Group Cohesion
This game is intended to be a Group game. The PCs as a whole are all necessary for The Prophecy (perhaps just in terms of numbers, perhaps individually) and various threats - such as the Hands of Bremen who a) hunt down gifted and b) are immune TO gifts - necessitate working together. There may also be Politics. Playing your PC as a loner/prima donna is not advisable and will lead to PC death.
Dice Rolling, Combat, and Crunchy Bits
While the use of Inappropriate Cliche is, technically, not allowed, it does count as surprising your opponent, and works in that regard. Surprise != stupid in this regard. Having someone grossly underestimate you doesn't count, unless your PC is, say, acting and such. There is a quasi healthy system, based on "okay, you lost, he hit you. A few hits, and you go down," modified to situation and such. The ideal method is for you, the player, to have some idea how much damage your PC could take and RP the results without being msged with: "You are scratched. Wounded. Incapacitated. Inebriated. Dead." etc.
Keep in mind that the game is anime-style, at least in the Gm's head. While there are no healing magics, Gifts are strong and the gifted tend to take a bit more punishment than the average person and heal quicker. (This is mostly because Rping lying in a bed is boring; in general, if a PC gets the snot kicked out of them, expect them up and about in 1-2 days unless it's really bad.
Money
I'm not going to worry about this. I will add a section on currency to the World part of the site eventually. but in general people use gold coins (often called stones, but seldom in Estavia) and bits, which are broken pieces of coins. 4 bits make one coin, one bit = 1 meal, one coin = 1-2 nights of lodgings. Actual rubies, gems etc. count as larger coins, and silver and iron as currencies also exist, though are often only half the worth of gold. Larger coins exist for larger transactions (generally work 5, 10, and 20 coins each), and for anything larger credit sticks bought from bankers and the like apply.
Most of the PCs are fairly wealthy, so I don't think the lack of funds will be a problem. (The kids can either sponge off of the others or procure money through other means.) In general, PCs can afford their living expenses + bribes etc. without any trouble. If they want to buy a home or expensive services like an alchemist they'll need to pool resources.
Hands
The Hands are, essentially, the nightmares of the gifted. While wizards have their own fears based on power and the forces they often are obliged to bargain with, the gifted have more obvious ones. The Hands have been around for a good 700 years, though stories of them exist from further back, mostly as tales of some forgotten time. The kingdom of Bremen either found out how to make them again or learned on its own.
In appearance, they tend to be thin and wasted looking but inhumanly strong with sharp fingers and teeth, scuttling about quickly more like spiders than humans. Sometimes they are armed, sometimes now. A full Hand is, of course, five of them, though they can be found in as small a group as two from time to time. No gifts work on them, at all.
Using a gift to harm them, vis a vis using earth to open up the earth under them in a pit, almost always fails: they seem to have a sixth sense about such things and are astonishingly resistant to any harm caused by gifts. Powerful enough gifts CAN kill one, but the remaining members of the Hand get strong as each part dies.
No one is certain as to Bremen's goals in making them; they've been sent after expatriates with the command Gift as well, after all. However, 50 years ago the Nakai Empire independently developed Hands of it's own. The major difference between them is that the Nakai ones don't function as well as cohesive unit though there are a lot more of them.
Hands also display some resistance to other magia and can sense the use of powerful gifts, honing in on them. There is seldom more than 1 hand within a 3 day range, however, and most families tend to learn other skills besides gifts, since swords kill the Hands as easily as other men.
Monday, December 04, 2006
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Question for Urdu Players...
More, a series. Please answer, via file or msg, before the end of the weekend preferably.
1) Is your PC from Estavia? If not, do you know anyone there? Would anyone have followed you from home (for good or ill)?
2) Many Gifted families are wealthy; that doesn't mean your branch of the family is. How does your character support themself?
3) What is your characters REAL reason for being here? What is your character running from - or to?
4) How easily does your PC harm others? Kill them? Does it bother you one way or another?
5) Does your PC think they are better than other people?
6) Everyone has a price. What's your characters?
7) Would your character rather be the change they want to see in the world or the trouble they want to see in it?
8) What would your character die for? And, conversely, what do they live for?
9) If you had to choose between betraying your country* and your friend, which would you pick, an why?
*country can be substituted with: Family, Ideals, Honour etc. as suits the PC.
Be as brief or wordy as you like :) Keep in mind that none of this is carved in stone; if you RP the character differently, well, people change and such. It'sm ostly to give me (and hopefully you) some insight into what makes your character tick - or tock.
1) Is your PC from Estavia? If not, do you know anyone there? Would anyone have followed you from home (for good or ill)?
2) Many Gifted families are wealthy; that doesn't mean your branch of the family is. How does your character support themself?
3) What is your characters REAL reason for being here? What is your character running from - or to?
4) How easily does your PC harm others? Kill them? Does it bother you one way or another?
5) Does your PC think they are better than other people?
6) Everyone has a price. What's your characters?
7) Would your character rather be the change they want to see in the world or the trouble they want to see in it?
8) What would your character die for? And, conversely, what do they live for?
9) If you had to choose between betraying your country* and your friend, which would you pick, an why?
*country can be substituted with: Family, Ideals, Honour etc. as suits the PC.
Be as brief or wordy as you like :) Keep in mind that none of this is carved in stone; if you RP the character differently, well, people change and such. It'sm ostly to give me (and hopefully you) some insight into what makes your character tick - or tock.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Are you ready for the Reckoning?
Wednesday nights, ~10pm EST.
Site: Oh, here is good. (NO, it's not finished yet.)
Game begins Wed, Nov. 29th. Finished PCs only (yes, this includes backgrounds).
Currently there are 3 prospective players (and 2 finished characters!). Five will be the maximum, first come first serve basis. See previous post and site link for more information. If a player can't make it, we can establish a waiting list thingy.
This has been a public service announcement. Regular floggings will resume shortly.
Site: Oh, here is good. (NO, it's not finished yet.)
Game begins Wed, Nov. 29th. Finished PCs only (yes, this includes backgrounds).
Currently there are 3 prospective players (and 2 finished characters!). Five will be the maximum, first come first serve basis. See previous post and site link for more information. If a player can't make it, we can establish a waiting list thingy.
This has been a public service announcement. Regular floggings will resume shortly.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
RECKONINGS: an RPG campaign
The world of Urdu is old, the oldest thing in this incarnation of the universe, the point from which all else came into being. For billions of years people have lived and fought and died on it. Mighty empires have rose, fallen, rebuilt themselves, been ground into ashes by those who came after them Over all of this the gods have watched, sometimes playing games, sometimes now, feared and worshipped, they were pieces of the universe given form, powers beyond human ken who built their cities in the heavens from which to watch all that passed below them.
Until the Cataclysm. Until the terrible event over 300 winters ago when the heavens themselves fell down, destroying the entire southern continent, obliterating tracts of land and reshaping the world in a fury of fire and the death screams of the gods. Those who could Channel their power did so, in one last moment as the gods tried to halt their demise and failed. The ancient wizards, whose bargains with Mors and Arth'Ba'Toch failed as Death and Time died, passed on, and most magic in the world was lost or shattered by the loss of the gods.
The world has never recovered, though nothing has risen to replace them, no terrible Power come to claim the world as its own. There is only the loss, and the building of the new world from those terrible moments and the ashes of all that had come before.
Into these times come your characters, drawn to the city of Estavia (one of the few to have grown in strength when all the empires were shattered), a haven of modern alchemy trying to find new ways to do for people what the gods always did. You are, each, the relics of an old age, one of the families of those Gifted with magic who remain in the present age and have not been destroyed by the Hands from Bremen or died out due to inbreeding. Almost the last of those gifted, a three hundred year program to make Gifts strong enough to face down the remaining Wizards, but no one living knows why the Gifted families went this far, nor what was intended....
most believe it is the salvation of the world and the restoration of the gods.
Player info:
I plan to run this game very much in anime style. There should be lots of interpersonal conflicts, there'll be lost of conflict of other types, and PCs should get to do Cool Things.
Risus system, 12 dice. Each PC can have 4 dice (max.) in any cliche. Cliches can be increased from d6 to d8 or d10 via an extra die (said extra die does NOT count towards total dice in cliche). There must be at least 2 dice in a cliche to do this), so a PC could have Singing Gift (3d6), swordsmanship (3d8), Acrobatics (3d6) and Gambling (2d6) as cliches as an example.
A Gift is, basically, a single kind of magic. Fire, Water, Swordsmanship. That sort of thing. The Gifted families (one family, one gift) have been around for a long time, though no one knows how they came about. When a family dies out, their Gift is gone forever. A Gift is kept within a family, so inbreeding among cousins and siblings is the norm, since breeding with outsiders only leads to children with weak (or no) gifts.
Once the gods died, and terrible things like plagues and birth defects came into the world, the gifted have been fighting a long, losing battle. Few of any generation are whole in body and mind; fewer still have powerful gifts. Of your generation, you are one of at best five of your Family with a powerful gift, and have been sent to the city of Estavia and the Inn of the Lost Rainbow because of an agreement so old no one remembers it.
If one player takes a gift, no one else can. All PCs come from different Families. if you wish to play something other than a Gifted (or a Gifted Channeller/Wizard/Alchemist), talk to me. The following Gifts are not available for PCs: Shadow, Death, and Fire.
Other notes: magic can't be used to change people, save for alchemy (and even then, it is very limited in usefulness). There are no transformation gifts, no healing gifts and such. No Wizard spells for such either.
CRUNCHY BITS:
- You CAN adds hooks (2 max; 2 free dice maxiumum). (In fact, the GM encourages it.) A Hook, in this instance, counts as a character flaw (sworn vow, crippling thing etc.) (you get 1 die for every hook you have, 2 if it's a really severe hook.) You CAN get tails, via the risus rules, but only by supplying pic/drawing PC and more background than usual. (Normally, I'd except 1 pqage including bacckground, family the PC left, PCs family life -- did the famiytl breeding for gifts put engenics to shame? etc. -- and anything on PC personality. More would be, well, history of parents, some family lore/secrets or whatever.)
- PCs are human; there's no elves, sentient dogs etc. on this world.
- Think Cliche. That's how Risus works. More dice in a cliche is skill; increasing dicepool size is power. (This is a general rule, not specific)
- Keep in mind that there are items of magic etc. out there to increase power and the like available. PCs tend to be exceptions to rules. (For example, somerone with 2 gifts could be possible.) Invent cool Tricks for the pc.
Until the Cataclysm. Until the terrible event over 300 winters ago when the heavens themselves fell down, destroying the entire southern continent, obliterating tracts of land and reshaping the world in a fury of fire and the death screams of the gods. Those who could Channel their power did so, in one last moment as the gods tried to halt their demise and failed. The ancient wizards, whose bargains with Mors and Arth'Ba'Toch failed as Death and Time died, passed on, and most magic in the world was lost or shattered by the loss of the gods.
The world has never recovered, though nothing has risen to replace them, no terrible Power come to claim the world as its own. There is only the loss, and the building of the new world from those terrible moments and the ashes of all that had come before.
Into these times come your characters, drawn to the city of Estavia (one of the few to have grown in strength when all the empires were shattered), a haven of modern alchemy trying to find new ways to do for people what the gods always did. You are, each, the relics of an old age, one of the families of those Gifted with magic who remain in the present age and have not been destroyed by the Hands from Bremen or died out due to inbreeding. Almost the last of those gifted, a three hundred year program to make Gifts strong enough to face down the remaining Wizards, but no one living knows why the Gifted families went this far, nor what was intended....
most believe it is the salvation of the world and the restoration of the gods.
Player info:
I plan to run this game very much in anime style. There should be lots of interpersonal conflicts, there'll be lost of conflict of other types, and PCs should get to do Cool Things.
Risus system, 12 dice. Each PC can have 4 dice (max.) in any cliche. Cliches can be increased from d6 to d8 or d10 via an extra die (said extra die does NOT count towards total dice in cliche). There must be at least 2 dice in a cliche to do this), so a PC could have Singing Gift (3d6), swordsmanship (3d8), Acrobatics (3d6) and Gambling (2d6) as cliches as an example.
A Gift is, basically, a single kind of magic. Fire, Water, Swordsmanship. That sort of thing. The Gifted families (one family, one gift) have been around for a long time, though no one knows how they came about. When a family dies out, their Gift is gone forever. A Gift is kept within a family, so inbreeding among cousins and siblings is the norm, since breeding with outsiders only leads to children with weak (or no) gifts.
Once the gods died, and terrible things like plagues and birth defects came into the world, the gifted have been fighting a long, losing battle. Few of any generation are whole in body and mind; fewer still have powerful gifts. Of your generation, you are one of at best five of your Family with a powerful gift, and have been sent to the city of Estavia and the Inn of the Lost Rainbow because of an agreement so old no one remembers it.
If one player takes a gift, no one else can. All PCs come from different Families. if you wish to play something other than a Gifted (or a Gifted Channeller/Wizard/Alchemist), talk to me. The following Gifts are not available for PCs: Shadow, Death, and Fire.
Other notes: magic can't be used to change people, save for alchemy (and even then, it is very limited in usefulness). There are no transformation gifts, no healing gifts and such. No Wizard spells for such either.
CRUNCHY BITS:
- You CAN adds hooks (2 max; 2 free dice maxiumum). (In fact, the GM encourages it.) A Hook, in this instance, counts as a character flaw (sworn vow, crippling thing etc.) (you get 1 die for every hook you have, 2 if it's a really severe hook.) You CAN get tails, via the risus rules, but only by supplying pic/drawing PC and more background than usual. (Normally, I'd except 1 pqage including bacckground, family the PC left, PCs family life -- did the famiytl breeding for gifts put engenics to shame? etc. -- and anything on PC personality. More would be, well, history of parents, some family lore/secrets or whatever.)
- PCs are human; there's no elves, sentient dogs etc. on this world.
- Think Cliche. That's how Risus works. More dice in a cliche is skill; increasing dicepool size is power. (This is a general rule, not specific)
- Keep in mind that there are items of magic etc. out there to increase power and the like available. PCs tend to be exceptions to rules. (For example, somerone with 2 gifts could be possible.) Invent cool Tricks for the pc.
Monday, November 13, 2006
New Game, Near Future, Nearly Soon
I have expressed interest in running a game of Lacuna. If you're interested in knowing about this, and want to know more about it I have the pdf of the small game book and will be happy to share it with you.
The basic premise behind it is, you're a "Mystery Agent" who goes into the dreamworld, hereafter referred to as the Blue City, where people go when they're sleeping. You are the disinfectent of society and erase the bad thoughts and urges that serial killers and rapists have when they're awake and killing/hurting people.
There are dangers to your job, such as an unwanted meeting with the Spidermen. Tall lumbering humanoid spider creatures that wear a Blok-style garment (think Russian army WWII era). Or going insane or even dying due to a heart attack.
For more, and how to create a character, contact me! You know the channel, I'll be the time!
The basic premise behind it is, you're a "Mystery Agent" who goes into the dreamworld, hereafter referred to as the Blue City, where people go when they're sleeping. You are the disinfectent of society and erase the bad thoughts and urges that serial killers and rapists have when they're awake and killing/hurting people.
There are dangers to your job, such as an unwanted meeting with the Spidermen. Tall lumbering humanoid spider creatures that wear a Blok-style garment (think Russian army WWII era). Or going insane or even dying due to a heart attack.
For more, and how to create a character, contact me! You know the channel, I'll be the time!
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
The Day of Discordant Discombobulations Wherein We See Ourselves For The First Time And Steal A Boat From Some Old Man By The Sea
[A short story, written especially for Kentari]
She crested slowly, rhythmic sensuous curves undulating in the azure world, pale as sky me the verdant, broad and sprawling ocean and as the earth nestled with the heavens, suspended between substrates as water funnelled from fish and we froze, Japanese tourists with camera faces staring, the world turned to paparazzi flashes.
Then we came down, like a zipper creasing into folds, stick and moving, the spears of our destiny stabbing into flesh and blubber and the whale died, reminding each of us in one poignant yet somehow meaninglessly shallow empty moment of our in-laws and gaping maws and poetry disguised as prose but why, for what -- no one knew. Knows.
We killed her quickly, her children watching, frozen, blood curses in whale song a sound that still haunts my dreams, sounding like child molesters, in the shower, singing as they are shivved; the tourists never stopped clicking, prisoner to their terrible plan, sucking away our souls by pieces -- but we had paid them away long ago.
Under other stars and distant suns seen once and never again under eyelids we sold ourselves, our souls, our lives, for just the pursuit of happiness and never its possession -- and so, waving, we carried the whale home soulless, feeding our families in bleak homes for another year, another turning of seasons and the relentless pitter-patter of time
falling down the stairs.
"Honey," he said, his voice breaking the silence like cheap dinner plate therapy on a basement wall, "why do I call you that?" in a quizzical, confused tone that implied in an implicitly explicit manner akin to the exoteric esoteric way of spouses something his darling wife entirely failed to notice.
"Call me what?" she asked languorously in a voice like rough sandpaper scraping over an open wound, her eyes the colour of limpid swamp water with a body that had not tasted solid food in a week of desperate dieting to fit into a reunion dress for someone six inches shorter that lay, moth eaten, in an upstairs wooden trunk filled with her lost hopes and a small, lonely tic tac.
"Honey," he said imperatively with the slight, hesitant whine like the drone of a biplane, the voice of all men ho are right but not in the eyes of their wives (a voice Hitler used, asking about the Jews, saying they might not be good people but at least they kept to themselves to a wife who was tired of hearing how they threw the best bar parties for children), and he beheld at her and froze, not unlike a bowling ball floating in the water.
"Yes?" she snapped snappishly, her voice skeletonizing his ego like a piranha, a whiplash of failed memories and corroded vows skittering over his flesh like hungry ghosts.
"The word. Honey. It - doesn't suit you," he noted miserably, his voice fluttering between notes, a song in need of a singer to free it from the entrails of time and the broad expanse of the gulf that nestled between them like the deep ends of the couch.
"How now? How not?" she exclaimed, correcting herself with a moment of mental whiplash, her eyes, steely-eyed like ball bearings, dared him to comment from their dead, cold, desiccated and mysterious depths that he had yet to grasp the courage to plummet and swan dive - or, perhaps, belly flop - into the abyssal abyssness of night and - oh! - her abs, that glistened with years of work like oil-stained rags.
"You aren't a bear," he smiled, the expression a fractional upturning of lips falling into the Shrodinger laugh that was not funny or morbid yet until a reply is made from the box of anothers being; neither living nor dead, trapped between reply and answer as unto a butterfly hovering above a jar of ether.
"You begin to bore me," she flounced, her voice slate-pale-grey-green as she turned and appraised him, hands on hips like the wife of some mighty Ice Giant of halcyon days of yore waiting for an explanation for the party that kept him up, not buying Ragnarok as an excuse again.
"I am sorry," he whipped in whispered words warbling whitely.
"Good."
She crested slowly, rhythmic sensuous curves undulating in the azure world, pale as sky me the verdant, broad and sprawling ocean and as the earth nestled with the heavens, suspended between substrates as water funnelled from fish and we froze, Japanese tourists with camera faces staring, the world turned to paparazzi flashes.
Then we came down, like a zipper creasing into folds, stick and moving, the spears of our destiny stabbing into flesh and blubber and the whale died, reminding each of us in one poignant yet somehow meaninglessly shallow empty moment of our in-laws and gaping maws and poetry disguised as prose but why, for what -- no one knew. Knows.
We killed her quickly, her children watching, frozen, blood curses in whale song a sound that still haunts my dreams, sounding like child molesters, in the shower, singing as they are shivved; the tourists never stopped clicking, prisoner to their terrible plan, sucking away our souls by pieces -- but we had paid them away long ago.
Under other stars and distant suns seen once and never again under eyelids we sold ourselves, our souls, our lives, for just the pursuit of happiness and never its possession -- and so, waving, we carried the whale home soulless, feeding our families in bleak homes for another year, another turning of seasons and the relentless pitter-patter of time
falling down the stairs.
"Honey," he said, his voice breaking the silence like cheap dinner plate therapy on a basement wall, "why do I call you that?" in a quizzical, confused tone that implied in an implicitly explicit manner akin to the exoteric esoteric way of spouses something his darling wife entirely failed to notice.
"Call me what?" she asked languorously in a voice like rough sandpaper scraping over an open wound, her eyes the colour of limpid swamp water with a body that had not tasted solid food in a week of desperate dieting to fit into a reunion dress for someone six inches shorter that lay, moth eaten, in an upstairs wooden trunk filled with her lost hopes and a small, lonely tic tac.
"Honey," he said imperatively with the slight, hesitant whine like the drone of a biplane, the voice of all men ho are right but not in the eyes of their wives (a voice Hitler used, asking about the Jews, saying they might not be good people but at least they kept to themselves to a wife who was tired of hearing how they threw the best bar parties for children), and he beheld at her and froze, not unlike a bowling ball floating in the water.
"Yes?" she snapped snappishly, her voice skeletonizing his ego like a piranha, a whiplash of failed memories and corroded vows skittering over his flesh like hungry ghosts.
"The word. Honey. It - doesn't suit you," he noted miserably, his voice fluttering between notes, a song in need of a singer to free it from the entrails of time and the broad expanse of the gulf that nestled between them like the deep ends of the couch.
"How now? How not?" she exclaimed, correcting herself with a moment of mental whiplash, her eyes, steely-eyed like ball bearings, dared him to comment from their dead, cold, desiccated and mysterious depths that he had yet to grasp the courage to plummet and swan dive - or, perhaps, belly flop - into the abyssal abyssness of night and - oh! - her abs, that glistened with years of work like oil-stained rags.
"You aren't a bear," he smiled, the expression a fractional upturning of lips falling into the Shrodinger laugh that was not funny or morbid yet until a reply is made from the box of anothers being; neither living nor dead, trapped between reply and answer as unto a butterfly hovering above a jar of ether.
"You begin to bore me," she flounced, her voice slate-pale-grey-green as she turned and appraised him, hands on hips like the wife of some mighty Ice Giant of halcyon days of yore waiting for an explanation for the party that kept him up, not buying Ragnarok as an excuse again.
"I am sorry," he whipped in whispered words warbling whitely.
"Good."
Friday, October 13, 2006
November Note
I won't be online much at all during the first week, and likely not during the second either (the first is guests, the second is NaNoWriMo :)). After that, should be on and will likely begin Low Life towards the end of month/beginning of December.
Low Life is going to run Day X (undetermined, as yet) Time Y (ditto) once a week. For this game, there shall be NO side sessions. For a change, basically :)
The game will likely run 3 months or so, and LOLAD 2 run after it. After THAT, I may run Haunted and/or UA, players willing. No plans for whatever follows.
Low Life is going to run Day X (undetermined, as yet) Time Y (ditto) once a week. For this game, there shall be NO side sessions. For a change, basically :)
The game will likely run 3 months or so, and LOLAD 2 run after it. After THAT, I may run Haunted and/or UA, players willing. No plans for whatever follows.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
After Low Life...
Low Life will begin in December (or later November, depending) and end ~April, since the game is designed to answer the question of: "So, what DO you do with these gifts?" and, once players have decided and begun down their paths, to end.
After that? Well, I'd like to run UA again. Partially for a break from BESM, mostly because it's Unknown Armies. I don't have a plot in my head as yet, but the basic idea is to allow, well, any idea. It's modern earth, it's unknown armies. The system is flexible, the Gm is uber-flexible, and we want high weirdness. Ignore the "magical/adept" stuff, and focus on the Really Weird, maybe with some magical trick...
Like?
A nun with reverse stigmata.
A cyborg.
Princess Diana.
A mafia hit man on the run for killing his boss.
A computer programmer who hacked the wrong files.
A child convinced they're from another world.
A woman who is convinced she is the mother of Buddha.
Conjoined twins whose other half exists in an otherspace and change positions every day.
A tourist who is really, really confused.
The star of an old silent movie somehow brought to life.
etc. Go for somethng off the wall. Go for weird. Strange. Bizarre! Throws ideas about! I shall make a forum. It shall be built. Ideas shall come!
After that? Well, I'd like to run UA again. Partially for a break from BESM, mostly because it's Unknown Armies. I don't have a plot in my head as yet, but the basic idea is to allow, well, any idea. It's modern earth, it's unknown armies. The system is flexible, the Gm is uber-flexible, and we want high weirdness. Ignore the "magical/adept" stuff, and focus on the Really Weird, maybe with some magical trick...
Like?
A nun with reverse stigmata.
A cyborg.
Princess Diana.
A mafia hit man on the run for killing his boss.
A computer programmer who hacked the wrong files.
A child convinced they're from another world.
A woman who is convinced she is the mother of Buddha.
Conjoined twins whose other half exists in an otherspace and change positions every day.
A tourist who is really, really confused.
The star of an old silent movie somehow brought to life.
etc. Go for somethng off the wall. Go for weird. Strange. Bizarre! Throws ideas about! I shall make a forum. It shall be built. Ideas shall come!
Monday, August 21, 2006
LoLaD....
I think there is a problem.
The plot, she is winding down.
But I find I don't care.
No desire to finish, or begin,
Or complete. No burn out, this,
But a kind of boredom -- surprising
But still true for all of that.
Thoughts on this are welcomed.
I find it amusing, darkly, &
LOLAD1 ended much the same way
Fading away and - poof! - gone.
Some things do not wish to fade.
But even so. Even so. And even moreso.
It seems to be dying slowly,
Inside and out, a slow decay.
Reasons? Post them. Solutions?
Them to. And having written, I go.
The plot, she is winding down.
But I find I don't care.
No desire to finish, or begin,
Or complete. No burn out, this,
But a kind of boredom -- surprising
But still true for all of that.
Thoughts on this are welcomed.
I find it amusing, darkly, &
LOLAD1 ended much the same way
Fading away and - poof! - gone.
Some things do not wish to fade.
But even so. Even so. And even moreso.
It seems to be dying slowly,
Inside and out, a slow decay.
Reasons? Post them. Solutions?
Them to. And having written, I go.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Room 333
Room 333
[a thingy done for the UA campaign Faces in the Dark]
There is a reason the 3rd floor of the school was closed down. One beyond the mundane issues of cost and space and heating. This is that reason, a door to a place that should never have existed.
There is a city made of glass and butterfly wings. There are wonders in it, of the kind of terror and awe true wonder holds, the dream made real, words made solid, form and ideal bleeding together into an unreal geometry that hurts the eyes but tugs at the heart, making you wish you'd dreamt it, seen it, even once.
The walls are covered in graffiti in languages that were old before the world existed, languages not even known to the dead. They give the city shadows, though it has no sun. The sky is grey, and pale, with a deep purple rent that lets down the light, the kind of cut one would imagine if the sky bled.
The streets are raw, pale and cracked like flesh, hard and soft at the same time. There is no sound here, just silence, stillness, a waiting so deep that nothing has ever stirred. Dust glitters brightly in the air like unfallen rain, and then you hear it, buzzing, at the very edge of hearing, a rattling through the bones, more felt that heard, aching, as if they are growing, or breaking apart.
The voices. The voices, angelic, pure, harsh and wild. They are singing, and it sounds like heaven come down to earth, and you never, ever want to hear them again. They get louder, but somehow softer at the same time, like pillow talk by a leprous lover, gurgling fish-speak as pure as sunshine, as cold as ice, and you can't help but hear. And listen. And wonder.
"The children, the children,
The children are coming.
More than kith, less than kin,
They slouch ever downward slumming.
They're dying, they're living
They are here and becoming,
Listen to their song, their song, their song
Listen to them humming
To the bees buzzing to the light giving
To the harp of damned souls
The strings strumming
They're coming round the ways of the world,
They're reaching from the depths, plumbing
Listen to the beating of the drums
Listen to broken feet drumming
The floor, choking, dumb,
Dum, da dum, da dum.
Listen to them, giggling, laughing.
The children are coming
Listen to the singing
Becoming, unbecoming,
Cutting and culling
Listen to the sounds they make
Listen to the silence break
The children are coming
The children, the children,
The children are coming."
The song loops through you beyond madness, past reason or hope or fear. It ends with footsteps and laugher like fingers scraping chalkboards. Breathing like gum popping, the hiss of a sucking chest wound. And then a chorus, high and low, blended into a sexless monotone song than twiches, casting itself high and low along the music scale recklessly, searching seeking, pleading ... being .... heard. This, you hear:
"Here we are, all gathered together
Finding the sinners 'cuz we never
Did nothing wrong, we tell it true,
Nothing wrong, we beg of you,
O teacher, can you listen?
Look at our bright eyes glisten
We are crying for you to hear us
We are crying for you to love us
Teacher, we love you, we just can't
Understand you, the pain in your voice
No, we weren't making joking about your ranting,
O teacher we love you, we just need a choice.
We're singing you a song
We didn't mean to do wrong
O teacher don't hurt us
O teacher don't make us
Do homework
We beg you
We won't smirk, won't jerk
Won't hurt - just don't
Go beserk! We - love - you."
You can't see who - what - may be singing. Perhaps it's your own voice, your throat feels so raw, everything feels raw. Your eyes are burning, and everything blurs, becoming even clearer. Glass. And butterfly wings. Shadows and violet light. And the opressive, numbling, welcoming silence, the calm before a storm .... and, perhaps, distantly, the voices?
=> just what is in the City in the Otherspace. A class of children. The teacher is even scarier.
[a thingy done for the UA campaign Faces in the Dark]
There is a reason the 3rd floor of the school was closed down. One beyond the mundane issues of cost and space and heating. This is that reason, a door to a place that should never have existed.
There is a city made of glass and butterfly wings. There are wonders in it, of the kind of terror and awe true wonder holds, the dream made real, words made solid, form and ideal bleeding together into an unreal geometry that hurts the eyes but tugs at the heart, making you wish you'd dreamt it, seen it, even once.
The walls are covered in graffiti in languages that were old before the world existed, languages not even known to the dead. They give the city shadows, though it has no sun. The sky is grey, and pale, with a deep purple rent that lets down the light, the kind of cut one would imagine if the sky bled.
The streets are raw, pale and cracked like flesh, hard and soft at the same time. There is no sound here, just silence, stillness, a waiting so deep that nothing has ever stirred. Dust glitters brightly in the air like unfallen rain, and then you hear it, buzzing, at the very edge of hearing, a rattling through the bones, more felt that heard, aching, as if they are growing, or breaking apart.
The voices. The voices, angelic, pure, harsh and wild. They are singing, and it sounds like heaven come down to earth, and you never, ever want to hear them again. They get louder, but somehow softer at the same time, like pillow talk by a leprous lover, gurgling fish-speak as pure as sunshine, as cold as ice, and you can't help but hear. And listen. And wonder.
"The children, the children,
The children are coming.
More than kith, less than kin,
They slouch ever downward slumming.
They're dying, they're living
They are here and becoming,
Listen to their song, their song, their song
Listen to them humming
To the bees buzzing to the light giving
To the harp of damned souls
The strings strumming
They're coming round the ways of the world,
They're reaching from the depths, plumbing
Listen to the beating of the drums
Listen to broken feet drumming
The floor, choking, dumb,
Dum, da dum, da dum.
Listen to them, giggling, laughing.
The children are coming
Listen to the singing
Becoming, unbecoming,
Cutting and culling
Listen to the sounds they make
Listen to the silence break
The children are coming
The children, the children,
The children are coming."
The song loops through you beyond madness, past reason or hope or fear. It ends with footsteps and laugher like fingers scraping chalkboards. Breathing like gum popping, the hiss of a sucking chest wound. And then a chorus, high and low, blended into a sexless monotone song than twiches, casting itself high and low along the music scale recklessly, searching seeking, pleading ... being .... heard. This, you hear:
"Here we are, all gathered together
Finding the sinners 'cuz we never
Did nothing wrong, we tell it true,
Nothing wrong, we beg of you,
O teacher, can you listen?
Look at our bright eyes glisten
We are crying for you to hear us
We are crying for you to love us
Teacher, we love you, we just can't
Understand you, the pain in your voice
No, we weren't making joking about your ranting,
O teacher we love you, we just need a choice.
We're singing you a song
We didn't mean to do wrong
O teacher don't hurt us
O teacher don't make us
Do homework
We beg you
We won't smirk, won't jerk
Won't hurt - just don't
Go beserk! We - love - you."
You can't see who - what - may be singing. Perhaps it's your own voice, your throat feels so raw, everything feels raw. Your eyes are burning, and everything blurs, becoming even clearer. Glass. And butterfly wings. Shadows and violet light. And the opressive, numbling, welcoming silence, the calm before a storm .... and, perhaps, distantly, the voices?
=> just what is in the City in the Otherspace. A class of children. The teacher is even scarier.
Monday, July 24, 2006
Supers Lite Post II
Will exist. Has forum here on the forums, and two players. Time and dates are uncertain, at present.
"The fundament of a superhero is the guy in tights saving innocent people from bad things. It's amazing how infrequently that seems to happen in superhero comics these days."
Frank Miller
"The fundament of a superhero is the guy in tights saving innocent people from bad things. It's amazing how infrequently that seems to happen in superhero comics these days."
Frank Miller
Sunday, July 23, 2006
One Player Game: Supers Lite
So, because of some odd thoughts I had about superhero universes, and such things in genera, and my generally pessmistic outlook TO such things, I want to try something different.
A superhero game, in "lite" mode. Not dark, not doom and gloom and 'the real world does this, so everyone fears you' etc. It's never really happened in #game1. So I'd like to try it. The one player limit is, well, I think I could manage it best that way.
(N.B. Two players is possible if 2 ppl want to do a siblings or parent/child duo.)
The goal is a superhero game that's about fun. Helping people, having fun, balancing hero and life, beating Bad Guys and the like.
Oh, yes: So far, Caltak is interested. He just said so.
To continue: The actual universe - and power level of the PC - will be worked out with the player. We can do spiderman level, even Superman (though, well, not THAT powerful please :p) and go from there. The PC will need family, job, who they're "out" to and the like.
How many heroes/nature of the universe'd have to be worked out, too. are there lots of heroes? Villains? Tems? I don't mind stealing piles of stuff from other universes, but I'd also rather not set it specifically in another one; the PC is the star of the story.
The game system would also have to be worked out. Probably Risus, or something, for simplicity. [Not BESM - done it too much lately.] Amber, a la 4ways, is also viable.
Things to keep in mind: This universe will be a collaboration between GM and player. For those who watched La Fin, it's something like that. Only more so. The comic angsty cliches will be used, of course; GF/BF wondering where you are, people wondering why you always go missing etc. How far all of that goes depends on what's made, and the general kind of universe it is, how common heroes are etc.
Players who are NOT in it will be encouraged to make up villains, settings etc. that can be thrown in. I plan to have FUN with it :)
CAVEAT: Okay, so I AM editing it now. To whit:
The PC would need a family. Friends. A weakness or two. Means of travel. Ability to withstand getting hurt. And, for the sake of their sanity, probably at least one person who knows their secret. If it is one.
A superhero game, in "lite" mode. Not dark, not doom and gloom and 'the real world does this, so everyone fears you' etc. It's never really happened in #game1. So I'd like to try it. The one player limit is, well, I think I could manage it best that way.
(N.B. Two players is possible if 2 ppl want to do a siblings or parent/child duo.)
The goal is a superhero game that's about fun. Helping people, having fun, balancing hero and life, beating Bad Guys and the like.
Oh, yes: So far, Caltak is interested. He just said so.
To continue: The actual universe - and power level of the PC - will be worked out with the player. We can do spiderman level, even Superman (though, well, not THAT powerful please :p) and go from there. The PC will need family, job, who they're "out" to and the like.
How many heroes/nature of the universe'd have to be worked out, too. are there lots of heroes? Villains? Tems? I don't mind stealing piles of stuff from other universes, but I'd also rather not set it specifically in another one; the PC is the star of the story.
The game system would also have to be worked out. Probably Risus, or something, for simplicity. [Not BESM - done it too much lately.] Amber, a la 4ways, is also viable.
Things to keep in mind: This universe will be a collaboration between GM and player. For those who watched La Fin, it's something like that. Only more so. The comic angsty cliches will be used, of course; GF/BF wondering where you are, people wondering why you always go missing etc. How far all of that goes depends on what's made, and the general kind of universe it is, how common heroes are etc.
Players who are NOT in it will be encouraged to make up villains, settings etc. that can be thrown in. I plan to have FUN with it :)
CAVEAT: Okay, so I AM editing it now. To whit:
The PC would need a family. Friends. A weakness or two. Means of travel. Ability to withstand getting hurt. And, for the sake of their sanity, probably at least one person who knows their secret. If it is one.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
LOLAD2 Ramblings and stuff
LOLAD 2 will run. Not sure when, of course. I think everyone'll need a break from the world, so we'll do something else (what? no idea yet. Could do more of Havoc! :) Or UH ::p)
But, since some players are already thinking up PC ideas:
1) No MC from lolad1. (Secondary Characters - Travor's sister, maybe Mufasta etc.) are possible. Ideally, though, the game won't have much connection to lolad1, PC wise.
Starting point breakdown:
13 CP for stats.
10 CP for abilities.
20 SP for skills.
No more than 5 points total in defects.
Items of Power and the Magic attribute ARE allowed, within reason.
No PC weres or vamps. You're all human (or human+), or some weak kind of alien etc. This is a lower-powered game. Think of the PCs as vigilantes and the LOLAD1 PCs as the Justice League -- very little interaction between them, gross differences in power.
The LOLAD1 game will, of course, be referenced. LOLAD2 wil take place in the modern world, so 5 years or so after LOLAD1. Newcasts etc. will mention those PCs. (Players are encouraged to come up with "what my PC would be doing in 5 years" things for fun once lolad1 ends :))
Of course, how LOLAD2 plays out will depend on how 1 ends, naturally. Given the plot so far, I have some vague ideas, but the whims of Sparkie change many things.
The "between games game" will be intended as a short, fun game. Different genre entirely, ideally. I would like to do the Haunted game, for example, at some point. Or we could do something nice and silly. Really up for anything.
(Keep in mind that this is 3+ months down the road; lolad1 still has a weys to go. But toss out ideas here and we'll see what people are up for. Time will be the same on Monday.)
But, since some players are already thinking up PC ideas:
1) No MC from lolad1. (Secondary Characters - Travor's sister, maybe Mufasta etc.) are possible. Ideally, though, the game won't have much connection to lolad1, PC wise.
Starting point breakdown:
13 CP for stats.
10 CP for abilities.
20 SP for skills.
No more than 5 points total in defects.
Items of Power and the Magic attribute ARE allowed, within reason.
No PC weres or vamps. You're all human (or human+), or some weak kind of alien etc. This is a lower-powered game. Think of the PCs as vigilantes and the LOLAD1 PCs as the Justice League -- very little interaction between them, gross differences in power.
The LOLAD1 game will, of course, be referenced. LOLAD2 wil take place in the modern world, so 5 years or so after LOLAD1. Newcasts etc. will mention those PCs. (Players are encouraged to come up with "what my PC would be doing in 5 years" things for fun once lolad1 ends :))
Of course, how LOLAD2 plays out will depend on how 1 ends, naturally. Given the plot so far, I have some vague ideas, but the whims of Sparkie change many things.
The "between games game" will be intended as a short, fun game. Different genre entirely, ideally. I would like to do the Haunted game, for example, at some point. Or we could do something nice and silly. Really up for anything.
(Keep in mind that this is 3+ months down the road; lolad1 still has a weys to go. But toss out ideas here and we'll see what people are up for. Time will be the same on Monday.)
Sunday, July 09, 2006
LOLAD 2?
The Major Plot is about to unfold, in game, soon. (Soon in this game, of course, is a while in RL :)) Depending on how things go, it will end - interestingly, for the world.
So a second campaign may be ran, if players are willing and not lolad'd-out. Said campaign would be set in 2006, using lower powered characters: no weres and vamps, for one thing, using BESM. Real world*
* "Or what is left of it." - Sparkie
Proviso: no PCs from the first campaign can be used. NPCs from it can be turned into PCs, with GM permission, but for the most part everyone is expected to make new characters and the game go from there.
Once this campaign draws to a close, we'll do an informal poll and see if players are up to the new game deal, or taking a break from the universe, or whatever.
So a second campaign may be ran, if players are willing and not lolad'd-out. Said campaign would be set in 2006, using lower powered characters: no weres and vamps, for one thing, using BESM. Real world*
* "Or what is left of it." - Sparkie
Proviso: no PCs from the first campaign can be used. NPCs from it can be turned into PCs, with GM permission, but for the most part everyone is expected to make new characters and the game go from there.
Once this campaign draws to a close, we'll do an informal poll and see if players are up to the new game deal, or taking a break from the universe, or whatever.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
New, Improved Quotes!
The quotes have improved, thanks to the efforts of Fennec (and kentari, for how Sparkie does them now). Search is now available ONLY on the site. Improvements will be added as time permit. The regular quotes via 500 per page in the normal quotes section of the site will be updated as usual.
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