So, it finally happened. I developed superpowers. I was beginning to think it just wouldn't happen. I mean, puberty was kind of awhile ago, and that's usually when these things manifest, right? So imagine my surprise when, sitting in my living room this morning enjoying my morning cup of mint-flavored hot cocoa, I happened to squeeze the handle of my mug a little harder than normal, and, with a sudden snap, it popped right off the mug. I sat there in shock for a few moments, covered in hot cocoa and smelling of peppermint, staring at the broken mug handle still in my hand. It didn't take long for the realization to hit me.
I have super-strength.
Or, possibly, a faulty mug. But I like the super-strength explanation better. It made me feel better about having to change my cocoa-soaked clothes and wash out the chair I was sitting in.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
The Curious Adventures of Meg and Lyz
Last week, Gary Gygax died. It's been covered by pretty much every news outlet around, but in case you don't have the internet or something, Mr. Gygax was the co-creator of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. I've only been playing D&D for about two to three years, ever since a certain friend of mine got me the Player's Handbook for Christmas (and regretted it when I made him play, of course).
There's not much I can say about Mr. Gygax that hasn't been covered by those worthier than I. D&D has definitely affected my life as a writer, as my feeble attempts at DMing games can attest to, but it's really just been a fun way to hang out with friends and play an awesome game.
Recently, I've been playing in a game with Amelia and Sean, Sean as the DM, and, as much as Amelia and I sometimes wish we had heavier things to throw at Sean, the game has been a lot fun so far. Sean has requested that I use this blog to keep track of what happens in our game, so what follows is a brief summary of our game thus far.
The game started as a solo game for an old character of mine. After being sucked into a portal of unknown origin at the end of our last game, my character, a changeling rogue named Meg, spent a year in a squalid prison cell going slowly mad. The game opened with her deciding it was time to try to escape, which she did, with help from a fellow prisoner, a cat-like creature named Scout. Meg's escape attempt led to her discovering that the complex she was being held in was far larger than she had thought. Her explorations led her through several labs of various purpose where she picked up some interesting books on alchemy and artificing.
The book on artificing led her to start trying some of this magic stuff she kept reading about, to moderate success. She eventually started disguising herself as a servant in order to move about the complex more easily, but after getting mixed up in a teleportation experiment, she found herself in a lab that was off-limits to servants, one that happened to specialize in dissection. Forced to fight her way out, she had help from a new prisoner that came to in the middle of the fight and brought a few well-timed lightning strikes to the altercation.
Meg figured this could be useful in the future, so the prisoner, a halfling witch named Lyz on a never-ending search for her lost boyfriend (played by Amelia), joined Meg in exploring the complex. Their explorations took them to a library, where Lyz's people skills successfully tempered Meg's stab-happy impatience and they learned from the librarian that the complex was actually on the Ethereal Plane. This was not good news. They did, however, find a secret passage in the library where they were able to rest and plan without fear. The secret passage's original occupant, a fellow prisoner and oddly-familiar anthromorphic bear, proved unfriendly. He was dealt with.
It didn't take long for the two of them to start messing with one of the laboratories, resulting in accidentally killing a kitten and melding its soul into the body of a mouse. Don't ask. The mouse/cat decided the best thing for its sanity was to to stick with Meg, becoming her familiar of sorts. She named him Sprocket.
This event also completely destroyed the lab, but the clumsy pair were rescued from trigger-happy guards by the head servant, a shadowy man whose name I can't spell. He allowed Meg and Lyz use of one of the servant's quarters, and gave them properly-fitting servant's uniforms to help them blend in better, and offered to act as a fence, finally allowing Meg to get rid of some of the items she had "found" during her explorations.
Emboldened by their contact, Meg and Lyz continued exploring, and learned from a dead man that the complex was a research facility that used power from the elemental planes to fuel their research. Apparently they were also working on making a permanent portal to the Material to allow employees free access back and forth, but this project was abandoned for an unknown reason that also lead to the dead guy's death.
Further exploration lead the pair to both the infirmary, where they met Mongo, a "healer", and stocked up on some healing items, and the guard training room, where they both received some combat training and used it to knock out the guards and raid the armory for some good weapons.
They eventually made their way back to one of the large labs, one with a mysterious chained up door. Deciding there was no good reason a door should be chained up like that, they set upon trying to open it, first by burning the chains off with acid, then removing the bar, then using a molotov cocktail to burn off the other bars. Beyond the door was a spherical room with four portals, each seemingly leading to a different elemental plane. Not liking their chances of survival on an elemental plane, they instead investigated an odd elemental cloud forming in the middle of the room, seemingly drawing power from all four portals. When they got too close, however, they were drawn into the cloud and buffeted painfully down a current of raw elemental power.
When they finally broke free of the stream, they were barely alive, but found themselves in a small pond surrounded by tropical trees. Believing they had finally made it off the Ethereal Plane, they spent a relieved 16 hours resting before discovering they were actually in one of the zoo exhibits in the complex. This revelation resulted in several bottle caps being thrown at Sean's head.
They escaped the exhibit with help from the exhibit's original occupant, an oddly-familar sentient chest with legs. Meg and Lyz are currently hiding out in a forest in a nearby open cavern, a part of the complex they have not yet fully explored.
There's not much I can say about Mr. Gygax that hasn't been covered by those worthier than I. D&D has definitely affected my life as a writer, as my feeble attempts at DMing games can attest to, but it's really just been a fun way to hang out with friends and play an awesome game.
Recently, I've been playing in a game with Amelia and Sean, Sean as the DM, and, as much as Amelia and I sometimes wish we had heavier things to throw at Sean, the game has been a lot fun so far. Sean has requested that I use this blog to keep track of what happens in our game, so what follows is a brief summary of our game thus far.
The game started as a solo game for an old character of mine. After being sucked into a portal of unknown origin at the end of our last game, my character, a changeling rogue named Meg, spent a year in a squalid prison cell going slowly mad. The game opened with her deciding it was time to try to escape, which she did, with help from a fellow prisoner, a cat-like creature named Scout. Meg's escape attempt led to her discovering that the complex she was being held in was far larger than she had thought. Her explorations led her through several labs of various purpose where she picked up some interesting books on alchemy and artificing.
The book on artificing led her to start trying some of this magic stuff she kept reading about, to moderate success. She eventually started disguising herself as a servant in order to move about the complex more easily, but after getting mixed up in a teleportation experiment, she found herself in a lab that was off-limits to servants, one that happened to specialize in dissection. Forced to fight her way out, she had help from a new prisoner that came to in the middle of the fight and brought a few well-timed lightning strikes to the altercation.
Meg figured this could be useful in the future, so the prisoner, a halfling witch named Lyz on a never-ending search for her lost boyfriend (played by Amelia), joined Meg in exploring the complex. Their explorations took them to a library, where Lyz's people skills successfully tempered Meg's stab-happy impatience and they learned from the librarian that the complex was actually on the Ethereal Plane. This was not good news. They did, however, find a secret passage in the library where they were able to rest and plan without fear. The secret passage's original occupant, a fellow prisoner and oddly-familiar anthromorphic bear, proved unfriendly. He was dealt with.
It didn't take long for the two of them to start messing with one of the laboratories, resulting in accidentally killing a kitten and melding its soul into the body of a mouse. Don't ask. The mouse/cat decided the best thing for its sanity was to to stick with Meg, becoming her familiar of sorts. She named him Sprocket.
This event also completely destroyed the lab, but the clumsy pair were rescued from trigger-happy guards by the head servant, a shadowy man whose name I can't spell. He allowed Meg and Lyz use of one of the servant's quarters, and gave them properly-fitting servant's uniforms to help them blend in better, and offered to act as a fence, finally allowing Meg to get rid of some of the items she had "found" during her explorations.
Emboldened by their contact, Meg and Lyz continued exploring, and learned from a dead man that the complex was a research facility that used power from the elemental planes to fuel their research. Apparently they were also working on making a permanent portal to the Material to allow employees free access back and forth, but this project was abandoned for an unknown reason that also lead to the dead guy's death.
Further exploration lead the pair to both the infirmary, where they met Mongo, a "healer", and stocked up on some healing items, and the guard training room, where they both received some combat training and used it to knock out the guards and raid the armory for some good weapons.
They eventually made their way back to one of the large labs, one with a mysterious chained up door. Deciding there was no good reason a door should be chained up like that, they set upon trying to open it, first by burning the chains off with acid, then removing the bar, then using a molotov cocktail to burn off the other bars. Beyond the door was a spherical room with four portals, each seemingly leading to a different elemental plane. Not liking their chances of survival on an elemental plane, they instead investigated an odd elemental cloud forming in the middle of the room, seemingly drawing power from all four portals. When they got too close, however, they were drawn into the cloud and buffeted painfully down a current of raw elemental power.
When they finally broke free of the stream, they were barely alive, but found themselves in a small pond surrounded by tropical trees. Believing they had finally made it off the Ethereal Plane, they spent a relieved 16 hours resting before discovering they were actually in one of the zoo exhibits in the complex. This revelation resulted in several bottle caps being thrown at Sean's head.
They escaped the exhibit with help from the exhibit's original occupant, an oddly-familar sentient chest with legs. Meg and Lyz are currently hiding out in a forest in a nearby open cavern, a part of the complex they have not yet fully explored.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Warning: David Bowie Music May Cause Inadvertant Time Travel
I'd like to talk now about something that only myself and about five other Americans are actually interested in. A few weeks ago a new show called Ashes to Ashes premiered on the BBC, and I've been keeping up with it through the almighty power of the internet. The show is a spin off of a previous BBC show called Life on Mars, a show I enjoyed immensely once my eldritch rituals finally secured me all of the episodes (it was a tad hard to find).
For those not among the aforementioned five, but are, for some reason, still reading, Life on Mars was a British cop show involving a detective in 2006 named Sam Tyler who gets hit by a car (while listening to "Life on Mars?" by David Bowie) and wakes up in 1973. The main mystery of the show is that we don't know if he's actually in 1973, if he's in a coma in 2006 and just imagining it all, or if he's just off his rocker. The fact that he tends to hear voices and see creepy little girls everywhere doesn't help much. The show ran for two seasons, and involved Sam adapting to police work in the 70's while trying to figure out how to get home. It had a great soundtrack and an amusing cast of characters that kept things light even while the main character slowly went crazy. If you don't mind thick British accents, leather jackets and a healthy heaping of angst (and I'd be angsty too, if I was stuck in the 70's with no internet) I would recommend it.
Ashes to Ashes is, as mentioned, a spin off of Life on Mars, where a new character, Alex Drake, finds herself in a similar situation. There's more to it, but I'm trying to keep it vague for anyone who might be interested in LoM, as the premise for Ashes sort of spoils the ending of the previous show. There are two major differences to the situation, the first being that Alex finds herself in 1981, instead of 1973, and the second being that Alex is almost definitely not in a coma. She gets shot. In the forehead. And then wakes up in 1981. She seems to believe that she is currently stuck in the moment between life and death, and her actions while in 1981 will determine whether she ultimately lives or ultimately dies. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't know a lot of people who lived after getting shot in the head, and I have a feeling that her adventures in 1981 are more geared towards tying up her life and moving on then actually fighting to live, but that's just my half-assed theory.
Although I've tried my best, it's hard not to judge this show in comparison to Life on Mars. The main character from that show did not return for Ashes, but several characters do, and it's definitely interesting to see how they have changed (or not changed) in the 8 years since the events in LoM. Despite the familiar faces, Ashes to Ashes has a very different feel than LoM. Part of that can be chalked up to the difference in decades, the 80's are just going to feel different than the 70's, and a lot of police procedures that were common in the 70's just aren't going to fly in the increasingly-PC world of 1981. This doesn't prevent various characters from bashing a cuffed man's head against the car or informally interrogating suspects through clever application of a pool table, but it's easy to see that the characters we're used to seeing as masters of their domains now have they're hands tied a bit.
The biggest difference, however, and what gives Ashes its unique feel, is the main character. Alex is a lot less angsty then Sam was, partially due to her unshakable belief that she knows what's going on. As a psychological profiler, she is a lot more analytical about her situation. She adamantly believes she is hallucinating and speaks about it freely to the other characters, talking out theories to her much-confused coworkers. However, believing herself to be the only real person in her situation has given her a somewhat annoying air of superiority. It's a personality trait she shares with Sam, yet here it seems much more pronounced. While Sam was kind of an asshole for most of his show, you sympathized with him since he was in such a confusing situation and he got put in his place quite often, usually by means of his superior officer's fists. Alex is harder to sympathize with, partially because she's not as lost as Sam was, or doesn't think she is, and partially because she doesn't get put in her place too often, mostly because her boss isn't going to hit a woman. I'm hoping she's not as right as she thinks she is about her situation, but based on what we already know, it seems the most likely explanation. I just think it would be great if something twisted her, and the audience's, expectations.
Although we in the audience think we know what's going on, there is still plenty of mystery that we share with the main character. Central to this mystery is that 1981 is the year Alex's parents died. Vague flashbacks show us they died in a car bomb, and Alex seems to believe that saving them might be the key to returning home. Her mother is well-known as a particularly vicious lawyer, and Alex and her mother have already butted heads several times throughout the show, mirroring the strained relationship they seemed to have had when Alex was a child. More interesting, to me, at least, is the mystery surrounding why Alex was shot. She was kidnapped at gunpoint by an old drug lord who, at first, seemed to want her alive, bringing her to an abandoned boat. On the way we hear him talking on the phone to someone about telling Alex what actually happened to her parents, and the whole deal sounds like blackmail of some kind. But not long after that, Alex's kidnapper shoots her in the head with seemingly no provocation.
My theory is that the kidnapper was speaking to Alex's godfather, who, based on Alex's flashbacks, may have had something to do with the death of her parents. However, this theory doesn't explain why her kidnapper gets so trigger-happy. Maybe he just wants to shut her up, she does get annoying sometimes.
Anyway, this rambling analysis has gone on long enough, especially since no I know is going to know what the hell I'm talking about. So far I'm enjoying the show, and I would recommend it, especially if you happen to live in Britain and can just watch it on TV. If you don't live in Britain, Ashes to Ashes airs on Thursdays, so is usually available on the internet by Thursday night, 8 or 9 pm, Eastern time. It will also probably be on BBC America eventually, once the season is over on the BBC.
For those not among the aforementioned five, but are, for some reason, still reading, Life on Mars was a British cop show involving a detective in 2006 named Sam Tyler who gets hit by a car (while listening to "Life on Mars?" by David Bowie) and wakes up in 1973. The main mystery of the show is that we don't know if he's actually in 1973, if he's in a coma in 2006 and just imagining it all, or if he's just off his rocker. The fact that he tends to hear voices and see creepy little girls everywhere doesn't help much. The show ran for two seasons, and involved Sam adapting to police work in the 70's while trying to figure out how to get home. It had a great soundtrack and an amusing cast of characters that kept things light even while the main character slowly went crazy. If you don't mind thick British accents, leather jackets and a healthy heaping of angst (and I'd be angsty too, if I was stuck in the 70's with no internet) I would recommend it.
Ashes to Ashes is, as mentioned, a spin off of Life on Mars, where a new character, Alex Drake, finds herself in a similar situation. There's more to it, but I'm trying to keep it vague for anyone who might be interested in LoM, as the premise for Ashes sort of spoils the ending of the previous show. There are two major differences to the situation, the first being that Alex finds herself in 1981, instead of 1973, and the second being that Alex is almost definitely not in a coma. She gets shot. In the forehead. And then wakes up in 1981. She seems to believe that she is currently stuck in the moment between life and death, and her actions while in 1981 will determine whether she ultimately lives or ultimately dies. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't know a lot of people who lived after getting shot in the head, and I have a feeling that her adventures in 1981 are more geared towards tying up her life and moving on then actually fighting to live, but that's just my half-assed theory.
Although I've tried my best, it's hard not to judge this show in comparison to Life on Mars. The main character from that show did not return for Ashes, but several characters do, and it's definitely interesting to see how they have changed (or not changed) in the 8 years since the events in LoM. Despite the familiar faces, Ashes to Ashes has a very different feel than LoM. Part of that can be chalked up to the difference in decades, the 80's are just going to feel different than the 70's, and a lot of police procedures that were common in the 70's just aren't going to fly in the increasingly-PC world of 1981. This doesn't prevent various characters from bashing a cuffed man's head against the car or informally interrogating suspects through clever application of a pool table, but it's easy to see that the characters we're used to seeing as masters of their domains now have they're hands tied a bit.
The biggest difference, however, and what gives Ashes its unique feel, is the main character. Alex is a lot less angsty then Sam was, partially due to her unshakable belief that she knows what's going on. As a psychological profiler, she is a lot more analytical about her situation. She adamantly believes she is hallucinating and speaks about it freely to the other characters, talking out theories to her much-confused coworkers. However, believing herself to be the only real person in her situation has given her a somewhat annoying air of superiority. It's a personality trait she shares with Sam, yet here it seems much more pronounced. While Sam was kind of an asshole for most of his show, you sympathized with him since he was in such a confusing situation and he got put in his place quite often, usually by means of his superior officer's fists. Alex is harder to sympathize with, partially because she's not as lost as Sam was, or doesn't think she is, and partially because she doesn't get put in her place too often, mostly because her boss isn't going to hit a woman. I'm hoping she's not as right as she thinks she is about her situation, but based on what we already know, it seems the most likely explanation. I just think it would be great if something twisted her, and the audience's, expectations.
Although we in the audience think we know what's going on, there is still plenty of mystery that we share with the main character. Central to this mystery is that 1981 is the year Alex's parents died. Vague flashbacks show us they died in a car bomb, and Alex seems to believe that saving them might be the key to returning home. Her mother is well-known as a particularly vicious lawyer, and Alex and her mother have already butted heads several times throughout the show, mirroring the strained relationship they seemed to have had when Alex was a child. More interesting, to me, at least, is the mystery surrounding why Alex was shot. She was kidnapped at gunpoint by an old drug lord who, at first, seemed to want her alive, bringing her to an abandoned boat. On the way we hear him talking on the phone to someone about telling Alex what actually happened to her parents, and the whole deal sounds like blackmail of some kind. But not long after that, Alex's kidnapper shoots her in the head with seemingly no provocation.
My theory is that the kidnapper was speaking to Alex's godfather, who, based on Alex's flashbacks, may have had something to do with the death of her parents. However, this theory doesn't explain why her kidnapper gets so trigger-happy. Maybe he just wants to shut her up, she does get annoying sometimes.
Anyway, this rambling analysis has gone on long enough, especially since no I know is going to know what the hell I'm talking about. So far I'm enjoying the show, and I would recommend it, especially if you happen to live in Britain and can just watch it on TV. If you don't live in Britain, Ashes to Ashes airs on Thursdays, so is usually available on the internet by Thursday night, 8 or 9 pm, Eastern time. It will also probably be on BBC America eventually, once the season is over on the BBC.
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