Damn I Am Pretty Art Laboratories

Sorry for the late post!  This isn't necessarily Halloween themed, but it is a #Crux bit of #FlashFiction.  Intended to be a tad... tragic?  Horrific?  IDK on that.  Felt good to write though, even if it has a dark end to it.   A letter to Othebea from Dr. Lyam Kyringer, whose journey to the Irons ends badly for him.  Hope you enjoy it!  Very short, but if you like it, please share and let me know what you think!  Always glad for more input! :D Letters To Othebea: The Cat-Earred Child My Dearest Angela, By the time this letter reaches you, I will have long been dead.  My handwriting may differ from what you are used to, as a companion of mine is writing this for you.  I'm sorry, my love.  Things have broken and it's all my fault for not seeing it happen. I had wandered far from the grand bazaar.  The air grew more acrid and foul.  I guessed it to be the Rag Coast, near where the hellish factories of the...

Previous | Start  | Next | Index Charlie (H minus 14 Days) My avatar's eyes avoided looking at my feet.  This conference room looked identical to the one in the facility.  I wished Whiskey was next to me.  Maybe her presence would keep me from trying to analyze my toes. "Your shyness always throws me off."  Nasr said.  "After being so bold, so willing to take the extra step, you still act like that around me." "Sometimes it's easier to not look."  I replied, my tone automatic. "Perhaps.  But that isn't why you're here in this dreamspace, though." "You've never asked me into one of these alone.  Not since Nicky." "You haven't been trying to get in since Nicky."  Nasr pointed out. "Into your head?  I couldn't.  Not anymore." "Learn a lesson, of a sort?"  Nasr asked. "Weird."  I said.  "You never told me there was some sort of lesson to go with...

This neighborhood in #Crux is more of a recent thing.  I created it after wanting to have some sort of factory district.  When preparing a map handout for my players, I added it.  Here is some words to go along with it.  Maybe if I get some more inspiration, I can try to detail out some of the faces of the Irons here too. The Irons District Aspect: The Irons Never Stop Burning Connected To: Rag Coast (to the Northeast), Wish Quarter (to the East) Most Significant Icon: None. Well Known For? Factories, Smithies and Workshops The sulfurous bellows of the irons burn the nostrils.  Brick and iron greet the eye, if you can see past the steam and smoke.  Wheels and pumps use the fury of the Locke to power their motors and engines. Even with the river rushing alongside it, the smell still burns.  Some places within are deadly to breath.  Gases collect and can slay anyone who breathes them in.   As I walk through the fresh new cobble...

I tend to not like the term steampunk for the genre of stories set in a victorian era or that equivalent.  It's a personal thing.  The more "specific" a genre goes, the more I worry.  I worry that genre's stereotypes and tropes are going to overrule everything else going on.  That's what happens when a lot of people identify a piece of fiction.  They are aware of what tropes will be present in the story and build expectations based on that. That and I don't know if Steampunk knows what it is.  Industrial age adventures with machines?  We got those.  Where does the Time Machine and a Thousand Leagues Under the Sea fit into that?  Steampunk's pedigree is that of being the child of cyberpunk.   That doesn't help either.  Cyberpunk is just a form of Sci-Fi dystopia.  When people do things steampunk related, does it carry any real punk with it?  I don't know. I love the era these kinds of stories are trying t...

Previous  | Start | Index Ghale (H minus One Month, 15 Days) I sat down after the final floating hologram had ended.  Across our table, Martin steepled his fingers.  We both let out a breath. "No investigation."  I repeated the last line the UN Security Council had said to us.  "That's... Better than we could've hoped for." Martin frowned.  "Everything we do is some sort of slimy dodge from morality." "Martin, we don't them deciding to change how we run Pygmalion."  Or worse, have them learn one of the monsters is my daughter.  A genetic descendant of mine, altered to be a war machine. "EpicVentures suggests they don't press for a investigation.  Even though it involves terrorism at the highest levels."  Martin shook his head. "You aren't conflating your opinion on corporations with this?"  I asked.  "We aren't their oversight." "The UN Security Council cleared everyon...

Hey.  More #Crux for you.  Here's a worldbuilding-ish one: where does the waste go?  The garbage, the offal, the shit, the piss and all of that?  Well, someone has to do something about it.  In Crux, it's a guild with few members and even less reputation: the Ragwalkers.  Dirty fellows, they dare in the sewers to keep the city of curses clean enough for others to live in. Secrets And Rats I cleaned my teeth and looked up from my spot among the ragged waste.  Certainly a nice bit of a price, all considered. "If only we had enough rats to eat all the drek and filth they want us to make go away."  Gwan said.  The balding Ragwalker smiled down at me and my clutch of ratlings.  "Alas, not all of it is ratfood, now is it?" "A needed job is still a job."  I pointed out from my spot.  Most feyborn rats didn't like to dine like their common brothers and sisters.  I didn't feel the need to abandon my kind just because I k...

One of my favorite story games is #Microscope .  Zooming in and out of a history, while you are forced to be creative, that gets my blood pumping.  I'm a history nerd.  Making one up just makes me giddy. I don't get to play it enough, though.  By myself, I played a game of Microscope, which led me to creating Noah: the Kaiju-Song .  Noah is about a city on the bottom of the ocean dealing with psychic mutants called Angels and Demons.  Yes, Crux is also a city-based setting.   I have a recurring theme it seems. Fractal Hack-Manship Ideas. Hacking Microscope seems apt.  Or something everyone who plays it thinks of doing.  As a setting creation tool.  My first curious thoughts is seeing if I can use part of Microscope's fractal design.  To hack and the like. The first thought I had was to have a sort of use of the Create Advantage option from Fate Core.  Have a established timeline for your setting, and allow it to b...

Previous | Start  | Next | Index Charlie I opened my eyes.   Darkness.  Smoke.  Shadows. Nicky's dreamspace towered over me.   Massive .  Smoke cascaded far above me.  I blinked at it.  Something screamed in the distance.  Something huge. It made me shiver. I crawled behind a nearby tower of dark wood.  In the shadow I noticed the grain.  Larger than it should've been. "Big."  I said to myself.  "Everything is huge here." That added up.  This wasn't a tower of wood with smoke up in the sky above.  Furniture.  I hid behind the foot of some sort of furniture.  A pew? I'd seen images of churches.  From the net.  My dreamspaces rarely had them.  Religion had never interested me.  Aunt Miri never mentioned her faith, although I'd heard her use the word God from time to time.  I think she believed in something, but didn't want me to know about it. My avatar was a...

Going to do a quick "blog" post today.  In Transit Monsters is going to continue at some point this week.  And maybe I'll think up something Crux-ish, but this is heavy on my mind. Poo-Tatoes. I saw the Martian this weekend.  I've spent so much time talking online and offline on the subject, I'm  going to go off in a single direction on this.  WE NEED MORE sci fi like the Martian.  Not explosions.  Not "science dun bad!" but actual, genuine awesome in space.  One of the phrases in the movie catches what I want from the genre: Let's Science the shit of this. Also, been watching Doctor Who and Agents of Shield again.  Both shows kinda signify I might need to get more NEW shows in my repertoire.  Eek.   The Martian is based on the book by Andy Weir from 2011.  It's hard scifi, in that the science feels and looks like science.  Not fake look, but the kind of science that has some meat and metal under the drywall. ...

A shorter post today, but still kind of flavorful for the sake of flavor.  Some holidays in Crux.  #Crux is a fantasy setting I keep writing on, run a home #FateCore in and more or less spend a large amount of time thinking about.   Click here for more information about it if you're interested.   I thought about tying in some holiday specific stunts, but couldn't think of any good effects with the time I had.  I suspect the idea could be kewl, and have filed it away for later use. Autumnal Holidays Here are a few autumnal holidays of Crux.  The months of Lastharvest, Ghostwalk and Feastwatch are the autumn months in the Othebesian Calendar.  That is the main calendar in use.  These each are celebrated in the city of curses. Geistide: Honoring The Dead, Inviting the Ghosts. Three different faiths celebrate the holy days of Geistide.  It originated with the Church of the Twins .  The faiths of the Wolf-Mother , and Ariaism all ...

#Crux is this ongoing thing I keep writing setting pieces for.  I run a home game set in it, and it tends to use #FateCore.  If you want to know more about Crux, this page is probably a good place to start, rather than here.  Geistrakers are intended to be a counterpoint to the Ghostwalkers.  In Crux, they serve the people of the Wish Quarter, including the Archwitch.  Scientists, they see Ghosts as resources to be exploited for the sake of the people. The Geistrakers  "Wherein we strike against the bastard-walkers of our ill-begotten Prince.  The best of us dare to fight against them.  Geists are ours to command.  This city needs to learn to fear our chains." The dead are numerous in Crux.  The further one departs from the center of Old Crux, the harder it is for the Prince to maintain his control.  Ghostwalkers, like the sewers and sanitation magic, don't venture past Palace Hill much.  As Crux turns into stink, garbag...