I have a funny pair of videos for you, to tide you over while I finish my school project. The first video is an excellent example of why I find Rimworld fascinating (you can read my posts about it if you like). The second one is what happens when the people making Sesame Street love Game of Thrones.
First, bad things happening to desperate space-wreck survivors (hint, it goes poorly):
Second, yes, they really did this:
I totally would have worn this in high school
I spent more words introducing this than writing it. Bizarre, but useful since I have so much other work I really ought to be doing. Anyway. Chuck Wendig’s challenge this week is to write the opening sentence to something, nothing more. Here goes:
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from being a teenager, it’s that plausible deniability is everything.
This weekend was a good one for gaming. On Saturday I ran a last minute seat-of-the-pants adventure involving a great deal of bullshitting, and on Sunday I continued to run a standing campaign based on the material I started posting about last fall, in the setting I’ve been writing about this spring. I had a great time with both sessions.
I’m not going to tell you much about the campaign, since that would potentially expose spoilers, but I absolutely have to share the basic setup of the Saturday game with you. You remember whothefuckismydndcharacter, right?
Because we had very little time to set up and run the game, I decided that the players should roll down the line, which is to say that they had to roll their ability scores in order without being able to shift them around and spend too much time thinking about what they were going to be. Then Spaige whipped out whothefuckismydndcharacter and got “a fucking sentimental Human Warlock from a cavern without echoes who is a recovering cannibal.” I immediately decided that people could rearrange their ability scores as long as they shifted them to match a randomly generated character from that site. Two of our players (Thom and Whitney) were hardcore / lucky and both rolled down the line AND used the random character generator.
The party ended up with an elven wizard, two warlocks (one human, one half-elven), a rock gnome rock bard, and a dragonborn barbarian. The party’s wisdom scores were (I believe) 6, 6, 7, 8, and 12, with the barbarian as the wisest party member. The lowest charisma score for the party was 14, and most people had 16 or higher. Marvellor the Shit had a 20. How did he end up with a name like that? Well…
As the first few people figured out who their characters were, everyone decided that the PCs should start at 3rd level and that everyone would need an epithet of some sort. We made a joke about the gnomish bard rocking out, and so he quickly became Duane the Rock, rock gnome rock bard. The dragonborn barbarian, who had once survived a cookpot (it said so in his backstory), was described as having proportions like unto a Red Delicious; he’s bigger up top than down low, but he’s all around larger than he really should be. He came to be known as Horgrin the Vast. Spaige’s human warlock took the Great Old One pact, and was thus able to communicate telepathically (Spaige, seriously, I still want the fluff you came up with for that demon-tainted cave of the cannibalistic thought-collective, it was great), so she became Chathi, the Last Disciple of Silent Whispers, or Chathi the Last for short.
Whitney still needed an epithet and was randomly generating her character name (she got extra bonus points, because she randomly generated everything including wizard her spell list), but she quickly realized that her name was her epithet. She ended up playing The Gart, which was perfect because it continued the tradition of four letter epithets.
By this point people were starting to get a little cracked out and/or drunk. Thom showed up late and generated his character as quickly as he could, randomly generating the name Marvellor for his half-elf warlock, but was stumped for what to call himself until we pointed out that he needed a four-letter epithet. Thus was born Marvellor the Shit, and his less impressive imp familiar Bixby the Crap.
Together these hooligans decided to search out a treasure as yet untouched by the adventuring group which had touched (more like scarred) all of their lives. There’s so much that I’m skipping over, like the beautiful way in which they connected the fragments of backstory given to them all through the random character generator, but suffice to say that they had reason to despise and outdo the people who had ruined the lives that they once led. As such, they journeyed into the land of Kraskya, the ancient and ruined city, and promptly fought a large number of things that they were hilariously ill prepared to face. And despite the fact that high charisma types and people with enchantment and deception spells rarely do that well against the undead, they triumphed.
Of course, we left off while they were still stuck underground, more or less trapped by a very very large number of skeletons, but I’m sure that will be a good story for another time.
More or less what I grew up with.
I love adventure fiction. It’s makes up a large portion of what I write, probably because it’s what I grew up reading in books and creating in role-playing games. When I don’t write adventures, I still generally use the climactic structure to resolve the primary tensions of the piece. Unless I feel like experimenting, I don’t usually do the “unfinished story” thing and leave such tension unresolved. But you probably already know this, so why the hell am I telling you?
Another week, another piece of flash fiction. This time, Chuck Wendig has prompted us with a photo, as seen above. My response is below. Enjoy.
***
You know how they say that a picture is worth a thousand words? Well. I thought that the painting of a fairy king on my manager’s wall meant that he was nerdy, liked fantasy, and that we might get along, seeing as how I think fairies are pretty cool and have been kind of a mythology fanboy for a long time. I should have paid more attention. Continue reading
This week, in honor of Clean Reader, Chuck Wendig decided to challenge us to create something “filthy.” I’m not sure that I succeeded, but I’m less prudish than some, so who knows. I wasn’t really interested in just making something filthy by using lots of swears though, so I switched things up and added an additional challenge for myself: I tried to write content that Clean Reader’s creators would find objectionable while using very few words that their program would know to “clean.” The result is probably best described as erotica. You have been warned. Also, if you like NSFW cartoons, I mention the Rock Cocks and they are a semi-real thing that you can look up. Enjoy!
I hadn’t quite expected this to be so good. In fact, I futzed around and failed to really start it for about four weeks (or maybe longer). But there was some point, maybe around page 80, when I seem to have flipped a switch; suddenly all I wanted to do was finish the book. It’s lovely and wonderful, and I would certainly recommend it to pretty much anyone who has any interest in epistolary novels, or female protagonists in post-Napoleonic Wars England, or magic, or even just fun stories. To be clear, given how readily I’ve bounced off of other similar characters before, I had no idea how much fun they could be.
Sorcery & Cecelia (which I have learned, much to my delight, is part of a series) was written back in the 80’s as a Letter Game. Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer decided to write letters to each other in the voice of their two respective characters, relating gossip and intrigue, and telling each other about the fabulous and exciting things which they were each getting up to. When they’d finished their game, they looked at their collection of letters and realized that they’d basically already written a novel. With some editing for details, continuity, and pacing, they found that they had a perfectly acceptable manuscript, and then managed to get it published. I am exceedingly glad that they did.
Look, I don’t want to ruin any of the book for you by mentioning things. Suffice it to say that the two main characters’ adventures and intrigues make excellent reading, and Kate and Cecilia are absolutely brilliant as heroines who must vanquish their antagonists, while carefully acting within the constraints imposed on them by society. Do yourself a favor and pick up this book. It’s really quite good.
p.s. Thank you to the visitor who recommended this to me one morning in Mama Dorr’s kitchen. I wish I could remember your name to thank you properly, especially after the excellent conversation we had about epistolary stories and your research into the subject. [Edit: The visitor was Naomi, but I appear to have misattributed the recommendation! It was still an awesome conversation, but Thomas may have been the original source. I might manage to get to the bottom of this. Maybe.]
This was brought on by an incidental conversation that touched on becoming a Boston pedestrian, and was too “funny” not to share with you. You may be familiar with the original Litany Against Fear, from Dune. But have you heard the Litany of Hit and Runs?
I must not cede right-of-way. Cars are the me-killer. Cars are the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face the car. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the car has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
And, of course, here’s the original:
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
You know the drill. Chuck Wendig made a challenge, I wrote some flash fiction. This time, I had to tell a story in 100 words. Have fun.
***
Benny and Peter sit across from each other in the saloon’s corner booth, surrounded by empty bottles. Benny gesticulates wildly with a gun, making a point, yelling at Peter. Peter eases his pistol out of its holster, keeping it under the table.
“Imbecile!” Benny shouts, “That’s not how it was at all!” He slams his gun down on the table for emphasis.
There’s a sudden ear-splitting crack and the pistol leaps in Peter’s hand. Benny slumps over the table, moaning as he bleeds.
Peter glares at the injured man. Smoke rolls from his gun.
“Idiot. Han definitely shot first.”
***
An alternative cover photo:
This week’s flash fiction challenge from Chuck Wendig involves a random cocktail generator and 1000 words of pure imagination. I got the Cosmo Katie, and took it to a dark place. I mean, space is pretty dark most of the time, right? Enjoy.
Fistful of Wits 