Claimh Solais

D&D: Eberron

This web site has been collecting information on Eberron from magazines and the web. The more I hear about WotC's new setting, the more it seems like Final Fantasy, but in a good way. I've been saying for years that a new rpg should come out with a final fantasy-derived setting. I even started working on one with a friend. Well, it ends up that an old rpg came out with the setting.

ACUS 2004- Selecting games

As usually happens, I find that the one game that I really would like to play in is in a slot I'm GMing. To make things worse, it starts in a slot I'm playing in but continues into one of my GM slots. So, I read the description thinking "This is it! This is the game I must play in!" Ah well. It's the Wild Cards game being run by Joe Saul and Edwin Voskamp.

I need to look over the gamebook more, but after an intitial look yesterday and today, here's what I'm possibly looking at.....

Slot 1- GM- "The Shattered Mirror
Slot 2- Matrix Diceless John Lees
When you have Illuminated.... Arref
Kill Brand, Part I David Vandanabeele
Slot 3- GM - The Crystal Ship
Slot 4- GM- (LARP) The Longest Fall
Slot 5- Unto the Third Generation D.J. Quinn
Mars Ascending Mr & Mrs. Schleick, Dave Golden
Slot 6- GM- Morpheus Defiant
Slot 7- The Playground D.J. Quinn
Name of God Kristen Schleick
Slot 8- To Live and Die in Texorami Chris Kindred
Playing Favorites D.J. Quinn
Confessions Christopher Butz

Slot five was the slot for MK's "Mercy and Forgiveness" campaign. In it, I've been playing one of my favorite characters, Anoki. I'm kind of bummed that MK won't be there this year and find it doubtful then that he will be back next year. So, I'm thinking of joining another campaign, D.J. Quinn's. I know some of the players in it and they are all people I've enjoyed playing with in the past. I've also seen how excited they have been about that campaign and it leads me to believe it's a good one. There's only one slot open, so who knows if I'll be able to join but it seems like it would be cool.

Otherwise, Mars Ascending sounds like a great game and I've been wanting to try this system that the GMs came up with for character creation. I hear good things.

Slot 7 was the tough one for me to find a game in. In the end, I'll probably choose the two games I listed because I know they are good GMs. Plus, Kristen's description for "Name of God" was really good.

Slot 8 is To Live and Die in Texorami. Last year, I wa sgoing to play and had to bow out at the last minute because of a school paper. This year, I want to make sure I'm there. Plans are to play a variation of Conrad Gareth from Bette Noir. He should be right at home, since he was based on "Doc" Holliday. My secondary choice there will probably yet another Quinn game, "Playing Favorites." Has anyone out there played in the game and are they willing to recommend it? I'm torn between it and the soap opera game. I admit it. I hate watching soap operas but the idea of playing one fascinates me.

Anyways, if anybody would like to say good things about any of these above GMs. feel free to leave a comment. If you want to warn me away from a GM, it may be better to email me. That way noone reads this and has their feelings hurt.

Vampire Quiz

Mysterious and a scholar, you are a member of the Tremere clan. You are pretty loyal to your clan, well, you sort of have to...especially since you are blood-bonded to most of them. You are the intelligentsia of the Camarilla and are fascinated with the occult. Possessing the ability to use blood for magic, many clans don't like to approach you. However, that is fine with you. You tend not to trust the other clans anyway. What Vampire Clan Do You Belong To?

(Via Eternal Eponine)

ACUS 2004- Game Book

The Ambercon game book is now online! Link: http://www.ambercon.com/

Smallville: Who is Chloe?

From the same episode.... (Spoilers ahead)

What's with Chloe using the psuedonym Lois Lane? She says it's the name of her cousin who has absolutely no interest in journalism. Are they going to have Chloe keep publishing under that pen name? I've said since the beginning of this show that I was rooting for Clark & Chloe to hook up. Could it be they were planning it all along?

Smallville: Who is Adam?

Watched last night's episode of Smallville this morning. After a lack-luster first half of the season, this second half is really picking up.

(spoilers ahead)

Next episode will be about this new character and possible new boyfriend for Lana, Adam. The trailer implies that Adam has some dark past and may be some sort of psycho killer as it shows someone getting attacked as the voice over asks: Who is Adam?

I've got my theory. Are you ready? Adam is Bruce Wayne.

The trailer making it look like he's next week's villian is lik most Smallville trailers....misleading.

What are the clues I use?

In the first episode he appeared he tells Lana that both of his parents are dead. He claims they died in a fire, but however they died, he seems to have a lot of issues over their death.

He's a drifter of sorts. He said he's from Metropolis but last night when Lana asked him if he'd be returning to Metropolis, he said "something like that." Could it be that he'd be returning home to another city? Gotham perhaps? In the comics, we know that Bruce travelled the world to train as Batman, using several psuedonyms.

It wouldn't be the first time Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne feuded over the same woman. In the Dini cartoons, Bruce Wayne almost married Lois.

This may be silly, but I don't think they've revealed his last name in the show. Since it may be a cover and the writer could be having a small joke at our expense, could Adam's last name be West?

For the clincher- In last nights episode, while Lana was possessed and attacking Chloe, Adam jumps in like someone who is well trained and snatches the axe from Lana and kicks her. Later he shows that he is a talented computer hacker and traces the emails that were sent to Clark and Lana. He shows some good deductive skills, worthy of a world's-greatest-detective-in-training. When confronted by Lana about his martial arts skills he says, "I don't know. Too many Jackie Chan films?" He claims he learned the computer skills from books while in the hospital. It's a weak story.

Amber: The Masquerade

This is fun. For those of you have not seen this already, here is a comparison of Amber and Vampire

Buffy Resource

BuffyRPG.net, a website for players of the Eden Studios Buffy RPG, has this spell sheet that would be pretty useful for any witchy characters.

Why Superman doesn't need a mask:

A few (supposedly) true stories:

In New York a bunch of years ago, a couple of cops set up a bit where they weakened the frame of a steel door, and one of them took the next opportunity to chase a crook into the hallway where they'd done this. His partner was on the other side of the door in a Superman outfit. When the crook got close, ol' Supes knocked the door out of the frame, stepped into the hallway and demanded that the crook surrender. The crook did so immediately.

When it went to trial, the crook claimed that Superman had stopped him. When the cops told their side of the story in court, the crook claimed they were lying. According to him, the cop in question didn't look a thing like the Superman that stopped him. He was so focused on the outfit that he couldn't recognize the cop.

and...

Dwight Schultz ("Murdock" from the A-Team, Ensign Barclay from ST: TNG) once mentioned in an interview that he could walk through a Star Trek convention wearing his glasses and never be spotted.

...and a story from the filming of one of the Batman films....

Despite the fact that their faces did not look alike, the stage crew often had trouble telling Chris O'Donnell and his stunt double apart if they were both wearing their Robin masks and costumes. And as we remember from the theater(those of us unfortunate enough to see that movie), the movie Robin wore that little domino mask.

Gillian the Vampire Slayer- New Spells

Well, it's been a while since I posted the spells from a Gillian game. If my players want any particular spell writeups right now, please let me know.

I Ching Divination
Source: GtVS 1.2 "That's Entertainment!"
Quick Cast?: No
Power Level: 1

Requirements: I Ching Coins, Silk cloth

Effect: If cast to divine for a person, the person must be present. Caster learns about the target and possibly the target's near future. The number of successes determines the amount of information the divination provides, although the caster must still make a Perception+ Occult roll to understand the reading. Note: This same spell has variations for Tarot cards and other divination types, but the type of information provided will differ by the medium of the divination. There also variations for divining the history of items, such as swords.

Dr. John's Spell for Dispelling Magical Effects
Source: GtVS 1.4 "Painful Lesson"
Quick Cast?: No
Power Level: 2

Requirements: A short incantation, a blend of uncomon herbs and a small stone of Malachite. In the published version, Dr. John did not list what the blend of herbs (offering to sell it to a person instead) was but with some research and successful Intelligence + Occult rolls, an appropriate blend of herbs can be determined.

Effects: The caster holds the herbs and the stone in her hand while drawing the magical energies out of them and reciting an incantation in Creole. If caster has more success levels than the casting of the spell being dispelled it may dispel the effrects of the original spell. "Dr. John" warns that some demonic spells can prove extremely difficult to dispel, but most spells cast by human spellcasters can be dispelled using this spell.

Note: Dr. John Montaine was a 19th century Bambarra prince (or so he claimed) who lived in New Orleans, selling gris-gris spells and specializing in healing. Montaine would place or lift a hex, fortell the future, or offer healing herbs for a fee.

Touch of Morpheus
Source: GtVS 1.5 "It's Your Party"
Quick Cast?: No
Power Level: 3

Requirements: sand, incantation

Effects: Caster sprinkles sand in the targets eyes while saying a greek incantation that takes 5 turns. Target will sleep a deep sleep, that even the loudest noises can not wake them from, for 10 minutes per success level.

Amy's "Gaydar" Spell
Source: GtVS (Has not been used in an episode yet, researched in between episodes.)
Quick Cast?: Yes.
Power Level: 2

Requirements: A short incantation. Witches can just picture the spells effect and say "reveal."

Effect: Spell allows the caster to see an aura around people. The aura will glow brighter around people who are more likely homosexual. Requires a Perception+Notice roll to notice the differences in auras.

Movie Review: Avalon

From the director of Ghost in the Shell, Avalon is a Japanese movie that was shot in Poland with Polish actors speaking....Polish. It's about a woman named Ash, one of the best players of a virtual reality video game in the future. While most people play the game in groups, called "parties," Ash has become one of the best players in the game by playing solo. She has recently gotten to the "A level," the level where only the elite players play. As the movie builds, a lot of mysteries come out about the game's origins and about the players who occassionally come out of the game in a coma. Sound familiar? Yeah, the plot has a lot in common with another Japanese creation, .hack. Anyways, for the players of the game, Avalon, the world of the game becomes....to quote the Tyrell Corp.'s motto, "more real than real." Leveling up your character has become so addicting that the government had to outlaw the game. Still, the players play.

I've been interesting in this plot idea ever since I heard of .hack, but unfortunately I found the .hack video game boring and the .hack anime incomprehensible. So, this movie was really cool for me. I've been thinking of running an Amber game sometime using the plot idea of players of a virtual reality game trying to solve a mystery that they can only solve together through actions both in the game and in the real world. This movie has given me some more inspiration for that game.

The cover of the video box compares the movie to The Matrix. That may be a little generous, but it is a pretty good movie with some really good twists. When I originally watched The Matrix, I had gone in with several friends having told me that I'd never believe what the matrix was. I was pretty disappointed when it turned out being everything I guessed it could be and the whole movie ended up being kind of pedictable. (Don't get me wrong, I liked The Matrix a lot.) Avalon does keep you guessing. I wouldn't say it has mind-blowing plot twists, just that you see several ways the plot could go.

Most of all, the movie reminds me of my favorite TV show: The Prisoner. In the tv show, a lot of mysteries were introduced through the series, but in the final episode, "Fallout," the viewers found that the answers they got only brought up more questions. Avalon left me feeling that same sense of mystery. If you like that stuff, you'll probably enjoy the movie. If you want all your plots to be tightly wrapped up and make complete sense, you may want to look elsewhere.

The visual style of the movie is the most interesting part. Everything is shot in a sepia-like tone with the exception of a few key scenes. The camera angles and set designs are really interesting and the special effects, while not up to splashy Hollywood standards, are really well done.

The soundtrack is pretty cool too. I'm hoping they come out with it on CD.

Anyways, if you'd like an "arthouse" Matrix or a digital Prisoner, I'd recommend renting this movie. Hell, if it just sounds interesting to you, I'd recommend it. This movie won't be for everyone, but I'm going to rate it a 4 out of 5.

Gillian the Vampire Slayer- from the Slayer's POV

On Flights of Fantasy, you can now read an account of "It's Your Party" from Gillian's point of view.

Dancing the Geek Dance of Joy

The trailer for Van Helsing is out! I can't wait to go home and watch it. (I'm at work right now.) You can see it at: http://www.vanhelsing.net/

(edit- I got home and watched it. It looks kinda cool, although not as cool as I was hoping for. It definately has some Castlevania-ness to it.)

Secret Worlds: The Origin of Mr. Jones

Mr Jones is my character in Neil's new Champions campaign, Secret Worlds. One of the other PCs wanted to know more about him so Mr. Jones gave him this:

Dr. Berkman,

As we were talking about earlier, I have come up with several theories as to the cause of my condition. My most recent idea that I have been considering is that I'm not supposed to exist. This doesn't explain why I show up on cameras, but it could explain a lot.

I don't remember my mother's name anymore, although I can remember her face. But then, I don't remember my birth name anymore either. While on the streets as a youth, they called me "Ghost" for so long that this became my name. Anyways, I remember overhearing my mother talking when I was little. I wasn't supposed to born. She went to the doctor and had an abortion. After that, she didn't realize she was still pregnant until right before I was born.

Yeah.....I was a small baby.

My childhood seemed pretty normal until I was in 2nd grade. Before that, I may not have had a lot of friends, but I played by myself and was happy. The kids knew I was there. They talked to me sometimes. We just didn't become friends.

It was in 2nd grade that things started getting weird. It was gradual but as the year went on, my teacher would call on me when my hand was raised less and less. The kids paid no attention to me in the playground. I remember walking through the field where kids were playing kickball and noone yelled at me to tell me I was in the way of the game. It was even happening at home. There were a few times that my mom forgot to set a place at the table for me. I know she didn't mean to, she just forgot I was there.

Then, the letters started coming home. The school said I had been truant. A lady came..... from social services I guess. She wanted to take me away. She told my parents that they had been bad parents and that even when I was in class, the teachers felt that I was being neglected at home. I guess I was, but I knew it wasn't my parents fault.

This went on for a while and eventually I was sent to a foster home. I wasn't there long. I don't remember much about my foster parents. I think they were nice people, but I knew that the same thing would happen. You see.....I was invisible.

I'm not really insible, as you know. I just might as well be.

Growing up on the streets was tough, but it was easier for me than most of the kids I met there. Noone ever messed with me or my stuff and shoplifting came easy.

Eventually, I started stealing some more expensive things than food and the stuff to survive. I didn't want to, but I also didn't want to be a street-kid forever. I got enough money to get some fake IDs and a place to live. I set myself up with a computer and an internet connection and started learning and interacting with people on line. Eventually, I got some legit jobs as a computer consultant and didn't have to steal anymore, which made me happy. I never liked having to steal. Still, I found myslef apart from the world outside my apartment. Interacting with people in the real world was such a pain. I tried going out to eat every once and a while to be around other people, but no waiter would ever come take my order.

So, when Stang offered me a job, I was glad to accept. Until lately, I've never felt a part of something.

So, I've got a few theories......

(To possibly be continued with his theories on the cause of his condition if I find the time to write it.)

D&D: Giants of Legend

Wizards of the Coast has the fourth set of D&D miniatures listed in their online store now, Giants of Legend

It's going to have "creatures larger than any seen so far," including Giants and Dragons.

WISH: Three Word Summary

Ginger asks us to: Sum up one or more games that you GM or play in 10 words or less. (Three is best, but not everybody is that pithy.) Don’t restrict yourself to current games if you have great ones in the past.

Systems:
Amber: No more dice.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Lots of Drama.
Call of Cthulu:Run to survive.
Cyberpunk 2020: Dodge for cover!
D&D 3.5: Level up!
Dreaming City: Work in progress.
GURPS: Lots of skills.
Hero 5th Edition: Fun with math.
Masterbook: Miss this system.
Mutants & Masterminds: d20 done right
Nexus: The Infinite City: Don't get lost.
Nobilis: Diceless perfection.
Og!: Limited vocabulary
Palladium: Pretty pictures.
Paranoia: You're not authorized.
Star Wars (West End): Wookies are tough!
Stormbringer: Black sword bad.
Storyteller: Needs work.
Tales of the Floating Vagabond: Let's go bar-hopping!

Current Campaigns:
Gillian the Vampire Slayer: Beware of shadows.
RDU: Put on hold.
Secret World: We are screwed.
Connemara: Army of Darkness
A Far Distant Shore: Now, I remember.
Malta: Ready to hack. (My character is a computer hacker.)

ACUS 2004- "The Crystal Ship"

After weeks of indecision, I've decided what the fourth game I'll run at ACUS will be:

It is one hundred years into the reign of King Random. A hundred merchant ships come through the port of Amber each day, but this one offers something different: another chance at bliss.

Characters will be built on 125 points. No Merlin books, no exalted powers & no artifacts above 25 points. Players must submit their characters before the con for approval or a 100 point pregen will be provided.

Hamlet: The Text Adventure

A coworker and I were recently talking about all those great Scott Adams text adventures that were on the Vic=20 and Commodore 64 and thinking how we wished that someone would collect them for play on PCs and Macs.

Well, it may not ever happen, but there is a new text adventure out in the same vein: http://www.robinjohnson.f9.co.uk/adventure/hamlet.html

I've played a bit of it and it's fun although it looks a lot shorter and simpler than the Commodore classics.

Thanks to The Ferrett for the link.

Cool News!

Earlier, avowed comics fan [Joss] Whedon confirmed to SCI FI Wire that he may be writing a series of X-Men comics for Marvel. "I can't answer that question at all, because I'm really not officially doing it," he said. "It sort of leaked out that I wanted to do it. I'd say the same thing I say about the show, I really like the characters, and so I want to put them in pain."
-from SciFi Wire

New Gaming Blog

Stanoje has a gaming blog for the Buffy and Angel roleplaying games. You can find it here: http://www.stanoje.de/rpg/index.html

I've added it to my links on the left.

How to Be a Shaman 2

a poem by John Gilgun
printed in The Pagan's Muse, a collection of pagan poetry

Enter into the Electric Motor.
Flow toward the magnet.
Swim with the current in the wire.

And this is a young river,
a fast flowing, high energy environment,
billowing like a curtain through canyon walls.

I just like some of the imagery in this poem. It has some good inspirational stuff for Amber or Nobilis.

WISH 81: Pick one....and only one.

Ginger asks: What’s your favorite game system, and why? What things don’t you like about it? How much do you have to “jigger” it from published rules and why?

That's not as easy a question as it seems. Sure, I have some systems I really like, but to choose one favorite system.....easier said than done.

What I'd choose as a favorite depends on the genre. For four-color superheroes, I really like Mutants and Masterminds. For almost any other superhero game, Champions works great. GURPS is a great "universal" system, but in my opinion it only really works when you have an "action-lite" game like a Star Trek, X-Files or Amber setting. Any game where the story involves more problem/mystery solving and interaction works great in GURPS. For games with more action, I like Masterbook (the out-of-print West End Games "universal" system) or Buffy. Hero 5th edition (Champions, but for any genre/power level) can also be a lot of fun for action games.

....and of course there is Amber. I like Amber a lot, but I suspect that this is more because of the players than the system itself. The system is heavily flawed, but thankful it is also easily adaptable. Don't like the powers in the book? Make your own list of powers. Feel the game needs more attributes to describa a character? Add a few. The beauty of Amber being diceless is that changes in one thing doesn't suddenly change how tons of other things are done. Change how initiative is handled in a game like D&D, and you may end up with a whole bunch of other issues to deal with. (In the D&D game I'm running now, I decided that there would be no such things as resurrection spells. I then had to take in to account that the system was built with the ability to resurrect fallen comrades in mind and came up with rules to make characters a little more able to survive once they reach 0 hit points.)

Another system that I really like is Nobilis. I haven't played it enough yet to know how well it works when push comes to shove, but in my one experience with it and my reading of the book it seems to have more structure than Amber while remaining a fun diceless experience.

Currently, I guess I would declare my favorite as Unisystem. I've found it to be both simple and flexible while still having a dice rolling framework if you want. It can also easily be played diceless and I understand that some of the Unisystem books have diceless rules included in the book. (although Buffy sadly did not, I've heard rumours that the diceless rules are in the Angel book. Fingers are crossed.) I'm not sure how well the system will work for some genres but it seems flexible enough to handle almost anything.

When Beyond Human, the Unisystem superhero game comes out, we'll see how flexible it is or isn't. Superheroes is a hard genre to pull off if our system wasn't built specifically for that power level of games. The only system I can think of that was built for another genre and is still able to handle superheroes is Amber, but that goes back to what I said above.

Gillian the Vampire Slayer 1.5 "It's Your Party"

Sing along!

It's your party,
you can die if you want to....

Note: A word to the English majors out there. Sorry, but I switch back and forth a lot between past tense and present tense through this. I don't know if I've been doing that with previous episode writeups, but I didn't feel like fixing them. I wrote this over a couple of days. That's my excuse.

The game started as Andrew, Gillian and Amy went to see a tarot reader in Ypsilanti, MI that had given her card to Andrew in the previous episode, offering him a free reading.. Andrew had his card read and the reader warned Andrew that he will be given a chance to clear the sins of his past soon but he will be given two ways to do it. One way, would make at is his crimes had not happened. The other will be by doing a great deed. As they were leaving, Andrew and Gillian noted that the tarot reader had written in her journal that she did the free reading for "Andrew Wells." Wondering how she knew his real name, they left.

I don't think I want to know how I die. -- Gillian to the Andrew and Amy on why she does not want a tarot reading

Afterwords, they decided to hang out at the local arcade, Pinball Pete's, and invited George and Jessica to go with them to play Dance Dance Revolution. While waiting for the others to arrive, George saw a demon going to the local comic shop, The Underworld. When the others arrive and Amy goes to check it out. She doesn't see any demons but sees a cute boy (played by the young guy from Everwood) talking about D&D to his friend. While there, she orders a Capt. Archer action figure to give to Andrew as a gift sometime.

Gillian, Andrew and George then go to the comic shop. Andrew starts looking at the action figures when Gillian maneuvers him to talk to the cute gamer. (Amy and Gillian decided last session to play matchmaker for Andrew, who is still denying he's gay.) The guy's name is Matt and his friend is Joe. Matt tells Andrew that he is starting a D&D game and is looking for players. He gives Andrew his number and says the first game session will be next week. Gillian sneaks off as Andrew is talking to the two guys.

George sees the demon who entered the comic shop exiting the back room and leaving. Apparently, the demon is an employee at the shop.

Downstairs, the three return to find Amy and Jessica playing DDR and gathering quite an audience. While Jessica is playing another game with some guy who wanted to challenge her, Gillian notices a vampire hanging out in the arcade. Amy confronts him and challenges him to a game of Street Fighter II. While they are playing, Amy says "You should at least try to pretend you breath." The vampire loses the game as he gets nervous and tries to leave.

Outside the arcade the street is busy. The vamp tries to get on his Harley, but Gillian pulls/throws him off. The crowd starts to watch the fight, when Amy and Andrew pretend to fight and distract the people as Gillian stakes the vamp. When the crowd looks back, Gillian stands in a poof of dust. George gets on the Harley pretending it was his and drives off with Gillian.

Friday comes and the Ann Arbor Scoobies head out to Windsor, Ontario for a night of fun. Gillian has just turned 19 and they want to celebrate her birthday in the proper tradition of Michigan teens. (The drinking age in Canada is 19.) While crossing the border there was some tense moments as the guards checked Andrews passport and found Gillian's stakes, but they made it through. They stopped for pizza and went to a casino, where Amy noticed what seemed to be a magic spell being cast in the offices on the guests. They leave and go to Danny's.

Danny's is a strip club with male strippers for the ladies. Andrew and George are dragged in. They see a stripper that looks a bit like Dorian Garham, the vampire. Amy approaches him and asks him to give a private dance for Gillian in a vampire cape.

As the group is leaving, they catch a glimpse of Drusilla. What is she doing here. They lose sight of her in the crowd.

Meanwhile, in Michigan, Nigel Harker is checking out a wooded area with Gar, the Garouf demon (the pimply faced demon from a few episodes back) and Van, a Panglos demon. They swear to him that this is the location that they escaped from and the three find an abandoned series of tunnels that used to be the home of the Initiative HST holding facility. They look around and Nigel decided to come back later and see what's behind some suspicious walls. Nigel promises to Gar that he will help him find his clanmates and Gar pledges that if he helps him save his people, the Garouf clan will forever be in debt to the watcher.

Bring sledgehammer, crowbars, Gillian.... -- Nigel to himself, making a list of what to bring back to the abandoned Initiative base

As the Panglos drives away from dropping off Nigel, Nigel notices a bug like creature drop from the undercarriage of the demon's car and scurry away. He goes inside and checks his books and in Tobin's Demon Guide he finds an illustration of the demon: a Crimslaw demon. A particularly nasty demon, a Crimslaw eats about 10-15 fresh hearts in a feeding by ripping them out of the chest of the victims. He tells Dr. Post and the two begin searching Ann Arbor for the demon.

On the ride home from Windsor, Amy is a bit quiet and sullen. A short wait at the Ambassodor bridge and the group returns hom about 3 am. After Gillian falls asleep, Amy gets up and quietly sets up some water around Gillian's bed and puts a frayed electrical cord in it, plugged in. She wakes Gillian screaming that there is something trying to get in the door. Gillian steps on the floor to get up and ZAP! Luckilly, for Gillian, she survives the electrocution as she manages to fall forward out of the water. Any normal human would have died. On the ground, her head hurting and her limbs completely without feeling or motor control, Gillian looks up to see Amy start kicking her in the head.

Down the hall, Andrew is sleeping and his normally scheduled dream is interupted as Anya appears in the dream. "Wake up! Wake up you idiot! She needs you!"

Andrew wakes up and tells George that he thinks Gillian is in trouble. The two run to Gillians room where they find the two struggling. Amy trying to stab Gillian with a knife but the recovering Gillian manages to hit Amy first and sends Amy flying acroos the room. Amy then levitates the knife with her mind and tries to send it at Andrew but Andrew dodges and Gillian hits her again and knocks her out.

Jessica wakes up as her symbiote seems to be very twitchy. She quickly realizes that it's reacting to something that is going on in Gillian and Amy's room. She arrives. George opens the door for her and she sees behind him, Andrew and Gillian are tying Amy up in a chair.

Gillian calls Nigel and tells him what has happened. With no luck on the Crimslaw hunt, Nigel goes to the dorm, leaving Dr. Post to hunt alone.

They decide to call Amy's grandmother and take Amy to Nigel's to meet with her and try to exorcise whatever has come over Amy. They find that Amy's power has been increased when she starts TKing things around the room. Gillian knocks her out again. (Gotta love cinematic violence where a person can get knocked out by one hit with no permanent damage.)

Nigel gets a call from Dr. Post. He has found the Crimslaw. Dealing with Amy he asks Jessica and George to go help Dr. Post.

As they are moving Amy to Nigel's car, Amy becomes aware of Andrew's mind and telepathically shares a bit of her new power and her newfound hatred for the slayer and all her friends with Andrew. Andrew excuses himself to the bathroom and returns with two small demons and a hellhound. There is a fight and Andrew is defeated just as he shakes off the effects of Darth Amy's mind control. The three rush Amy to Nigel's.

At a church in downtown Ann Arbor, Dr. Post points to the Crimslaw on the roof and explains to Jessica and George that is extremely dangerous. The three climb up to the roof using the scaffolding on the side of the church which is being renovated. Their is fight that eventually ends with Jessica, armored up through her symbiote, pinning the demon on the ground. She rolls off it and the three demon-hunters attack it with weapons. Jessica strike the killing blow with a sybiote-made blade and cuts off it's head. She has that now-familiar feeling of stealing essence from the demon.

At Nigel's home, Amy's grandmother looks at Amy. She has been "spiked" with magical energy and something else. Something has brought out her anger....her wrath. (At this point, Amy had a temporary Sorcery level of 10. Far from Dark Willow, but a lot more than she is used to.) Amy and her grandmother exchange heated insults in Chinese. Through some incantations and magical acupuncture (after fighting for TK control of the needles with Amy), Grandmother eventually releases the power. Andrew sees the power and thinks of taking it for himself but decides not to. They talk to Amy and find out that Amy has a blank spot in her memory from the time at the strip club. She got up to go to the bathroom and the next thing she remembers is leaving. With eidetic memory, Amy never forgets things and this is strange. Andrew holds her hand and uses a power that he has been recently discovering and had used a few times this episode already, Pychometry. He sees a bit of her past and a moment that was missing: Drusilla whispering in to Amy's ear.

I see Drusilla. She's touching Amy. *pause* It's not a bad touch. -- Andrew
It's Drusilla, of course it's a bad touch! -- Amy

Dr. Post, Jessica and George arrive at Nigel's and everyone realizes that Gillian has left.

Gillian leaves and rents a motel room for the night.

The next morning she is determined that she will not go to the birthday party that her friends are throwing for her that night, nor will she return to the dorm. She rents a room near campus that rents for the week and lays down on the bed for a good cry. She then sees one of the "grey men," he is looking at her. She screams at him to go away and he steps in the shadow to disappear. This freaks her out. She does not feel safe sleeping here either. She does not want to return to her friends. She is afraid of putting them in danger or her enemies manipulating them again. So, she decides to go to Dorian's.

Gillian's friends become worried about her and try calling her. They also try to do a locator spell but she does not show up anywhere in Ann Arbor. They get a bigger map and she does not show in Michigan.

Gillian, it's your roommate. Sorry I tried to kill you. We need to start planning your party. Stop pouting and give me a call. -- Amy, leaving voice mail for Gillian

Gillian is at Dorian's. She talks to the vampire for a bit and finds that for a soulless bloodsucker, he's not that bad a guy. He admits to her that he has not killed a human for a very long time, but warns her that he is still evil. He just likes his life better this way. Talking to Gillian, Dorain finds out that Gillian is avoiding her friends and is told why. He convinces her that the problems in Ann Arbor are not her fault and that the increase in demons in the city happened before she arrived and was the fault of the government's special project that let a whole bunch of demons escape. He also tells her that her friends have chosen to stand with her and face the darkness and that it would be a shame to push a friend away. He tells her that years ago he lost a friend over a disagreement and he wishes it had not been so. Gillian decides to go to the party and invites the vampire, unaware that Amy had already sent him an invite...as a joke.

The party goes well. Amy traps Gillian in to dancing with some attractive guy that arrived named Eric. Andrew meets up with Matt (from the comic shop) and talks roleplaying with him. George is obviously jealous of the guy dancing with Gillian. Dorian shows up and stays awhile, with Nigel watching him like a hawk.

More quotes from the episode can be found here: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~fazzari/Buffy/GtVS/Quotes.html

Dungeons and Zombies

Eden Studios has announced that they are coming out with a sword and sorcery supplement for their Unisystem line (particularly for All Flesh Must be Eaten). It sound neat and will include all the rules for creating fantasy races and for magic. See it here: http://www.allflesh.com/8010.html

I'll have to pick this up. Buffy has become one of my favorite RPGs and I've been wanting to try Unisystem with another setting.

In other D&D news

I am very jealous of PC-users right now with their Temple of Elemental Evil game. It sounds pretty cool. Still, I have a better computer, so I guess I can console myself with the knowledge that if I had a gotten a PC back when we bought this iMac, I probaby would have needed to replace it by now.

At least I think Baldur's Gate 2 for the PS2 is due out next week. I can get a D&D video game fix there, I guess.

Connemara: Session Six

The game went well despite the missing players. I split the group up at the beginning by having them fall in a pit trap that went to slides/tunnels that sent each group seperate ways. The PCs whose players were there ended up in a corridor with...wait for it.....a gelatanous cube! I've been waiting since ths campaign started to introduce everyone's favorite cube shaped jelly-monster. Until recently, I had never heard of the cube, but since reading about them, they've become my favorite weird little D&D monster. As they were in dark corridors, I described the cube as looking like a floating skeleton coming towards them. In reality the skeleton was the cube's last meal (still digesting) and cubes are clear so they didn't see the cube at first. It took the players about five turns to figure out what they were actually fighting. They kept thinking that the skeleton was the bad guy and that the wall of acidic goo that was burning them was its force field and at one point a PC was trying to push "through the forcefield" into the cube.

The rest of the game was kept to the fairly standard dungeon crawl format with the PCs facing spiders, stirges (kind of like a cross between a mosquito and a bat) and a group of Kuo-Toa (evil green frog-like aquatic peoples) as they explored the tunnels. Originally, the group was to find the Dark Elves tonight but if the first encounter went badly the PCs were horribly underpowered to defend themselves, so they got a chance to do some hack-n-slash action tonight and they got a ton of experience. The three PCs reached 4th level tonight.

Thea actual plot will continue when the other players return next session.

D&D: Troubles

Two of the five players can't make it to the game tonight. Personal issues. In most games, this wouldn't be a big deal.

However, the last session the group headed into their first dungeon crawl and they travel through the underground tunnels to the city of the Tolgathrim (Connemara's Dark Elves).

This leaves me with a tough situation. Besides having to scale back the power of any encounters, what do I do with the missing PCs? Or do I try to fake them being there?

I've a couple of ideas but it's tough to pull D&D characters out of a plot mid-adventure.

Mental note: I need to get copies of everyone's character sheets for future times they miss and I need their stats.

Morpheus NPCs

These notes are more for my benefit and the benefit of my co-GMs than anything else:

Morpheus- Once captain of the Nebuchedezzar, he has been leading expeditions into the desert of the real these days.

Shayera- A woman with great healing powers, she has four arms and blue skin and was Morpheus's assistant on the Nebuchedezzar.

Neo- One of the greatest warriors of Chaos, he worked with the Oracle to keep Morpheus from learning the truth about the Matrix.

Vril Dox- A green skinned humanoid, once a "mind-tyrant" of Colu. He (along with morpheus) is one of only two to ever escape the Matrix without assistance. Currently, he is building a following that believes he should be the next king of Amber.

Steel- In the Matrix, he was called Kal-El, Clark Kent and Superman. He was ejected from the Matrix by Vril Dox without being given a choice. Learning that his whole life...where Lois...was a lie was tough on the Man of Steel as was adjusting to a world where he was no stronger than the next man.

Rygel- Standing all of 26 inches tall, Rygel was once the royal sovereign of more than 600 billion loyal subjects, the ruler of the Hynerian Empire. The "High Dominar" has been instrumental in the rebuilding of Amber and he let's everyone know.

Rolan- The unicorn of Amber and good friend of Talia (a PC). Rolan has a telepathic bond with Talia and she is the only one who seems to be able to communicate with him.

Julian- Only survivor of the original Amberites. He held off the forces of Chaos as long as he could in Arden before moving his forces to hiding in shadow and eventually inside the Black Road itself. These days, he has been kept alive by the magic of The Emerald Throne, a casket-shaped device that prolongs his life.

Elric- Once the prince of Melnibone, he was found by Morpheus and his crew shortly after he killed his cousin Ykroon and his lover, Cymoril. When he was pulled out of the Matrix, his black sword came with him, just as it happened to two PCs, Vlad Taltos and his blade and Mat Cauthon's black dagger. There seems to be a connection to the three blades, but what is it? (The answer should be revealed in this year's Morpheus game)

The Oracle- She misled Morpheus for many years, distracting him from the true nature of the Matrix.

Fan Fiction (continued)

Continuing my thought from yesterday....

Gaming in someone else's setting or with someone else's characters is basically fan fiction. Just like the people writing Buffy stories for the web, we're exploring aspects of someone else's creation that weren't explored by the original author(s). If you run a Star Wars game, you end up exploring new worlds that were never in the original setting and new characters but what you are doing is adding that additional depth that we crave in a series we love.

As I'm planning Buffy adventures, I'm thinking of things I would have loved to have seen during the show's run. When I think of Amber scenarios, they come out of something I would have liked to have seen in Zelazny's work. It's all fanfiction.

Fan Fiction

I've only read one or two fan fics in my life (three of four if I count the Batman/Michael Myers fanfic that a high school friend of mine wrote and I had to read out of friendly duty). There's not a huge interest for me in reading all the crap that is out there to find those few gems.

That being said, I understand why people write fanfiction. I'm watching the original Battlestar Galactica on DVD and I desperately want there to be more. There was so much about the series that I would have liked to see them explore more. I'd like to have seen more of what life was like aboard the fleet. I would have like to have seen more about the angels (the ships of light) and Count Iblis. (some people thought Babylon 5 was so clever with the Shadows and Vorlons.....) I would have liked to see what would have happened when they eventually found Earth. (Galactica 1980 does not count.)

I wanted to see the relationship between Apollo and Sheba grow. I wanted to see how Cain and the Battlestar Pegasus survived the attack on the Cylon Basestars. (We know he survived because the angels tell Sheba that they will see her father again.)

There was so many unexplored themes that will never get explored because ABC didn't want to continue paying for the most expensive TV series of its time and because Sci-Fi channel decided it would be better to start over from scratch than continue the original show.

Richard Hatch's Battlestar Galactica novels are basically fanfiction anyway. So are all the Buffy, Star Trek and other licensed novels that are out there. What's different about someone like me writing a little fanfic? Usually quality.

But hey, I say more power to the people who write them. If the show of their choice gets them so excited about writing that they practice their writing skills and become better writers, then that's good. Noone has to read them, but they enjoy writing them.....and while I may not be shifting through the hordes of crappy fanfics out there, there are people who read them and enjoy them.

Maybe someday, I'll write a Battlestar Galactica fanfic. Probably not, but you never know...

Monday Mashup: Dark They Were and Golden-eyed

You will live forever. You will never die....but you must feed.

Bryant's Monday Mashup asks us to mash The Lost Boys, the second best vampire movie of 1987. (I'll take a guess that Bryant's choice for best vampire movie of 1987 is the same as mine, Near Dark.)

Lost in the shadows....

For mashing Lost Boys, I will mash it with Ray Bradbury's Mars setting and title the game "Lost in the Shadows." The game system could be almost any "universal" system. Since it would probably be a game light on combat, I'd probably use Amber or GURPS.

The game would be set before the war on earth that stops the supply ships from coming to Mars. The Martians have died and earth has started colonizing Mars. The PCs would be the children of settlers on Mars. The families recently arrived in their rocket ships and started a new settlement, New Detroit. They live in small houses a lot like trailers and the community has started a mining operation in the shadow of an abandoned Martian city.

Visiting a nearby larger settlement, the PCs meet a boy who tells them stories. "The Martians aren't dead. I've seen them." None of the settlers believe the boy. Do the PCs?

Eventually the kids start seeing things. At night in New Detroit, they catch glimpses of lights in the old Martian city and one of the more adventurous PCs sees a dark skin man with golden eyes.

Then one of the PCs brothers starts acting strangely. He talks endlessly about the Martian culture and starts eating native plants to the planet and listening to the old recordings of Martian music.

Of course, the PC's brother is turning into a Martian and the PC's learn that someone has been sneaking into the village at night.

What's really going on: The few surviving martians have kept themselves hidden from the human settlers. They are dying but have managed to live longer than the rest of their kind. They ran across the PC's brother in the hills outside New Detroit and are using their mental powers to convince him to "become Martian and help preserve Martian culture."

Eventually, the brother's eyes turn gold. The doctors claim that it is an effect of the atmosphere, but the PCs may have their own theories.

Can the PCs convince the adults that the Martians still live or will it be up to them to protect New Detroit from the Martians?

The worst thing about living on Mars....is all the damned Martians.

ACUS 2004- "Morpheus Defiant"

It has been over a year since Morpheus and his crew liberated Amber from the forces of Chaos. The process of rebuilding the Eternal City has been slow and political tension is building as the magic of the Emerald Throne will not be able to sustain the life of King Julian much longer and the question arises, "who should succeed him?" Amber will need a strong leader in the years to come as it struggles to survive in the desert of the real. Meanwhile, Morpheus is assembling a team for a very special mission that may be the key to victory against the enemies of Amber.

Players may play any character from any setting imaginable. Players who played in previous Morpheus games may continue with their characters and will get additional points to build their character with.

New Reaper Greens

Reaper posted a preview of some of their upcoming minis. I'm a little disappointed with this lot. I like the Moorhound, but I don't really care much for the others.

Ambercon 2004- "Shattered Mirror"

The storm has passed and the elder's return home with the new king, Random, but something is wrong in Amber. Shadows move and paranoia builds. The voices warn of danger. Is someone trying to make sure that Random's reign ends before it has begun?

Players may submit their own 200 point elder to the GM before the con for approval or use a pregenerated character. No exalted powers.

First officially submitted game. I've settled on doing the LARP, Morpheus, and Shattered Mirror. I've got to decide on the fourth game and possibly a fifth game. Some of the other scenarios I'm thinking about:

The Hollow Ones- Fae fight to survive on the streets of New York as they are ruthlessly hunted by "the hollow ones." This game would be run instead of a Dreaming City game.

Amber's Game- leftover idea from last year that is still in my mind. Children are trained as soldiers to defend Amber when Chaos returns.

Heorot- I mentioned this one a few months back. An alternate Amber take on the story of Beowulf and Grendel.

Ambercon LARP

The creative juices just aren't with me today. I can't for the life of me think of a title for the LARP and I'm having a tough time coming up with the blurb. Here's what I have:

We fell, my comrades in arms and I. We fell so far... so long... And after an eternity of falling, we came to rest in this place. And I knew then that there was no way that I would ever return to paradise. - Lucifer Morningstar, Season of Mists.

Lucifer Morningstar, first of the fallen and ruler of hell has requested the pleasure of your company. The inferno is planning to celebrate the anniversary of his fall from grace and it promises to be a night that noone will forget. Everyone is invited, from the lowliest imp to the lord of creation himself. Of course, noone really expects that the creator will show. Some arguments are not easily forgotten.

Ambercon US 2004

Dealing with my health the last couple of weeks, I haven't had much chance to write up my game descriptions or even decide which games I'll be running this year. I need to decide and get the descriptions in my Friday. There is nothing like a deadline.

So far I have:

Games I will be running
Untitled LARP- Lucifer Morningstar throws a party in hell and all sorts show up. A big announcement is made, old debts are settled and....well.....things get a little crazy.

Morpheus Rising- Sequel to Morpheus Calling and Morpheus Interrupted.

Games I need to decide if I'm going to run by Friday
Love and Loss in the Dreaming City- A Dreaming City adventure

Light and Dark in the Dreaming City- A different Dreaming City scenario

Crisis in Hypertime- As universes bleed together, the fates of infinite realities are in peril. A superhero game where players can play any character from any existing comic book universe, including "elseworlds." The Batman from the 1960's TV show could team up with the "Ultimate X-Men."

Shattered Mirror- The storm has passed and the elder's return home with the new king, Random. However, something is wrong in the castle. Shadows move and paranoia builds. Is someone trying to make sure that Random's reign end before it has begun? An elder game.

The Gangs of Amber- Sure, we've seen what it's like for the elite family of Amber, but what is like on the cold streets of the Eternal City?

The Heist II: The Chaosian Job- Sometimes even the elder Amberites have to resort to good old-fashioned thievery. A sequel to 2002's adventure, but with characters built on a lot more points. The elder Amberites attempt to steal back what was taken from them, the Jewel of Judgement.

Switch

A friend emailed me this parody of the Apple commercials: Switch

Kevin Smith on Superheroes

Kevin Smith wrote an article recently on the appeal of the crimefighting spandex crowd. It's worth reading, so check it out here: http://viewaskew.com/press/arena/

Gaming Horror Stories

The Ferrett shared is worst game ever story and asks to hear more so here we go....

I'm not sure if it's the worst game I ever played in, but there was a game of In Nomine a friend of mine ran that stands out. I might have shared this one before. If you've read this story before, I apologize for the repeat.

In Nomine had just come out and a bunch of my firends were excited to give it a try. The first of the group to buy it excitedly started planning a campaign.

I got together with the GM weeks before our first session and designed my character. His campaign was going to be all Angels, either on God's side or earthbound. I designed an angel who was cast out of heaven. He was a servant of the Archangel Morpheus, lord of dreams and he had fallen in love with a woman after meeting her in one of her dreams. Someone killed her in the real world, so he trapped her killer in a nightmare where he kept getting tortured and murdered. For this act of vengeance, he was cast out and forced to live on Earth.

In Nomine has three types of attributes and when designing your character, you have to decide how powerful you are in each. The first is the physical and it determines how good your physical form is when on Earth. The second is ethereal and it determines how strong you are in the ethereal realm, the realm of the mind, ideas and dreams. The third attribute set was Spiritual and represents how strong you were on the spiritual plane, arguably the most important one for Angels.

I talked it over with the GM and together we decided that my character would be no better than an average human in his physical or spiritual abilities but extremely powerful in the ethereal. It was a definite weakness, but a challenge I was looking forward to.

A few weeks went by and it was time for our first session. My character is coming off an airplane in a New York airport when he and the other PCs (who happened to be there) witness a demon on a rampage. The other PCs, all having angelic powered physical abilities charge into combat as I dive for cover. I ask the GM, "so how do we roll for initiative?"

Now, this next part is partially the fault of Steve Jackson Games who put togeher one of the worst laid-out books I've ever seen, but the GM should have been able to "wing it". Instead, he spent almost at least a half hour (no kidding!) trying to find the rules for initiative. Several of us kept asking him to just go on with the game but he was determined it was in the book somewhere and he would find. After a while, he gave up.

So, the combat starts and the fighter-type angels heroicly fought the demon while my character distracted the demon at key moments with well-aimed thrown luggage.

....and the plot began. We learned of something, I don't remember what. We had to do something about it, but we weren't sure of the details.

I declared that my character would shift into the ethereal plane and try to find out what was going in.

"You can't do that."

"Why? Is something blocking me?"

"The Ethereal Book hasn't come out yet. I don't know what it's like."

"Can you make up something?"

"It might now work with what they come out with...."

Shortly after this exchange another big muscular demon attacked the car and our heroic fighting angels jumped out of the car to fight it. My character, who still wasn't a fighter, went to the trunk, pulled out his Samsonite luggage and tossed it at the demon.

The game never met another session. It was flawed in more ways than what I list, but of course I mainly remember what effected my character. The GM had a few weeks to plan knowing that he had allowed me to make a character who was not a physical character and would not be able to fight a demon on the physical plane, but had prepared for that in no way. There was nothing going on in the ethereal plane....because the plane didn't exist yet as far as he was concerned. He didn't want to make up stuff, so until the book came out, it did not exist. Worse, he bogged the game down trying to figure out what should be a basic (and generally not that important) rule, initiative.

Now, he wasn't always like this and he had also run some of the best roleplaying sessions I've played in, but that In Nomine session left a bad taste in my mouth. I never ended up buying the game. I guess I was waiting for that ethereal handbook to come out. It never did.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Another game was one I played in recently, at U-Con, a Buffy RPG game. The game was going to be set in Mexico in the early 90's and was obviously inspired by "El Mariachi" and "El Desperado." The scenario was decent, if not amazing and the idea was really cool. The GM did a really good job of bringing the NPCs to life.

The problem was one of the players. The game only ended up with three players: a young woman who played the Vampire Slayer (a woman with a guitar case full of stakes), myself playing a priest who fights the forces of darkness with throwing knives shaped like crosses, and the guy who played "El Pistolero."

The GM set the scene as our characters found themselved in a seedy Mexican bar with our own agendas. In the bar were some locals and thugs and a couple of "gringos" who seemed to be waiting for someone. I was watching them because my character had heard that some mystical artifact that was stolen from the Vatican was going to be traded there, but other than that there was nothing we knew about them or eachother.

Pistolero decides they look suspicous, and of course they do. He walks over to the gringos and....

Pistolero's player: "I shoot them."

GM, myself and Slayer: "What?"

Pistolero" "I don't like them. I shoot them."

GM: "OK....."

Pistolero guns down one of the Gringos just before a couple of Vamps walk into the bar, the vamps that were buying the good from the no name guys. A fight breaks loose and Slayer and I do our best to look the other way as Pistolero kills every NPC he crosses whether it's a bad guy or not. He even kills the bartender for no apparent reason.

It's a four hour slot and we try to work with the game and help the GM keep a plot going, but most of the time Slayer and I keep looking at eachother wondering if we shoot slay El Pistolero. Will the player storm off upset? Do we care? The character (and possibly the player) is obviously a psychopath who we want to have nothing to do with but we're also nice people want to try and salvage the game and allow this very enthusiastic but annoying person playing El Pistolero to get to enjoy his game as well.

In the end, Slayer's player and I talked after the game and agreed. We should have just killed him in the beginning, maybe after killing the bartender for no reason. Maybe it would have taught him a lesson. If he had stormed off upset at that time, we may have been able to salvage the game. Instead, noone seemed to have fun besides El Pistolero.

Due to illness.....

...this spot has been and will be pretty quiet for a while.

Changing topics, I got a bit of movie news this morning. John Cusack has been cast as NiteOwl in The Watchmen movie. Cool casting.