Damn I Am Pretty Art Laboratories

The Center Cannot Hold is a series of vignettes and musing on a setting in my head for Pathfinder.  Crux: The City of Curses.  Its a attempt at Napoleonic Fantasy.  Let's see how well I do.  The Eternal Order of the Eagle and the Crow Even in its earliest days, the Marshals and Knights of the Twin Orders of the Eagle and the Crow was famous for its focus on hunting monsters, saving the innocent and creating justice had made it the target of a slew of political enemies.  The Eagle and the Crow is loyal to no one Flag, and in current age, that is political liability.  Or outright lethal in a few places. The Eagle and the Crow ultimately began as a religious order, a knightly outgrowth of the Church of the Twins.  But the Order itself explains its origins and operation through a parable.  The parable of the Eagle and the Crow explains the story of a dark day where noble Eagle faced a nefarious enemy whom he could not defeat without the sk...

I like Fate a bit.  And I want to use Aspects, but I find myself not certain that adapting them wholesale to Pathfinder.  If you want to run Pathfinder-y setting stuff in Fate, do that.  Or vice versa I suppose. But I want to borrow the mechanical flavor of Aspects, in that they are unique components of a character.  In this way, I think of how Backgrounds work in 13th Age.  So, let's riff on that then.  I also don't want a lot of time spent creating these, considering all the other time spent in character generation in Pathfinder.  Besides, its remarkable how much a little addition adds so much more flavor. Variant: Aspects I'm keeping the name, by the way.  I'm going to tie Aspects into previous idea of mine, the idea of the Chosen as an explanation for explaining Feats and other d20 mechanics as metaphysical concepts in-setting. Only Chosen can have Aspects.  This isn't meant to be a mythic thing.  But it means Chosen beings ...

July 1988.  On An Island North of the Arctic Circle. Bill Lodge panted hard.  Then he helped lift his younger brother Don up to top of the cliff edge beside him.  Both Lodge brothers had exhausted themselves climbing up the cliff.  Don and Bill paused.  They sat there for a moment, admiring the amount of effort it had taken them to get this far. Even in summer the arctic cold was harsh even for both of them.  They were clad in thick orange parkas and furs.  That had made the climb surprisingly difficult.  Don pulled out a flask, took a swing and handed it over to Bill.  Bill nodded and took his own swig of the celebratory whiskey.  They'd made it. "Jeez, this island is taller than what the survey said."  Bill began to scan the ground they'd ascended.  He looked for any sign of the sites they'd come here looking for. "It matches all we known about the other Old Ones' sites.  Built in an extreme environment, off the...

My Dearest Angela. My love, my dearest Angela, I hope I haven't sliced my throat yet by the time you read this letter.  I don't know if Crux will drive me to suicide.  Or if it'll kill me with the its own dark temptations and sins.  I am reminded of how you warned me not to come to this place. I remember holding you that night, in our room.  I remember the warm Othebean rain.  I remember the smell of Roses that night.  Those sweet roses. I should've listened to you, Angela.  Instead I will make the most out of your letters.  Othebea seems a bit closer when I read them.  It drives Crux away for a time. For the next three months I will remain in this godsforsaken city.  By the twins, I regret agreeing to the contract to lecture at Crux University.  But signing that contract has guaranteed us gold and wealth for the next little while.   At least the lectures provide a distraction from the tedium of this place.  It giv...

8511 shuddered.  It stank.  Her wax-flesh shuddered from the cold water.  She trudged through it.  8511 did not want to come down here. She tugged subconsciously on the cast iron collar around her neck.  The Android didn't notice it.  She just scratched at the mark of her enslavement, something the Android had only known over the five years she'd been a conscious machine. "No choice.  Do what they say."  8511 muttered to herself.  The Android had the shape and form of a young woman.  But the eerie blue glow to her eyes made her look anything but human.  Lines and runes along parts of her body glowed blue as well.  Nuts and screws met at her joints.  There were seams, very hard to see, but they were still there.  8511's flesh shimmered.  Made of wax, it had a color and softness like human flesh, but magically reinforced.  Under that wax one could hear the thrum and spin of tiny cogs and gears.  Each ...

Gaming Materials is a series of reviews/opinions I spout on games I play.  Essays of a gaming sort, although I never get too deep with them. I love multiplayer games.  Especially those games that have a political bent to them.  I also enjoy any game that is chaotic to a large extent.  Enter a game that satisfies both these itches at the same time: Cosmic Encounter . Cosmic Wackiness First published in 1977, Cosmic Encounter has won its own fair share of awards.  It combines a variety of elements: diplomacy, card management, prediction, and even a bit of role-playing too.   Cosmic Encounter is one of the big influential board games.  Sort of an admirable goal to aim for.  And an inspiration to those of use with a creative bent too. I first learned about Cosmic Encounter through youtube reviews ( Click here if for a 'how-to' review of it ).  I had not yet heard of a game that could allow everyone the chance to win simultaneously. ...

What if feats and class features were the metaphysical bricks of the universe?  What if they were like Magic Items or characters with their own histories? Before I get into it, I'm going to be brief on the nature of rules in RPGs and other games.  Rules are their own sort of flavoring.  They help to encourage players' behavior.  They can be important.  Of course, if you don't the behaviors they encourage in your roleplaying... go ahead and change 'em.  Experimentation is one of my favorite principles, so long as fun isn't sacrificed for it. Although... this has nothing to do with variant rules. A Treatise on d20 Metaphysics I've been playing in a Pathfinder game lately, Wrath of the Righteous.  Our group, the Silver Blades , have been having a rather Mythic time.  But I also have done something I always do... I dreamt up yet another setting/idea/thing to work on.  I ended up here.  A musing if you will (the Setting is called C...