2024(-ish): More Than I Thought

A while back, I lamented that it had taken me nine years to write 55,000 (now closer to 60) words of The Nameless Way, and I still had a long way to go. I was thinking about how that happened. I don't much feel like recapping 2024, at least not in public, but the New Year seems to be a good time to look back on the stuff I've been doing since I started this novel in 2015.

I committed to the book as my main project in June of 2015, and started writing the draft (except for the prologue, which I wrote in 1999 or 2000 or so) in August or September. The first chapter was based on the adventure I started the original campaign with. Getting that down was the most fun I had had writing in a long time. I think the second chapter was pretty easy too, although it was an almost entirely new story to explain some stuff from a segment I couldn't use. That's a topic for another blog, though. 

I think it was 2016 when other stuff started eating into my progress. I don't mean the usual stuff. I don't mean the dayjob, or gaming, or conventions, or eBay, or even random crises like bouts of depression. Those are all issues, but not issues worth commenting on. That's just life. The delays I'm looking at now are the side projects. 

Some of those projects were things I felt committed to because I had already done most of the creative part and just never shared it. Some of them were things I thought would make me some money to keep me going while I finished The Nameless Way. On that second purpose, it's worth noting that none of them succeeded. In retrospect, it's almost like I was being scolded for straying from The Plan. 

So, the first thing was Qalidar. I had already given up on my original vision for a Qalidar Role-Playing Game, partly because my soul was crushed in mid-stream by personal shit, but also because I had been thinking for a while that designing games was never going to keep my demons fed. So I settled on a less ambitious way to finish what I started. I made a "basic" book with an adventure and introductory rules. This was before I started on The Nameless Way. Rather than making a book of complete rules or something like that, I decided that I would follow the basic book with supplements, which would eventually expand it to a more complete game. Less satisfying and, obviously, less marketable, but honest. 

I published Supplement 1: The Fire Within, in 2016. The original idea was that each supplement would highlight a particular culture/race/whatever. This got fudged right at the start, though, because my real goal for the first supplement was to make sure the game worked all the way to the standard d20 level cap of twenty, to finish the rules for organizations, and to cover any missing equipment and stuff like that from the basic book. Ultimately, it was obvious to even a casual reader that the cultural focus on the Stardust was just an afterthought. I already knew there would be no more culture-focused books when I finished this one. I was just paying lip service to that plan. 

In another year, there was Supplement 2, the Qalidar Qritter Qatalog. As before, this was something I felt I owed to the two or three people who had actually played or purchased Qalidar. Also, part of the main artist's pay was a cut of PDF sales, so, having already delivered some amazing work, he deserved at least a little effort on my part. By this time, I knew I was never going to go on with the culture-focused supplements. I did have a bunch of creatures I could share, though, and I knew the game wouldn't be complete without them. It was just a matter of formatting it all. And of course formatting takes time. 

Because of its weird production history, the Qalidar game is a little awkward if you want to put it all together and dive right in to the full game. It still works well, I think, if you play the intro scenario and move on to the rest from there. I still enjoy playing it. Well, running it. I'm the only GM, so that's all I can do. Every once in a while, I think I'd like to put it all together into one book like a normal RPG. I know I shouldn't. 

There was a little bit of ghostwriting. Four projects, scattered across the time I was doing this other work. That actually did pay, but not nearly enough to justify the time it ate. And yes, that's all I'm going to say about it.

HOGZILLA! HOGZILLA! HOGZILLA! Or TerrorHog. Whatever. The Hogzilla episode of The Last Drive-In was lots of fun. Not long after that, we had planned one of our "hoot" get-togethers. I started putting together a Hogzilla Crawlspace scenario to run at that event, complete with insanity rules and a drinking game. However, most of our gaming friends in Ohio had become unreliable, so that hoot never happened. 

Anyway, Tom convinced me that I should put it together for publication, because that would be easy. There's a big difference between my convention-event notes and an intelligible scenario that someone else could run. Like, seriously, I'll go to Gen Con with only some pre-gens, a vague idea, and some names scribbled down. If I had to actually prepare for the games I ran at conventions, I would never run games at conventions. 

Thinking I might reach a new audience, I dove into the rabbit hole and made TerrorHog, the Hogzilla game. Joe Bob Briggs held the book up on TV in his goofy Biedermeir/pimp costume, Shudder tweeted about it on their official account, and still nobody bought it. To paraphrase Joe Bob's introduction of the movie, I did all that work, only to find that the world was not clamoring for Hogzilla role-playing games. Another cosmic rebuke for my infidelity.  

The next thing was that Amazon announced this new feature for publishing serials in 2020. I immediately thought of Blackridge, which had originally been patterned after serial format stuff. I had just moved and, obviously, lost my job, so I thought this could help. It inspired me to start a second serial on a different platform, just to, you know, feel out the market. This stuff actually overlapped the Hogzilla thing, by the way.

The first one was the Blackridge serial on Amazon. I still feel that it's a great story. I like the characters and it had a great plot. Unfortunately, the episodes I published were some of the worst writing I've ever done. Well, the worst since college, anyway. It was more like the Cliff's Notes of a story than an actual story. 

At the same time, I also tried to serialize the Komar novel I had been outlining, the sort-of sequel to Losing Lanterns, starring Aradoc, with characters from my high school D&D group as the sociopathic treasure hunters he gets stuck in the desert with. The stuff I wrote for this was better, but also rushed. As before, I was cranking it out for all the wrong reasons. It was very much a story worth telling. It's still a story I want to tell, but it wasn't the right time. I also think the weird proprietary token buy-in thing Amazon and this other platform were pushing was stupid, but that doesn't redeem my infidelity. 

Part of the plan for TerrorHog was to make it a complete game, since we couldn't assume that the audience we were trying to reach would have any interest in investing in a new game on top of the pig monster book. To make it easier to get into, I made a customized version of Crawlspace, made only for the one-shot with the pre-generated characters. That being the case, we thought it might be nice to have a version of those rules that could stand on its own with character generation and stuff like that. So I put Crawlspace: 21 & Over together for that. 

I collaborated on a novella with a friend. She had already written most of it. All I did was go back through to insert some weird stuff about nephilim and write the end. As it happens, both of us had done much better work on our own projects. Her part was probably the better of the two, but I did enjoy sinking Columbus and a lot of southern Ohio into a giant magma pit. 

After all that, there's another edition of Stars, Specters, and Super-Powers. The first edition had a terrible cover, and I had omitted a story that should have been in it. I also added some background stuff and art Mike did for the comic book plot that led to "The Man Comes Around." Having this book and Losing Lanterns out there and looking good when The Nameless Way finally drops, has been part of The Plan for a long time, so that was unquestionably worth doing. 

So, why blather on about all this? Mostly as a reminder to myself. Memory plays tricks on you. I keep coming back to, "What have I been doing all this time? What's the point if this is all I've got after nine years?" I sometimes wonder if it was all like the past couple of weeks, during which I've hardly written anything because I've been buried in life garbage and it messes with my head even when it's not stealing my time. I can look at this, though, and remind myself that I wasn't just staring at the wall the whole time. 

And I guess it's also a reminder that the time side projects take up isn't free. 

.

Keep up with future posts by following me!

What I Know Now

Sure, we all wish we knew what we know now when we were younger, but have you ever considered what kind of power you're tampering with? 

Think about it. In the present time, everything you know is sent to your younger self, who continues to learn from that point. When your younger self reaches the present time, the same thing happens, sending everything you started with, plus everything your new, improved, younger self has learned, back again. When her younger self, reaches the present, it happens again, and again, and again, until... 

Follow me for more secrets of incalculable cosmic power. 

Keep up with future posts by following me!

The Latest Commuting Books

I mentioned before that I had been digging into Tolkien for my commute book lately. So yeah, I finished Lord of the Rings (including the Appendices this time, which I'm not sure I've ever read straight through before), Unfinished Tales, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion, I was especially fond of the narration by Martin Shaw on the last two.

I had always been curious about Polidori's The Vampyre, as one of the first stories with the modern version of a vampire. It's really short, and, unlike Frankenstein, is told exactly the way you'd expect, considering its origin. It sounds like someone just telling a campfire story out loud. I guess it had its moments, but, like I said, there's not much to it.

So now I'm listening to The Stand. Figured it was time to stick with Halloween themes, although this monster of a book will probably last well beyond. He hasn't even finished introducing the characters yet. The only other Stephen King book I've read is It, and that was a long time ago. Having seen two screen adaptations of this one, I figured it was about time I found out what the real story was. Like I said, though, I don't think I'm anywhere near the real story so far.

And, no, the picture doesn't have anything to do with any of this. I just wanted to have some kind of picture and there was my Nilbog being adorable. 

Keep up with future posts by following me!

Eldest

Random thoughts on S2E4 in no particular order. And yes, there are spoilers.

Galadriel's status continues to nag me. It's not about her fighting and being hot-tempered. She probably would be past that phase by the Second Age, but I don't really care. It's that she's a subordinate in someone else's army. Tolkien has her settling in various places, but never answering to a king. But whatever. The story is the story.

What the hell is Tom Bombadil doing in Rhun? I'm so happy to see him finally get some screen time that I don't even care. That guy's accent was all over the place, though.

Galadriel talks about how she's starting to see into the otherworld after she gets her ring. Gil-Galad mentions prophetic visions. Elves, especially the older ones and the ones who've been to Valinor (Galadriel definitely yes, but I think Gil-Galad was born late in the First Age, in Beleriand, like Elrond) can already do those things. I guess they just want to give the rings as many non-visible elf powers as they can. 

The developing hobbit origins are fun to see. 

Galadriel and Elrond's route to Eregion doesn't make much sense to me. I'm pretty sure the road through Bree and the (future) Shire was already there by then. They seem to plan on crossing the Baranduin (yep, good old Brandywine) by an elf bridge somewhere north of the Shire, then decide to go south when they see that it's been destroyed. Crossing at any point that would take them through the Barrow Downs would mean using the bridge on the road they should have taken in the first place, or taking some kind of ferry. If you cross at Sarn Ford, you don't need to go anywhere near the Barrow Downs.

And okay, the Barrow Downs. Those barrows were Third Age graves left by Arnor. They wouldn't be there yet. I mean, sure, that ground could always have been cursed before the Witch King sent evil spirits there, but you wouldn't think the Dunedain would build even more barrows on a used (and cursed) graveyard. But hey, who (other than Peter Jackson) doesn't love seeing barrow wights? Weird thing, that "using their own weapons" rule, but I get not wanting it to be too easy for the elves to clobber them. 

Update: Apparently I was at least partially wrong. I just read elsewhere that the ancestors of the Edain also built barrows at Tyrn Gorthad back in the First Age and the later Dunedain revered them, which is why they buried their lords there. As far as I know, though, there's still no reason to think the ground was cursed before the Witch King sent evil spirits into it. I guess Sauron could have pulled the same stunt in the Second Age, as they sort of implied. 

That mud worm thing was pretty cool. 

Hey, an entwife! I can't remember when Tolkien said they left, but he did say they went east. I'm also not sure where exactly Arondir and Isildur are supposed to be when they meet the ents. 

In case you wondered, Tolkien did say, "the number is unknown" about the Istari, before talking about the five who came to the Grey Havens. So the Stranger doesn't have to be any of those. I hope he's not, since those definitely didn't arrive in a fireball and didn't show up until the Third Age. It also means that there's no reason the bad guy in Rhun couldn't be there. Interestingly enough, Tolkien did suggest that maybe the Blue Wizards founded magical traditions in the far east.   

.

Keep up with future posts by following me!

My Balrog Buddy

Did you ever wonder if maybe Gandalf knew that Balrog from back in the day, back when they were both just a couple of maiar chillin' in Aman?

Gandalf: You cannot pass! The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udun!

Balrog: Uh, my name's Rocky.

Gandalf: Holy shit! Rocky? Long time no see, bru! It's me: Olorin! How ya been?

Balrog: Ollie! Hey! Well, after the the Melkor gig fell through, I kinda checked out for a while. I was just processing my trauma, y'know? Until these weirdbeard midgets woke me up. What's their deal anyway?

Gandalf: Oh, they are a pain and a half! You have no idea the shit I deal with! Why, I even--

Aragorn: He cannot stand alone! Elendil! I am with you, Gandalf!

Boromir: Gondor! Gondor!

Balrog: So I guess we gotta fight now.

Gandalf: Stupid fuckers. Hey, nice catching up with ya, Rocky! [smites bridge] Fly, you fools!

.

Keep up with future posts by following me!

Back in Middle Earth

I had been listening to audiobooks on the way home from work. I listened to Bonfire and Darth Plagueis and The Exorcist. 

I started listening to Book of Swords but it kinda put me off after a while. I'm not sure why. Anyway, I got out of the habit. 

The original idea was to read stuff that's new to me. Recently, though, I decided I needed some Tolkien in my life again so I started Lord of the Rings (unabridged, not one of the dramatized versions). 

I'm in the midst of one of my favorite parts, the Old Forest / Barrow Downs bit (and the Shire-to-Rivendell journey in general). Pure joy.

It's probably the best thing happening in my life right now.

Keep up with future posts by following me!

Rough Beasts 'n Stuff

I was reading Yeats' "The Second Coming" again and I keep getting stuck on the Sphinx rising up to be born in Bethlehem. You could read it as the Age of Leo moving on to the Age of Pisces, but that's not prophesy; it's history. Also, it skips a lot - a WHOLE LOT - of time. Between Leo and Pisces, there's Cancer, Gemini, Taurus, and Aries, each of those covering thousands of years. Unless it's Leo devouring Pisces. Time moving backwards by nonsensical leaps. The world wobbling off its axis. I mean, we've already established that things are falling apart, right? He makes a double reference to chaotic things being "loosed" which, if unintentional, would be kind of sloppy. Desert birds (like Thoth's symbol, the ibis) are reeling in confusion.

Keep up with future posts by following me!

Bonfire

I've been listening to Bonfire, by Krysten Ritter on the drive home after work and just finished it tonight. I loved it.

I generally avoid books by famous actors because I hate the thought that they might be written by a ghost writer who, while paid, will never get credit for giving some rich person yet another thing to brag about. Not that it would affect whether or not the book was good, of course. 

Anyway, I looked into Ritter's background and I think it's plausible that she can write for herself. She's sold screenplays. And it's not like what you're known for has to be the only thing you're good at. Most of the people I've worked with at my day jobs, even customers I chatted with at my old comic book store, had no idea I was a writer. 

The book is written in a noir detective novel style, which I think she almost overdoes sometimes, but I'll always pick a book with too many poetic phrases over one with too few. I think there was plenty of Jessica Jones still skulking around in her brain when she wrote this. It's also written in present tense, which put me off at first. It's kind of like when you're watching a good cartoon with a weird animation style, though. Eventually, you don't even think about it. Also, telling the investigation story in present tense makes it easier to keep up with because there are a lot of flashbacks.

The protagonist is an environmental lawyer who is returning from Chicago with some of her colleagues to the small company-owned town she grew up in, Barrens (a little on-the-nose for a town in Indiana, but whatever). They're investigating the possibility that this company, Optimal Plastics, has been dumping dangerous chemicals and covering it up. Combined with the event from the prologue, it doesn't sound like there's much more to learn, but there are a lot of surprises coming, and they aren't goofy, last-minute Murder by Death style surprises; they make sense.

Abby, the main character, is not Jessica Jones, but she has some of the traits that make Jessica appealing. She's a loner who thinks for herself; she doesn't mind a drink now and then; and she doesn't have a problem with one-night stands. She's not perfect, but unraveling her flaws is part of the fun of the book, so I'm just gonna leave that alone.  

I guess what it boils down to is, if you like noir, you'll probably dig this. Also, if you've ever lived in one of those small towns that some corporation rules like a feudal lord, you'll find it particularly easy to root for the hero. 

Keep up with future posts by following me!

Hippies in SciFi

Jack Kirby: Hippies are super-heroes.

Star Trek: Hippies are charming with a bizarre mixture of scary underhandedness and child-like naivete. 

Tolkien: Hippies (tree-herders instead of just tree-huggers) are serving the Dark Lord if they don't give it up and join the war effort. 

Star Wars: What he said. If you're happy, it's probably because you're evil. 

Farscape: What's a hippie? Is that one of Crichton's weird Earth-monsters?

Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Hippies make their living by selling drums made from the skin of peaceful aliens they've murdered.

Keep up with future posts by following me!

The Art Police

I don't usually share stuff here if all I've got is a link, but this is worth spreading around and I don't have anything to add right now. Here's a couple of quotes, anyway:

There’s a rising wave of attacks on art and authors which often involve not just misreadings or bad faith readings, but no readings. Actually reading the work in question—beyond perhaps one out-of-context screenshot—is no requirement, apparently, for attacking the author, demanding work get pulled, and requesting public flagellation.

. . .They view art as a series of moral lessons that must be entirely unambiguous. Reading the tweets during these scandals, you see the same claims over and over again. Stories must be uplifting, characters "likable," messages clear, and all bad or messy or immoral lines/characters/events must be explicitly rebutted in the text. (At times you sense they want the author to write "this is bad!" and "this is good!" in the margins of every page.)

https://countercraft.substack.com/p/art-should-be-a-doorway-not-a-mirror

.

Keep up with future posts by following me!

Gamma

I love how Ewing handles the difference between what Marvel gamma rays do and what real gamma rays do in Immortal Hulk. Instead of piling on more pseudo-science that someone in the future will just end up reconning, he embraces the mysticism of a world where radiation can make you a super-hero.

Keep up with future posts by following me!

Review: Romance of the Perilous Land

I'm a little hesitant to review a game I've never played. I'm hesitant to review anything, ever, for that matter. I'm excited about this one, though.

Romance of the Perilous Land is a beautifully illustrated and practically laid-out game set in a synthesis of British fantasies including not only the familiar Arthurian tales but less well-known (at least to me) legends and folktales.

The rules are likewise a clever synthesis of systems, including old school D&D-ish stuff, Fifth Edition D&D features like backgrounds and edge/setback (advantage/disadvantage), and a few things that remind me of 7th Edition Tunnels & Trolls. Of the pieces I didn't recognize, I'm not sure which are his own invention and which came from other games I'm not familiar with. In any case, piecing all those components together into a coherent whole is every bit as much of an achievement as making all the rules up.

I love the magic. Items range from homespun charms to rarer enchanted items like the hand of glory, to unique legendary artifacts. The spell-casting system works kind of like the way I always pictured the old school D&D system working. Instead of the somewhat absurd memorize-forget-rememorize routine, the idea is that, in preparing a spell, you're making a special charm, which you then use to cast the spell quickly on the spot. Malthouse has rebuilt the system around this concept instead of just changing the chrome. I'm too lazy to go into more detail, but it's really cool.

The magic (especially the spell list) is one of the things that makes me think this system would work well for Middle Earth in addition to the setting provided. I'm a little torn on whether I'd want to do this, though, because the Perilous Land setting is great, and one of the main reasons I bought the game. One drawback, though, is that there's no map. Maybe this was intentional. After all, folklore almost never gives you a map, just "beyond so-and-so" or "many days' ride" and stuff like that. I would still kind of like to have one.

I'm not sure about the spell names, either. They're atmospheric, but long. Seems like writing them down in stat blocks multiple times might get old. I dunno. I haven't tried it yet.

The setting is, as I said, a synthesis of Arthurian myths and other legends. In melding everything together and making it his own, Malthouse takes some liberties, but that's inevitable and I like the result. In addition to locations, the book provides factions, major characters, gods, and a bestiary that I can't wait to put to work.

This game looks like all kinds of fun to me. Right now it's like half price on Amazon, too.

Full Disclosure: I've known Scott online for several years and helped publish some of his earlier work.

Kiss Me, Fat Boy

I saw the first incarnation of It (and read the book) as a child. I didn't think I was a child at the time, but I was. I've just wrapped up the new version as an old person. I missed it (or should I say I missed It?) in the theater and had to wait for the digital release, so I made an event out of it. I waited for Tom to go to work, turned off all the lights, lit a couple of candles, and watched both chapters of the recent version back-to-back. I didn't go so far as to re-watch the old one because, for one thing, that's a lot'o watching, and for another, I've seen that one so many times that I could probably recite the lines with the sound off.

One thing I noticed just now while browsing for pictures: The menace of Tim Curry's Pennywise came almost entirely from his voice. Bill Skarsgard's Pennywise is both visually and vocally terrifying. I think a lot of this is down to budget, makeup choices, and special effects, though. I don't want to do too much of that kind of comparison. Okay, okay -- one more: nobody will ever say "kiss me, fat boy" with as much verve as Curry.

What really made me want to share my rambling thoughts on these movies was a new theme, or an old one I never noticed. The ending in the book and the first adaptation kind of mixed it up, so maybe King never intended it, but it's clear in the new version. I can't remember if the bit about Bill's books never having good endings was in the novel. If not, I think this is why it's in the movie.

Anyway, what I'm seeing here is a story about people reclaiming their identities. I'm not talking about identity as in some kind of racial or cultural bullshit. I mean it in the sense of who they really are. Over time, as we all do, they had lost themselves in faded memories. Even though the effects of that past remained, they could no longer see the source. If you don't know where your wounds came from, you can't learn from them. You can't grow beyond them. This really stands out with Bev, who, escaping an abusive father, hooked up with an abusive husband, and Eddie, who threw off his dependence on his mother's placebo medicine as a child, only to get sucked right back into it as an adult.

Chapter Two spent a lot of time making the heroes recover memories of a time that was cleverly slipped past us in Chapter One. It even went so far as to materialize their past selves as "tokens." And of course the tokens themselves, in the end, had no power over the monster at all. It was having found them, or what they represented, that made them strong. Once they found themselves, they could grow. The more they grew, the smaller their fears and self-destructive impulses became. They were able to get to the heart of their collective Shadow. They didn't simply destroy it, though. Destroying it would be denying that it, too, is part of them, so they tore it up and ate it. Together.

(Pardon the heart pun. I just had to.)

Many Colors

I've been reading the Intervention and Milieu series by Julian May. Recently, it's been slowed down a lot because I hurt my foot and have had to drive more often and take the bus less. On my recent trip, I listened to the audiobook version of The Many-Colored Land. Well, the first part anyway. It wasn't that long a trip. As far as I know, this is the only one of her books that's been audiofied. I hope there are more.

Anyway, what struck me is that, while the books I've been reading are interesting, the characters are nowhere near as engaging as the ones in the Pliocene Exile. Apart from my spirit animal, Uncle Rogi, the characters in the Milieu books are almost all super-talented overachievers. Nobody has the dangerous charm of Aiken or the goofy wildness of Stein or the redemptive arc of Richard or the just plain awesome broken awesomeness of Felice. The relationships feel more political than affectionate.

I mean, sure, Marc is interesting because he's going to be the badass rebel of rebels, and Jon is interesting because he's basically a new life form, and the others are all neat people, but nobody in the Milieu books so far feels as brilliantly larger-than life as Group Green in The Many-Colored Land.

 
Anyway, I'm not dissing the other stuff. I'm just freshly amazed at the awesomeness of the Pliocene series.

Mostly Games

The Nameless Way had been in a bit of a slump, but picked up quite a bit last month. I've gotten up to the part based on When a Star Falls, which is something I've really been looking forward to writing. That adventure leads into their first time travel jaunt in the novel, even though When a Star Falls came after that in the original campaign.

I think I already mentioned that our Icons game is on hold and I'm running the Goodman Games update of Isle of Dread for a change of pace. It's going... slowly. We've only had one session. There was supposed to be a second last weekend... and a few weeks before that, but those didn't happen. They didn't make it to the island last session. I had originally intended to play all the pre-island stuff out, but I've since decided to fast forward through most of it. I don't want this to take all year.

While Tom and I were down with a delightful cold/sinus infection combo, I tried out Audible. Audiobooks are great when it hurts to focus your eyes. It's also something two pathetic sick people can do together. We got through most of Ringworld that way. I'm totally hooked on the service now. Sometimes I even "read" on slow days at work. I'm listening to The Mothman Prophesies right now.

I stumbled across the Kickstarter for Old-School Essentials and was surprised that it was so tempting. I like 5th Edition D&D. I've got a bunch of stuff for it. Do I really want to go back to Basic/Expert, however well it's organized? So I dug up my old books and went through them, kind of ran through stuff in my head. My group didn't really play much B/X before we started on AD&D. Anyway, I decided that yes, I really do want to play this again and I backed the Kickstarter.

Schedule permitting, I intend to go to Carnage this year and run a B/X adventure (OSE if I have it in hand by then), but I didn't have any particular inspiration, so I went back to the DM'ing section and rolled some stuff. For the scenario, I rolled, "Escaping from Enemies," which I've done a bunch of times before and... I dunno. For the setting I got, "abandoned mine," which... okay... I guess. I even rolled the special monsters part using the random encounter tables. I'm planning on using 5th level characters, so I rolled once on the 6-7 table, and three times on the 4-5 table. I got Giant Scorpion, Blink Dog, Hellhound, and Caecilia. It'll be fun to try and make something out of all that.

Not sure what else I'll run. Maybe just Dungeon. Maybe Doctor Who. Still thinking.

Hey, City of Heroes is back! At least for now. Somebody got ahold of the server code and has released it to the public, where these people and probably others are running the game for anybody who wants to play. They've added several servers and it seems to keep running more and more smoothly. I was on last night and didn't get kicked off once. Of course, you never know where this kind of thing will end up. For now, though, it sure is great to be back in Paragon City.

Return to Chimney Rock

A few weeks ago, something -- I don't remember what -- reminded me of those old Choose Your Own Adventure books. With that, I immediately thought of The Mystery of Chimney Rock. I used to love this one when I was a kid. In a sudden fit of nostalgia, I looked up a copy and bought it. I don't know what happened to my original one. Boxed up in an attic somewhere, probably.

I played it through a few times and then discovered that several pages were missing at the end. Could be worse; at least I got to finish a few threads before I hit the wall. After that, I spent a little more time just seeing what else there was buried in the pages. There was a lot going on that I didn't remember, so even though it was disappointing to not be able to explore correctly, I had fun.

The other thing is, I started thinking that this would be a cool scenario to run as a real RPG adventure. I've always wanted to do a good haunted house scenario. I've tried a couple of times, but it never really felt like what I wanted. This book gives me some new ideas. Several of the threads seem to contradict each other continuity-wise, but I don't think reconciling them will be very hard. I was toying with the idea of running with the bit where it gets bulldozed at the end for condos, but I'll probably keep the house intact. I also thought of a way to merge the two that might be fun. We'll see. For the system, I'll probably use Vortex (the system behind the Doctor Who RPG) because I use it a lot and am very comfortable with it. Crawlspace is a possibility, though.

I won't be running this at Gen Con because I'm already signed up for my stuff there and I don't want to have to think about any new scenarios this summer. Maybe Carnage if I go. Or maybe I'll just run it for my friends.

2018: Travel Hopefully

GIF & Caption (the one in the picture, smartass) by Swear Trek

Some stuff comes to mind. Two of my cats died this year. Apart from the obvious unpleasantness, I spent a ton of money trying to save them. I also spent a ton of money on an assortment of car repairs. I didn't actually have two tons of money, or even one, so the great taste goes on and on.

I continue to stumble forward in my work on The Nameless Way. I'm still not as productive as I should be, at least not consistently, but apparently it's the best I can do for now. I'll keep trying to do better, of course. Apart wanting to see this one complete, I have other things I need to write afterwards. Oh, also, I got rid of that Wordpress site I had for it because I don't know why I made that in the first place. Anyway, the book is gonna be awesome if I can finish it before I get hit by a super-tornado or something.

Some things got a little out of control in 2018. I'm leaving this vague because I'd like you to imagine a bunch of awesome "crazy artist" stuff and pretend that's what I did. The reality was boring. I think I've got stuff patched together well enough, now. It's not like I had a magical epiphany and solved everything, but if you want to tack that onto the end of the crazy artist breakdown in our little narrative, feel free.

Back in 2017, Julian May died. While this is, of course, sad, the event indirectly did something good for me. I read her Saga of Pliocene Exile back in the 80s. She was a huge influence on me. When I first got serious about being a writer, Julian May was the writer I wanted to be.

The funny thing is, I had forgotten that. After she died, I decided that I needed to reconnect with my literary roots, so I re-read the Pliocene books and now I'm re-reading the Intervention ones. I'm especially looking forward to getting to the Milieu series because, criminally, I never got around to reading those. And it's all been kaleidoscopic.

I've got a new wallpaper/color scheme thingie for this blog. Relatively new, anyway. I'm still trying it on, but it'll probably be here for a bit.

Also this year, I dropped out as a partner of Peryton Publishing. I had been thinking about it for a while. There's not any personal drama behind it or anything like that. I lost interest in game design a while back. Since I realized this and stopped, I've become more and more certain that it isn't just a mood. I don't miss it at all. It goes back to that "don't find your bliss; find what you're willing to suffer for" meme. Some of the stuff associated with game design can be fun, but I'm not willing to suffer for it. Now that I'm done suffering for it, I don't even want to touch the fun parts. I just don't care enough about games to do anything special with them. That being the case, there didn't seem to be much point in keeping my name on a game design company. I still help out with it, though, and the stuff I did is still there. Also, of course, I still play games.

Happy New Year!

No Fury Like Mister Fantastic Scorned

I was poking at a friend for pairing Susan Storm with Namor, because Namor is a dick. Plus, Reed is awesome. How often do you get a mad scientist of his caliber as a hero? During the conversation, he told me I should read What If #21, What If Invisible Girl Married the Sub-Mariner. I'm a fan of 70s & 80s comics anyway, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

At first, I didn't like it, because the portrayal of Reed was so negative, and I like Reed. In retrospect, it wouldn't be the only time he's been in a mood like this, but I guess what bugged me was seeing it contrasted with Namor, who is always like that, and was being portrayed as the adult in the room.

As I continued to read, though, I noticed something that the author was doing, and I'm pretty sure it was intentional. Reed is so bitchy, here. He yells at people for nothing, he throws tantrums, and he sulks. Johnny follows his lead. Ben is the only one with any sense.

Namor, on the other hand, while portrayed as mostly respectful and attentive to Sue, is all smug and nest-buildy, but simultaneously super-insecure, pouting over the least hint that she might care about anyone other than him in any way. 

Reed even goes so far as doctoring video footage to try and start a war with Atlantis, because obviously that's a great plan which could never backfire. Namor is mostly cool about stuff, but you have to remember, that's because he got what he wanted. Namor's type are often magnanimous when they feel like they're on top. 

And the way they're acting feels really familiar, doesn't it? Who else acts like that? Oh yeah, women! Well, women in stories written by men, anyway. Especially the older ones. Keep this in mind as Reed totally goes off his rocker. His plan to engineer a war foiled by Ben, he concocts an even more insane plan to turn all the people of Atlantis into air-breathers, while they're still underwater, in order to deprive Namor of his kingdom. Hell hath no fury, amirite?

Johnny seems to think they'll have time to make it to land, but I don't think Reed cares, because he's crazy jealous. You might even say he's hysterical. Of course, he snaps out of it. I guess, even in What If, an iconic hero like Reed being a mass murderer is a little too dark. Still, it takes some special persuasion from Sue, who, despite being in a lot of pain, manages to smack some sense into him.

So Reed switches off his gadget and (despite the death of at least one Atlantean soldier) everybody looks at the baby and starts making nice. Well, except for Johnny; he's still pissed off. In the end, even the Watcher is like, "I dunno. Reed might pull this shit again. Laterz!" 

And yeah, knowing Bill Mantlo, I really do think this role reversal thing was a deliberate move, engineered to make a point. And it totally kicks ass.

Escape

"They have their goals -- touching or comical or mad. But I’ll be content to drift through the Exile world in my scarlet balloon, looking down on all the people and the animals, listening to wind and the cry of birds, smelling pollen, resin from the forest, smoke from wildfire on the grassland. I’ll come to earth only when I feel that the Earth is real again and I am."

Elizabeth Orme, from The Many-Colored Land, by Julian May

Stars, Specters, and Super-Powers

Behind this gawdawful cover are the following short stories, all by me:

• Starshadows in Sideways Time: In the far future, a space ark fleeing the dying universe is assaulted by mysterious alien entities.
• All Your Friends Are Monsters: Two medieval warriors escape a gladiatorial slave pit with the help of an ally who might be more dangerous than their enemy.
• Turmierre Returns to the Sky: Horgic and Charn meet their benefactor and discover the purpose for which they were freed.
• A Bad Habit: An enhanced agent in a world of government-controlled supermen begins to explore new abilities.
• Its Own Place: A traveler’s entire reality begins to unravel after encountering an occult ritual.
• Mister Blue Sky: An emotionally scarred super-powered hero and her friends go up against a quirky magical menace with the help of a famous otherworld champion.
• The Man Comes Around: Unfortunate hikers are caught up in the battle between an alien scientist and the villainous Covenant.
• Misfits and Mistakes: In the midst of an alien invasion, competing factions of super-powered beings struggle to claim one powerful but unpredictable resource.

Print for $9.99

Kindle Format for $0.99
CLICK HERE TO ORDER