Cairn: Up the River

Today we played Cairn. Virtually, of course, because absent actual leadership in this country the pandemic numbers are surging again, but hey. Both parties are the same. 

Anyway, it's been a couple of months since our fuzzy heroes talked a dryad down from being Dire. Ratatosk has been making invigorating potions and sleeping draughts, and he and Russelet have found a way to soak arrows in the latter to make sleep arrows (though they haven't really tested them yet, Ratatosk is pretty sure they'll work). Rumdiggle continues to sing at the Cider Mill Inn, and Snootabur is tending her worm farm. 

On this particular evening, a lazy, warm, summer dusk, Ratatosk is hanging out with Asta Ringrunner, his mentor. Ratatosk has noticed that Asta seems preoccupied, and as the sun starts to set, Asta tells Ratatosk to run an errand for him - go gather up his three compatriots and bring the to the Observatory. 

Ratatosk scampers off and finds Snootabur tending her garden. They get into a brief discussion about compost materials before Ratatosk remembers why he's there, delivers the message, and zips off.

He runs into Rumdiggle on her way to the Inn and tells her to go to the Observatory as soon as she can; she goes to the Inn and arranges for someone else to do the entertaining for the evening. Ratatosk finds Russelet at the archery range he's set up near the Inn, and tells him about the Observatory. Russelet flutters off and listens to the gossip in town, and hears that Professor Puddleleaf (who runs the Observatory) has been building something near the river, but no one knows what.

The characters meet up at the Observatory and are welcomed in by Professor Puddleleaf, a beaver and absent-minded inventor. Asta Ringrunner shows up as well, and Puddleleaf shows the character his problem - a tetrahedral crystal with a purple sheen and a pure black sphere in the middle. It radiates Disharmony and makes them all uncomfortable. Puddleleaf admits that he made it to absorb the Disharmony in Cairn, and it was working, but now it's started to leak. His research indicates that the druids at the Rock Circle could probably help destroy it, but the Rock Circle is a long ways off. Puddleleaf has built a boat to travel up the Swiftwater River to the base of Highpeak Mountain, but then he would need to travel overland to the Rock Circle. He knows that the characters are stalwart Favored of good character, and he needs help getting it up there. 

Snootabur agrees, but does ask Puddleleaf if he's realized that this isn't the way to work through Disharmony. He sheepishly acknowledges this, and the other characters agree to come along. Puddleleaf asks them not to reveal the true purpose of the trip, and they all decide to leave tomorrow night.

The characters spend the rest of the night and the next day preparing. Snootabur asks Whistle Shimmerborn to tend her garden. Rummy tells Alyere Loregood, who runs the Cider Mill Inn, that she'll be gone a while. Russelet has his protege Ladd Ringtail keep the rumor mill from getting too worked up, and Ratatosk prepares multiple bottles and sample jars. 

The next evening, they meet by the river and Puddleleaf unveils his boat. He says he didn't have a chance to name it, so he asks the characters for idea. Rumdiggle suggests "Cairn on the Run," but Snootabur points out it's really on the river, so Cairn on the River it is! They climb about and head up the Swiftwater.

A few hours in, they feel a thump below the boat. Russelet and Snootabur keep their footing, but Ratatosk and Rumdiggle tumble towards the edge. Snootabur catches Ratatosk and Russelet tosses a bag of provisions in the way to stop Rumdiggle from falling in. He takes to the sky and spots two shapes swimming by the boat - they look like beavers. 

Rummy and Ratatosk peer over the edge of the boat, and the beavers surface quickly and yell "ARRRRGH!" at them. Rumdiggle, in the way of her people, faints dead away. Ratatosk leaps straight up and grabs a tree branch to keep from falling in the water, and scampers along the treeline keeping pace. Snootabur swings her staff at one of the beavers, but it submerges out of the way. The beavers start taunting Puddleleaf about his Observatory and his inventions. 

Ratatosk, from the tree, bops one of them with an acorn and tells them to leave them alone. One of them looks back and says, "yeah, who are you?" Ratatosk hucks another acorn and says "I'm the squirrel throwing acorns at you!" He jumps off the tree and lands on the boat, and calls up the spirits of the river to propel them away. 

Russelet, up in the sky, swoops down and catches up, and as day breaks the characters moor the boat and try to get some sleep. They wake up feeling a little grouchy and drained - the prism is having an effect. As they set off down the river, Rumdiggle starts playing her lute and singing, and the others join in. Russelet notices Puddleleaf standing on the bow of the boat looking forlorn. He walks up to the beaver and engages him in a discussion about how sound carries different underwater, and what kinds of musical instruments you could use making use of that. Rumdiggle points out that he could also slap his tail on the water to keep the beat, and Puddleleaf tries it, and gets into the song, too.

They're having a grand old time, and Snootabur, standing at the front of the boat, notices a pearlescent web spanning the river. She nocks an arrow and shoots it, breaking it in half, but Ratatosk, eager for a sample, grabs it and sticks fast. The characters notice a weaver (a big ol' spider) crawl out of the rocks on the bank and start hauling in the web. Russelet fires an arrow and snaps the web, and the boat drifts on as the spider starts rebuilding its net. Ratatosk scrapes the webbing off his paw, excited about a sample but less so about losing fur.

They make camp again that morning, and as they're doing so they hear something very large approaching. A ripper (bear) emerges from the woods and lumbers down to the water, drinks a bit, and then slaps a fish out of the water and eats it. Ratatosk and Russelet head into a tree, but Rumdiggle, resisting the urge to faint, walks up to the bear and talks to it (she's a shifter, and has an affinity for rippers). She can't exactly converse with it, but she lets it know that she's friendly and she means it no harm. She indicates the boat and says that they'll be on their way soon, and the bear starts walking toward the boat...and the prism. Rumdiggle intervenes just in time and convinces the bear to watch over them as they sleep. The bear cracks open a big dead tree to reveal a feast of termites, which of course makes Rumdiggle and Snootabur very happy. 

The next evening, the ripper snuffles at them and heads into the woods, and they get back on the boat, feeling, again, a little worn out. Puddleleaf tells them that they should reach the end of the river sometime before the next sunset, and then they'll need to travel overland. None of them are much looking forward to that leg of the journey...

Movie #597: The Ring

The Ring is a supernatural horror movie starring Naomi Watts, David Dorfman, Martin Henderson, Brian Cox, and Daveigh Chase. It's based on a Japanese movie which is based on a Japanese novel, but I don't know nothing about that.

Two teenagers, Katie and Becca, (Amber Tamblyn and Rachael Bella) exchange an urban legend about a videotape that kills anyone who watches it seven days later. Turns out poor Katie watched it a week ago, and indeed, dies shortly after their conversation. Her aunt Rachel (Watts) is a sassy investigative journalist, and so her mother (Lindsay Frost) asks Rachel to find out what the hell really happened to Katie. And thus begins a quest that leads Rachel, and then her ex Noah (Henderson), and then her (their) son Aidan (Dorfman) to watch the tape, each one getting the eerie phone call relaying the message: "Seven days."

I enjoy this movie. It's a fun, scary ghost story, and framing it as Rachel's investigation into what's happening and letting her experience the progressive haunting that follows is pretty effective. Also, for a movie that needs to unfold over a week but keep the tension high, it does a good job (now, it does that by only showing us relevant bits on the days leading up to Rachel's "deadline"). The backstory behind Samara (Chase), the unfortunate girl whose murder turned her into a powerful specter, is simultaneously haunting and tragic, and her relationship with her mother (Shannon Cochran) dovetails nicely with Aidan's rather strained relationship with Rachel. And we get to see a menacing and kind of sad performance from Brian Cox as Samara's father (I noted, with some amusement, that his haunted comments about "the things she'd show you" were pretty similar to the ones he'd make the next year in X2). 

A movie about a cursed videotape seems kind of quaint in 2020, but I think that as the movie ages, that feeling is going to fade and we look at VHS in much the same way we see microfiche and other outdated media in other movies - not something still available but laughably out of use, but a technology from the era in which the movie was made and therefore part of the story. 

Never seen the sequels, so I don't know if they hold up, but The Ring remains one of my favorite "this could be a Chill case" movies.

My Grade: A-
Rewatch Value: Medium-high

Next up: Rise of the Guardians

Slipstream: The Beginning

Alternating games on Monday nights has been a thing for a long while with my groups (slightly different groups on different Mondays). For a while, it was Promethean/Feng Shui, and then Timewatch/Blades in the Dark, then Marvel Heroic/Legend of the Elements, you get the idea. 

When COVID hit, the Marvel game went on hiatus because the players weren't up for doing it virtually (for a variety of reasons). The plan was to come back to it when we could.

But then one of the players, and one of my closest friends, Matt Karafa, passed away in May (not of COVID; he had medical issues long before the pandemic). Going back to Marvel didn't feel right. Reassembling that group at all really didn't feel right, not right away. 

Anyway, long winded way of saying that recently, we decided we did want to start another game. We're keeping it small - just three players plus me. We decided to once again use the Spark method to choose a game:

• Michelle chose Travels with My Father, for the feeling of foreigners in a foreign land
• Sarah chose Eureka, for the sci-fi slapstick
• Amanda chose Wynonna Earp, for gay-demon-hillbilly fun
• I chose Postmodern Jukebox, because I like taking somber/serious songs and re-imagining them 

 So, given all that, I laid out some possibilities, including Golden Sky Stories, Hollow Earth Expedition, and Bulldogs! In the end, though, Slipstream won out, because we've got some Flash Gordon fans here. 

The characters, then: 

• Zeenia! Zeenia is a noble from the planet (well, fragment) Zeebor. She's a capable combatant, but she can't breathe well outside Zeebor's atmosphere and she's kinda hard of hearing. Also she's a noble, and used to that kind of treatment. Zeeborites are jellyfish-like folk, by the way.
• Iris Blue! Iris is a Valkyria, a capable warrior herself. She is, as she's prone to announcing loudly before diving into the fray, Iris Blue, daughter of Orchid Blue, of the Daikini Valkyria! 
• Oola! Oola is a Rurite, a four-armed people from a fragment called Ruros. She, like all of her people, is a strict vegetarian, and she is also a total pacifist. She's possessed of an insatiable curiosity, however, and she's a practitioner of weird science - she's developed a visor that allows her to communicate telepathically. 

So these folks have arrived on Zeebor and are witnessing the Joining of Zeenia and her betrothed, Zeemar, in an arranged ceremony that will join the two halves of the Zeeputian Basin. But just as things are getting underway, a ship bearing the colors of Queen Anthraxa swoops down, disgorging her awful Primal soldiers as well as one of her handmaidens! The handmaiden lands on the platform where the ceremony is taking place and zaps Zeemar with a weapon that immobilizes him, while the Primals charge into the crowd, brandishing swords and spears. 

Zeebor charges over and tries to free Zeemar, but the handmaiden easily deflects her tentacles. "Prince Zeemar is now the property of Queen Anthraxa," she bellows, "and I, Erif the Strange, her handmaiden, will deliver him!" She activates a jetpack and flies off, leaving Zeebor swearing vengeance and/or rescue.

Iris screams "I am Iris Blue, daughter of Orchid Blue, of the Daikini Valkyria!" and blasts one of the Primals with her ray gun. Oola, unwilling to fight, backs up and lets the royal guard do their thing The guards wade in with ray guns and painsticks, and the Primals attack with their weapons.

Many fall on both sides, and both Iris and Oola are badly wounded, but finally the Primals are routed and the civilians protected. Zeebor's father finds her and brings her and her friends somewhere they can be healed. Zeebor swears to rescue Zeemar, and asks who will join her. Iris pledges her blade, and Oola, while she doesn't fight, recognizes this great injustice and wants to help right it. 

Zeebor's father tries to take her out of it, but she won't hear of it. Finally, he tells her that if she's really going to do this, she'll need a rocket ship. He'll pay for it, but there's no facilities for making or buying them here - she'll need to travel to Mechanos. 

Some days later, the three of them are on a Gyptosian Merchant ship bound for Mechanos. The lounge contains other travelers, the most interesting of whom is a Lion Woman (an aside: the Slipstream book refers to her as "female Lion Man" and like...c'mon) with a bodyguard. He watches the characters and notes their weapons, and Iris gives him a respectful nod. Zeebor is dealing with her bubble helmet and trying to cope with how dirty the seats are, and when the other passengers hear Iris call her "Your Highness" there are whispers. 

But then the ship lurches, and metallic clanging sounds resound through the hull. The Lion Woman, clearly someone of means, snarls about this being intolerable and charges through the door, presumably to go complain. Just as the door closes, though, an explosion rocks the ship! 

Next time, we'll see what's blowing up!

Character Creation: The Horror Game

I needed something relatively quick today, so here we go. 

The Game: The Horror Game (no, seriously)
The Publisher: Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr.
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

This game makes me a little tired. Not because of what it is (a cheaply made, self-published homebrew; that's fine), but because it's yet another example of reinventing the wheel. It's meant to be a rules-lite way of playing the horror genre, specifically slasher-like horror, and the author talks about how it eschews detailing the stats of a scenario or a monster and focusing on the narrative flow. And I'm like...yeah. See also Slasher Flick (published a year before this) or any number of games since. Maybe I'm just salty because the title of the game makes it impossible to Google. 

And I dunno, as I think about it, I'm softening on games like this a little, because it's very easy to be judgy about self-published games and how they tend to make "innovations" that have been done a decade plus before, but the reason I know about those innovations is because I actively went out and collected RPGs. I did that because I'm in the position of having enough disposable income to buy books, and because I was part of the industry for 20 years and knew the people to talk to (and trade with, when possible). But now that I'm not, now that I'm just a normal consumer in the hobby, am I going to be privy to the same direction of RPGs as they inevitably shift in focus? I don't know, Kickstarter is a thing, as is IPR, so probably. 

Anyway, this is already more words than this game probably deserves, but I do love horror games in general, so let's see here. In addition to having a really terrible title (seriously, do you want people to buy it?), the character sheet is the most boring thing I've seen in quite some time. Whatever, let's see how chargen works.

Christ, first chapter is an extended "what's an RPG" thing. I usually like these, but this one is so 90s, complete with the list of "problem players." Fuck me running, I don't miss this. The Munchkin, the Real Man, blah blah. I guess I'm kind of over the type of game writing that says "look, we know these people are jerks and they don't do this right, but what are you gonna do? Get a normal hobby? Not likely, nerd." Anyway. 

OK, this game resembles Slasher Flick, Horrors, and Fear Itself inasmuch as there's not a default setting, so the game would require the GM to say "OK, y'all are all cheerleaders" or whatever. The example that's mentioned is small town in western Kansas, and that sounds fine. The game offhandedly mentions that a character be "a student, a tailor, that kind of thing" and "tailor" kinda stuck in my head. I don't think I've ever seen a tailor in a horror movie, certainly not in a slasher movie, so I'm gonna make a tailor. 

My character is Dylan Raille. He's just been hired on at his uncle's shop, and is planning on taking it over when his uncle gives up and heads for Couer d'Alene or something. Dylan is early 20s, shaggy black hair, glasses, kinda John Oliver energy. 

Starting with Attributes, because sure. There are five (not six, even though the word "Attributes" on the sheet is the same size as the things below it, which is visually confusing), they all start at 9, and I have 3 points to add to them. 

Reading through them, I'm struck by three things. First, there's no stat that covers manual dexterity; I assume it'd be Agility. Second, the book tells me that characters in horror movies are always completely stupid, which is the kind of observation that people make if they haven't watched any good horror movies (along with "the black guy dies first"; actually, there's rarely a black guy present to die first, which is a different problem). Finally, the word "loose" is used in place of the word "lose," which is one of my special bugaboos and make me cringe. 

But anyway, I'll put one of my points into Luck and the other two into Intelligence. 

Cool, now I get three skills. One is Tailor, obviously. I'll say Dylan knows how to handle a motorcycle just because a) it's kind of unexpected and b) it'll increase the chances of him getting beheaded, which is cool. Finally, I'll take Chemistry, because why the fuck not.

Next would be disadvantages. They'd allow me to take more skills, but I kinda don't want any, and the list of disadvantages (which are just examples) are mostly phobias along with shit like alcoholism and obesity. Quick, name me a horror movie where obesity plays a role in a protagonist's death? (I'm sure there's at least one, but again, not really a staple of slasher movies.) Anyway, I think I'm good. 

Equipment, well, I figure usual pocket stuff, a measuring tape, and a little sewing kit. Done and done.

That's me done, then. I gotta pick something more fun for the next one.

Masks: Gimme the Car, Issue Four

Mask! Woo! Last time here.

Moonlight and Ilijah Intrepid are in Halcyon Cemetery, and Sol swoops in on them. She hovers in front of Moonlight, glowing brilliantly, and tells him that she felt him grow stronger - and she has, too. (Last issue, Moonlight used his powers and increased his doom track, y'see.) She flies toward him to embrace him, and Moonlight throws up a shield to block her. Sol become angry and blasts white-hot plasma at him. Figuring that she'll calm down if he gives a little, he tells her that he'll drop his shield if she'll drop her attack. She agrees, and floats down to talk to him.

They have a discussion that's very similar to the one they had before - she wants him to embrace their "merger," but Moonlight wants to just be himself for a while and isn't in any hurry to meet his doom (I mean, who is, really?). Sol claims that Moonlight acting as a hero means that he is using his powers and therefore courting his end, and says that perhaps he's just scared. Moonlight responds harshly and says that he's not scared, and wishes she would leave him alone. Sol flies off, saying "you want to be you? Fine." Intrepid, who's been watching and munching popcorn, asks who that was. "Someone from school," answers Moonlight. 

Meanwhile, Pyre and Jade Eagle are floating in space. Pyre still has the tablet-like device that (normally) allows him to control his ship, but it's not responding and he can't do much with it out here. Jade Eagle concentrates and opens a portal into her sanctum, the Eyrie, and they fly back through it...but then the portal remains open and starts sucking everything into space. Pyre turns himself to metal to try and block the portal, but it just breaks him in half and sucks him through. Jade Eagle tries to get the portal under control, but can't quite manage it. Everything slows down, and she feels wings envelop her. The Great Jade Eagle speaks to her, and asks what is happening. She says that she's trying to get this under control and save her friend, but she can't quite manage it. The Eagle tells her that she needs to take control, and she can - but if she doesn't want to try, he'll bring Pyre back and close the portal. Jade Eagle musters her strength and orders the portal to close, and it does (though Pyre returns first, fortunately). 

Moonlight texts Jade Eagle and arranges to meet back at the Nest (Pyre is already on his way; he needs to use Moonlight's computers to jury-rig a way to help FLICKER). Jade Eagle stays to clean up, and Moonlight zips away, figuring that Intrepid isn't going to be a big threat. 

Pyre smashes through the wall and furiously goes to work on the computer. Moonlight arrives and grouses about the wall a bit (Pyre doesn't care, he's in the zone), and then goes to meditate. Pyre manages to make contact with FLICKER, but she's having trouble resisting the malicious code infecting her. Pyre writes in some code to help her, and she manages to strengthen herself, but the anti-FLICKER presses a "button" on her avatar and Intrepid appears behind Pyre.

Pyre whirls around just as Intrepid flings a bunch of tiny wires from his gloves. Pyre lets loose with a torrent of fire that melts the wires and sets the room on fire. Intrepid tosses up a wall of ice to protect himself. Moonlight, meanwhile, realizes the place is on fire and enters the room. Seeing Intrepid, he calls on his shadowy powers to manipulate the electronics Intrepid is carrying and disables all of his mechanical devices and geegaws. Panicked, Intrepid punches himself in the nose and smears blood on a ring, vanishing (some of his gadgets are magical, not technological). 

Jade Eagle arrives (with smoothies!) and asks what the hell happened, while Pyre gets back to work. FLICKER - looks like normal FLICKER - appears and says that they've managed to drive out the malicious code. She just needs Pyre to enter his top-level password to burn out the rest and make sure it can't get back. He gives it...and the screens go dead. Pyre realizes with horror that he's been had, and a voice in the back of the room whispers "Yes!"

Pyre, furious, whirls around and hurls lightning at the voice. The lightning frames Intrepid's silhouette, and he catches the lightning and reactivates his gadgets. He starts to say something, but Jade Eagle tackles him and pins him against the wall. Pyre changes to metal, makes his fingers into long claws, and launches himself at Intrepid, trying to take his heart out.

Horrified, Moonlight puts up a shield (earning more Doom for showing mercy). It slows Pyre down, but he crashes through it. Jade Eagle sees him coming and covers Intrepid with her body, and Pyre's claws bend against her invulnerable flesh. Intrepid, suddenly realizing that Pyre was trying to kill him, pulls his coat around himself and vanishes. 

Moonlight calls out Pyre on his behavior - if he wants to be a hero, he can't go around murdering people, no matter what they've done. Yes, this was personal, but that was still unacceptable, and if Pyre is going to be that bloodthirsty, Moonlight is going to have to stop him. Jade Eagle, too, tells Pyre that this can't continue, and that he needs to call his dad about the missing ship. 

Pyre, cowed, raids the supply room for some tech and phones home. He talks to his father for the first time in a year, who asks if he's hurt. Pyre says he's not physically hurt, but he's lost FLICKER and he's heartsick over that. His father says that if Pyre wants to get FLICKER back, he should try, but to remember that any action carries with it a reaction, and to make sure that the reactions are something he can live with. The device shorts out, and Jade Eagle, who was there for the exchange, puts a hand on Pyre's shoulder. Pyre whirls around and hugs her. "Sometimes I think you're older than you are," says Jade Eagle, as the credits roll. 

Movie #596: Resident Evil

Resident Evil is a horror movie based on the video game of the same name, starring an especially wide-eyed Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Colin Salmon, Eric Maibus, Martin Crewes, James Purefoy, and Michaela Dicker. It's directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, the same genius who directed Mortal Kombat. 

The evil Umbrella Corporation owns Raccoon City (population nearly a million, so it's bigger than Cleveland) and runs a secret evil research base underground. One fine day, the computer that runs everything (because obviously) goes nuts and kills everyone, and Umbrella sends in a group of Bad Ass Commandos in Black, led by...um, One, I guess (Salmon). They find an unconscious Alice (Jovovich), who has no memory of who she is or why she chose to wear big-ass boots and a rockin' red dress. Turns out she's an operative for Umbrella, and as the team descends into the Hive, they find Spence (Purefoy), also an operative and Alice's fake husband, and Matt (Maibus), supposedly a cop in Raccoon City.

Surprise! The Hive is full of zombies, the Red Queen killed everyone to prevent the T-virus (which causes the zombie-ness) from escaping, and the team is promptly mostly killed/infected, Spence betrays them, and Alice and Matt are the only ones to make it out (and Matt is infected by a big ol' licky monster, and is put into the "Nemesis program," which I'm sure means something to fans of the video game). 

As the last sentence probably indicated, I have not played the Resident Evil games. I'm loosely familiar with the premise, but I also know that they've been remade and that the games change tone a lot. The movie feels very much like a basic bug hunt/action-horror movie. It's not so much a zombie movie as it is using zombies as a standard enemy, because zombie movies tend to use the zombies to bring out tensions between human characters. This movie has that inasmuch as Spence is the bad guy, but that plotline gets resolved in about a scene and a half when the Licker eats him. 

We've got some good performances from the leads (Salmon, in particular, and I wish he'd have lasted longer). Michelle Rodriguez appears as one of the badass commandos in one of her early roles, and definitely brings some personality to a role that could have just been "Vasquez in Aliens". Overall it's a pretty bog-standard action-horror movie, but it's got some fun moments and it's brainless enough. I have no idea how well it represents the property (I'm led to believe "not especially well"), but honestly I don't much care. 

My Grade: C
Rewatch Value: High

Next up: The Ring

Character Creation: Cypher System

Sure, let's do a character for something fun and easy, since it's not like "fun and easy" have any other place to live in 2020. 

The Game: Cypher System
The Publisher: Monte Cook Games
Degree of Familiarity: Some. I ran The Strange for a while before tragedy cut that game short, and I'm going to start running Predation soon
Books Required: Just the one, but, well, it's weird.

So, Cypher System is a setting-less system. Like GURPS, you don't just make a "Cypher" character, you need a setting to base it in. Unlike a lot of such games, the Cypher core doesn't have sample settings, but what it does have is a multi-page example of play. It's not a hugely detailed bit of world-building, but it's enough, I think - it's sci-fi opera, alien races, mind control spiders, that kind of thing. 

Actually, the example of play deals with a race called the Muggariks. We know they're tall and thin, they're claustrophobic and don't like locked doors. I'll make the Muggarik dude the PCs in the example rescue from the mind-spider, as though I was joining the game late because my pool game ran long at the jazz club. 

First thing is to choose a type. Since the group as it stands doesn't have a speaker, I shall say that Owani, my Muggarik, is a speaker. As a first-tier speaker, I get 8 Might, 9 Speed, and 11 Intellect, and then 6 additional points. I'll put 4 into Speed and the other 2 into Intellect (Muggariks are quick, but not necessarily beefy). My Effort is 1, my Intellect Edge is 1, and I can carry 2 cyphers at a time. I'm practiced with light weapons. I get four abilities as a speaker. I'll take Interaction Skills (trained in persuading and seeing through deception), Erase Memory, Understanding, and Encouragement. 

I don't think I wish to muck about with flavor, so I'll move on to Descriptor. Is there a "recently mind-spidered" one? No, but Mad hits some of the same notes. Why not? I get +4 to Intellect, and I get sudden bursts of insight whenever the GM feels like it. I also behave erratically (which can fuck me out of XP, which is too bad). I'm trained in a knowledge skill, which I'll called "Alien Fauna" (the thinking here is that it's kind of like Tania Saulnier's role in Slither; he's made contact with a mind-controlling race and now has some limited ability to access what that race knows). I also get an inability in resisting mental attacks. Ah, well. 

Focus! There's a handy list of foci appropriate to sci-fi, so let's see what Owani would be good for. I hate to fall into the "aliens are geniuses" cliche, but what the hell. I'll go with Calculates the Incalculable. I get Predictive Equation (if I study a thing, I get a difficulty reduction for rolls involving it) and I'm trained in math. Neat.

That's pretty much it, actually. We'll say that Owani was pretty much a normal Muggarik crew member until he was possessed by the mind-spider. Most of the time, if you kill the mind-spider or remove it, the host just kind of goes blank and then wakes up with no memory of what happened, but Owani somehow retained a connection to the horrible thing. It gives him knowledge and perspective he wouldn't normally have (including an instinctive understanding of mathematical models and predictions), but it also means he's not quite as stable as he was. If I were playing Owani long-term, I think his descriptor would change at some point as he either embraces or rejects the influence of the mind-spiders. 

That'll do it!