Saturday, December 6, 2014

The Dream/Magic Tier

The Dream Magic Tier






The Data/Magic tier is a subspacial dynamic quasiplane sandwiched between the DataBranes and the MagicBranes which permeates the warped eight dimensional model of Narcosian spacetime according to the rules of Hoffman MechanicsWhile it's true purpose or reason is unknown to most scholars it's primary common use has been to serve as information storage/retrieval, personal connectivity and FtE (Faster than Ether) communications. This D/Mt layer is only accessible in the presence of intelligent beings, and some argue that this tier is in fact created by the the introduction of higher order thought into non localized fields. 

Prior to the advent of D/Mt-Ego Translator Symbiotes D/Mt interactivity was only known to a few Narcomages in the Mosaic Data Mesh Area. In the modern day however these implants are so ubiquitous that not having one is unusual. Those that do not have an implant will sometimes carry Personal Computational Playback unit which will allow the user to access information and communications from the D/Mt sphere.

Primary Uses:


Personal, Public and Private Area Networks.

InterPlanetary, InterStellar, and InterGalactic Communications

Brane Hacking (Dimensional Travel) and FtE Navigation

EgoStimulant, NarcoTheorem and Branedance Programming

Ego Hacking and NarcoPuppetry

PharmEcology of the DataSphere


Aurincola 
It is suspected that the Aurincola dream nettles are in fact low frequency high bandwidth D/Mt packets which are unique to each specimen.

Hallucinatory Intelligence (H.I.)
The H.I. are a mystery, sometimes empathic and sometimes terrifying. No one has sufficiently studied them to ascertain their origin, but the prevailing theories state they are either organic byproducts of D/Mt manipulation, EgoStates of those lost in D/Mt space or Simply Extradimensional Beings. A few fringe thinkers believe that all of these are true. Whatever they are, H.I. will only be found in D/Mt space.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Your Metal is Weak

I see a lot of folks bringing up metal for their atmospheric choices when discussing horror or evil in their games. For that purpose metal just doesn't work for me. Not to say, of course, that metal is bad or that I don't like it but for the purposes of feeling the horror I just don't get into it.

The garish corpsepaint, the screams of the guitars and the caveman grunting lyrics about vomiting baby parts doesn't frighten me or cause me any sense of unease. If anything it makes me laugh, black comedy intended to offset the terror. It might work for a splatterpunk movie or something Eli Roth would produce, but not if you really want to unsettle people. 

I know peoples tastes are subjective, but in my case this is so much more immersive and when people hear it they react to it. I like to play this kind of stuff at work so I can judge the reactions of my customers. When I play metal they ignore it completely.













I saved the best for last, but then, I am biased.

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Wm Blake's Proverbs of Hell

In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy. 
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead. 
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. 
Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity. 
He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence. 
The cut worm forgives the plow. 
Dip him in the river who loves water. 
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees. 
He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star. 
Eternity is in love with the productions of time. 
The busy bee has no time for sorrow. 
The hours of folly are measur’d by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure. 
All wholsom food is caught without a net or a trap. 
Bring out number weight & measure in a year of dearth. 
No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings. 
A dead body, revenges not injuries. 
The most sublime act is to set another before you. 
If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise. 
Folly is the cloke of knavery. Shame is Prides cloke. 
Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion. 
The pride of the peacock is the glory of God. The lust of the goat is the bounty of God. The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God. The nakedness of woman is the work of God. 
Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps. 
The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man. 
The fox condemns the trap, not himself. 
Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth. 
Let man wear the fell of the lion, woman the fleece of the sheep. 
The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship. 
The selfish smiling fool, & the sullen frowning fool, shall be both thought wise, that they may be a rod. 
What is now proved was once, only imagin’d. 
The rat, the mouse, the fox, the rabbit: watch the roots; the lion, the tyger, the horse, the elephant, watch the fruits. 
The cistern contains; the fountain overflows. 
One thought, fills immensity. 
Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you. 
Every thing possible to be believ’d is an image of truth. 
The eagle never lost so much time, as when he submitted to learn of the crow. 
The fox provides for himself, but God provides for the lion. 
Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night. 
He who has suffer’d you to impose on him knows you. 
As the plow follows words, so God rewards prayers. 
The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction. 
Expect poison from the standing water. 
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. 
Listen to the fools reproach! it is a kingly title! 
The eyes of fire, the nostrils of air, the mouth of water, the beard of earth. 
The weak in courage is strong in cunning. 
The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow, nor the lion, the horse, how he shall take his prey. 
The thankful reciever bears a plentiful harvest. 
If others had not been foolish, we should be so. 
The soul of sweet delight, can never be defil’d. 
When thou seest an Eagle, thou seest a portion of Genius, lift up thy head! 
As the catterpiller chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys. 
To create a little flower is the labour of ages. 
Damn, braces: Bless relaxes. 
The best wine is the oldest, the best water the newest. 
Prayers plow not! Praises reap not! Joys laugh not! Sorrows weep not! 
The head Sublime, the heart Pathos, the genitals Beauty, the hands & feet Proportion. 
As the air to a bird of the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible. 
The crow wish’d every thing was black, the owl, that every thing was white. 
Exuberance is Beauty. 
If the lion was advised by the fox, he would be cunning. 
Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement are roads of Genius. 
Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires. 
Where man is not nature is barren. 
Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ’d. 
Enough! or Too much!

Sunday, August 31, 2014

RPGaDay 31 "Favorite game"

Jesus, what a question. Asking me what my favorite game is like trying to get an answer when you ask what my favorite album is. I can't say all of them because there are a lot of games that suck...


Just like there is a lot of music that sucks


So that being said I do have my favorites and I will list them by genre. 

For the "Hard" Sci Fi category I elect Eclipse Phase. I'm really digging Eclipse Phase. A Lot. It's definitely one of my faves. 


When I think of Horror I think of this obviously...


Fantasy? Dungeon World hands down.


Supers? Man I loved this game, wish I still had a hardcopy.


Generic System? With a Hat Tip to Fudge...


This list could go on and on. If I had to pick one game that has shaped who I am today though, I'd be remiss if I didn't say Cyberpunk 2020.


Saturday, August 30, 2014

RPGaDay 30 "Most Rare Game"

I hadn't been in Austin all that long, moving here in '99. My soon to be wife and I took a trip to the mall, can't remember why but we needed to get something from there. Clothes I assume, but my memory sucks.

Tucked away in a corner of the mall was a little gaming shop I didn't know was there, this was my first time in after all, wish i could remember the name of it. I made a quick in to take a look around didn't see anything I was overly interested in and left. We did our shopping and went to leave, passing by the shop again.

I glanced in again to see the game stores sole worker putting a game on the shelf that I had only heard about from online conversations. It was spoken of as a rarity that only went out to a few shops.


I walked in with my girl in tow and picked it up, walked a bit while looking at it. What I'm about to say may be regarded as heresy among my friends but I never really got into Dune as a series of books. The movie rocked my world though and I wanted to emulate that.

I put it down eventually because I was broke and didn't have the money to spend on it. I ended up with it though because my girlfriend was awesome and she saw how much I wanted it. Sometimes I consider selling it because I know I can make a bit of cash off it, but really? I keep it around because I love my wife and she bought this for me.

Not sure of the rarity of this item, but I only know less than a handful of people with it, but I have this.


One of those "Totally unplayable" games like Human Occupied Landfill.

and of course my Kult 2nd edition rulebook is a hard find too...


So is an unbroken copy of SLA Industries 1st edition.


Thursday, August 28, 2014

RPGaDay 29 "Most Memorable Encounter"


This fucking guy,  right here. 





We all know what this bastard is right? Old smoke and flame himself. A goddamned Balrog. Not sure what our GM was thinking, a bunch of mid level MERP characters traipsing through some anonymous dwarven ruin for some reason. Mind you we had to skip a bunch of BS so we could get in a good lunch hour session during school. 

So through this ruin we wandered, every day at lunch, killing off whatever random shit was thrown our way. A few orcs here, a goblin there. Giant Spiders gave us a bit of trouble but we overcame no worse off than we'd started. GM took it easy on us at first, but as the lunch hours ticked away and we'd suffered very little at the hands of his planned encounters he'd started to get angry. Not a good trait for a GM, but we knew how he was...

Anyway, so after one his clever plots fell to shit at our deft heroics (With the help of some terrible dice rolling on his part), he'd muttered out loud "Goddamnit". He paused for a moment as if considering the outcome of his future outburst. "THAT IS BULLSHIT" He wailed as the experimental d100 went flying against the wall of the classroom we used, shattering into pieces.

Breaking his proud little die made him angrier, our muffled laughter didn't help either.

We started looting our latest conquest when suddenly Scott (The GM) says to us "You smell smoke and fire coming from around a bend in the hallway and can see flickering shadows against the wall." We all looked at each other and decided to look for some cover, but only after we finished looting the bodies.

The illusion that this was just a number of Orcs carrying torches was quickly dispelled when we started to feel the heat from ahead, still around the corner, whatever it was made the floor shake.

Adventurer or not, I looked for an exit, back the way we came. The same hallway as our demonic looking enemy was in. We were a bit dismayed when it came into the room. We were on the far side when he started describing the creature, almost verbatim from the book. Didn't take us long to figure out that he'd tossed a Balrog in here, just to kill us.  

We'd planned on making a run for it, Davids character shot an arrow at it, doing absolutely nothing except drawing its ire. 

As it attacked Davids character in a brutal fashion I took the opportunity to bolt the fuck out. The others didn't hesitate to follow. 

The puddle of gore that was once an Elf didn't keep it distracted for long, it began to catch up to us as we made for escape. A Dwarf with an axe and a Dunedain with a sword was all that was between me and that frightfully scary thing.

I had a longsword and a crossbow, the dwarf fell soon after and my other party member and I knew we were doomed so we stood to face the beast. As a joke I leveled my crossbow at the thing, rolled my dice and let loose a bolt at it.

"Critical hit!!" Scott just shook his head, no way were we getting out of this with one little crit.

Rolling the dice to consulting the puncture chart I roll another 100! the chart returns with:

"Strike Through Eye. Dies Instantly. A Real Eye Full" My fellow players roared with delight as I'd single handedly killed off the big bad with one shot. Scott vowed never to run this stupid game again and as far as I know, he never did. He'd argue, years later, that it wasn't a legal kill because the bolt would have turned to ash before it hit. I told him he held on to things too long.

Looking back on it, I'm sure that if we'd followed the rules to the letter, that kill wouldn't have occurred, but man was it awesome.





RPGaDay 28 "Scariest Game"

I bet you were expecting yet another picture of Kult sitting here didn't you?

Nope, not this time. I've never gotten a chance to actually play Kult, so instead I will say it was a mashed up World Of Darkness campaign my friend John was running at one time. (Who, coincidentally also ran the craziest fucking game of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - After the Bomb)

Good Times.

This particular episode I wasn't playing a vampire (because vampires are lame) or any of the "normal monsters" in the WoD line up. I was playing a character named Alex Darkhorse Human Sorcerer.


I can't say I was scared so much as mentally disturbed by Johns description of the antagonist I was (powerlessly) facing. In this story it was a WoDized version of Baphomet who was draped in the skins of unborn children. We never got a chance to finish that game, I can't imagine things ended well for Alex, but it's one I will never forget. John is a consummate Storyteller

Thanks Buddy.