Wednesday, March 13, 2024
Wednesday Comics: DC, June 1983 (week 2)
Monday, March 11, 2024
Xeno-File: O'omkaro
Art by David Monge Bustista |
O'omkaru are newcomers to interstellar civilization. They are often found accompanying other species from the Compact sphere.
So far as is known they have two sexes. Bidirectional hermaphroditism occurs, so that an individual may switch sex several times in a lifetime. The triggers for these changes are unknown, and it seems to be a topic they are reluctant to discuss with other species. Personality changes occur along with their sex, and o'omkaro society accommodates this shift in its members, altering responsibilities and roles as needed.
Many o'omkaru are followers of cultural fads (especially those from other species) and many are collectors of some sort. Almost any new religion, political philosophy or art form they sweeps known space is guaranteed to count o'omkaro among its enthusiasts. O'omkaro history has been painted but historians of other species as a churn of secret societies, revolutionary ideas, and religious awakenings.
Friday, March 8, 2024
Got to Catch Them All
Inspired by Vance mostly, people have considered spells as living entities. It was discussed in the Gplus days, and it shows up in Eric Diaz's Dark Fantasy Magic. Back in 2011, before I had really read a whole lot of Vance, the Vancian magic of D&D and the film Pontypool got me imagining spells as a neurolinguistic virus or memetic entity.
Wednesday, March 6, 2024
Wednesday Comics: DC, June 1983 (week 1)
Monday, March 4, 2024
Luna Blues
The year is 2979 and the PCs are the (former) crew of a corporate hauler doing a Luna-Ceres run. Finding themselves out of a job when their employer was bought out by Ares Corporation (the Martian baddies), they find themselves sitting in the Tycho City dive called the Free Fall Bar and Grill, listening to bad karaoke and spending their last paycheck. The characters are:
- Hesperos (Tug): Pilot from the Venusian Cloud cities.
- Ryne Ganult (Andrea): Engineer from the Belt.
- Zarek (Bob): Martian ex-soldier with a cybernetic arm.
The group is approached by a woman who gives her name as Chandra Roberts. She's a lawyer who needs a crew to fly a salvaged ship back to Earth. She's offering 1000 Martian Yuan for a one day job. It's good money, so the group says yes, but almost immediately things get complicated.
A guy and some goons come in. The guy claims to be a Lunar cop and places Chandra under arrest. Something smells fun, though, because why aren't these goons in uniform? And why doesn't the leader's uniform have identification? When the group balks, one goon draws a gun.
When Hesperos quick draws his pistol, a fight breaks out. In short order, the thugs are on the ground courtesy of the stunners Zarek and Ganult have, but the real cops are likely on their way.
They flee the bar and as soon as they get a moment, Roberts reveals that she works for ORE, the Organization for the Renewal of Earth, and the ship in question is a stolen yacht that once belonged to Ares Corp chairman, Alexei Loehr-Zau, and seems to contain a drive with sensitive Ares Corp data.
Roberts wants the crew to help her buy by the data (and the ship) from pirates.
TO BE CONTINUED
Friday, March 1, 2024
Encounters at Thono; Our Heroes Don't Get Baths
Bao dwek Thabub (art by Steven de Waele) |
Our Gnydrion game in Grok?! continued last Sunday. The group was all there:
- Antor Hogus (Paul) - Vagabond on holiday. He wants to use that stun wand.
- Jerfus Grek (Jason) - Also a vagabond. Here, a large man at spycraft.
- Nortin Tauss (Aaron) - Dabbler in the arcane. He wears a star in the center of his tunic.
- Yzma Vekna (Andrea) - Teamster out of her element.
Ensconced in a suite in the Thono Inn, expensed to the Eminent Compulsor, the group enjoys a nice dinner and a bit of rest. The next morning finds them beginning their investigations to uncover the identity of Wol Zunderbast. In doing so they encounter (and are distracted by) some of the other guests: Bao dwek Thabub, typically pungent hwaopt scholar studying something called "fey vortices" in the area; Sula Av and Tharom Welk an overly friendly couple on holiday from Ascolanth.
Finally, after leaving a message at the desk in a failed stratagem to find Zunderbast's room, they encounter the man himself:
He's intense and no nonsense but arranges a meeting later that evening with Nortin to discuss the "item" further. He also invites in the game in the casino (five frond hokus or thari or even quorn lancets) but Nortin declines.
With the meeting set, the group decides to take advantage of the famous gas bathes fed by the eldritch substance of the Lake of Vermilion Mists. They head to the bathhouse, but they are told its out of order by the inebriated engineer, Ormuz Halx, who raves at them briefly about something in caves that wants to kill everyone. Before they can dig into these remarkable claims, Gris Samber shows up to usher Halx away apologetically, citing his drunkenness as the source of his odd behavior.