The Rosicrucian

I was poking through bits of Shelley's work earlier today, mining the web for quotes, when I came across an interesting piece of information about my favorite poet: he wrote a couple of Gothic novels early in his career. Why didn't I know this? The first one, Zastrozzi, didn't really grab me, although I may come back to it later and give it more of a chance. The second one, though, has an alchemist! It's called St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian. I looked around and, sure enough, the book was available cheaply in electronic format. Check out this opener:

Red thunder-clouds, borne on the wings of the midnight whirlwind, floated, at fits, athwart the crimson-coloured orbit of the moon; the rising fierceness of the blast sighed through the stunted shrubs, which, bending before its violence, inclined towards the rocks whereon they grew: over the blackened expanse of heaven, at intervals, was spread the blue lightning's flash; it played upon the granite heights, and, with momentary brilliancy, disclosed the terrific scenery of the Alps, whose gigantic and mishapen summits, reddened by the transitory moon-beam, were crossed by black fleeting fragments of the tempest-clouds. The rain, in big drops, began to descend, and the thunder-peals, with louder and more deafening crash, to shake the zenith, till the long-protracted war, echoing from cavern to cavern, died, in indistinct murmurs, amidst the far-extended chain of mountains. In this scene, then, at this horrible and tempestuous hour, without one existent earthy being whom he might claim as friend, without one resource to which he might fly as an asylum from the horrors of neglect and poverty, stood Wolfstein;--

Even if you're one of those shriveled snobs who titters at "dark and stormy nights" like Beavis and Butthead upon spotting a fragmentary curse word, you've got to admit, this is the kind of language that transforms ink on a page into free-based fantasy. Okay, okay. I realize that, if you're one of the aforementioned snobs, you won't admit anything of the sort, but you should.

Anyway, finding an unknown novel by an author I love about a topic that fascinates me - that's like something out of dream! I've got some serious writing to get done, but I allowed myself a couple of hours with this fantastic new toy to warm myself up. I always do better work after I've been reading thick and chewy old school prose anyway.

Oh, and then I did some blogging, but now I'm going to get to work! Really!

After dinner. I mean, I gotta eat sometime, you know?

Friday Creature Feature: Shock-Hopper

So, here's a cutie for Peryton RPG. It's a little late but, hey, they're cold-blooded. They like to sleep in.

A Daydream of Justice

In an online chat while at work, I mentioned to Tom that I'd been called for jury duty next week and...

Tom: My woman's going to be a judge! big bucks!

Me: lol. No, nobody wants that to happen.

Tom: Only the guilty don't

Me: I am Robin the Judge and I sentence you to FIRE!

Tom: 12 ppl were sentenced to be burned outside of cityhall today for repeated parking violations

Me: That's what you get for besmirching Robin's New World with your petty crimes!

Tom: And a convicted double homicide suspect who looked a lot like Stringer Bell on the TV show the Wire was sentenced to comunity service for a week.

Me: Well, sometimes you have to show mercy.

Tom: All hail Robin the merciful.

Me: Am I not merciful? AM I NOT MERCIFUL?

Tom: (room full of ppl wearing burlap yell "Yes!...?")

Me: Now there's a justice system I'd be proud to support.

BASHCon 2011

...also called BASHCon XXVI.  Lately I've been waffling on how to identify these things.  Anyway, it's BASHCon, one of my two favorite small cons (the other being Carnage).  Of course, as I've said before, nothing compares to Gen Con, but that's a whole other category.

BASHCon is hosted by the University of Toledo's BASH club at their student center.  While there are drawbacks to not having the con inside or adjoining the hotel, the campus is a pleasant and somewhat nostalgic environment.  The university I went to back in the 90's had a pretty sorry excuse for a student center (a pool table, some vending machines, and one medium-sized empty room), so I'm always appreciative of schools with a nice one.

We arrived in Toledo mid-afternoon on Friday, checked in to the hotel, and drove over to UT to slog our way through the registration lines.  I got done first and wandered into the exhibit hall while Tom tried to figure out whether or not he had pre-registered. I wasn't planning to buy anything right away, but I was ambushed by a new supplement for the Doctor Who RPG, at a discounted price, even, and couldn't resist. I mean... Doctor Who, right?

I was signed up for Tom's Tunnels & Trolls game instead of running one myself Friday night.  Whatever you think of Tunnels & Trolls (I like it, but I know lots of people don't), Tom's T&T sessions are the kind of adventure no gamer should miss.  Jerry and (wow, I just noticed that: Tom & Jerry) another guy joined us and our crew of wizard, dwarf, and troll shaman took off through the Desert of Sulta with our less than modest goblin guide to find a lost pyramid.

The game came to a sudden stop when, at 11pm, the lights went out. Tom was convinced that the janitor just wanted to go home early. Maybe he's right. I dunno. Anyway, we all agreed to get back together tomorrow and finish the game, packed up our stuff as best we could by the light of our cell phones, and left.

We were back Saturday morning for my "Fiend Folio Frenzy" (Peryton RPG) and Tom's Glow (post-apocalyptic TAG variant).  Not many people made it in that early, so when nobody showed for Tom's game, he jumped in on mine. Given the late start, there wasn't much chance of finishing the scenario, so I just let go of the steering wheel and watched the templar, orc fighter, and halfling berserker/wizard go wild and explore whatever nooks and crannies caught their eyes. I had a great time and I think it went well in general. Also, I noticed several small things I could change so that it'll run more smoothly in the direction it was meant to go when I do this at Gen Con.

We popped over to Phoenicia, a middle-eastern restaurant in the student center, for lunch and then found a table to finish our Tunnels & Trolls game from the night before. Everybody showed up on time and our characters successfully completed their mission. I had signed up for a different game (a rather interesting-sounding Aztec mystery), but Tom's Call of Cthulhu session was sounding better and better, so I canceled. After a short nap, we packed up again and returned for the evening session.

"The Horrible Fate of the Haunted House Hunters" kicked off at 6pm with a full table (not a surprise with Call of Cthulhu). Our characters were those ghost hunters who have a pro wrestler go around provoking the ghosts. You can imagine how that went. Jerry played the wrestler and was hilarious, especially when, as things got weirder, his character slipped into his "real voice," with a whiny east coast accent instead of his usual wrestler-growl. My character went insane, but not as insane as the research consultant, who eventually lit himself and our van on fire and crashed it into the haunted house. Top it off with tasty treats from Del Taco and you've got a heck of an evening.

Sunday morning, Tom & I found only empty tables for our events, so we jumped in on Jerry's 2nd Edition AD&D game instead. Tom grumbled occasionally about the evils of AD&D, but I was happy to play a bit more of the game that shaped most of my role-playing history. It was a fun scenario about some frog demons (slaad) kidnapping an entire village (incidentally spoiling the wedding plans of one character's daughter) and implanting their eggs in them. I thought it was cool that, in addition to us old timers, there were two kids in the group who were eager, attentive participants. A reporter for the local paper came by, took a few pictures, and asked Jerry some questions.

And that's pretty much it. Oh yeah, it got cold again.

Tom's write-up is split across several pages. Here's Part One and Part Two. Here's the long-awaited Part Three. Don't believe his lies.

Yeah, Again

Sorry, no critter this week. I'm at BASHCon. Bought the new (well, new to me) Doctor Who aliens supplement which looks awesome so far, and had a great T&T game last night, although it was cut short by a mysterious late night power outage. We're going to try to get back together and finish it later today. I've got a Peryton RPG session to run in a few minutes.

Friday Creature Feature: Malicious Marauding Pyramid Heads

Sometimes I feel like being original and creative, sometimes I feel like converting one of my old monsters, and sometimes I just feel like ripping off one of Tom's (literally) pulp villains.  Guess what this is.

Friday Creature Feature: Piping Spider

Fans of Qalidar will already be familiar with the True20 version of this monster, but hey, we have to consider the poor grubby masses who don't own that book, right? The funny thing about putting this out as a Peryton RPG monster now, is that this is its original form. I created the piping spider for a scenario I ran back in 2008 called "Escape from the Artificer," which included all sorts of hideous patchwork critters. As a matter of fact, even the player characters were hideous patchwork critters. Seems like there was a reason this monster didn't make it into the revised rule book, but I can't remember what it was. Anyway, here's the spider: