Damn I Am Pretty Art Laboratories

Haven't done one of these in awhile.  I could go back to In Transit Monsters (I still am working on polishing up part 15), but decided to opt to write on a few games I've tried out in the last few months.   Gaming Materials, Reading Materials - these are my attempts at reviews of things.  I tend to be positive, and I try to offer ideas for how to use them to enhance a tabletop game experience, be it RPG or board game. Love Letter and Coup are part of this new movement in tabletop stuff: "micro" games that aim to take up tiny space, and tiny time while still scratching that itch.  The first benefit of the move is that they take small amounts of time to play.  It's a matter of economy of time- if you can scratch certain itches before a bigger game, you get more gaming in. Each of these are recent additions to my library.  They've become useful pre-game appetizers.  Like the microgame movement itself, I'll try to be brief about each. SUSHI GO! ...

For my home #Crux game, I revisited my notes on how each class was founded to add some more mechanical bits for my players to use. As is my usual bad habit, I went a bit overboard I think. Here it is for anyone wanting to see me putter through #FateCore stats for a class of sorts. Any suggestions/critiques welcome, I'm fully aware I might not be doing things 100% cleanly.  Archaeologist .   A descendant class from Rogue, Investigator and Bard, first appeared in the last decade and has emerged as a brand new class of its own.  The first Archaeologist had been a Feyborn Ferret and Rogue, Koa Skysword .   Originally venturing into the deeps of Crux for potential treasure, Koa had a knack for learning the history from the clues left behind by prior generations.  She balanced the greed for such relics against the knowledge to be obtained; to others of the field, she blazed a trail for them to follow.  But she always bowed to economic interests t...

Previous  | Start  | Next | Index Nasr (H minus One Month 22 Days) People never name something without meaning the context of the namesake.  That's why no one ever names something Icarus.  Icarus failed.  To name something after him is to damn something as failure.  That also goes for things like Eurydice or Maenad. Names have power.  For human psychology. "Why?!"  Ghale's voice announced her presence before her arrival. Hecate, Miri, Nicky and I sat at the folding table in the middle of what served as the office for the facility.  My jaw thrummed with a toothache and irritation.  The last week had proved stagnant for the Monsters.  I tried to not let a grumble out as Ghale thundered into the room.  This had been long coming. I'd hoped that only my tooth would be harassing me. "Why?"  Ghale demanded. "MAny woRLDs."  Hecate said. "Not you.  Miri.  Why?" Miri didn't look up from the scr...

Blood Barons Aspect: Blood Calls To Blood Quote: "These are ours.  But we aren't savages.  Of course we are willing to make a deal." The heads of the five vampyre clans in the Blood Quarter ; granted their baronies by the Prince centuries ago, they refuse to let progress unseat them from their place of power.  They've been part of the City of Curses for almost twelve-hundred years.  The Blood Barons are certain they'll survive any storm on top.  Unlike the other icons in Crux, the Blood Barons are five powerful persons, sometimes united, sometimes divided. Common Knowledge "Don't go down there.  Blood quarter is only for losing your blood.  You understand me?" Most folk don't know the who's or what's of the vampyres in the Blood Quarter.  Sure, they've heard tales that of Fish-vampyres that use the coves of the Blood Quarter for smuggling.  And certainly there have always been rumors about the monsters that abduct unsorcero...

Previous (13) | Start | Next |  Index Davyd Samuel Whyte (H minus One Month 22 Days) I smiled for the Net.  My Daemon had prepared a transcript of what I should say.  It scrolled along as the interview went. "EpicVentures has expanded the World Ag Fund this year, in the hopes that this years food riots will not be as intense as years previous."  I said. The woman interviewing me frowned a bit.  Journalists.  A rare breed to see.  Even though EpicVentures owned her company, she had that stereotypical urge to distrust me.  Fine. She had dark hair.  Moira Hobb.  Genderfluid according to her file.  But these days she leaned more often on her female persona.  Cute.  Charming.  She looked like a survivor.  Dark clothes.  A practiced manner ideal for dealing with the drones flying around her.  A intelligent problem solver.  But not as smart as Rahm. How I missed her, even though she were on...

Well.  Didn't get done what I had done, but this is a nice short piece I had prepped.  When I get a chance, I'll expand it a bit more.  This is a post at very least, of the #Crux kind.  It continues my idea that the faiths in Crux should all have facets that mirror all nine alignments.  The Beitsabdh are the Petsellers- an order of Witches devoted to Lupa that turn their victims into pets that they sell.  Of course, all proceeds go back to the Church.  Why not? Beitsabdh: Petsellers of Lupa the Wolf-Mother Beitsabdh often is mistranslated as petseller in Tomish.  In Ursyklo, it means "Beastwitch."  Beitsabdh enjoy catching people, cursing them and changing them into small animals. Their order originates in a mandate to "enjoy" nature with an air of nobility.  Those who lack this intrinsic nobility, are rude or otherwise cross a Beitsabdh are often transmuted through cursecraft into an animal small enough it can be caged and sold easi...

Previous (12) | Start | Next (14) |  Index Ghale (H minus One Month 22 Days) A part of me had become paranoid about watching the monsters.  Yet I still watched from one of the carbon-fiber catwalks.  I didn't need to even be at the facility. Miri made monsters from my DNA. Nasr's training had begun in earnest.  My attention wasn't needed.  Miri certainly hadn't needed me around.  I had nothing to contribute to the work of her or her staff. Yet I still lingered here. Miri made monsters from my DNA. The Net hadn't been a distraction.  The latest riots in Seattle had been something new.  They had been growing in numbers.  I didn't understand it. She had been Morgan more often back when the two of us lived together.  That had been different though.  We loved each other.  Not after.  Not after what we agreed to do. #IncomingCircle from @M_Hobb I blinked away the tears that had been forming at the corners...

#Crux entry on the Knights of the Blood.  A personal philosophy of mine is that faiths in settings should be multifaceted.  They should have positive and negative sides to them.  The faith of the Summer Rose is about Birth, Youth and Flame- a religion about the kind of warm fire that protects you from the cold of the wild.  It needed its own dark side, and in a recent story arc in my home game, I needed a different kind of antagonist to get things done. Here it is, the Knights of the Blood.  Intended to be a kind of Chaotic Evil side to the Summer Rose, they are important in that they think of themselves as performing a necessary evil.  The pain they cause is "needed" from their point of view. Church of the Summer Rose: The Bloody Knights (Antipaladins) Knights of the Summer Flame originate the ideal of the Paladin in shining armor. They wear fire on their bodies, and they brave any fear to save the innocent. Like all faiths, however, the Summer Rose ...

Previous (11) | Start | Next (13) |  Index   Charlie (H minus One Month 24 Days) "See?"  Whiskey held up the icy object to me.  Intricate lines of energy throbbed from within it.  Goetia traced from her fingers into the ice.  Each line carried thousands of nanoscopic bots, each rearranging energy and matter. Whiskey used them to take water from the facility.  Then she froze it by having them suck out thermal energy.  The energy still crackled from it. "Ok.  But what is it?" Whiskey and I both had been experimenting in realspace, at Nasr's prompting.  Whiskey had begun toying with the water in the facility.  I laid back on one of our bunks that hung out of the water. "Oh."  Whiskey looked down at it.  She smiled to herself.  "Can't you tell?" "This is payback for all those dreamspaces, isn't it?" Whiskey giggled.  "Give it a try, ace." I rolled my eyes.  It'd been hard to focus on things...

Previous (10) | Start | Next (12) |  Index Moira/Morgan Hobb (H minus One Month 26 Days) #InTransit Morgan Hobb Stupid machine never could keep my name straight.  Then again, I shouldn't let a bare bones computer interface bug me.  It wasn't been offensive on purpose, it just always seemed unable to know which I had become for the day. "And I've been Moira more often than Morgan the last three years anyway."  I told myself.  "You're just frustrated that the stupid machine keeps misunderstanding and using the old ID." @Ozzi_SBC: @M_Hobb, you on location then? I rolled my eyes.  @M_Hobb: You just saw me leave.  Five seconds ago. @Ozzi_SBC: Sorry.  I know, its the anniversary.  You sure you are good to work? I should've listened to Ozzi and just left.  But she'd voiced the thoughts going through my head.  The last eight years I've taken this day off.  I had to try to break the cycle.  To make it go away. ...

#Crux post tonight.  The Perfectors, a weird sect of Android and Human body splicers.  Recently they popped up in my campaign, figured they'd make for a quick bit of Crux for Monday's post.   I plan to do some more this week, but this got rushed en lieu of my vacation this week.  Should do some more soon.  In the mean time, enjoy! The Perfectors "Flesh and iron, machine and humanity, android and organics.  We are presented with two paths by the mother, but instead believe we can forge a new one.  We can join together clockwork and viscera, to find perfection." -On the Perfection of Form;  The Tinkerer's followers are diverse.  Androids and many others obtain a sort of obsession in her wake, eager to boundaries.  For the sect known as the Perfectors, the Tinkerer opened a chance at new path, one between artificial and biological life.  The Perfectors combine human and android parts to find a more 'perfect form.' They are odd...