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!

Three Mirages

Like most people who GM a lot of RPGs, I sit around thinking about campaigns I might run sometimes. Right now I've got an Icons campaign going that I love (although I still haven't written up the most recent session and the holidays have, as always, slowed it down), so the thing I pine for is D&D. Despite the picture, it would be 5th edition. I just really like that old Erol Otus cover. Anyway, these are the main ideas that keep surfacing.

World of Greyhawk
I had this one going for a while, and had to drop it because I was gaming all the time and had to cut a few things. It started off with a weird vegepygmy adventure which led to Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh and then off into the Hool Marshes where they stumbled into the Feywild and then Castle Amber. I could easily pick this up again. While the time-sink was unfortunate, I was having a blast. This is probably the one I'd be mostly likely to do, because, even if I started a spinoff instead of resuming with the same characters, a lot of the set-up is already done.

Xarkis or Sarkis or Something
I think it might also be fun to run something in the world of The Nameless Way. I wouldn't try to follow the plot of the novel, because that feels a little too railroady. There are plenty of places to explore that I don't even go in this book, and of course the ones the book does visit still have other adventures to offer.

Middle Earth
Ever since Adventures in Middle Earth was announced, I've been turning the thought of a campaign over and over in my head. I've been thinking that, deviating from the official line, I'd run an alternate history where Isildur destroyed the Ring instead of keeping it, but there's still other stuff going on which I'm not going to get into right now. Some of that stuff helps explain why the present-day world (right after the events in The Hobbit) isn't really all that different. A drawback of this one is that I'd have to get the players to acquire and understand their own copies of the Player's Guide. The classes and the way characters are created deviate so much from standard D&D that, otherwise, I would go crazy, constantly trying to explain how everything works.

But of course I probably won't be doing any of these any time soon. Maybe after I catch up on some other stuff. I dunno.

Carnage 21

Okay, so, there were some bad spots and, to top it all off, I think I came home with con crud. All I want to say about the bad spots is that they had nothing to do with Carnage or the resort. Most of it is on me.

On the good news side, I got to hang out with friends I don't see often and made one or two new ones. I even reconnected with a friend I hadn't talked much to in a few years. I got to spend a long weekend on the mountain and stay in a nice room.

I missed my role-playing game session, but the other game I was running was Dungeon! and it was awesome. I had forgotten how much fun that game could be. I'll definitely be doing that again.

Oh, and there was lots of fog. Fog is cool.

And I got some writing done on the way home. I don't have any pictures for that.

The Dreams in the Red Roof

Here's a dream I had Wednesday night when we stopped in Syracuse on the way to Carnage.

We were in kind of a Suicide Squad thing, at least in that nobody trusted us. We hadn't been in jail or anything, just sort of a variation on jury duty selection. There was even a reference to the fact that I had already served and something else about me having missed several phone calls about this and hearing about it on TV or something like that. There were several other people on the team but I don't remember anything significant about most of them.

Jerry was appointed the leader. I don't remember whether this came down from above or was a team vote. Either way, I missed the process because I joined up late. There was also this big monster kind of dude. His name was Groot, but he wasn't anything like the movie/comics Groot. He looked a little like the lanky, shambling trolls in first edition AD&D, but with short tendrils coming out of his temples like Man-Thing. He had kind of a sullen, cranky demeanor and spoke a little like the 80's Marvel Hulk.

There was a lot of sitting around at first, and most of the team avoided Groot. For some reason I had the idea that I was going to want to go all supervillain at some point, so I went out of my way to befriend Groot because he'd be pretty useful for that. The rest of us all had some kind of gimmicky gadget, but no real super-powers. I had this retractable metal whip thing that I could do an assortment of stunts with. This was fairly typical. Nobody had any advantage as formidable as being a giant green monster. So I started hanging out with Groot, making sure he didn't get chased away at mealtime and stuff (Groot was big and scary, but usually not all that aggressive).

I think the reason I was planning to go rogue was that it was kind of a dystopian Hunger Games world. The leader was called President, but was really a dictator who had seized power in a military coup. He had a name in the dream but I can't remember it. Definitely a dude, though. I remember going on patrol in the city and talking about options with Jerry and Tom. The general consensus was that the only way to really change things was to take out the President, but we didn't know how to accomplish this because he was well-defended and had easily anticipated and crushed similar attempts before.

Then we got the news that Groot had gotten into the narcotics cabinet and was now on a rampage. Why was there a narcotics cabinet in our headquarters? I don't know. So I decided that I could use this to further my plan by talking Groot down and making sure he was treated well or maybe helping him escape if things went wrong. Why did I think I could talk down a drug-crazed troll? No idea. I kinda liked Groot, though, so maybe I really was being a little heroic.

Anyway, Groot was up on a bridge decorated kind of like the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge in Cleveland and we arrived below. I used that whip thing to pull myself up, only to find that Superman (yeah, doesn't seem to fit the setting, does it?) had arrived on the scene and was dealing with Groot. I was trying to figure out how best to handle this when I woke up.

Cat Day

For cat day, here's my buddy, Ninja. He had a rough life before we got him, and he didn't last all that long after, but I'm glad we were able to give him enough love and comfort to take regal poses like this. And of course he paid us back a hundredfold for the love we gave him. He had a seductive, drowsy-eyed smile that I used to call his Idris Elba look.

And here's his brother from another mother, Tio, who did NOT have a rough life, but has also left us. He used to run in whenever I took a bath, demanding wet-handed skritches until he was all spiky-haired, after which he'd just blissfully chill out by the warm tub.

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.

Stuff and More Stuff

I guess I should blog again, so, I guess maybe soon.

Writing's going well, although I'm a little distracted by the Blackridge project which has been so persistently worming through my brain that I've had to do a little work on it. I've also worked on The Nameless Way, too, though, so there's that.