 4 Traits. I'll say he Hears the Warrior's Heart (1d6 Soul Fused, so I discard a d6). I'll say he's Observant (1d8 Finesse). And I think that'll do for right now; I could give him more Traits, but I'd want to be able to flesh him out in play.

All that remains, then, is an origin story:

The Silent Warrior was once a simple hunter and villager. He brought back meat for his family and the others in his town, but none of them knew their town sat on a wellspring of powerful magic. Aedina the Magic Eater arrived one moonless night, and her forces came as a choking fog, killing everyone and everything in the village...except him. The fog burned his throat and his soul, destroying his voice, but also robbing him of any fear of magic. He took up his bow and began wandering the lands, but he had no focus until he met an unassuming man named Greymoch. Greymoch could hear the Warrior's heart, if not his thoughts, and he knew that what the Warrior truly wanted, above all, was to see Aedina choked to death on her own stolen power. When Greymoch voiced this, the Warrior nodded, and beckoned to the old man, and the old man followed.

And that about does it, actually. Everything else on the sheet would get filled in during the Ordeals, assuming the Warrior lived through them.

Masks: Walk the Line, Issue Three

End of arc. Wooo! Here's last session. 

The heroes are in the Dead, facing off against Lady Faust. She gestures and multiple duplicates appear. Jade Eagle flies up and blasts them all with her eyebeams, destroying the illusions. Faust deflects the beam, and Pyre zooms over, turns his hands to rock, and punches her.

Or, rather, tries. He flies right through her and she taps him on the back of the neck. He falls forward, his soul being wrenched out his body. Moonlight wraps Faust in chains and she drops Pyre, and works her magic on the chains, turning them red and getting into Moonlight's head.

Jade Eagle uses her eyebeams to blast the bloodstone around Faust's neck. The stone doesn't crack, but the chain breaks and the stone falls to the ground. Faust glares at Jade Eagle and she feels madness clawing at her mind. Moonlight tries to drain vitality from Faust, but finds nothing - it's like trying to drink a shadow. The chains fall away and Moonlight staggers back. 

Pyre runs over, changes his hands to metal and tries to smash the bloodstone. The stone cracks, and Faust screams in rage, and then yells "Arise, Baal!" A monstrous demon with a club rises up out of the stone and smacks Pyre, knocking him back. He smashes into a crypt, but Jade Eagle takes the opportunity to zip in and grab the stone. 

Pyre shakes himself off and turns himself into a massive firestorm. He flies toward Baal, and Moonlight has time to realize that attack a demon with fire probably isn't going to work. The demon grabs the fire, crumbles it up, and inhales it, trapping Pyre within the demon's form. Jade Eagle, meanwhile, feels blood leaking from the stone, and feels her hand growing wet. 

Moonlight realizes that down here in the Dead, he's more powerful than usual - probably more powerful that anyone here, even Faust. He allows his true power to come to the fore, and grows to a giant size. He punches Baal and he exhales Pyre, and then conjures a platform made of moonlight and pulls everyone (except Baal) onto it. He gestures at Faust and she passes out, and raises everyone up.

They reappear on Earth, in Halcyon City Memorial Cemetery. Moonlight's power fades back to normal levels. Sol's powers, meanwhile, start to return, and she blazes with fire and hovers, glowering at Moonlight. Moonlight, for his part, tells her that while their death and merger might be inevitable, that doesn't mean they have to rush it. They're in high school, they should take the time to live first. Sol is unconvinced at first, but then Jade Eagle and Pyre stand with Moonlight, and Sol snaps "Fine, see you in school" and flies off.

Jade Eagle breaks the bloodstone, and the fragments shower her hands. Her hands still feel wet, and she wonders if breaking the stone with her bare hands was wise.

Still wondering what happened between Faust and Sol, Moonlight wakes up Faust and has Pyre hold her. He asks her what happened, and Faust demands to know what happened to the stone. Jade Eagle tells her the stone is broken, and Faust howls in anguish and weeps. Moonlight tries to ask her about Sol, but she just lashes out and says that nothing matters anymore, and Moonlight lets it go.

Jade Eagle calls AEGIS, and they come out to collect Faust. Conners asks Jade Eagle what happened, and she tells her to talk to Moonlight - it was really his show. Moonlight explains what happened, and Conners reveals that according to her instruments, Faust doesn't have any powers anymore (Pyre breathes a sigh of relief). AEGIS takes Faust away, leaving the heroes alone with Nightingale. 

They decide to head home and meet up tomorrow. Pyre tries to summon his ship, but then they all remember that it's still in the Place Between ("I knew we forgot something," says Moonlight). He says he needs a place to stay, and Moonlight tells him to ask Nightingale. She says that the "Nest" (the sanctuary) is Moonlight's now, so if he wants to let Pyre stay there, that's fine. Moonlight agrees, and everyone heads home.

The next day, they meet up for lunch and cake, and celebrate their victory. They tell Pyre some ways to fit in a little, and Jade Eagle introduces him to shaved ice, but notices that her hands still have bloodstone fragments on them...and still feel a little sticky. We fade out on Pyre telling the others about his experiences visiting other planets and seeing strange creatures and peoples. 

Movie #589: Reality Bites

Reality Bites is a so-90s-it-hurts comedy/romantic drama directed by Ben Stiller and starring Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, Steve Zahn, Janeane Garofalo, Stiller, Joe Don Baker, and Swoosie Kurtz. 

Lelaina (Ryder), Troy (Hawke), Sammy (Zahn), and Vickie (Garofalo) graduate from college in Houston - Lelaina as valedictorian - and set about trying to...be adults, I guess? Kind of? Lelaina works as a production assistant for an impossibly cheesy morning news host (John Mahoney), and films her friends in her spare time, spinning the footage together into a documentary-ish sort of thing. Does she want to be a documentarian? Not really, she just kind of wants to be an artist. Likewise, Troy fronts a band. Does he want to be a musician? Not really, he just kind of wants to be in a band. Sammy's life status is unclear, other than "gay, but closeted because he doesn't want to come out to his parents," and Vickie works retail and goes in for casual sex, though she doesn't seem happy about it.

In case it's not clear, I realized I hated all of these people within about the first 10 minutes of the movie. It doesn't happen much that I hate the whole cast so much and so quickly. 

But then in comes Michael (Stiller)! Michael is a young TV producer who works for "MTV yet edgier" In Your Face (kinda TMZ-ish, actually). He starts up a relationship with Lelaina, and winds up showing one of her tapes to the network, they love it, want to air it, but they cut it to pieces, make it edgy (and dumb), and of course she's furious and betrayed. Also, she and Troy have been in love forever and never quite manage to do anything about, nominally because they're best friends but mostly, I suspect, because Troy is a legitimately terrible person and Lelaina has eyes. 

Of course, this being a rom-whatever, she eventually takes leave of her good sense, bangs Troy, leaves Michael, and then starts a relationship with Troy, which is where the movie ends, them living together in an apartment (how are they affording it? Have they resolved any of their very real issues? WHO KNOWS YOU SAY I ONLY HEAR WHAT I WANT TO).

I know that this movie is kinda regarded as a voice of my generation, and maybe that's why I hate it so much. I think it's possible that if I had seen this movie when it came out (1994, when I was 20), and I was angry all the time and utterly convinced of how smart I was in comparison to everyone else but also full of self-loathing so rich and creamy you could spread it on a bagel that I might have identified. But honestly, like, these people are awful. Vickie and Sammy are the best of them, but that's mostly because they don't have much to do. Sammy has one pivotal scene where he comes out to his mother (and we see the fallout), and Vickie has an arc where she's afraid she's contracted HIV, but it never really goes anywhere.

Meanwhile, our main characters, Lelaina and Troy...man. They both want to make art, but they don't want to put in the work. Lelaina even calls Troy out on it - if you want to be in a band, then fucking practice, all the time, bust your ass getting gigs, make it work, but she does the same thing. She makes her tapes, but then doesn't even check to see what's being done with the material before it debuts? She must have signed a contract, right? Hell, Wayne's World was more on point than this.

And then there's Troy's general attitude. Supposedly he's a genius, but he dropped out of college before getting a philosophy degree, and now he's been fired from a dozen odd jobs, so like, he's a 20-something slacker who can't hold a job, is convinced of his own intelligence, studied philosophy, and plays in a grunge band. I was actually annoyed that he made it through the movie without anyone punching him, because he's a sarcastic, arrogant, borderline-abusive dirtbag who we're meant to think is a tortured artist, I guess?

Anyway, it's taken us weeks to watch this, because every time we scheduled it evening would roll around and one of us would suggest doing something else that we really wanted to do. But rules are rules. Now it's done, thank goodness, on we go.

My Grade: F
Rewatch Value: IINSIAIFWT

Next up: Rebel Without a Cause

Cairn: Discordant Tree

Kind of a short session of Cairn today, between one thing and another. Here's last time.

The characters are in the forest. Snootabur and Rumdiggle are at the bottom of the mysterious tree, and while Snootabur just licked some fruit juice off her paws and felt a little funny, Rumdiggle actually ate one and is now at the base of the tree babbling ("I'm gonna be the biggest bear!"). Ratatosk, having taken all the samples, scampers down the tree. He begins taking notes about Rumdiggle's condition, and the characters realize that if this is happening to anyone who eats the fruit, that's not a great outcome.

Ratatosk scampers back up and uses his druid magic to talk to one of the (unAwakened) birds in the tree. The bird tells him that the tree has been here for "many nests," but that it never fruited until recently. He asks if the fruits are dangerous, and the bird cheerfully says "no," but Ratatosk muses that the birds might not eat the fruit, and don't have the wherewithal to consider that they might be dangerous to others. 

Rumdiggle slowly begins to come down, but the high is replaced by an ugly, displaced feeling ("I feel like I'm over there"). Russelet glances up into the tree and thinks he hears a lilting voice saying "take the fruit, take all you want". Rumdiggle suspects that if she eats another fruit, she'll feel better...and lo, another fruit drops to the ground next to her. The characters realize that if they toss a fruit away, another one falls.

Ratatosk sends Glimmer, his pet hoverwing (hummingbird) up into the tree to watch, and tosses a fruit away. Another fruit falls, but Glimmer swirls down and flies unsteadily. He clearly sampled some of the fruit, but he is able to tell Ratatosk that the fruit just appeared like magic.

The characters decide to head back to Cairn (Rumdiggle rides on Whistle's cart and sleeps, with Glimmer on his tummy). They arrive back in town and split up - Whistle, Rumdiggle, and Snootabur head to the Cider Mill Inn for a snack, while Russelet flits up to a rooftop and listens to gossip and Ratatosk races to talk to Asta Ringrunner, the alchemist. 

Russelet hears many animals asking each other whether Whistle has brought any fruit today. Some of them are distressed, but polite, but others (particularly down by the Root) are getting angry and grumbly about it. 

Ratatosk pounds on Asta's door and, when he answers, tells him a very squirrel-ish version of the story ("Magic fruit! Makes happy, then dis-associative!") and sets to analyzing it with his alchemist skills. He learns that the fruit does indeed have intoxicant properties, but moreover, it would cause Disharmony and addiction, especially over multiple uses. As a druid, he's able to identify the magic as something kind of similar to his own, but not quite - maybe talking to the dryad in the tree would help. 

Ratatosk scampers back to the Cider Mill frantically, and Russelet follows. They talk to Rumdiggle, and tell her what they've learned. They decide that they'll get some sleep first (they're all exhausted) and then Rumdiggle is going to hold a kind of impromptu berry fest, sing some songs extolling the virtues of fruits that don't cause addiction, and generally try to raise the town's spirits. Russelet is going to stay with her for security purposes. Meanwhile, Ratatosk and Snootabur will head back to the tree and see if they can talk with the dryad. 

First, however, naptime.

Masks: Walk the Line, Issue Two

Here's last time, on we go. 

The heroes have learned that Nightingale is stuck in the Place Between, but they aren't sure how to find that. Pyre checks the coordinates of the places that she's tried to contact Moonlight to establish a point of reference, while Jade Eagle calls Casey. She tells him what they're up to, and he warns her to be careful - last time they went dimension hopping, they brought back a Photovore invasion. She acknowledges this, and they board the ship and vanish.

They appear after a journey that, to Pyre's mind, only took about half as long as he'd have thought. But FLICKER, his ship's AI, confirms that they're in the Place Between and that atmospheric conditions are favorable to human life. They disembark the ship and look around - this place is weird. It's composed of hallways, archways, doorways, and such, and they always seem to be standing just on the horizon. It's temperate - not hot or cold - and dimly lit. Pyre flies up to try and get a bird's-eye view, but when he does, the whole world adjusts. They all feel the world lurch, and Jade Eagle comes to the conclusion that she really hates it here. She thinks, perhaps, that Casey was right - this is too far out of her wheelhouse. Pyre, meanwhile, feels like this isn't too dissimilar to some other world he's seen. Moonlight feels like this is one more weirdness in the weird parade that is his life. 

The heroes try to figure out how to find Nightingale. Jade Eagle listens carefully for birdsong, but there are no quiet sounds, or loud sounds, just sounds. Moonlight reconfigures his vocal apparatus to make the sounds himself, and then hears and answering call. They all follow the sound, and soon come upon Nightingale, sitting on a bench, waiting for them. 

She and Moonlight reunite ("Aunt Lily!"), and they tell her they've come to take her home. She refuses, though - she's here to try and avoid Charlie's doom. Moonlight and Sol are destined, supposedly, to destroy each other and then become something new, but Nightingale feels that they don't need to accept this. Moonlight tells her that this is fate, and it's not something they should mess with, but Nightingale says that he's 16 and what does he know about "the way things are?" Moonlight shuts her down - he knows what his fate is, and she doesn't get to decide it. 

Pyre tries to call up FLICKER, but she tells him that she isn't able to get a fix on him and her programming has been overriden. They head back to the ship, but find it's been overgrown with tendrils of black glass. Pyre changes his fist to rock to punch through it, but the glass shatters and then reforms. Pyre gets in the ship and talks to FLICKER, who tells him that something is preventing her from shifting the ship out of phase, and that there are two other sentient beings around. 

Meanwhile, outside, the others note that it's getting warmer, to the point that Nightingale is sweating. This shouldn't be happening, of course, it never gets "warm" here. And then they see a humanoid figure, burning so brightly they can't quite make it out, appear - Sol. 

Sol says that she's here to embrace her fate with Moonlight, and throws a whole bunch of fire at him. Moonlight puts up a shield, but the fire burns through it, and he yells for someone to help him. Pyre emerges from the ship and blasts water at Sol, but it just evaporates. 

Jade Eagle yells to Sol to think of her mother, and that confuses her for a minute. Moonlight tells her to calm down, and how did she get here, anyway? Sol tries to burn brighter, but Moonlight siphons off some of her energy and anger, and she lands, calling out to someone for help. She tries, but can't quite seem to catch fire again. 

She tells Moonlight that their destiny has been explained to her, that the two of them can die gloriously and something new can be born, something beautiful. Moonlight says that he's in no hurry for that to happen, and anyway, how did Sol learn about all this? Sol says that she made a deal, and Moonlight confirms that it was with the mysterious woman in blue. At this point, the characters look around and notice that Nightingale has gone missing. 

A moment later, Ghostheart steps from the shadows, and tells them all to stop testing the boundaries. This place, the Place Between, is the boundary between Life and Death (among other things), and by changing things they're damaging that barrier. He snaps his fingers and returns Nightingale (who says she was in some formless black void, but isn't sure how she got there), and tells them to get gone. Nightingale refuses - she still wants to save Charlie, and she's been here too long to leave now. She says she's made some progress, but it's been incremental - this place doesn't take kindly to sudden change.

The woman in blue is mentioned again, and Nightingale identifies her - Lady Faust. Pyre asks who Lady Faust is, and she responds "me" as she steps out of nothing. She reveals that she brought Sol here and changed the rules of the place so that she and Moonlight could realize their destiny. Ghostheart demands she leave, but she simply waves a hand and turns him to stone.

Moonlight talks with Sol, trying to suss out exactly what she agreed to, and Jade Eagle sidles over to Pyre and tells him to change Ghostheart back - she can sense his mind in the statue somewhere, so he just needs a little nudge. Pyre does, and Ghostheart reappears. "You want to ignore the rules, Faust? Fine," he says, and grows to a hundred feet tall. He swings his hand down and strikes them all. Jade Eagle swoops up her team, Sol, and Nightingale to protect them, but Pyre, trying to protect himself by turning to metal, panics. 

Moonlight comes to in a strange world. It's an immense cemetery, but every grave is open with a staircase leading down. He sees his team (plus Sol and Nightingale), all as metal statues, including himself. He looks at his hands and realizes he's just a spectre made of moonlight. If he could revive Pyre, Pyre could probably change them back, he thinks.

He sees Lady Faust, and she sees him. She walks through the cemetery like a kid in a candy store, and when he speaks to her, she says they're in the Dead. She tells him that she'd be happy to change the others back, but Moonlight is in no mood to make a deal with her. He floats back to the statues and coaxes Pyre's mind back, whereupon he stretches and becomes flesh again. He changes everyone back, but Sol looks kind of worse for the wear. Moonlight realizes that this is probably because she is an embodiment of light, life, and fire, and there is nothing like that here in the Dead.

Jade Eagle asks if they are dead, and Nightingale points out her own grave behind her, except that the "death" date is missing and there's no staircase. So they're all still alive, but stuck here. Pyre's ship isn't here and FLICKER isn't answering. Jade Eagle tells Sol and Moonlight to try and figure this out, and Moonlight figures that he's strong enough to just lift them out...but then they hear a scream.

They follow it, and see Lady Faust walking up out of a grave. Her lips are full and red, and the blood-colored stone around her neck is glowing. They realize that she probably just consumed someone's soul, and tell her she needs to stop, but she refuses, and asks what exactly they're going to do about it?

Next time, we'll see what they can do about it.

Character Creation: World of Tales from the Crypt

Guess what, boils and ghouls! It's time once again to delve into the frightful process of scareacter creation! With a few strokes of a pen (or a sword, an an ax - whatever works!) we can create a pitiful protagonist to fold, spindle, and mutilate! And I'm not just talking about the character sheet!

OK, I'm not going to try and do this whole thing as the Cryptkeeper.

The Game: The World of Tales From the Crypt
The Publisher: West End Games
Degree of Familiarity: None with the game, watched the show and the movies
Books Required: Tales from the Crypt and the Masterbook core

Much like The World of Species, this game is a Masterbook setting. I admit that I wasn't hopeful about it when I started reading. I don't know why (probably because of when the game was made?), but I was expecting a fairly generic horror game. Instead, though, the game really embraces the episodic format of the show, and provides a framework for jumping from setting to setting. Basically the PCs all got the Cryptkeeper's attention and he's got them trapped in his manor, putting them in "shells" to amuse himself and have them run mysterious errands. Death might or might not be permanent, and you might even be able to escape, someday.

Also, characters are assumed to have some kind of flaw, which is entirely appropriate to the source material. Protagonists in Tales from the Crypt (and the EC horror comics that inspired it) weren't usually good people, and even the ones who were tended to be profoundly unlucky. I think this game could actually be a lot of fun. 

With all of that in mind, let's do a character! I had a kind of half-formed concept. I want to make a character who killed someone in a roundabout way, maybe by sabotaging a car or something, but who has no stomach for violence or blood. Actually, yeah, I got it. 

My character's name is Walt Creighton. He works as a mechanic in a mom n' pop garage (perhaps in the town of Gainesford, which is the included setting in the book). His boss is - rather, was - a highly unpleasant bully named Chris "Beef" Wellington. Beef's dad hired Walt, but then died and left the place to his son, and Beef couldn't fire Walt - he's too good of a mechanic and he likes tormenting him too much. Walt, for his part, is a bit of a milquetoast, shies away from conflict, and gets sick or faints at the sight of blood. What he is good at, however, is his job, and one day after Beef ripped off a bandage on Walt's hand just to gross him out, Walt decided he'd had enough. He sabotaged Beef's car the next day, said car crashed into a telephone pole, and now Beef's widow, whom Walt has always had a stammering crush on, owns the shop. Everything's coming up Walt.

(Except, of course, that Walt's going to find himself a pawn of the Cryptkeeper, so, y'know, them's the brakes! Hehehehehehe!) Ahem.

That's good for concept, on we go to Attributes. I get 68 points to split between the 8 attributes, which are Agility, Dexterity, Endurance, Strength, Intellect, Mind, Confidence, and Charisma. (Note that if I were playing Walt in a Tales From the Crypt campaign, his physical attributes would change as he jumps from shell to shell.)

Well, I know that Dexterity, Intellect, and Mind should be Walt's strengths, while Strength and Confidence should be lower than average. Everything else can be pretty much on par, I guess (I think it's interesting that the system splits Confidence and Charisma; likeability is the latter, but strength of personality is the former, making it quite possible for Walt to be trustworthy and "nice" while still being kinda spineless). 

Agility 7
Dexterity 11
Endurance 7
Strength 6
Intellect 11
Mind 12
Confidence 6
Charisma 7

This means my Toughness is 8, and I've got 5 Life Points. I get 23 skill points, which I use to buy skill adds. So let's allocate skills thusly:

Stealth 3
Dodge 3
Lock Picking 1
Vehicle Piloting (Car/Truck) 3
Vehicle Piloting (Motorcycle) 3
Deduction 2
Perception 3
Navigation 1
Vehicle Mechanic (Car/Truck) 3
Specialization: Sabotage 2

And now, Advantages and Compensations. These are arranged in tiers, and I get 3 Column I, 2 Column II, and one Column III, and a matching set of Compensations (flaws, y'know). I already have my Column III Compensation, though; in this game everyone has Enemy (The Cryptkeeper). Let's do Compensations first, since I know more or less what I want. I'll take a Quirk (CII): "Faints/vomits at the sight of blood," and another Quirk (CII) "Hatred of bullies." For the CIs, I'll take Prejudice (Walt is an obvious easy target and he attracts dickheads), Employed (this is kind of cheap since we're not likely to be in-setting where Walt works, but whatever, a bunch of the sample characters have it), and Handicap (Asthma, affects Endurance). 

And now the useful stuff! For my CIs, I'll take Skill Bonus (Vehicle Piloting and Vehicle Mechanic), Equipment (Walt always seems able to find tools), and Skill Adds (I'll take Science/Mechanical). 

For the CIIs, I'll take Additional Skills (and bump Science up to 3), and Trademark Specialization (Sabotage is now +3). 

For my CIII, I'll take Additional Attribute Point and bump up Dexterity. 

And that's everything! Description time! Walt is short and skinny. Like most mechanics, he's constantly greasy, but he's cleaner than most because he wears eye protection coveralls and generally tries to keep from getting too grimy (which Beef used to make fun of, before his unfortunate jaunt around Dead Man's Curve!). He has thinning brown hair and dull gray eyes, and he flosses diligently.