Damn I Am Pretty Art Laboratories

Its Halloween, or Samhain or Dias de los Muertos.  Take your pick. Tradition holds that the barrier between realms is weakest tonight.  Which makes sense after a fashion.  Persephone is traveling betwixt the lands of the dead and the living tonight.  The souls are starting to return- for only a handful of nights, but they are coming.  The time of living, warmth and sun is gone. The dark season is upon us.  Everything feels death walk by, and shivers at its approach. The wheel has turned, and 'tis best to be ready for it, no? I have a preference for the aspects of this holiday that show respect for the harvest and for the dead.  Its a time to remember what we've lost and count our blessings for what we still get to have.  Its the turn of the wheel of the world, and sometimes we humans forget that. The wheel of the world is going to turn, and we can't stop that.  Death is still a force we have to reckon with.  The Pain and the ...

Previous Part (3/10) | Next Part (5/10) Kyle Shenlong's skin glittered as it hardened.  Fists clinched.  His teeth clattered and shifted in his mouth.  Muscles under his skin rippled, rearranging themselves. Noir blinked.  He could sense... power?  Magic?  The necromancer didn't recognize the flavor of the magic, but it was magic.  Too vibrant to compare to his own.  It felt like tasting a new food for the first time, unfamiliar yet discovery. "Who are-" Kyle sighed.  His teeth now were fanged, his canines visibly sharp.  "Don't fucking talk, I can smell death on you.  What do you want with my sister?" "She agreed to help me, and I provided a service-" "What service?"  Kyle's eyes glowed white for a brief moment. Noir blinked again.  He still felt faint, but the idea of using any magick to alter one's own self was a curiousity.  Noir's own magic was purely external, turning corpses into living flesh, mos...

Going to continue to fill in pieces for Noah: the Kaiju-Song .  Today its time to talk Demons. “Ahem.”  The mediator from Tethys, Ras Elric, beat his gavel until the assemblage of Methuselah and Noah representatives quieted down.    “Now, Professor Sirius, I am curious about what makes these Kaiju rocks-” “Kaiju Gems!” Interjects a Noah representative. “Yes, yes, whatever you call them.  What makes these Kaiju Gems so valuable to your two cities?  What are they?” A skinny man in a brown pinstripe suit, his glasses thick and glowing with a bright techy-looking like, takes the podium. He wipes his sweaty palms and begins his presentation.  “The New Babylon Ubertechnologies and the Nephillum Institute conducted a research study, at first, for the power possibilities for Kaiju Gems.  Geothermal and Tidal power plants have their limitations, and the idea of a new power source that could allow new population growth motivated both organizations to ...

Zariel’s image flickered on the monitor.  Metatron seethed with rage. Each non-psionic acolyte clutch their eyes, the pain too much for them to handle.  They scream and try to claw out their eyes.  Metatron watched as Noah Psi-Detainment dragged the unconscious Zariel into the van and drove off. [So its true then?]  A red-haired angel asks Metatron telepathically.  Her name is Azrael.   Metatron looks at her, as if recognizing her for the first time.  [What is true, Azrael?] [Zariel.  You let Daniel and Haniel die.  Demons taunt you all the time.  But Zariel?  Its true isn’t it?]  Disappointment fills Azrael’s eyes.  [I always thought I had- well, a chance but-] [Yes.] Metatron’s telepathic answer comes with tears as he weeps.  [They think they can use him to control me- that bastard PM thinks he can- fuck, Azrael.  I have to get him back.  Show them what happens when they take someone who belongs to me...

Previous Part (2/10)|   Next Part (4/10) Xia Shenlong blinked. The stranger had fainted again.  Xia still didn't know who he was.  Or why she had brought him home with her.  Xia felt as though she should trust him completely. But she never remembered meeting him, only having seen him in the park.  She shook her head and paused. Xia had already helped the strange dark-skinned man back onto the couch.  "Why do I want to help him so much?" She cursed herself.  This urge to help him only made her more irritated.  Then came the knocking. Xia sighed and answered her front door. A young man with arms full of groceries greeted her.  Xia blinked.  "Hey Xia mind giving me a hand, eh?" She moved quickly, grabbing a bag from his arms.  She tried to hide her joy at the sound of her brothers' voice, the sight of his face. "Kyle, what brings you back here?"  Xia resisted the urge to ask him in Mandarin.  Kyle had never ...

This isn't quite a review or a actual play, just some thoughts after playing Fiasco for the first time the other night. Fiasco is a roleplaying game from Bully Pulpit Games.  Its a game of powerful ambition and poor impulse control: you and your fellow players act (together or against one another) in a scheme that ends in stupid tons of violentness.  One of my friends made a comparison with  Reservoir Dogs, which wasn't entirely inaccurate. Its a story game, a kind of genre within the greater tabletop RPG sphere.  These games often have no GMs, and each player is given enough power to affect the story and drive things forward.   Fiasco is one of those kind of games.  We had fun with it, using the Dresden Files playset that came out a year or two ago. Perhaps the first thought I have with it is a relishing of things going wrong: players choosing to have their characters fail and being okay with that.  I love that idea, and its theme in th...

Reading Materials is my series of reviews of books and other things I find while trying to learn to become a better writer... and further my descent into madness too.  Its going to be double post today, to make up for not having posted on Thursday night.  Enjoy! I had been listening to Ender's Game on Audible for the last two or three days- it was a snap pick for my monthly Audible audiobook.  I've never read Ender's Game before.  I've read Orson Scott Card and have digested my own fair share of dark and gritty.  So I figured I should add Ender to my list. Yeah, I know a movie version is up and coming.   Ender's Game is a short novel, compared to my usual listening- between Song of Ice and Fire and the Dresden Files , I'm used to looong novels.  There is a twist at the end, but overall, I found a dark pit in my stomach most of the time in Ender's Game. Oh, I like the dark stuff in novels, but there is a grim question in this novel I can't ge...

Jeremiah sipped the shot of whiskey.  Ice cubes jingled.  Black and the bartender were the only ones there.  Black waited passed waiting time, passing a food credit to the bartender to keep open.  The owner and bartender of the Dying Earth tavern.  Dirty and worn, it was one of the ones the Dragons favored in Moria. She walked in.  Jeremiah's horns twitched as the nervous scientist entered the Dying Earth.  She moved quickly, looking over her shoulder as she approached.  "You said we'd be alone-"Black waved a hand.  The bartender left."What about listening devices-" "Please, Kana.  Give me a break, eh?  I've done this before, know what I'm doing, you know?" "Dr. Madison, Mr. Black." She corrected. "And I guarantee this will make you one of the richest men under the sea." Noah: the Kaiju-Song is a recent setting I created while (a) bored, (b) curious, and (c) wanting something my own that was psychic in nature.  So I...

If you haven't heard about CastAR, check out its kickstarter.  Its kinda like the Oculus Rift or Google Glass.. except that it actually projects multidimensional images, albeit only with the right kind of material.  This invention is brilliant, but not for its effects on console or casual gaming- no, no, this thing is going to redefine tabletop RPGs as we currently implement them. Virtual Reality rigs have been a long time coming- often they fail because they cause sickness or the costs are too high.  Computers have increased fast enough that worrying about the costs of processing projecting images and capturing head movements is very low, enabling new VR and AR rigs to suddenly come into our space.  The Oculus Rift is doing that sort of thing, but its a closed system.  The CastAR, if it does even just a fraction of what it advertises, will definitely head a new kind of media I think. Although the inventors have mentioned uses for it with miniatures and boar...

Back to the Start... The first thing Noir's felt when he woke up was his nose.  It stung so hard he had trouble opening his eyes.  He put a hand to his face and felt blood come from his nose. Noir had been left on a couch.  He blinked his eyes open, trying to adjust to the light of the room.  Rain pelted the window behind him. "A foreign land is a land full of wolves."  Noir groaned at the sound of his mother's voice, echoing in his mind. "Aye madre, aye madre."  That old man had tried to warn him, hadn't he?  Noir only had misunderstood it, missing the point.  He should've realized the warning wasn't about raising the girl from the dead.  No, no, the old man warned Noir about the what would happen when she rose back from being dead. After he'd finished the ritual, Noir had nearly fallen over from exhaustion, his blood sugar feeling low from it.  The girl then sucker-punched Noir before he could ask her any more questions.  ...

Part One of a series about Noir Badarte. In Black chronicles who he is and what he does. Noir Badarte toked up the joint with a shaking hand. He felt the smoke and felt its buzz. It just had an effect on his biology, just barely. His small, brown eyes watered a bit as he let the breathed out the smoke. "That stinks up the car, N." Bert sniffed in irritation. "I drive the car, I should get to tell you not to smoke your weed in it." Noir opened a window. "Oh, now you do that. Great. That really fixes it all." Noir tried to ignore Bert's sarcasm. Noir knew Bert meant well. Bert owed him. Bert would gladly die again for him. And Noir would raise him back up once again. "My body needs the THC, Bert. This is the only way I ever get an appetite anymore." Bert looked at him through the rear view mirror. "Yeah, I know." Bert flexed a hand nervously. "Back when I was alive, that would've scared me. ...

I found myself inspired the other day.  I wanted to start up a new game, but didn't know for sure if my group would be interested in trying it or not.  I decided to create a pitch, which currently is what I point at to try and entice people to play.  Game proposals/pitches, aren't something people always think of when they plan to GM a new game/campaign/chronicle, but they are important and can be great tools to help build player excitement. Pitches are smaller part of a structuring out a game.  Before you get around to creating characters or writing out stories or whatnot, you, the GM, can write up a small document to explain what it is you want to run.  This document should be a single page- quick, simple and broad.  You don't need to explain yourself in details, just make your players excited and curious to try what idea you've latched onto. Template Here is a brief idea of template I thought of when trying to write it up: Title: Big.  So...

So, I watched this on TYT the other day: More or less, I found this bizarre, and not to poke fun at the stenographer, I decided to go researching into it.  I understood a bit about Freemasons and the US constitution, including the big backlash against them in the early 19th century.  More and more searching, and I found myself musing about a setting for a urban horror/fantasy setting. In the setting, the Freemasons operate as a force of hunters of the supernatural, trying to contain and stop rival conspiracies constructed by powers trying to "contain" humanity.  None of these forces are benevolent- but the Freemasons are our 'in' here- they help to found the United States, but fail to keep power over it.  Something about the Occult power of the US has gone rogue, and the Freemasons' agents are struggling in a losing war. Magic and the supernatural is very subtle in this world, probably somewhat "consensus" reality like M:tA (take your pick of flav...

A few weeks ago, I gm'd my group through a game of Fate Core , although I tweaked it on purpose.   I had supported the Kickstarter for it.  It seemed like it was time for me to try it out, and the rest of the group complied, interested to learn more about it themselves. Fate Core is excellent to tweak and hack.  I've developed a habit of hacking tabletop RPGs, often out of a urge to up play or down play a particular goal I've had in mind.  In the case of running Fate Core this time, I wanted to run a one-shot, but I wanted some parts of it to go quicker than others- which had sort of mixed results. I wanted character creation to go quick, so I reduced skills down into six "professions", using one of the subsystems in the Fate toolkit.  Professions are a sort of idea of a skill group- that is, for how I used it, six different approaches for handling situations defined by in-setting professions.  We ended up spending two sessions, one whole session for c...

There is something to be said about muttering to one's self.  Its a good habit, and one should do it every moment one can.  If people say otherwise, they are, perhaps, lying. I'm not going to say that madness isn't a problem per se.  It can be, I suppose, but things like talking to oneself are... well, perfectly sane, if you look at it from the irrational point of view.  Its how I sort out my thoughts every day, and I feel somewhat sane, if not quite mad. The best reason I see to keep this up is the honesty that comes with it.  I'm not going to start lying to myself, especially since I have to put up with myself for a very long time.  Or very short time, I suppose, should a heavy blow to the skull render me somewhat comatose or prevent me from forming anymore longterm memories. Neurology beside, one's madness is a key to inner happiness, unless its one of those madnesses that doesn't know how to shut up long enough for the more fun ones to wo...