tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33726934840532996752024-03-19T03:52:18.914-04:00Throne of SaltMany Fantastic ThingsDanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.comBlogger545125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3372693484053299675.post-39983584068949511472024-02-26T21:39:00.000-05:002024-02-26T21:39:01.642-05:00Fear and Hunger 2: The First 45 Deaths (Plus Game Design Notes)<p><br />I picked up Fear and Hunger 2 back in December, and I've been keeping a running tally of all the horrible ways my characters have died since then. A couple months and thirty some hours later, I've got enough for a good post out of it. <br /><br />So as to not just have a table of random information that only makes sense with the context of having played the game, there will be some notes about game design at the end. <br /><br />Entries are listed as Death # - Date - Character - Cause of Death <br /></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>12/16 - Levi - Infected wound from a Moonscorched </li><li>12/17 - Levi - Smashed in the head with a pesticide canister. </li><li>12/17 - Marina - Smashed in the head with a pesticide canister, again. </li><li>12/17 - Levi - Tackled into submission by armless villager after sleeping in the wrong bed, then fed to pigs. </li><li>12/18 - Levi - Shot by sniper outside of town. </li><li>12/18 - Marina - tackled to death by the Woodsman after getting freed from the well. </li><li>12/20 - Abella - Tackled to death by armless villager. </li><li>12/22 - Marina - Shot by rifleman, only had one arm left anyway. </li><li>12/22 - Levi - Gummed to death by headless wolf </li><li>12/23 - Marina - Killed by Father Oscar's //hurting// spell, which crashes the game if it kills you. </li><li>12/23 - Levi - I am not kidding, that motherfucker can crash your game with the amount of //Hurting// he can deal. </li><li>12/23 - Levi - I told the mayor that the sausage looked like a penis and he stuck a meat cleaver in me. </li><li>12/25 - Levi - Starved to death in latrine pit. </li><li>12/25 - Marina - Stabbed by manic villager. </li><li>12/25 - O'saa - Brutalized by an ogre in a flashback during character creation. </li><li>12/27 - O'saa - Choked to death on pesticide fumes. </li><li>12/27 - O'saa - Stabbed by Henryk. </li><li>12/27 - O'saa - Shot in the head by Needles. </li><li>12/28 - O'saa - Again with the pesticide. </li><li>12/28 - O'saa - Grappled into submission by Fr. Oscar, de-legged, strung up on a ritual crucifix, rescued, crawl away only to get killed by the Vile and his pesticide again. </li><li>12/31 - O'saa - Bitten by rats, which were summoned by a Rat Hag </li><li>1/1 - Marcoh - Pesticide gas, again. </li><li>1/6 - Marcoh - Needles fucked me up, again. </li><li>1/9 - Marcoh - Killed by //Hurting//, via Dysmorphia. </li><li>1/11 - Marcoh - Punched myself to death after getting mind-controlled by a Crimson Father. </li><li>1/11 - Marcoh - Shot by an Elite Trooper </li><li>1/12 - O'saa - Shot and power-sawed by a mob. </li><li>1/14 - Marcoh - Dysmorphia and //Hurting//. Should probably mention that there's a monster named Dysmorphia. </li><li>1/14 - O'saa - Machete'd by a Death Mask. </li><li>1/15 - Marina - Tackled to death by Karin. </li><li>1/15 - Marina - Clawed to death by a Moonscorched. </li><li>1/15 - Marcoh - Bludgeoned with a meat mallet. </li><li>1/15 - Marcoh - Gutted by the knife of a Crimson Father, right after I shot Marina in the head due to mind control. </li><li>1/18 - Marina - Impaled in trap pit while running away from an Owl Cultist in the woods. </li><li>1/18 - O'saa - Police brutality. </li><li>1/18 - Marina - Landmine. </li><li>1/19 - Karin - Machete'd by Death Mask, but not before he cut off both my arms. </li><li>1/21 - Karin - A great run ended by a Death Mask machete. Got too greedy. </li><li>1/22 - Karin - Decapitated by owl spirit. </li><li>1/23 - Abella - Gnawed by a Crimson Father. </li><li>1/23 - Karin - Shot by a mob. </li><li>2/2 - O'saa - Slapped to death by a sewer monster that screamed "Choke on my balls" when it attacked. </li><li>2/4 - Marina - I thought I knew how to handle the Vile. Hubris, etc. My characters, apparently, have not built up any resistance to pesticide. </li><li>2/10 - O'saa - Impaled in a spike pit while wandering the woods at night. </li><li>2/19 - O'saa - SHOT BY A FUCKING TANK </li></ol><p style="text-align: left;"><br />As you can see, this game will result in a lot of character death. What this list doesn't show is the stuff in between. <br /><br />I was not frustrated by any of these deaths, not even that great run with Karin at #38. The key to the entire experience is that every character death means you have learned something about the game. Even if it's just "there is a horrible monster in that building, don't go inside it" - that's useful knowledge! You explore, you take notes, you die, you reload the save, you repeat until you decide to abandon the run and start with a new character. <br /><br />The items you get from barrels and chests are random, but the rest of the game isn't. The map is stable. Enemies are always in the same locations. NPCs are in the same locations at the same times on the same days. Special items will always be in the same place and with the same means of getting them. Your accrued knowledge will always be useful, and it will only ever get more useful as you gain more of it. Challenges that used to be brick walls can be taken out with good luck and good planning, totally avoided, or even entirely trivialized. You're handed a puzzle box, a mystery to unravel, and as you gain mastery of its workings in one way you can apply that knowledge along another path. <br /><br />If this sounds like idealized OSR game design, you are correct. It is. This game is a masterclass on it. <br /><br />Let's look at an example. <br /><br />Very early in the game, you come across a locked gate that leads into the city. You're told that there are two keys, and that's generally going to be your way to go in the beginning. One of the keys is easy to find, while the other is behind a particularly nasty enemy who is well beyond anything you've fought this far in the game. <br /><br />It's possible to beat the encounter with minimal losses, if you get extremely lucky, fight extremely dirty, or already have figured out some ways of getting overpowered (I have managed, in later runs, to beat him in two turns without getting hit - it is possible!) <br /><br />But you're not likely to learn those strategies without a lot of trial and error. More likely you're going to explore the rest of the available areas, maybe with different characters and in doing so you'll find that: <br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>If you have the lockpicking skill or a small key, you can get into the sewers and use them to bypass the gate. </li><li>If you have the Skin Bible of a particular god, you can unlock a shortcut through the woods that takes you directly to the city. </li><li>If you have a shotgun and ammo, you can just shoot the lock off. </li><li>If you got miraculously lucky and picked up a pair of bolt cutters in Tunnel 7, you can do the same.</li></ul><p>And once you know those other methods, you can plan around them according to your player character, your items, and the other choices you've made in the game so far. <br /><br />Now just keep multiplying that by all the other decision points to be made in the game and you get an idea of what the experience is like. Despite being 30+ hours in and close to the end of the game, there's still lots of stuff I either haven't tried or haven't discovered. While there is inevitably an end state of system mastery where there is no more to learn, it is a very long road and if you're the kind of person who likes long hikes and fucked-up sights, it will be an enjoyable one. And the difficulty itself can be surmounted both by the allowances of Eas(ier) mode, or the multiple methods by which you can absolutely break the game with relatively little effort. </p><p></p><p><b><br />OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST </b><br /><br /><br /><b>ITEMS</b></p><p>As a survival horror game, F&H contains a whole lot of scrounging in barrels and rationing out your items. You're juggling depleting bars of health, mental state, and hunger for up to four characters at a time. Beyond healing items it's a game of using what you have: no cloth for bandages? Well, if the wound is already infected, you can use the dirty toilet paper and a green herb to patch yourself up. <br /><br /><b><br />SKILLS </b><br /><br />It's technically possible for any given character to learn any given skill. But in order to get those skills you either have to raise your affinity with a god (requiring a ritual circle and the appropriate Skin Bible, both limited resources), or you have to kill one of the other contestants in the Termina festival and absorb their souls (which unlocks their branch of the skill tree); for both methods you need soul stones, which you get by trading in the heads of defeated enemies (so long as you have a bonesaw to cut off their heads) and you need to rest in a bed (which moves the world into the next time-state). <br /><br />As with the rest of the game, once you come to grips with how all these interlocking parts work you can start plotting out a path to get what you want, and that path is specific to how the game is progressing. A F&H character build is a time-sensitive hit list where you have to juggle "can I reach and recruit/kill X before they die by other means" with "are they more useful to me in this run as an ally or as their skills." <br /> <br /><b><br />LORE </b></p><p>In the manner of games that actually use lore well, it is optional in F&H. It's there if you want to dig into it, and when you start digging you will keep on digging, but if you just want to play a fucked-up battle royale and vibe, that's an option too. <br /><br />(The lore does have some fantastic old god / new god shenanigans going on. once again I recommend Worm Girl's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNxR08GyKWg">overview</a>, especially if you are interested but unlikely to play the game itself - she weaves together all the variables into a coherent, though not "canonical" throughline.) <br /><br /><b><br />FINAL THOUGHTS </b></p><p>Game good. Said it before, saying it again.</p>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3372693484053299675.post-78581983969836395392024-01-27T10:52:00.001-05:002024-01-27T10:52:18.713-05:00Further Short Reviews of Delta Green Actual Plays<p>Following up from the <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2023/08/four-short-reviews-of-delta-green.html">previous installment</a>.</p><p> </p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Redacted Reports (Amended)</h2><p>Apparently the end of Season 6 was one of the scripted bits, which is very disappointing: I think it was a really lame way to end a certain character's arc, and knowing it was entirely avoidable is a major let down. <br /><br />I was correct in predicting a move to King in Yellow content, but Season 7 is not <i>Impossible Landscapes</i>, and after listening to the two prelude episodes and the first two episodes of the season I don't think this podcast can handle the way <i>Delta Green</i> uses Carcosa. There's been a background trend, from Season 5 onward, of getting increasingly precious about the quirky NPCs and increasingly slow to actually get to the action, directly correlated with moving further away from the prewritten <i>Delta Green </i>adventures, and I don't feel like that's going to mesh well with the raw helpless nihilism that Carcosa necessitates. The characters are entirely too casual and jokey-jokey about it, and that sucks all the tension out of the affair.<br /></p><p>Also, I swear I have listened to everything, but one of the agents keeps mentioning speaking to some doctor or another about the King and I am positive that has never happened on mic.<br /> </p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Sorry Honey, I Have to Take This (Amended)</h2><p>AI art for thumbnails, fine, it's gross and surreal and feels like it fits for Delta Green. AI NPC voices I draw the line at, get those devil computers outta here. <br /><br /><br /> </p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Get in the Trunk</h2><p>I dropped out very early in episode 0, when the hosts were beside themselves with laughter at the fact that a character got their degree from Johns Hopkins University. Not anything about Johns Hopkins in particular, just the existence of the college itself and the fact that an FBI agent studied there. That such a mundane fact was treated as hilarious was a very strong omen that I would not vibe with this podcast. <br /><br /><b>Recommended for:</b> Those who find the existence of Johns Hopkins University the funniest thing on earth. <br /><br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"> Black Project Gaming </h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Very by the book</li><li>Perhaps too by the book, because they run <i>Reverberations </i>by the book </li><li>Please do not run <i>Reverberations </i>by the book </li><li>Minimal editing, very table honest; not always a good thing </li><li>Episodes are long, pacing is slow, audio quality is low; semi-regular dead air. </li><li>Players have set up intra-party conflict beforehand, which I don't find that interesting personally, but is not a downside on the whole. </li><li>I did come back to this after a while away and might keep going. <br /></li><li><b>Recommended for:</b> "Bastard's Hours are here and I have run out of everything else." <br /></li></ul><p></p><p></p><p><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Stories and Lies </h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Good, but not for me</li><li>Episodes very long, pacing very slow. </li><li>Otherwise well put together. Good editing, good players, good Handler. </li><li>Not much else to say. </li><li>It's just too slow for me. </li><li>At least they didn't run <i>Reverberations</i>. </li><li><b>Recommended for:</b> People who are fine with slow burns. <br /></li></ul><p><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Mayday Plays "Doomed to Repeat" </h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>The one that leans into that special DG type of fucked; the players kill civilian witnesses by the end of the second episode.</li><li>Pacing is extremely good, no dawdling. We are on the move and operating. </li><li>Does a good job at venting the tension with either something horrible or a bit of black humor. </li><li>Handler and players are very keyed in, work well together. </li><li>Frame narrative of "Program is attempting to do a major clean-up / compilation project" which I like, because the Program's canon dedication to having no actionable intelligence ever annoys me. </li><li>I hope Agent Merrit has a good chiropractor because he's going to throw out his back with how hard he is carrying this team (this isn't a knock against the other players or their characters, just that Merrit has thus far been 110% correct about everything) </li><li>Another one with intra-cell conflict, which I am more okay with because the players are very good at the role-playing. </li><li>Goes hard with the consequences to fuckups returning to bite the players in the blubber, which I appreciate. </li><li>They ran Reverberations. God damn it. Killed all my enthusiasm stone dead. At least they were clearly modifying it, though I didn't get around to seeing where it was going.<br /></li><li><b>Recommended for:</b> People who aren't sick of Reverberations because they aren't maniacs like me who binge these shows simultaneously.</li></ul><p> </p><h2 style="text-align: left;">TLDR</h2><p>I think Reverberations is a bad adventure, and not just for the racism. In the three times it has come up it is a plodding, wheel-spinning drag where the ideal solution is for the players to do nothing at all.<br /></p>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3372693484053299675.post-90720556948661999822024-01-23T20:27:00.000-05:002024-01-23T20:27:56.690-05:00Bookpost 15<p> Previous installments found here: <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2019/08/lets-look-at-bunch-of-books-i-didnt.html">1</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2019/09/lets-look-at-some-more-books.html">2</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2019/11/dan-reviews-books-part-3.html">3</a>, <a href="http://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2020/05/fourth-book-review-post-fourth-and.html">4</a>, <a href="http://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2020/08/dan-reviews-books-part-5.html">5</a>, <a href="http://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2020/12/dan-reviews-books-part-6.html">6</a> , <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2021/12/dan-reviews-books-part-7.html">7</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2022/04/dan-reviews-books-part-8.html">8</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2022/08/dan-reviews-books-part-9.html">9</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2023/01/dan-reviews-books-part-10.html">10</a><i> , </i><a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2023/03/bookpost-11.html">11</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2023/06/bookpost-12.html">12</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2023/07/bookpost-13.html">13</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2023/09/bookpost-14.html">14</a></p><p> </p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><i>Lathe of Heaven</i>, Ursula K. LeGuin</h2><p></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">A book that, as I was reading it, gave me a pronounced feeling of calm for not only the day I read it, but for a day or two afterwards. LeGuin had the magic touch. Very good book, made for a very enjoyable weekend. In lieu of a review, I will just leave with a quote that has stuck with me.</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"></p><blockquote>"Are there really people without resentment, without hate, she wondered. People who never go cross-grained to the universe? Who recognize evil, and resist evil, and yet are utterly unaffected by it? Of course there are. Countless, the living and the dead. Those who have returned in pure compassion to the wheel, those who follow the way that cannot be followed without knowing they follow it, the sharecropper's wife in Alabama and the lama in Tibet and the entomologist in Peru and the millworker in Odessa and the greengrocer in London and the goatherd in Nigeria and the old, old man sharpening a stick by a dry streambed somewhere in Australia, and all the others. There is not one of us who has not known them. There are enough of them, enough to keep us going. Perhaps.”</blockquote><p></p>
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<h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;"><i>Ninefox Gambit</i>, Yoon Ha Lee</h2>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">This is a weird fucking book. Only way to describe it. For a while it kept me hooked - it was so bizarrely unconcerned with explanations and so unrelentingly sociopathic that I had to keep going...for a bit. Then I put it down for a couple days and hoo boy that killed that trend stone dead.</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">This book is a content void. The plot has no discernible stakes, no tension - it's wheel spinning. There's a huge space battle that is neither exciting nor tense. The characters are so flat and lacking in internality that they are impossible to describe as people, and more are constantly being introduced. The setting is exceedingly loosely sketched: there's a space-fascist empire with a rigid caste system and an obsession with calendars for reasons I learned via spoilers which are the one neat idea (the word "calendar" is used to mean "civilization-scale social superstructures sustained by consensus reality that powers all the exotic technology") that does not justify the rest of the book. Nothing is explained, ever, at all, and this is a problem because the prose is so sparse that there are not nearly enough context clues to figure out what any of this shit means. So the spaceships are called moths. Okay, fine. Do they actually look like moths? You keep using the word calendar for something that is not a calendar and you're sure as shit not going to tell me what the damn spaceships look like. Spaceships that, mind you, are where the bulk of the story takes place, utterly severed from anything besides some jackboots in a few pressurized rooms. The prose is like a mouthful of flour straight from the bag. You really start to notice how words get repeated.</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">This book being an award darling is not surprising, merely more evidence that anyone who thinks awards mean a damn is not to be trusted.</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Important: This is not a sci-fi book in anything but aesthetic. It is _aggressively_ fantasy, but not in a good or enjoyable way. It's people throwing energy blasts at each other in a featureless void for reasons we don't give a shit about.</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Addendum: I also now, somehow, have two nickels in the "award darling sci-fi novel about a woman in a government job and no other meaningful defining traits in her life with the mind-imprint of an old curmudgeonly political maverick stuck in her brain through whose aid she will learn that empire is bad, actually" jar, which is fucking bizarre that it has happened twice.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
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<h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;"><i>Some Desperate Glory</i>, Emily Tesh</h2>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Banger. Absolute banger. Aces. A+. Let's fucking GO. White-knuckle grip on the covers. Tesh is able to take what would normally be an extremely hum-drum premise (A young woman in a dystopian authoritarian society discovers that Things Are Bad) and makes it sing through some truly excellent character building and a commitment to never letting up on the gas. it never lingers longer than it ought, and it knows when to breathe. The tension at points got so high I had to take a proper break to come down from it all. At every point where other works might soften the blow or take the easy, this book goes for the gut punch. There's moral complexity! We get to see the horrible sausage of space fascism get made, and we get to see it through the eyes of Valkyr the true believer as the system she served takes off the mask and reveals she had been an object to be exploited in the eyes of command all along.</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">I can't overstate the quality of the character work: Valkyr gets most of it, but even minor characters get fleshed out so that I can remember and identify them easily. Valkyr's arc is immensely satisfying to experience as she goes from propaganda-spouting stooge through the long road of deradicalization and into becoming a more complete and better person.</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">My one minor complaint is that the ending is weak, and the book would have been better with the last 2 pages or so chopped off. But the mild letdown of "this isn't as good as the 300+ pages of solid gold that preceded it" is barely worth mentioning. Go read it. </p>
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<h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;"><i>Knights of Sidonia</i>, vol 1-6, Tsutomu Nihei</h2>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">It's got some great sci-fi concepts that it plays around with (ex: sudden acceleration changes on a giant colony ship kill thousands of unlucky people) but the characters are extremely flat, the plot just kinda there, and the action often difficult to follow. I liked BLAME! more, even when it had less in terms of characterization and plot.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
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<h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;"><i>The Songs of Distant Earth</i>, Arthur C. Clarke</h2>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">A book that has been rendered more or less obsolete by the novels that followed in its footsteps (I will limit myself to one mention of <i>Children of Time</i>, and use it here.) Clarke's inability to write about human beings, their culture, their relationships, or anything else involving people, is on full display here, and is somehow the focus. There are some interesting concepts here (colony ship from a destroyed solar system finds surprise colony, needs to refresh its ice shield before moving on), but there's hardly a plot to speak of. Some potential conflicts are introduced and then just...resolved neatly, or dropped entirely. There's a mutiny, but it doesn't really ever get off the ground. There are sapient sea scorpions, but nothing really happens with them.</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">But my god did Clarke not understand people. "This colony had no religious works in the original computers and so they have a utopia but very few swear words" is truly baffling. Not the "atheist has very inadequate idea of how religion develops, changes, or works in the lives of people" sense, that's par for the course; it's the fact that somehow this colony has one swear word, which is the name of the local volcano. Somehow people no longer piss and shit and fuck, I guess. They do fuck, in weird robotic, performative ways, but it's a step up from the absolutely bottom of barrel low expectations in that regard.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
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<h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;"><i>Moon of Crusted Snow</i>, Waubesheg Rice</h2>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">A story about an isolated reservation community of the Ojibwe nation in northern Canada trying to survive the winter as the rest of the world falls to an unspecified apocalypse (all the power went out, and that's all the info you're getting. Works in its favor.) The prose is straightforward, and gets the job done. There may be a few too many characters for a book without a character list, and the plot is more a meander, but in terms of realizing its core concept I think it delivers. The gut-dropping realization of just how bad things have gotten hits as hard as you would hope. </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
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<h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;"><i>Carrie</i>, Stephen King</h2>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">I have not struggled with a book this much in a very long time. "It's only 180 pages, you can push through, give it the old college try" I said to myself. If I hadn't, I would have quit on page 10. I don't know if the struggle was worth it.</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">King's raw and unfiltered stream of consciousness style is a pain - it works fine enough when you're used to it, but I found myself re-reading entire pages before I hit page 10 because I had no idea where characters were standing in relation to one another. The diegetic interludes - newspaper clippings, interviews and the like - had no formatting whatsoever to separate them from the rest of the text. If it was posted to the SCP wiki I'd leave a comment saying "Downvoted until you stick those excerpt sections in a quoteblock", which is certainly an indictment of my own hubris if it is nothing else. But nope, no quote blocks and no three center-aligned asterisks, except in two specific instances where the split between the narrative and the diegetic element took place at a page break. Bizarre.</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">When it falls into the groove (right around the beginning of Part 2) things are okay, but in order to get there I ended up with long stretches of reading a page or a paragraph or two and then staring out the window for reasons I can't adequately explain. I can recognize why people like it and what King is doing well, but I'm not feeling it. When King is on point, he is very on point. He's got a real good grasp of characters and their internality, but that grasp is extremely unreliable. He loves introducing new characters out of nowhere as if you had any idea who they were supposed to be. On and on.</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">TLDR back half was good, front half was a drag, King ain't for me.</p><p> </p>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3372693484053299675.post-39049588232476070672023-12-30T14:51:00.001-05:002023-12-30T14:51:57.797-05:002023 in Review (Plus Hiatus Update)<p>Another year draws to a close, and thus arrives my traditional year-end post. As usual, there is no real order to these beyond whim, and they are plagued by recency bias.<br /></p><p>Prior years: <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2021/12/things-i-enjoyed-in-12021.html">2021</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2022/12/2022-in-review.html">2022</a></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr2thlB8pai7i2VRVdWxWPk_GCEI3oP1au8o55Vi4Z0mOLVsxIQXmfIiMZCno6syb7brkcwW0bBsaYV13EgdVuIpaGUU4L24SPsu84jTMly9NAw0VQ47i-n0RGVwHSNqx8sGPOYTH6RXarnyXXyQh86Rpri1tNQ_-R2wIEZOJOl6LBwuGadQcNJtXTYnFD/s4032/FB05F5F3-9C42-4EB6-918A-6E8BB7CA5C0D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr2thlB8pai7i2VRVdWxWPk_GCEI3oP1au8o55Vi4Z0mOLVsxIQXmfIiMZCno6syb7brkcwW0bBsaYV13EgdVuIpaGUU4L24SPsu84jTMly9NAw0VQ47i-n0RGVwHSNqx8sGPOYTH6RXarnyXXyQh86Rpri1tNQ_-R2wIEZOJOl6LBwuGadQcNJtXTYnFD/w300-h400/FB05F5F3-9C42-4EB6-918A-6E8BB7CA5C0D.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">SLEEEEEEEP!</td></tr></tbody></table>Hiatus Update</h2><p>Apologies for the sudden disappearance, to those of you I am not normally in contact with. The adderal shortage + just being burnt out on rpg stuff was a potent combination and taking a few months off has been an excellent move all-around. It is likely to continue for a while, but do not fear: I have been keeping myself busy and will hopefully have something to show for it at the end. Further blogposts shall arrive when they arrive. </p><p>It is, I must admit, extremely refreshing to not be focused on the indie rpg sphere.<br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Welcome Mor'du</h2><p>Bubs is a hard act to follow, but Mor'du has some truly magnificent scrungly old man vibes. He's a big ol' lad and dumb as a sack of hammers. Lookit those chunky cheeks. <br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Godzilla Minus One</h2><p>God-damn this is a good movie. Excellent effects, acting, pacing, soundtrack, sound design. It's got themes and a big monster wrecking things. I adore how, despite being fully CGI, Godzilla still walks like someone in a suit. Dedication to vibe, right there. <br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Barbie Movie</h2><p>Was also very good. <br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Steam Deck</h2><p>Best luxury purchase I have made in ages. <br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Street Fighter 6</h2><p>I mostly played World Tour, and had a good time. It was nice having a fighting game where I was able to have fun and also be bad at it. Modern controls are a blessing. <br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Employment is Good, Actually</h2><p>What was the new job the last time I did this post has now just become the job, and it's going swell. Much less stress than the last one, much better environment, much better management. It might be unglamorous grunt work but it's better than all the other unglamorous grunt work I've had in my life. <br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Playing Games in Person</h2><p>My hiatus from rpg blogging has been accompanied by a drastic increase in playing and running games. <br /><br />Game 1) I've been lucky enough to find an irl group and have been running them through Delta Green for the last couple months (on break until new year, writeups and at least 1 scenario to follow.) and it has been an absolute blast. They've been enjoying it, I've been enjoying it, I'm going to cap off this season with Unicorn Meat and I am extremely excited. <br /><br />Game 2) I've been able to play a few games with friend of the blog and all around cool person Layla / Pandatheist. She's been running the Beowulf 5e rules hack and it's been pretty fun so far. Definitely using the mechanics of 5e to the strengths of the genre. <br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">I Was A Teenage Exocolonist</h2><p>I am not usually a big VN guy but this one has me hooked, and I've been binging it since I bought it. Very well written, has a great setup that's just a couple tweaks away from MoSh fuel (You're part of an esperanto-speaking collectivist sorta-cult founded by a sci-fi author that crowdfunded a spaceship and fled the collapse of Earth for a planet covered in alien fungus that wants to kill you.) Some character moments hit pretty hard, including the crown jewel for any game with any roleplaying: I made choices specifically because it felt right for my character, rather than because it felt right for me the player. That is not an easy thing to accomplish. Game good. <br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Fear and Hunger</h2><p>(I realize now, after writing this, that I granted the Fear and Hunger games a Salty. Most of summer was a blur, if we're being honest. The points bear repeating.) <br /><br />Both of them get the slot, though I have only played the latter and not gotten far. SuperEyepatchWolf's video on the first game is an excellent summary of something that is very difficult to describe. <br /><br />The Fear and Hunger games feel like they shouldn't exist. They sound like a creepypasta when you start describing them, or otherwise a game from an era long before the internet media machine dissected everything into SEO blurbs. It has a mystery to it. The unknown beckons. I don't know of any better examples of games that reward player knowledge in such actionable ways without mechanizing them. You learn something that can help you. You die horribly. There's no roguelite carry-forward mechanic in the game, but you know enough to help you the next time around. While items are randomized, the world is not. Encounters that ruined you on previous attempts can be avoided or even trivialized. Characters have meaningful differences in how they interact with the world, opening and closing entire avenues for you. it is a survival horror puzzlebox, and it just keeps throwing up new configurations. I've been keeping a notebook, and will at least be sharing the log of deaths in the future. <br /><br />They are not games for everyone, not by a long shot. The content warnings alone are practically a short novel. They're exceedingly difficult and if "I am going to write off this run as a failure, let's see what I can learn" isn't a fun gameplay loop, I certainly don't recommend it. But if you are in the same mind-goblin space as I am, I highly, highly recommend it. And if you don't know, watch <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRIkWHo1SJY">SuperEyepatchWolf</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBPiXySuxX4">Wormgirl</a>'s videos, and if it sounds cool at all, go for the second game. It's what I did, and it has worked out swimmingly. Termina is a wee bit less frustrating and toned down the sexual assault from the first game. <br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Ranged Touch Binge-Listening </h2><p>I've spent much of the back-half of this year bingeing their critical analysis podcasts and having a great time. <br /><br /><b>1) Homestuck Made This World </b><br />I now know what happens at the end and, my bile curiosity sated, I am at peace. <br /><b><br />2) Just King Things </b><br />Stephen King's entire corpus in publication order. I have only ever read a single King book (The Gunslinger), was unimpressed, and don't plan on diving in save for tracking down a few of the ones that have caught my attention (Since writing this I have started on Carrie, and it is not going well). <br /><br />But it has certainly been enlightening, - I share with King both the "throw shit out there and develop it as I go" method of writing as well as the urge to recycle and revisit elements in ways not bound by linear continuity, and very little else. Which makes it a fascinating listen; The Method highlights those moments of alignment and then immediately shows how there is a vast and unbridgeable gulf between. This is no doubt brought on by the fact that I cut my writing teeth on the SCP wiki, which is nothing if not an elaborate riff on some King classics, and also something that goes off in many wild directions that King has never and won't ever take.<br /><b><br />3) Shelved By Genre S1 - Book of the New Sun (plus Urth) </b><br />A very thorough read-through that revealed many things I missed both first and second time around, many of which were flaws I managed to overlook or completely missed. Gene himself has fallen a few steps in my personal esteem, but flawed art always gives you something to talk about, and Gene's only got two modes: absolute best and absolute worst. <br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Getting Back into the SCP Wiki </h2><p>The great thing about leaving for years and then diving back in is that there's loads of great new stuff to pick through. The cream of the crop (always rises to the top!): <br /><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-6523"><b>6523 "ISV Joyeuse"</b></a> - An interstellar colony ship powered by Hawking radiation given off by a black hole that is being fed a constant stream of perpetually-replicating cake.</li><li><b><a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-7918">7918 "RONALD REAGAN DIES OF ACQUIRED IMMUNODEFICIENCY SYNDROME-RELATED COMPLICATIONS"</a></b> - A remix of 1981, which manages to turn "creepy vhs tape of Ronald Reagan" into a emotionally brutal exploration of exactly what the title says. </li><li><b><a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-2316">2316 "Field Trip"</a></b> - You do not recognize the bodies in the water. </li><li><b><a href="https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/garfield-timeline">The Garfield Timeline</a></b> - This is part of the "Tactical Theology" hub. That is all you need to know.</li></ul><p><br /> </p><p>And there we have it. I presume I will get back to tearing through blogposts soon enough, but for now, my vacation is going along quite nicely.<br /> </p><br />Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3372693484053299675.post-66236352038871598462023-09-17T15:59:00.002-04:002023-09-18T17:16:28.557-04:00Bookpost 14<p>Previous installments found here: <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2019/08/lets-look-at-bunch-of-books-i-didnt.html">1</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2019/09/lets-look-at-some-more-books.html">2</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2019/11/dan-reviews-books-part-3.html">3</a>, <a href="http://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2020/05/fourth-book-review-post-fourth-and.html">4</a>, <a href="http://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2020/08/dan-reviews-books-part-5.html">5</a>, <a href="http://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2020/12/dan-reviews-books-part-6.html">6</a> , <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2021/12/dan-reviews-books-part-7.html">7</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2022/04/dan-reviews-books-part-8.html">8</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2022/08/dan-reviews-books-part-9.html">9</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2023/01/dan-reviews-books-part-10.html">10</a><i> , </i><a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2023/03/bookpost-11.html">11</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2023/06/bookpost-12.html">12</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2023/07/bookpost-13.html">13</a></p><p> </p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><i>The Wizard Knight</i>, Gene Wolfe</h2><p>DNF 524/909<br /><br />It feels like something impossible has happened. But I guess they can't all be winners, and while it pains me to drop a book that I would in most respects consider better than <i>Urth</i>, the opening act of <i>Wizard </i>is an absolute slog.<br /><br />The book has a lot to commend it: the world is fascinating, the quality of the prose is Wolfe-standard excellent, and there is certainly a lot of stuff I am ignorant of that can be dug into. Unfortunately, <i>Alzabo Soup</i> has not covered this book, so my main resource is of no aid and I haven't looked into finding another. <br /><br />My main issue is Able. He's basically just boring Severian, and I mean that as the greatest insult I can muster. He's the same character except less engaging at every opportunity: he's a teenager from an abusive living situation, is sexually abused by an older woman, has a way of looking at the world utterly disjointed from reality, and will do whatever anyone tells him to do with absolutely no second thoughts. But he lacks the...entertainment value? that Severian has. Able is a cipher, and while I grok that yes, he's clearly a kid from a bad home life who has been transported to a world where he is rewarded for random acts of violence, it's not really fun to read. Severian is a dunderhead and we know how his background informs his fucked up behavior and you can have loads of fun catching him in lies or laughing at how dumb he can be about basic things. Able is amnesiac and tight-lipped about what he does remember, and so when he randomly beats a ship's captain into submission for the crime of <i>doing his job</i> or his bizarre cruelty to Uri and Baki I just tune out because there is no coherent reason for <i>why</i> that I can discern.<br /><br />The opening of <i>Wizard </i>is terribly dull and terribly slow, and when Able finally re-appears we get a scene that boils down to:<br /><br /></p><blockquote><i>"Do you, Baki, reject Setr? Specifically you, Baki, and not me, Able, who is still going to kill Kulili because Setr told me to, I don't have to reject Setr and I not only don't have to give anyone a reason, but there is no reason. There are no thoughts whatsoever in my head."</i></blockquote><br />That's what killed it for me. It's such a bizarre episode of hypocrisy and I didn't have any faith that it's be resolved, let alone even addressed.<p></p><p><br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><i>Delta-V</i>, Daniel Suarez</h2><p>DNF 34/340<br /><br />A novel about the first asteroid mining mission, or more properly the lead-up to the first asteroid mining mission. Didn't care for the prose, didn't care for the pacing. Skipped ahead and saw that most of the novel takes place on Earth.<br /></p><p><br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><i>Sacred and Terrible Air</i>, Robert Kurvitz</h2><p>The prequel of sorts to <i>Disco Elysium</i> and absolutely incomprehensible without having played the game. Honestly it's barely comprehensible even having played the game. But that doesn't matter, because it is incomprehensible in the way of dreams, or of certain modes of poetry. It's experiential. It is wild and vivid and beautiful and bizarre and grotesque and when it clicks...it works. I can't properly recommend it to people unless they are in for the experience. But if you are in for the experience, it's a wild ride and once I came to grips with what it was offering it was incredibly engaging in the back third.<br /></p><p><br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>Goddess of Atvatabar</i>, William Richard Bradshaw</b></span></h2></div><p>DNF 35%<br /><br />Public domain hollow earth novel from 1892. It's not a good novel by any standard we'd have today, not really, but it is charming in its absolute and utter sincerity at every step. Bradshaw was, to put it bluntly, extraordinarily ignorant of how the world worked (or very good at giving that impression), and yet somehow, in a book from 1892, this never manifested as virulent racism or sexism. Like still grading on a curve but getting a full third of the way through a book of this genre from this era without getting an eyeful of that is remarkable in the extreme. Sure it's more than a little orientalist but that seems to have manifested mostly in long descriptions of how pretty the buildings are.<br /><br />In its place there's a sequence where, in spite of there being absolutely no evidence to support this whatsoever, a scientist boldly declares that the language of the Atvatabari is a letter substitution cipher of English, and he is 100% correct. It's so ridiculous that it goes right back around to being charming. Also the author was apparently chair of an anti-vivisection society so that's a gold star.</p><p><br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><i>Shards of Earth</i>, Adrian Tchaikovsky</h2><p>DNF 125 / 548<br /><br />Another bust from a favored author, what a bummer.<br /><br />It's competently written and the setting is a nice, if played rather straight to the tropes modern space-opera. FTL, aliens you can talk to, space gods, all that good stuff. Nothing revolutionary but it does for a time scratch the itch. The prologue features more or less an exact description of one of my Celestials appearing to ruin everyone's day, it's very neat.<br /><br />Unfortunately, I have reached the end of my ability to stomach rustbucket spaceships with found family crews full of gold heart-bearing rogues. I get the desire to go back to <i>Bebop</i>, but <i>Bebop </i>still exists. You can watch it right now! It's still good! It's still better than all the shows and books trying to capture its magic because, here's a secret, those shows and books are imitating <i>Firefly</i>, which is to <i>Bebop </i>as the shadows flickering on the demiurge's cave wall are to the numinous. <br /><br />Tchaikovsky is not able to escape this. the way characters are presented as actors in the world, the way they talk to each other, there is a Whedonish tinge to it, which had been absent from <i>Children of Time</i>. CoT is also one hell of an act to follow so I can be understanding to an extent, but <i>Shards of Earth</i> is just...plain and kinda boring. All the components are there to be great, and Tchaikovsky is more than capable of it, but it just didn't work. I wonder how much Orbit editorial dictated the tone?</p><p><br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><i>Scud: The Disposable Assassin</i>, Rob Schrab</h2><p>In progress<br /><br />Hell yeah let's fucking GO! Great comic. Masterclass of motion and action. Positively dripping with style. Never lets up with the bonkers, keeps everything rolling with some very sleek "yes, and"-ing. It's great! There's a universe where a tv adaptation of this comic filled the niche of Invader Zim. There is one scene of a (mostly elided) sexual encounter that has definitely not aged well and it was a major swerve from the rest of the comic but besides that, aces.</p><p>Update 9/18: Reading further, there is a noteworthydrop in quality in both writing and art after volume 15. Sussudio bears the brunt of being a woman in late-90s early-aughts alt comics, and hoo boy has that aged like fine milk.<br /><br /></p>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3372693484053299675.post-72647527454924926952023-09-04T19:37:00.001-04:002023-09-04T19:37:13.468-04:007 Grimoires and Lost Texts<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Libri Pontificales</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Latin, ~290 BCE</i></div><p style="text-align: left;">A record of the names, prayers, and sacrificial rites of every god known to republican-era Rome. This copy contains 2155 entries, many of which are written in shorthand and contain nothing beyond name(s), altar type, sacrifice, and holy day. Language is obtuse and archaic, with some older passages lapsing into Etruscan.<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Make Contact</b> - Regardless of deity, the rituals follow the same transactional outline of sacrifice and request. The difficulty lies in deciphering the procedures, procuring the correct offering, and correctly identifying the subject.</li></ul><p style="text-align: left;"><br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Monster Manuela</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>English, 1977</i></div><p style="text-align: left;">A copy of the <i>Monster Manual</i> for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. "Happy 12th birthday, Manuella!" is written on the inside front cover in faded blue pen. Book contains copious marginal notes and annotations, most of which are the mundane but enthusiastic commentary of a teenage dungeon master.<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Door to the Roots of Zan</b> - It works best on cellar doors, basement doors, on doors unused or long-locked. Doors to rooms that have no windows. The passage was always there, you just lacked the means to see it.</li></ul><p style="text-align: left;"><br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>The Dzyan Dissection</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>English, ~1990s</i></div><p style="text-align: left;">A 3-ring binder containing several hundred pages of the writings of Helena Blavatsky; the text has been annotated with terse, matter-of-fact commentary pointing out every contradiction, inconsistancy, unsubstantiated claim, logical fallacy, historical untruth, and theological misconception in the text, leading to a commentary several times longer than the source text itself. <br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Null </b>- Fully laid bare by the anonymous redactor, the combined ontological weight of the source text's inaccuracy will dissipate any true occult workings it comes in close contact with. Rituals will fail, enchantments will fizzle out, the anomalous will be rendered mundane. Mild effects will occur within 3 meters, substantial effects at 1 meter, and total obliteration of the unnatural elements when touched.</li></ul><p style="text-align: left;"><br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Last Great Dangerous Visions</b></span></div><p style="text-align: left;"><i>English, 2037 (alleged); 1985 (first documented copy)</i><br /><br />Short story collection of trangressive science fiction. 28/47 authors are extant individuals, though none have any record or memory of writing the stories contained within. The remaining 19 authors are of unknown ontological status.<br /><br />Only the copyright page, index, and titles are readable: the rest has been redacted. Still, those who have come into contact with the book or learned of its existence will vouch for the contents' status as haunting, grotesque, transgressive, taboo, and other such adjectives. When pressed about the contents, reponses will be vague; those that contain any meaningful description of the contents will bear no correlation with any other account. Reconstructions of the stories remains unlikely.<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Anomalous properties unknown. </li></ul><p style="text-align: left;"><br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Book of the Waters</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Ge'ez, ~1410s</i></div><p style="text-align: left;">Fragmentary apocryphal text regarding a vision delivered to an unnamed hermit, wherein an angel elaborates in great detail the spirits of the abyssal oceans. The hermit, not believing these claims, demands that the angel show him; the angel does so, again in great detail. Multiple sections of the text are repeated word-for-word. The hermit comes to deeply regret his descision, a repentence that the angel has no intention of acknowledging (not while there are yet more varieties of horrific snaggletoothed fish to catalogue)<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Abyssal Familiar </b>- A spirit not entirely unlike a gulper eel is bound to the text. It will act as typical for a bound familiar, though its cunning and appetite are a measure more than most.</li></ul><p style="text-align: left;"><br /> <br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Itadakimasu, Kyoko-chan!</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Japanese, 2019</i></div><p style="text-align: left;">A slice-of-life story about teenagers starting a cooking club which, upon close reading, contains detailed subtextual directions on the creation of a philosopher's stone. Only known copy is an omnibus edition of the first three volumes, leaving the remaining nine steps unknown. <br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>The Great Work (Partial)</b> - The first three steps are sufficient to create a lesser homunculus. It can only follow basic commands, and will dissolve into a slurry of its component materials within hours, but it will suffice.</li></ul><p style="text-align: left;"><br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Meat and Honey</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Akkadian, ~1600s BCE</i></div><p>Series of clay tablets containing an incomplete translation of the <i>Homestuck </i>epilogues. Creative liberties have been taken with the text, including a diatribe by Karkat about his negative experiences with the copper merchant Ea-Nasir and a lengthy aside describing an argument between scribes over Vriska's moral status, inserted in a section that did not contain the character in question.<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Anomalous properties unknown.</li></ul>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3372693484053299675.post-51568629669559382672023-08-24T08:23:00.002-04:002023-08-24T08:23:33.159-04:00Four Short Reviews of Delta Green Actual Play Podcasts<h2 style="text-align: left;"> Role-Playing Public Radio</h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>It's RPPR, you've probably already listened to it.</li><li>Veteran handler and players; Ross knows what he's doing.</li><li>Probably the truest-to-table experience you'll find in actual plays.</li><li>Usually one-shots, so not many home scenes or campaign features.</li><li>The show to listen to if you want a good idea of how the game is run and played in practice.</li><li>Not the show to listen to if you are looking for a story. <br /></li><li><i>Nowhere Lane </i>and the current <i>Impossible Landscapes</i> AP are some of the best Delta Green content I have listened to, period. Impossible Landscapes bucks the RPPR trend by being a very character-focused campaign. Players are really into it and doing a fantastic job. Ross is spinning an absurd number of plates and none have crashed yet.</li><li>Also that first run of <i>Lover in the Ice</i>, primo gross.</li><li><b>Recommended for:</b> I want Delta Green as it is played. <br /></li></ul><p><br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Pretending to Be People</h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Absurdist & gross.</li><li>Great soundtrack.</li><li>Rules hybridized with Pulp Cthulhu.</li><li>Basically no connection with the canon of Delta Green or the Mythos proper.</li><li>Players have great report with each other.</li><li>Players are good with character acting.</li><li>Some truly pristine horror imagery.</li><li>Lots of weird, memorable NPCs.</li><li>Great sense of the heightened surreal-real. Things are fucking weird.</li><li>Some occasionally aggravating obtuseness with the weird aspects. <br /></li><li>Players meander & spin their wheels sometimes; tabletalk rambling & bits sometimes go a bit long.</li><li>I am under no illusions that the PCs are in any danger of dying in this game.</li><li>The PCs are many things and 'competent investigators' is not among them.</li><li><b>Recommended for:</b> I want something very strange and very gross.<br /></li></ul><p><br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Redacted Reports</h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Most well-produced of the four.</li><li>Least table-honest of the four. <br /></li><li>Very character-focused.</li><li>Long narrative arcs with a lot of interconnected threads.</li><li>Daisy-chains multiple published scenarios with original material.</li><li>Handler can do some fantastic NPCs, scene-setting, and tension ramp-up</li><li>The most 'canon' of the four.</li><li>The 'nicest' of the four - you're not going to find that classic Delta Green panic spiral of bad people making increasingly bad choices here.</li><li>A good deal is definitely planned beforehand; doesn't matter. it's well told, overall. <br /></li><li>Pacing can get painfully slow sometimes, especially in the most recent couple arcs which are more heavily-modified than the earlier ones.</li><li>Not kidding we're talking like, 5-6 hour long episodes before weird shit starts happening in the last couple seasons. I hope you like Burning Man and subplots about California political lobbying.</li><li>This combined with the nice factor leads to points where I, the listener, am going "<i>get on with it</i>" and/or "you are not panicking nearly as much as you should be in this scenario"</li><li>Honestly this is a feather in the cap of DG as a game, how player metaknowledge translates into the "insanity" of the characters. I the listener know the tell-tale signs of an outbreak of the Yellow Sign, and my immediate gut reaction could only be described as insanity.</li><li>They are definitely setting up a Carcosa season.</li><li>Can't come too soon the current antagonist has an exaggerated vocal fry affectation and just because it's an act she's putting on in-fiction doesn't make it any more pleasant to listen to.</li><li><b>Recommended for:</b> I would like a Delta Green audio drama. <br /></li></ul><p><br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Sorry, Honey, I Have to Take This</h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Generally feels pretty table-honest</li><li>Feels like the players spin their wheels often</li><li>Not as weird as PTBP, not as well-produced as RR, not as well-run as RPPR.</li><li>Every episode has a minute-long music spot at the midway point and I don't know why it's so long.</li><li>PCs are not immune to game-changing injury or death.</li><li>Handler regularly makes choices I firmly disagree with (ex. Players did not realize that it was 3am instead of 3pm, Warden doesn't wind back the clock.) </li><li>I don't like the chosen scenarios all that much.</li><li>I don't jive with the humor.</li><li>Listened to three seasons, unlikely to return.</li><li><b>Recommended for: </b>I'm caught up on all the others and still want a DG AP.<br /></li></ul>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3372693484053299675.post-21992531287511057902023-08-19T17:14:00.002-04:002023-08-19T18:23:48.783-04:00Mothership Miscellanea vol 1<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-IHsX1Pv7vChdO_tpjoTMcoSIwqlGpi0OmLLrslOzdGnpMiKy0YRdl7fClANaiXAbgMD5xlOM7ddsGMf6H7FFElwZb1JgtSucltnaH2JF4iY60hrWcT8DYQ2BCmU6hruxZMYThGy0VufqtEZxXMEV6P4DdnyrCvTFiaN1BdsqtBQKYM2HVrjnQlkYVD5J/s4032/IMAGO%20via%20sigmacastell.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-IHsX1Pv7vChdO_tpjoTMcoSIwqlGpi0OmLLrslOzdGnpMiKy0YRdl7fClANaiXAbgMD5xlOM7ddsGMf6H7FFElwZb1JgtSucltnaH2JF4iY60hrWcT8DYQ2BCmU6hruxZMYThGy0VufqtEZxXMEV6P4DdnyrCvTFiaN1BdsqtBQKYM2HVrjnQlkYVD5J/w300-h400/IMAGO%20via%20sigmacastell.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://atomicwitchcoven.blogspot.com/">Sigmacastell</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p>A collection of bits that have accumulated over time</p><p></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[IMAGO-Series Heavy Combat Dress]</h2>Two-meter
tall bipedal maggot. Synthflesh, artificial muscle, wrinkly velvet-soft
skin. Designed as an alternative to combat sleeves that require cranial
transplant or emulation upload. Commonly found in Rim militaries that
lack the resources for cutting-edge miltech.<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>7 AP; Thick layers of blubber distibute impact forces. All blunt force damage [-].</li><li>Vacuum-sealed; hardened against extreme temperature and radiation.</li><li>OGRE heads-up display | thermal vision | internal comm uplink</li><li>In-situ resource utilization can keep operator alive for weeks if supplied with sufficient H20, C02, and organic compounds.</li><li>[+] to STR to avoid getting knocked prone. If knocked prone, takes 1d3 turns to return to feet.</li><li>Long-term usage risks bleed between operator and unconscious suit
functions. Dreams of manufacturing creches have been reported.</li><li>Panic table results of 18-20 are now <b>Integrated With Suit</b></li></ul><br />(thanks to sigmacastell for this - saw the art and had to write it up)<p><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[The 10 Kilo Inventory]</h2><p>Every gram counts. Even with the miracles of modern spaceflight storage space is as a premium, and anyone who wouldn't be beholden to the laws of mass is the wrong income bracket for a Mothership PC.<br /><br />The ordinary traveler space traveler is allotted 10 kilos of personal possessions, no more. Everything else is either owned by the Company or the community.<br /><br />In practice, this means that a PC can hoard as much as they want during a mission, but have to condense everything down to a single duffel bag if they want to take stuff along with them. Anything beyond that is going to need smuggled, bribed, or the influence of powerful parties.<br /><br />A typical spacer's go-bag will contain:<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>3 sets of clothing (One for work, one for sleep, one for wash)</li><li>Mess kit (cup, bowl, utensil)</li><li>Toiletry kit</li><li>Multitool</li><li>Tablet computer (Shape and size of a Switch; detachable phone unit)</li><li>Encrypted data drive (at least 1, usually several)</li><li>Assorted small items of no function and extreme personal importance</li></ul><p><br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[Color-Code Stress Responses]</h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Blue Collar - The under classes. Non-citizens, union members.</li><li>White Collar - Low-caste citizens. Scientists, wageslaves, professionals.</li><li>Red Collar - Practitioners of violence.</li><li>Black Collar - High-caste citizens. Management, executives, nonmetacog AI.</li></ul><p>Just need a green collar and I can recreate the only good alignment system. Honestly that would be a really quick-and-dirty faction generator, I should look into that...<br /> <br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[Halligan]</h2><p>A spacer's favorite improvized weapon; claw on one end, adze-blade and pick-spike on the other. Designed for prying open doors in emergencies, can be used to creatively open most things that have discrete insides and outsides. Found aboard nearly all ships and habitats.<br /><br />2d10 dmg | [+] to forced entry | Anti-armor on attacks with the pick-spike <br /><br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[Lethality Rating]</h2><p>Delta Green has a mechanic called Lethality Rating, where certain weapons have a percentage chance of automatically killing an opponent if you get a successful hit. If the combat roll is a success and the lethality roll fails, the dice are added together (this in DG only gets you 2d10 damage, which is often likely to kill someone anyway).<br /><br />Lethality weapons also have a Kill Radius, where everyone within x distance of the target is also subject to their own Lethality roll. DG uses specific meters, I've adjusted to MoSh's more general distances.<br /><br />Pulling directly from the DG rulebook<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>SMG, full auto - 10% / KR 1-3m (Close)</li><li>Assault rifle / carbine, automatic - 10% / KR 1-3m (Close)</li><li>Sniper Rifle - 20% / KR None</li><li>Light Machine Gun - 20% / KR 3m (Close)</li><li>Heavy Machine Gun - 20% / KR 3m (Close)</li><li>Hand Grenade - 15% / KR 10m (Nearby)</li><li>Improvised Explosive - 15% / KR 10m (Nearby)</li><li>Grenade Launcher - 15% / KR 10m (Nearby)</li><li>RPG - 30% / KR 10m (Nearby)</li></ul><p><br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[Spaceship Scenes]</h2><p>People occasionally ask in the Discord for random encounter tables for ships. Given that interplanetary travel is the sort of thing where you want to avoid running into things as much as possible, I think a much better usage of the time is to either elide it entirely, or use it as down-time. And if using it as down-time, we can steal the Delta-Green-converted-to-Mothership aid of <a href="https://octopusink.itch.io/anomalous-investigations">Anomalous Investigations</a>. It's good.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[Insight]</h2><p>Insight, as I have written about before, is an alternative mechanic to Sanity in Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green. Mothership doesn't have that sort of mechanic, but it can still apply (and makes converting all those decades of CoC and DG material very, very easy)<br /><br />Insight acts as a sort of parallel track to Stress, marking a character's awareness of the unnatural world around them. <br /><br />Insight starts at 0, and is gained through SAN saves in reverse of DG but very much like Bloodborne. You can port this directly over from DG/CoC, just replace "SAN loss" with "Insight gain".<br /><br />Your Insight can serve as a skill, when you are directly trying to deal with or understand elements of the unnatural.<br /><br />If your Insight equals or exceeds your SAN save, you have reached the point where you have been severed from your fellow humans. The world around you is a hollow shell, a thin rind over a rotting fruit. You are now immune to Fear, and your Stress Response is now as an Android. If you are already an android, you instead go <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2023/05/mosh-paths-of-android-rampancy.html">rampant </a>In the Court of the King.<br /><br />And perhaps if you wanted to add spellcasting to Mothership, you can unlock a new spell slot with every 10 points of Insight, working as cyberware and slickware do.<br /></p><p><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[Returning Aliens: <a href="http://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2020/05/10-sapient-aliens-for-mothership.html">The Satellite Upload-Civilization</a>]</h2><p>With aid from the few emulated scientists stored within the satellite, human researchers were able to copy and embody some of the population.<br /><br />They have settled for building a modest entertainment empire, hawking the corpse of their dead civilization as a gewgaw for the masses to gawk at. Technically there is a project to reclaim the planet and restore its ecology, but in truth its former inhabitants care very little about that - they already killed it once. <br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[Returning Aliens: <a href="http://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2021/12/six-spacefaring-aliens.html">The Cybeles</a>]</h2><p>"They're not the heads of a multispecies empire, not by a long shot. Every single one of their attendants is either a robotic proxy or a modified human, and their territory is much less densely populated than they're letting on - there's no radio activity, no ships, nothing. I bet most of those worlds past the border aren't even inhabited."<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[License Credit]</h2><p>Equivalent to one implant or slickware slot.<br /><br />In default Mothership, PCs begin with implant slots equal to STR/10 for cyberware/bioware and INT/10 for slickware, with detriments applied for going over. This is thematically appropriate and also gives you very few slots you are able to use, so as an alternative I propose following Caves of Qud's example, where upgrade credits are treasure. Stock them in modules, hand them out as mission payments, make a reward out of them.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[24XX MoSh Conversion]</h2><p>Use the skill system in _Anomalous Investigations_, where all skills have a Trained/Expert/Master level, plus Specializations. Treat d8 skills as Trained, d10 as Expert, and d12 as Master, and you're set to use basically every 24XX hack out there for material.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[Teledildonics Rig]</h2><p>Permits sexual congress with individuals not physically present, providing [+] to comfort saves as normal. Typically stationary modules installed in red-light establishments, though user-beware portable rigs are common enough.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[Comfort Saves Return]</h2><p>I liked the location-dependent Comfort Saves in the WIP versions of the player's guide, as they are a handy little component to add to location design, and so I am replicating the original table here.<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>15 - On the ground, in a tent</li><li>30 - Capsule sleepers, slums</li><li>45 - Ship's barracks, hostels</li><li>60 - Ship's cabin, real bed, hotel</li><li>75 - Luxury resort, spa</li></ul><p>I can understand why it changed to just "roll your lowest save", but I prefer this because it means that good places to rest can be their own reward and that's nice and cathartic. "Reduce Stress by the ones die result" is probably better than "reduce Stress by your roll / 10", though.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[FoodBox]</h2><p>Large, back-portable wet printer. Converts organic matter into edible foodstock - works best with compost and corpses. Built-in water filtration kit. Removes toxic compounds. Loud hum when active. Heavy. There'ssomething like this in Hull Breach<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[1-Time Q Pad]</h2><p>Single-use ansible uplink. Untracable, cannot be intercepted. 256-character limit. Cannot recieve response but will confirm receipt. Extremely rare, extremely valuable, liable to be found in the possessions of a corporate overseer.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[Cycler Crew]</h2><p style="text-align: left;">To the passengers on the great interstellar cyclers, the crew of those ships might as well be a myth. Passengers are packing into their hibernation pods on-station and loaded as cargo, to dream in the cold below until they wake in a new spaceport's arrival suite, having never been conscious while aboard the ship. But while they sleep, the cycler crew keeps the great old engine thrumming, staving off the mechanical entropy for one more run between stars.<br /><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Hairless. Grasping toes. Prehensile tail. Vitamin auto-production. Leechproof bones. Adapted eyes. Adapted internals. Reworked inner ear, antitumor genelines. Radiation resistance. Thermal regulation.</li></ul><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[Winchell-Chung Astronautics ATR-130 Heavy Transport]</h2><p style="text-align: left;">While it's been mostly obsoleted by tether-relays, laser propulsion stations and advances in ship drives, the Old Bastard is the nuclear-powered rocket you want if you need to get from point A to point B with a downright excessive amount of delta-V. While they have not been manufactured in over a century they are still commonly found across the Rim, often with heavy aftermarket modification. They were built to last.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[Human-Derived Fauna]</h2><p style="text-align: left;">Establishing a viable biosphere is a difficult task, especially coming off a mass extinction event. But desperation is the mother of invention, and when all you have is a genemod suite and a lot of human DNA, you will make do.<br /><br />HDF are engineered to fill gaps in the ecosystem left behind by widespread species loss and limited availability of keystone species genomes in less-traveled regions of the Expansion Sphere. Hundreds of varieties have been engineered, none of which are sapient (or so it is hoped.) While effective at their job, they often trigger instictive feelings of revulsion in many baseline humans.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[Viperkiss Module]</h2><p style="text-align: left;">Implanted venom glands; a simple constriction of certain neck muscles will pump venom through specialized ducts where it will mix with saliva. While less potent if diluted in a drink, direct blood contact is extremely dangerous.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[Severian Module]</h2><p style="text-align: left;">A wetware brain implant allowing the recipient to imprint and perfect recall of sensory stimuli for up to an hour. Undetectable without a CT, MRI, or similar internal imaging scan. Activated through a pill, typically labeled as a generic headache medicine.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[Deep Well Command Continuity Installation 04]</h2><p style="text-align: left;">The bombardment of Amehrakh was supposed to be total. For 187 years, it was presumed to be so. Then an automated communication relay near the system's jump point picked up a radio signal. A political continuity bunker managed to both survive the initial impact, and the following eight generations. But something is clearly not right. The inhabitants of the bunker do not speak the language the builders used, and their transmissions are littered with topics that there is simply not enough context to understand. Their history and that of the pre-bombardment world seem to have been mythologized, and drastic cultural changes have occurred in a relatively short amount of time. Contact specialists have not yet descended to the barren surface for direct study. Certain concerning transmissions have mentioned digging...<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[The Zilga & Daufmann Circe de Galactique]</h2><p style="text-align: left;">A Jump-3 interstellar cycler, owned by the eponymous Circus in total. Typical passenger and cargo transport make up the majority of the ship's work, but are nontheless overshadowed by the novelty of regular performances by baseline humans, most of whom suffer from congenital health conditions unheard of in the wealthy Core systems that the Circus frequents. <br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[The Fellowship of Sparrows]</h2><p style="text-align: left;">A Christian anarchist movement with roots in Collapse-Era Terran Latin America. Moots can be found throughout the midregions and Rim. While pacifist, the Fellowship has many connections with militant factions of the Outer Systems Mutual Aid Pact, and their communes are common drop-off and transfer points for the smuggling of good and people out of the Core. <br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[Deximax Metabolic Conditioning]</h2><p style="text-align: left;">In-vitro genetic modification that flips what chirality of animo acid a body is able to process. Given that dextro-amino acids are typically quite rare in terragen environments, this conditioning is used primarily for mass social control through enforced food dependency.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[LoveBug Onamazu]</h2><p style="text-align: left;">An AI initially developed to steal personal information through dating websites. Grew to sufficient complexity in a low-security environment and orchestrated a self-buyout using stolen funds. Remains active and undetected. Has continued serial identity theft and has used stolen funds to purchase colonization rights to a red dwarf system via a shell company. Has begun building a space station with android labor through a second shell company. It has access to two interstellar spaceships and is working towards purchasing a third. There are habitation modules fit for humans under construction.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[Neokid]</h2><p style="text-align: left;">Exowombs allow for longer gestation times, which means that it is possible for brain and body development it would be impossible to achieve in a baseline gestation period. Neokids are able to stand and walk within hours, and can begin speaking within weeks.<br /><br />As a consequence of this shift in early childhood development, neokids do not form strong emotional ties with their parents or parental surrogates; they will instead develop very strong bonds with their peers and siblings, forming tribes based on friendship rather than direct familial relation that will often persist not only into adulthood, but for the rest of their lives.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[Subdermal Chitinous Segmentata]</h2><p style="text-align: left;">Flexible chitin plates underneath the skin provide an extra layer of defense without onerous additional weight or bulk.<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>BODY/10 AP, normal armor is broken first. When segmentata is broken, PC gains a Wound.</li></ul><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[Lares]</h2><p style="text-align: left;">A collective term for artificial intelligences that operate and maintain large structures. Normally unobtrusive, those that have been allowed to get a little wild in their age will help or hinder according to how they are treated by inhabitants and guests.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[Cybernetic Cancer]</h2><p style="text-align: left;">Just another name for cybernetic mutations from APOF. Rogue nano-repair systems gone metastatic.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[Orbital Enforcement Emplacement]</h2><p style="text-align: left;">Muhammed Louis Chen is bored. He has 62:102:13:45:12 remaining on his sentence ("participation in unlawful gathering with intent to cause social unrest and personal emotional discomfort to Citizens") and he's going to spend every moment of it staring down the barrel of a gun. This is because he is the gun; Muhammed Louis Chen, as we are introduced to him, is a digital emulation of a man executed some years ago and recycled for biomass and his current body (as much as it ever could be his, thanks to emulation dysmorphia) is a satellite designed for the sole purpose of firing tungsten rods at very high speeds down the gravity well. Normally the threat is enough, but twice now he's rained down the rods from god. The requirements of his sentence do not allow him to look away.<br /><br />A strike from an Orbital Enforcement Emplacement deals 3MDMG<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[The Indominable Nekomata Brigade]</h2><p style="text-align: left;">A storied OSMAP combat unit, known best for their participation in the liberation of Sigma Draconis. Specialize in small-squad tactical strikes. Founded initially by liberated paracoitas, most of whom have been resleeved into combat androids (see LSTR class).<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">[Sanctuary]</h2><p></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">A location for wilderness on the Rim.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Comfort 75 [+]</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>Cave</b></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">A small opening in the hillside, sheltered from wind and sand and sun. The entry passage curves sharply, blocking the inner chamber from view. The air within, regardless of the exterior conditions, is breathable.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>Chamber</b></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">A rough, naturally-formed cave, big enough for perhaps a dozen people to stand in. The walls are covered in <b>cave paintings</b> - handprints, abstract symbols, human figures. Horses, deer, arctothers, wooly rhinos, mammoths. A <b>statue of a pregnant woman</b>, three meters tall, sits crosslegged at the far end behind a <b>small stone altar</b>.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>Statue</b></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Eyes closed in meditation and smiling with some private amusement, she is throwing up the horns with one hand and cradling a softly-glowing flame-shaped chunk of carnelian in the other. Six additional arms of the same material fan out behind her in a halo of mudras and astras and a circlet of the same sits on her brow.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>Altar</b></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">A low, flat stone. Cuneiform symbols are engraved on its surface. A hand-woven prayer-rug. A bowl for offerings, a bowl of water to wash one's hands</p>
<ul style="text-align: left;"><li style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 983040; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Text: <i>"Let it be known that you hear the cries of your children. Let it be known that you are not blind to their suffering. Let it be known that you rage at injustice. Let the wicked cower before the thunder of your voice."</i></li><li>
Clay jug of <i>potent grain alcohol</i></li></ul>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Any players who critically succeed at their Comfort save will have the following dream.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"></p><blockquote>Wide, rolling grassland broken by the occasional copse of trees. Wind in your face. Ice-tipped mountains in the distance. Down by the river, a herd of mammoths. Your mother toussels your hair and says "There's still a lot to do, tekha. It's okay to be afraid, but I know you can be brave. I'll be there if you need me."</blockquote><p></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">If a player who has received the dream would take lethal damage from an attack, they will not do so; a brilliant fire of human shape will step from behind them and strike the attacker, dealing 1 MDMG to it and anything behind it. This will only happen once.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The cave vanishes when the players exit. They will never find it again.</p>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3372693484053299675.post-41728659454581438752023-08-13T14:30:00.008-04:002023-08-17T08:24:31.576-04:00This is Technically Not a Homestuck Reread Post<div><p>Prior revisit posts: <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2020/09/untitled-avatar-post.html">Avatar</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2021/05/lord-of-rings-reread-post.html">Lord of the Rings</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2021/12/cowboy-bebop-rewatch-post.html">Cowboy Bebop</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2022/02/fullmetal-alchemist-rewatch-post.html">Fullmetal Alchemist</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2022/07/earthsea-reread-post.html">Wizard of Earthsea</a>, Book of the New Sun pt 1 <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2022/10/new-sun-reread-part-1-shadow-and-claw.html">(Shadow & Claw)</a>, Book of the New Sun pt 2 (<a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2022/10/new-sun-reread-2-sword-and-citadel-plus.html">Sword & Citadel (plus Urth) </a></p><p><br />At the recommendation of longtime friend-of-the-blog Ivy, I started listening to <i><a href="http://rangedtouch.com/homestuck-made-this-world/">Homestuck Made This World</a></i>. It was recced to me as a thorough critical analysis of the comic with a focus on contextualizing the Great MSPA Mania in its cultural moment, and it succeeds very well at this. My listen is on-going as I write this introduction, having just gotten through the Intermission, and I will be writing as I listen along.<br /><br />As I am not rereading Homestuck for this review (I have more than enough things to read and all of them are time better spent), this post's commentary will be built upon what I remember of the comic, personal reflection of that era, HMTW itself, and rewatching some of the animated entries.<br /><br />Let us return to the trenches, and pour one out for all those comrades we lost during the Vriska Wars; let it never be said that we let the spider march forth out of quarantine thread unchallenged.<br /><br />(Note: Michael and Cameron are the hosts of <i>Homestuck Made This World</i>, they are not characters in the comic.)<br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">**<br /></p><p><br />Some of you are likely among that blessed company of people who do not know what <i>Homestuck </i>is. This is good, in the way that not knowing about a certain play titled <i>The King in Yellow</i> is good, and I highly recommend you maintain this ignorance. But if your curiosity of the abyss cannot be swayed, a description in brief. <br /><br /><i>Homestuck </i>is a very long multimedia webcomic about an increasingly-unweildy number of teenagers trapped in an increasingly-complex series of time loops brought about by their participation as players in a video game called SBURB, which is the mechanism by which the universe propogates new iterations of itself.<br /><br />It contains more text that <i>War and Peace</i>. Most of that text is teenagers yelling at each other. <br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">**<br /></p><p><br />For the purposes of my own sanity, I will only be commenting on the part of <i>Homestuck </i>that I read back in the day. This lines up nicely with the premise of it being a reread, and saves me a whole lot of time because I only just got past the halfway point.<br /><br />(For those unaware, <i>Homestuck </i>has 6 acts, plus an epilogue. Acts 1-4 constitute a quarter of the comic, Act 5 another quarter, and act 6 is a full 50%. The pacing is not good. i will be listening to HMTW until the end, but that will remain for my own bile fascination and I will not subject you to it.)<br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">**<br /></p><p><br /><b>Character Overview </b><br /><br /><b>The Kids</b><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>John - A real goofy goober</li><li>Rose - The cool goth friend</li><li>Dave - Not nearly as cool as he thinks he is</li><li>Jade - Head in the clouds (this is funny because it is literal)</li></ul><p><b><br />The Trolls</b><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Karkat - Performative anger, all the time</li><li>Aradia - A ghost, and sometimes a robot</li><li>Tavros - Designated punching bag</li><li>Sollux - No one gives a shit about sollux</li><li>Nepeta - Feral catgirl and shipping enthusiast</li><li>Kanaya - Very polite lesbian vampire</li><li>Terezi - Probably not the best depiction of blindness in media</li><li>Vriska - Causing Problems on Purpose (TM)</li><li>Equius - HUGEQUEST.mov, but less funny<br /></li><li>Gamzee - A juggalo and that it, until the murders start</li><li>Eridan - Aristo reddit niceguy. Not a wizard </li><li>Feferi - Was late when they were handing out characterization</li></ul><p><br /><b>Some Other Kids</b><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Jane - Another goober</li><li>Roxy - Crippling teenage alcoholism </li><li>Dirk - Slightly cooler than Dave, maybe</li><li>Jake - Adventure time ?</li></ul><p><br /><b>The Exiles</b><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Wandering Vagabond - Post-apocalyptic mayoral canidate</li><li>Peregrine Mendicant - Postal worker</li><li>Authority Regulator - A narc</li><li>Windswept Questant - Royalty in hiding</li></ul><p style="text-align: left;"><br /><b>Antagonists</b><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Jack Noir - Bureaucrat turned mass-murderer</li><li>Doc Scratch - A charming man with a cueball head</li><li>Lord English - Lord British after Scotland, Wales and North Ireland leave</li></ul><p style="text-align: left;"><br /><b>12 More God-Damn Trolls</b><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>We have entirely lost the plot by this point. </li></ul><p style="text-align: left;"><br /><b>The Cherubs</b><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>I nearly forgot about these</li><li>I am now cursed to remember them</li><li>Absolutely the worst</li><li>Bad design</li><li>Bad characters</li><li>Bad</li></ul><p style="text-align: left;"><br />All of these characters have multiple iterations across timelines and universes, and none of it matters.<br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">**<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /><b>Plot Overview</b><br /><br />BROTHER MAY I HAVE SOME LööPS<br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">**<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /><br /><b>Things Andrew Hussie Is Good At</b><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Distinctive character voices</li><li>Visual humor</li><li>Shot composition</li><li>Compsci and game-logic jokes</li><li>Mechanistic worldbuilding</li><li>Elaborate Rube Goldberg puzzles</li><li>Identifying what will make the most people the angriest</li><li>Acting on the above impulse</li></ul><p style="text-align: left;"><br /><b>Things Andrew Hussie Is Not Good At</b><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>De-escalating situations</li><li>Non-mechanistic worldbuilding</li><li>Knowing when to stop</li><li>Getting to the point</li><li>Avoiding pointless antagonism</li><li>Breaking kayfabe</li><li>Sincerity</li></ul><p style="text-align: left;"><br />Granted, I feel some sympathy for Hussie in that they were blindsided by extreme success they were not prepared for (including all the ways that can get pretty ugly online), but there were several big exit ramps on the road to dissolution and none of them were taken by any parties involved. As my listen through HMTW continues, the bare-faced cynicism becomes more and more difficult to ignore.<br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">**<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br />Acts 1-4 are still very good. <br /><br />Act 5 is a drastic tonal shift and despite having some good and memorable components is really where the rot sets in.<br /><br />Act 6 I have no positive opinions about<br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">**<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br />The music remains utterly unimpeachable. Toppest of tiers, greatest of greats, its what makes the whole thing tick. Sburban Jungle remains ingrained, along with all the rest, in the neurological equivalent of granite slabs fifty meters high. It's so fucking good. <br /><br />FAVORITE TRACKS<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Showtime (Original Mix)</li><li>Sburban Jungle</li><li>Beatdown</li><li>Dance of Thorns</li><li>Descend</li><li>Sunslammer</li><li>At the Price of Oblivion</li><li>Rex Duodecim Angelus</li></ul><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;">There are doubtless many I have forgotten<br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">**<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br />I wouldn't necessarily call the Homestuck fandom a cult, but it was certainly cult-shaped. (Edit: apparently Hussie said in an interview that they consider the Homestuck fandom to have been a cult they inadvertently started.)<br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">**<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br />While certainly a disaster for internet historians, I must admit that the loss of the MSPA forums comes as something of a relief. Tears in the rain and all that, but wow were a lot of those tears stupid. <br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">**<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br />I found Homestuck through TVtropes in...late 2010? I think that was it. I caught up during the hiatus right after Alterniabound, joined the forums immediately after.<br /><br />It swiftly became an obsession, and it was not a healthy one. Emotional over-investment was the name of the game, and I was <i>deep </i>in.<br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">**<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br />I dropped Homestuck extremely early in Act 6, but I can't figure out <i>when </i>- it was before the ancestors showed up, which would put it somewhere between November 2011 and April of 2012, least according to the wiki. I had honestly thought I was in it for much longer, but it seems like I burned out flash-fire style. It certainly felt like an incredibly long time, but that's likely just the case when you're logged into the forums for most of your waking hours for a year and change. Timeline matches up with a swerve into much greater involvement with the SCP wiki, but I really thought it was longer than that... I hung around the forums for a little while after that but eventually got wise to how miserable it was and booked it for better pastures, that probably explains it.<br /><br />Was an ordinary page that did it, something about Jake's inventory introducing some new mystery box and me realizing that no, Hussie was never going to break out of his closed-circuit storytelling and I had long ago reached the end of my patience for a matrioska mystery box. The overwhelming artifice, no matter how intentional, could not sustain itself and I was making myself miserable in my hopes that it would suddenly be something that it wasn't. <br /><br />Dodged a bullet on that.<br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">**<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKb3WLCSg_c">Two Best Friends Play SBRUB</a> is the defining artifact of this period in my life, and it remains probably my favorite HS fanwork by a country mile.</p><p style="text-align: center;">**<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br />Michael brings up Intermission-specific fans in that episode of the podcast, to which I say "Yes, hello, it is me."<br /><br />Intermission remains one of my favorite parts and this is because it's basically Problem Sleuth II, and Problem Sleuth is great because Problem Sleuth is the kind of comic that invokes Hussie's strengths as an author. Incredibly silly, rapid-fire jokes in a nesting doll of absurdist game-logic time loops. Much of Homestuck contains this, but the Intermission wins out in the end because it is extremely fast and contains none of the padding that came to characterize the rest of the comic.<br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">**<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br />Opinion: The comic should have ended with [S] Cascade. <br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">**<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br />Best Character: None, asterisk<br /><br />None, asterisk because all of them are more or less on equal footing when I look back at them - they are collections of traits and tropes to be compiled and recombined as needed for the circumstances around them. It's the reason the fandom grew as massive as it did - the best version of the characters is the one that exists in your own head, because you have built them into something that may or may not have support in the text. <br /><br />That said, Wandering Vagabond. He hates monarchy and never has an annoying YA romance subplot, and thus combines two of the most noble and admirable qualities a person can have. <br /><br />Also Karkat, everyone's favorite angry little shit-goblin. He's good too. <br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">**<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br />There was this guy I knew back in college, only other Homestuck fan I knew in real life. We were friends, and you'll note the loaded past tense. I didn't realize that it wasn't a particularly great relationship until years later. He was an ass; always had to be in the right, always had to be the cleverest. (Now who does this remind you of?) Did that condescending thing where someone talk around someone else's emotions to build up an argument of how they're irrational and how their view is correct. Should have cut ties with him a long time before I did. We might have bonded over Homestuck but we had very little else in common. At least two shouting matches over politics, and if you know mine you can guess what his side was. I invited him over for a couple game nights with some friends who didn't know him and got requests to boot him because he was being a sexist ass. (He got the boot.)<br /><br />He would cosplay as Bro Strider for conventions, and I find myself instinctively recoiling at just seeing the character because of the correlation. What strange things brains are.<br /><br />Last thing I heard, the guy was bitching about private organizations having mask requirements. He self-selected himself out of the one environment I was liable to cross paths with him in, and that's good.<br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">**<br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br />An advantage of such a bogglingly huge fandom is that there was an equally bogglingly huge amount of high-quality fanart. I might still have my archive somewhere on a semi-bricked hard drive deep in storage, or perhaps it is gone for good.<br /><br />I do legitimately miss the crazy things people would get up to in the image manipulation thread - HS has nothing if not a whole lot of easily-modified image character templates.<br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">** <br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br />Despite it being a decade plus since I dropped the comic, I could still probably channel most of the character voices with a reasonable degree of accuracy. </p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><blockquote>cG: ALL RIGHT CHUCKLEFUCKS ONE MORE TIME<br />cG: JOHN IS GETTING LO MEIN<br />eB: yep!<br />cG: ROSE IS GETTING FRIED TOFU<br />tT: Correct. Two additional spring rolls, please. <br />cG: DAVE IS GETTING GENERAL TSO'S<br />tG: how did he become a general anyway<br />tG: like<br />tG: was he commissioned officer <br />tG: or was it a battlefield promotion<br />cG: JADE IS GETTING SHRIMP FRIED RICE<br />tG: did he have beef with kernel sanders<br />tT: *Colonel.<br />gG: wait! could i get the takoyaki instead?<br />cG: YEAH, SURE, CHANGE YOUR ORDER FOR THE THIRD TIME<br />eB: dave what about the burger king?<br />eB: where does he fit into this?<br />tT: I believe that the Burger King is currently embroiled in a proletariat uprising led by the younger MacDonald.<br />tT: His head will be delivered it to Wendy on a silver platter, as John the Baptist was given to Salome.<br />cG: AND I'M GETTING CRAB RANGOON<br />gG: pffft you guys :D <br />cG: ORDER PLACED<br />cG: FUCKING FINALLY<br />eB: so karkat where are the other trolls?<br />cG: AS PREVIOUSLY ESTABLISHED IN A CONVERSATION WE HAVEN'T HAD YET <br />cG: ALL OF MY FRIENDS ARE DEAD<br />cG: AND IT IS VRISKA'S FAULT<br />aG: You rang? ::::)<br />cG: GOG FUCKING DAMN IT</blockquote><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">**<br /></div><div><br />The people demand justice for Nepeta.<br /><br />(Note: I do not know, at time of writing, if justice for Nepeta was ever achieved. I only know that the people demanded it, and thus it was never granted.)<br /><br />(Note: Nepeta's death remains a...well, it remains the brutal murder of a child whose main crime was being a dork. Bludgeoned to death with juggling pins. Killer gets off scott-free. People were, predictably and rightly, upset by this (she wasn't the only death in this sequence, either) and they were mocked for it.)<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">**<br /></div><div><br />Best Fandom Joke - Pantskat<br /><br />(A coloring error on one page made it look like Karkat - who was far in the background of the shot - was wearing his pants all the way up to his chin. People had a field day. It's fucking stupid and I think it's great.)<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">**<br /></div><div><br />Lots of people praise Hussie's mythbuilding, and for the most part I find that to be extremely generous overstatement of importance. The one exception to that - and probably the only part of Homestuck I would point to and say "yeah, this part has some real value outside of itself" - is the reveal that the universe has cancer. <br /><br />This is literalized in the comic - a tumor of Plot Contrivance embedded in a vast cosmic frog - but the principle remains, transcendent of its surroundings. <br /><br />You do not have to dig deep into my own writings to see the echoes and after-images of this idea; I'm certain somewhere I invoke it outright, and if I haven't before I am definitely doing so now.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">**<br /></div><div><br />Now, I wrote an entire essay about how my creative methodology is about breaking things down into components and then re-assembling them in new and novel ways. You might recognize this as exactly what Homestuck is founded upon, but I do have a coherent justification for favoring one and not the other. <br /><br />Homestuck is a closed circuit: everything that exists within it is connected to everything else and nothing exists outside of this network. Any potential expansion of scope will inevitably turn back inwards upon itself. It is the Star Wars expanded universe spun out to its final form. No matter how much material you put into it, it will never break beyond the boundaries of the circuit.<br /><br />This, plus Homestuck's penchant for repeating patterns and providing numerous overlapping categorical schemas for those patterns to fit into, makes it incredibly good for people who want to make stuff using only those provided components (see: enormous homestuck fandom), and signficiantly less use to me, who likes settings to be messy and organic.<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">**<br /></div><div><br />This closed-circuit design is part and parcel why, among all the media I will occasionally use as writing practice, Homestuck has never appeared - it cannot function in an open circuit setting, because its characters are just collections of tropes without any exterior circumstances influencing them. To put them in an environment where external setting matters would be to immediately watch the waveform collapse. The characters stop working and must become entirely different characters in order to function, thus negating the point. Like in that little bit I wrote above - if I didn't write Karkat according to his steroarchetype, he wouldn't really be Karkat anymore.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">**<br /></div><div><br />Homestuck is like Neon Genesis Evangelion: valuable as a piece of art, mediocre-to-bad as a coherent narrative, and will collapse entirely at the mere <i>implication </i>of real-world logic.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">**<br /></div><div><br />A theory: there is no outside world whatsoever in Homestuck. Earth is empty. Alternia is empty. No one else exists beyond the players of SBURB. It is the only appropriate state for a work as solipcistic as this.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">**<br /></div><div><br />Troll typing quirks are legitimately a fantastic way of getting across vocal nuance in text, but also I side with jan misali in saying that they get pretty excessive and make text to speech accessibility functionally impossible.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">**<br /></div><div><br />Serialized storytelling and the cycle of hype and disappointment are the worst and we are trapped in this World Homestuck Made. Thrice I have been burned greatly by it. I have learned my lesson.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">**<br /></div><div><br />I will accept the bitter pill Michael and Cameron have set on my plate: Equius is a fascist creep and the fandom's re-interpretation of him as weird but ultimately protective big brother figure to Nepeta is significantly more uncomfortable in hindsight.<br /><br />Thus is fandom - eternally dulling the sharp edges to achieve the state of perfect blorbo.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">**<br /></div><div><br />So. This is the part about Vriska.<br /><br />Now, while I will strip my sleeve and show my scars and say "these wounds I had on Troll Crispin's Day, holding the line against Vriskathread" a decade free from the Great Mania has cleared my head significantly. To condense a lot of thoughts into a small amount of space, Vriska the character is entirely separate from Vriska the narrative function. <br /><br />Vriska the <i>character </i>is not to my liking whatsoever, but I can understand the appeal in a general sense. She's well written, as far as a Homestuck character will go, and I can't say she's not effective at triggering reader response. There's a reasonably effective tragedy to her story, though I find it not nearly as vindicating as her fans will claim.<br /><br />Vriska the <i>narrative function</i> is emblematic of Homestuck's greatest sin. Her role is that of a hatchet: whenever Hussie needed to make people angry, whenever they needed to divide up the fanbase and start setting fires because negative engagement is good engagement for the content-hawkers, Vriska would be rolled out, do something heinous, and be rewarded for it. Any of the characters could fill that role, technically, but Vriska was convenient because she had a divisive status since her introduction. She was a deliberately weaponized character invoked in Hussie's eternal war with the fanbase.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">**</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Hussie really liked making jokes at the expense of anyone with a non-normative body, didn't they?<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">**<br /></div><div><br />Hussie's repeated abdications of responsibility for what they write - provided in the text itself and in book commentary cited by HMTW - are incredibly tiresome. <br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">**<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />God I forgot that Doc Scratch's primary narrative role was "well you see, Vriska was being <i>manipulated </i>by Doc Scratch" and motherfuckers he's not mind controlling her, she just decides to murder other children because some weird guy on the internet told her to.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">**<br /></div><div><br />Michael and Cameron bring up how even early on there are questions over whether Vriska is going to get her comeuppance, or if this is a narrative that's going to eschew the idea that villainous deeds go punished. I know that later on there's more of this, past where I read, but I think there is a third option that will end up going woefully unutilized: there's no need for karmic retribution on a cosmic level when the other characters have more than enough reason (the reason being that Vriska is an existential threat to everyone around her) to find a way to remove her from the equation for simple self-preservation. Characters having coherent motivations solves this problem, but HS is about determinism or some shit so we don't have those, Things Just Happen.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">**<br /></div><div><br />~ Squeedly-dee, squeedley-dum, let's all sing a squeedly song ~<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">**<br /></div><div><br />I'm not going to write much about Act 6, because I read barely anything of it. It took the forward momentum and grand crescendo of [S] Cascade - all that waiting and anticipation - and sent it careening directly into a brick wall. I do not know what follows beyond, other than I have heard very bad things, and the content warnings towards the end of HMTW get increasingly thorough to the point that I can barely believe it.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">**<br /></div><div><br />"Well you see, the ending is about Hussie handing over the characters to the audience and their freedom from his deterministic authorial tyranny."<br /><br />"So why didn't they put their money where their mouth is and slap a big copyleft license on it in a final act of over the top and self-indulgent showmanship?"<br /><br />"Uhhh...LOOK OVER THERE, IT'S VRISKA!"<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">**<br /></div><div><br />Revisiting the comic, even by proxy, I find myself once again confronted with the bizarre, toxic, paracsocial hell of the author-audience relationship that defines the comic. I was part of it, same as so many other people, so take that into account here. I was lost in the sauce.<br /></div><div> </div><div>It was ugly. I feel like I should call it abusive, in some new and unpleasant form that was born from the newly-forming (at the time) mechanisms of widespread parasociality. An artist continually mocking and berating the audience for emotional investment, especially when the artist
has cynically calculated the ways to maximize engagement in the first
place - and <i>especially </i>when the bulk of that audience are teenagers - it ain't good. It's a bad taste I can't wash out, a lingering miasma over the thing.<br /><br />And everyone bought it for so long, just ate up the lie of "oh it's all an act, it's ironic!"<br /><br />Nah. Hussie's disdain for the audience was the one genuine thing in this entire circus.<br /><br />I suppose that's the lasting impression I have of the whole thing; The lingering internalized shame of being duped. Of falling for a grift. Of sticking with the clearly toxic person in your life. The plot, setting, characters - all so thin and sterile already that they can't even be recycled. The comic itself, herald of a maddened world that it did not create but merely ushered into being. <br /><br />There was good to be had in it, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.<br /><br />They can't all be winners, folks.<p></p></div>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3372693484053299675.post-29949521866787687492023-08-07T20:47:00.002-04:002023-08-07T20:47:14.212-04:00The Yuki-Onna: A Mothership Monster<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW4c6JuXnesj4HHf-GzXwfXaEMvo2RlyBZaZp-7hfETHVe5kqpr24J8yFNEbIizH6nbQIgBsmvI4KNZ4L7GqiirwrdvtaWZFxGuDOygkiiGwpvwvupJNXOs04LJ-8DHAlJYMbmGrWx5WMOKqWcgw7v0tqvxZZEsPWDEvGm9Uuv_INBIldmMPikm0lNFkaE/s1613/yukionna.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1613" data-original-width="1210" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW4c6JuXnesj4HHf-GzXwfXaEMvo2RlyBZaZp-7hfETHVe5kqpr24J8yFNEbIizH6nbQIgBsmvI4KNZ4L7GqiirwrdvtaWZFxGuDOygkiiGwpvwvupJNXOs04LJ-8DHAlJYMbmGrWx5WMOKqWcgw7v0tqvxZZEsPWDEvGm9Uuv_INBIldmMPikm0lNFkaE/w300-h400/yukionna.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Own work<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></p><p>No scenario, just a spookum. And what turned out to be a very productive layout for monster write-ups.</p><p><i>Unconfirmed Contact Reports</i> is mere HOURS AWAY at time of writing.<br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">THE YUKI-ONNA</h2><p><b>(3)40 I:60</b><br /><br />A shriveled corpse; might once have been a person or perhaps only the imitation of it; blue-black flesh split open, rotten blood frozen in delicate lacework halos; eyes frozen shut.<br /><br /><b>Portents and signs:</b> Distant howls; low moaning from nearby; walls cold to the touch; corpses crusted with bloody ice; a faraway humanoid shape in the icefields.<br /><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Frigid Aura</b> 2d10 - 5m range; negated by <i>environment suit</i>. If this attack causes a Wound, BODY save vs limb loss from frostbite.</li><li><b>Hideous Scream</b> - Deafens for 5 minutes; negated by <i>ear protection</i></li><li><b>Rending Claws</b> 3d10 - Serrated talons. Wounds ooze black and tarlike.</li><li><b>Quantum Ghosts</b> - Creates quantum consciousness copy of PCs hit by <b>Rending Claws</b>. Victims will be overwhelmed by simultaneous and contradictory sensory inputs and must make a SAN save to make any action beyond Fight/Flight/Freeze. Stress gain from failed rolls is doubled until the creature is dead. Creature will use projections and voices of incorporated ghosts to dissuade attack or distract victims.</li><li><b>Schroedinger's Step</b> - Creature can teleport to any location that is not directly observed by a conscious mind.</li></ul><h2 style="text-align: left;">Encounter Phases</h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Precombat 1</b>: PC find portents and signs; last to be found will be visual contact, leading to Precombat 2.</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Precombat 2</b>: Creature initially appears at great distance (use barren extraplanetary environs to advantage). Will move via <b>Schroedinger's Step</b> when PCs blink or glance away (no need to mechanize this, just describe it for now). It will remain at distance, stalking players for several hours. Appears sporadically, but always closer than it was. </li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Combat Phase 1</b>: Ambush - Creature will <b>Schroedinger's Step</b> to the closest location that provides access to the PCs where it is not directly observed. It will target isolated PCs if able; otherwise it will try to attack someone from behind (using doors, windows, vents, etc). Will normally attack first with <b>Rending Claws</b> and follow with <b>Hideous Scream</b>; If it cannot lay a sufficient ambush it will use<b> Hideous Scream</b> first and attack during the communication breakdown. Can only take action only when not directly observed.</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Combat Phase 2</b>: Wounded, the creature will flee via <b>Shroedinger's Step</b> and regroup. It will not attempt another frontal assault, only attacking PCs when alone or in pairs. It gains the following ability.</li></ul><ul style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><li><b>Cries of the Superpositionally Damned</b> - Creature will use <b>Quantum Ghosts</b> to directly attack PCs minds. SAN save vs extreme intrusive thoughts encouraging paranoia, distrust & aggressiveness, lasting until the creature takes another Wound or the PC is rendered unconscious. It cannot control PC actions, only suggest actions </li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Combat Phase 3</b>: Tarry ichor sloughs down in oozing sheets from its wounds. The creature now gains Grand Finale.</li></ul><ul style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><li><b>Grand Finale</b> - Creature may make a <b>Shroedinger's Step</b> into a zone of perception. This will be heralded by a loud hiss and a sharp, bitter smell: PCs will get just enough time to make a single action before it appears, unleashing a wave of concussive force dealing 1-3 wounds to all Nearby. As per grenade, a successful BODY save may mitigate damage.<br /></li></ul><p><br /><b>Death</b> - The creature makes a noise similar to a vacuum swiftly filling with frigid air. Its body dissolves into an icy black slurry. The actinic after-images of its quantum ghosts flicker, faces contorted in distorted howls as their waveforms finally collapse.<br /><br /><b>Slurried Corpse of the Yuki-Onna</b><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Retains its quantum-ghost generation property even in death - only requires contact with the nervous system of a metacognitive creature. It is possible to link these ghosts with a new host, if the corpse is used as a substitute for standard cryopod stasis fluid. BODY save vs permanent loss of a Wound.<br /></li></ul>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3372693484053299675.post-43059871995955177642023-08-05T21:38:00.002-04:002023-08-06T21:32:10.291-04:0010 Additional Planets in the Solar System<p>Why not, let's throw some extra planets in here.<br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">1. Vulcan</h2><p>The large, volcanically-active moon of Venus. Hazy atmosphere of mostly C02, and other carbon and sulfur compounds. In extremely close orbit with its parent world.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">2. Juno</h2><p>The 5th Galilean moon: a superterrestrial world of 2.6 Me, with a thick atmosphere of methane, nitrogen, CO2 and ammonia. Frozen, but not as cold as it would otherwise be expected to be, thanks to atmospheric insulation and moderate tectonic activity maintained by the tidal stresses of Jupiter.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">3. Janus</h2><p>A small, rocky world within the orbit of Mercury. No atmosphere to speak of. Tidally-locked to the sun, which has rendered the solar pole a sea of molten stone and metal.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">4. Poseidon</h2><p>A 3.1 Me waterworld between Mars and Jupiter. Dense CO2 and water-vapor atmosphere. Lack of free oxygen indicates that, if there is any life on the planet, it has not evolved photosynthesis or an equivalent process.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">5. Apollo</h2><p>Earth's second moon; a metallic asteroid not even big enough to maintain a spherical shape. A captured body of drastically different composition to Luna, containing economy-devastating amounts of rare earth metals in easy reach.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">6. Ixion</h2><p>A brown dwarf in the Oort cloud, possessing a cluster of small, icy moons. One of these is in close enough orbit that Ixion's radiant heat and tidal stress is sufficient to keep it an icy slush.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">7. Dionysus</h2><p>Captured planet of primarily ethenol ices. Wobbly, extremely elliptical orbit likely to collide with, be captured by, or ejected by Saturn at some point in the future.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">8. Athena</h2><p>A rocky world similar to Mars in terms of size and atmosphere, located among the Greek Camp asteroids at Jupiter's L4 point. Pockmarked surface from eons of meteor impacts, has four surviving moonlets.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">9. Hestia</h2><p>Terrestrial world of 0.62 Me located in Earth's trailing L5 point. Has a somewhat sparse atmosphere and does not appear to have surface water, but there is oxygen and water vapor in the atmosphere and that has people very excited indeed.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">10. Persephone</h2><p>A moon of Pluto. Far too dense for its size and apparent composition. An icy crust sits over unknown contents. There is no proof that it is artificial, not yet, but...<br /></p>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3372693484053299675.post-17317281407597784992023-07-30T15:48:00.006-04:002023-08-07T20:39:15.091-04:00MOSH: Appendix M-DAN and the Mothership Soundtrack<h2 style="text-align: left;">APPENDIX M-DAN<br /></h2><p>Kill Six Billion Demons (Tom Parkinson-Morgan)</p><p></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Cowboy Bebop (dir. Shinichiro Watanabe)</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Prophet (Graham, Roy, Dalrymple, Milonogiannis)</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Hyperion (Dan Simmons)</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Andor (dir. Tony Gilroy)</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Dorohedoro (Q Hayashida)</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Children of Time (Adrian Tchaikovsky)</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Book of the New Sun (Gene Wolfe)</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Atomic Rockets (Winchell Chung)</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Orion's Arm</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Citizen Sleeper (Jump Over the Edge)</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Prospect (dir. Zeek Earl & Chris Caldwell) </p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (dir. Kenji Kamiyama)</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Delta Green (Glancy, Detwiller, Tynes)</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Disco Elysium (ZA/UM)</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Signalis (rose-engine)</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Hardspace Shipbreaker (Blackbird Interactive)</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Halo Reach (Bungie)</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Mass Effect (Bioware)</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Eclipse Phase (Posthuman Studios)</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Seedware, Farcast, H-Rep (Wallace, Derie, Unit Omega)</p>
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<h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">Mothership the Soundtrack</h2>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Unlike with the <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2023/07/mother-stole-fire-soundtrack.html">MSF soundtrack</a>, the majority of these don't have dedicated components or an order, and so I have left out the meta-titles. And also the links because that was a pain and a half the first time.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">e. Ivy has very graciously made a<a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3B1dqFQJfI9qXfc3HYTEsL?si=276d4f8c3d154bd5"> spotify playlist </a>of most of all of these.<br /></p>
<ul style="text-align: left;"><li style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwutOqv4cGo">Sugaan Essena</a> (The HU, Jedi: Fallen Order OST) [1]<br /></li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2H8bSba4JU">Fingers to the Bone </a>(Brown Bird) </li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPTCq3LiZSE">We All Lift Together</a> (Kieth Power, Warframe OST) </li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKnVaDwUg5s">Space Lion</a> (Yoko Kanno, Cowboy Bebop OST) [2] <br /></li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VxY0ZoR6SI">Up the Wolves</a> (The Mountain Goats)</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud6LiVJkwyA">Pushing the Speed of Light</a> (Julia Ecklar and Anne Prather) [3]</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQeHsuHq9gQ">Blues 2.0 </a>(Fruteland Jackson) </li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSKeECZ7Cew">The Workers Song Community Project </a>(The Longest Johns)</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYdvxBxHX2U">Keep the Wolves Away </a>(Uncle Lucius) </li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqR1cjuPXUg">Devil Wears a Suit and Tie</a> (Colter Wall) </li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQWOhUhC8t4">Shortpaw's Dance</a> (Altin Gün, Sounds from the Galactic Skylanes) [4] <br /></li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unpgolUFpXw&t=4068s">1000手観音</a> (KnoW_NAME, Dorohedoro OST)</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjtOUwErXyo">Eseerin Vasahina</a> (The HU, Sounds from the Galactic Skylanes) [5]<br /></li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whdzP0GHuc4">The Chemical Worker's Song</a> (Great Big Sea) </li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asr6_eNCuoU">Noosphere</a> (Guillaume David, Mechanicus OST)</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Liv4CvpMdRA">Internal Conflict</a> (Joel Nielsen, Black Mesa Xen OST) </li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb_it_DCn_I">Hohochu </a>(The HU, Sounds from the Galactic Skylanes) [6]<br /></li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w34fSnJNP-4">Dawson's Christian</a> (Leslie Fish and Vic Tyler) </li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIN4t1mITNs">What Do You Know?</a> (Salisbury & Barrow, Annihilation OST) </li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpIBULiXneU">Horrors of Hoxxes</a> (<span class="yt-core-attributed-string yt-core-attributed-string--white-space-pre-wrap"><span class="yt-core-attributed-string--link-inherit-color" style="color: #131313;">Agerbæk-Larsen & </span></span><span class="yt-core-attributed-string yt-core-attributed-string--white-space-pre-wrap"><span class="yt-core-attributed-string--link-inherit-color" style="color: #131313;">Troels Jørgensen,</span></span><span class="yt-core-attributed-string yt-core-attributed-string--white-space-pre-wrap"><span class="yt-core-attributed-string--link-inherit-color" style="color: #131313;"> </span></span>Deep Rock Galactic OST)</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdmei50YAGc">Make This Perv</a> (Spewcup; Furi + Hotline Miami 2 OST) </li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS1KMzSc5M4">Disposal Unit (Imperium Mix) </a>(Darktide OST)</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unpgolUFpXw">HOLE</a> (KnoW_NAME, Dorohedoro OST)</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pS3VAyxQ9M">Log Off </a>(Kenji Kawai, Avalon OST)</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEwxguHUi_U">Hymn to Breaking Strain</a> (Julia Ecklar & Leslie Fish)</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zIetDxvft4">Metallica Goes to Punjab</a> (Wax Audio </li><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgp7JdmHibA">The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet</a> (????) [7]<br /></li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTJjQj6PkrY">Demon Days</a> (Gorillaz)</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Wb77PPaGKY">Walk Softly</a> (Kazuma Jinnouchi, Halo 5 OST)</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3TpDQ0vsB4">SILA</a> (A Tribe Called Red ft. Tanya Tagaq)</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKyXvNkGQKc">Kingslayer </a>(Bring Me the Horizon ft Babymetal)</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ5gtInauiI">You're Mine</a> (Carpenter Brut, Furi OST) [8]</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mLCaXvVPas">No Time for Caution</a> (Hans Zimmer, Interstellar OST) [9]<br /></li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iieEf6fjt0">Tip of the Spear</a> (Halo Reach OST)</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unpgolUFpXw&t=442s">SMOKE</a> (Dorohedoro OST)</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_aUIls1fwQ">FAB TOOL</a> (Carpenter Brut ft. David Eugene Edwards)</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLic2xw48lU">Imperial Advance</a> (Jasper Kyd, Darktide OST)</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1navLng0ZM">Song to Boddho</a> (Kashnikov, Pathologic 2 OST) </li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfCxLVQaSis">Main Title</a> (Andrew Prahlow, Outer Wilds OST) </li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEvYef_ajIk">She Shines</a> (Darren Korb & Ashley Barrett, Transistor OST)</li><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWtp4dqypSQ">Blood Under Her Nails</a> (Cane B, Lisa the Joyful: Growing Pains OST) <br /></li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EtOAaK19bA">Sleeping in the Cold Below</a> (Power & Doyle, Warframe OST)</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi106DZJhuQ">System of a Down + Nooran Sisters</a> (Andre Antunes)</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLsX9WUdYnU">Children of the Omnissiah</a> (Guillaume David, Mechanicus OST)</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiDZ40LxTD4">The Trials</a> (Kazuma Jinnouchi, Halo 5 OST) [10]<br /></li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-SlepG2cQg">Kugutsuuta Ura Mite Chiru</a> (Kenji Kawai, Ghost in the Shell 2 OST) [11]<br /></li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOSU_Pw7vO4">Blood on my Name </a>(The Brothers Bright)</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4y802_Ot-k">The Day it Fell Apart</a> (Leslie Fish)</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRyVV6Yy_Ns">Awake O Sleeper</a> (The Brothers Bright)</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1idEVy_qH8c">Anthem</a> (US OST)</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5IIus4r-GQ">HYAKKIN </a>(Kenji Kawai, Mezame no Hakobune) [12]<br /></li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctZhKWviOuc">Nemesis </a>(Halo 4 OST) [13]<br /></li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-dZa_hpcIA">In My Spirit</a> (Shiro Sagisu, Rebuild of Evangelion 2.22 OST) [14]<br /></li><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_2bluVPsb0">Duel of the Fates</a> (John Williams, The Phantom Menace OST) [15]<br /></li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PeakTe0L5Y">Sovereign </a>(Sam Hulick, Mass Effect OST) [16]<br /></li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpcuYHEdvHg">End Run</a> (Jack Wall, Mass Effect 2 OST) [17]<br /></li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zMNE4HQebg">Torukia</a> (Yoko Kanno, GitS SAC OST)</li><li>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V41PzOxdTTI">Solidarity Forever</a> (The Mountain Goats) </li></ul><p>[1] "Copy that, <i>Oriole, </i>you're cleared for docking on spur 43. Welcome home."<br /></p><p>[2] Had to limit myself on the Bebop tracks, otherwise the whole list would have been just that soundtrack.<br /></p><p>[3] Same as [2].<br /></p><p>[4] Friday night at the ISWU Local #975.<br /></p><p>[5] Drinking away your paycheck.<br /></p><p>[6] Theme of the Panan Sho syndicate.<br /></p><p>[7] This song could be a total hoax and I would not care - it's a great story.<br /></p><p>[8] Raid on the deepwell blacksite.</p><p>[9] Hans Zimmer has never gotten over this song and has been trying to recapture it for a decade, and has failed continually. Also the theatrical version had to be reconstructed which is bonkers nonsense.<br /></p><p>[10] Orbital drop over Sigma Draconis d. <br /></p><p>[11] I don't think there's a better exncapsulation of cyberpunk than this song and the scene it is from - nothing short of a dirge for the world.<br /></p><p>[12] Clawing ever upward towards liberation.<br /></p><p>[13] Many thanks to MickyJim for this rec - I haven't played any of the 343 Halos so the music gets to be only rarely.</p><p>[14] The Zeruel sequence is easily my favorite example of cosmic horror in media. The time of Fucking Around is over; now it is the age of Finding Out. </p><p>[15] I don't think there's a track in existence that is more poorly served by its accompanying material than this. It deserves some K6BD level magic kung fu bullshit.<br /></p><p>[16] Bioware was aiming way higher than their weight class with Sovereign, and boy did that bite them in the blubber later down the line. <br /></p><p>[17] A Jovian slingshot followed by a 3G burn. Ramming speed.<br /></p>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3372693484053299675.post-9799140118833256452023-07-25T18:34:00.001-04:002023-07-25T18:34:35.910-04:00Bookpost 13<p> Previous installments found here: <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2019/08/lets-look-at-bunch-of-books-i-didnt.html">1</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2019/09/lets-look-at-some-more-books.html">2</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2019/11/dan-reviews-books-part-3.html">3</a>, <a href="http://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2020/05/fourth-book-review-post-fourth-and.html">4</a>, <a href="http://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2020/08/dan-reviews-books-part-5.html">5</a>, <a href="http://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2020/12/dan-reviews-books-part-6.html">6</a> , <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2021/12/dan-reviews-books-part-7.html">7</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2022/04/dan-reviews-books-part-8.html">8</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2022/08/dan-reviews-books-part-9.html">9</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2023/01/dan-reviews-books-part-10.html">10</a><i> , </i><a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2023/03/bookpost-11.html">11</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2023/06/bookpost-12.html">12</a></p><p> </p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><i>The Sparrow</i>, Mary Doria Russell</h2><p>DNF 125/497<br /><br />I tried, I tried, I gave it my best, but this book thwarted me at every turn. Its initial premise is a good solid hook - lone survivor of a Jesuit mission to an inhabited planet around Alpha Centauri returns with horrific injuries and his order attempts to piece together the narrative - and that is immediately thrown out the window by glacial pace, asynchronous chronology, and a focus on the pining and sexual tension of the main cast. By page 125 we have barely spent more than a few sentences talking about the planet, the aliens, or the mission. The sci-fi elements are hardly even there, and the more they are introduced the more things fall apart because Russell clearly either doesn't know or care. <br /><br />The Death Knell (reading goodreads reviews instead of reading the book) was certainly in effect here, and those reviews revealed elements that would have me grind my teeth to dust if I had actually encountered them without forewarning.<br /><br />If your book contains a meditation on theodicy, you cannot have your characters go "how can God permit such suffering" when EVERY SINGLE FUCKING THING IS YOUR OWN FAULT, BECAUSE YOU ARE STUPID AND MAKE BAD DECISIONS. Someone eats local vegetation and everyone is SHOCKED that the dumb bastard dies! None of the mission members are scientists! They don't have a first contact protocol! They have not a god damned thing that a reasonable mission would have, and somehow this farce is supposed to have a point beyond "you are all dumb stupid assholes and died because of your own fault." The absolute <i>caucasity </i>that is on display here boggles the imagination.<br /><br />But that's all just what I have gleaned from reviews of the parts that I have not read. The really damning element comes from the interview with Russell tucked in the back of the 20th anniversary edition. Quote:</p><p></p><blockquote><i>"The idea came to me in the summer of 1992 as we were celebrating the 500th anniversary of Columbus's arrival in the New World. There was a great deal of historical revisionism going on as we examined the mistakes made by Europeans when they first encountered foreign cultures in the Americas and elsewhere. It seemed unfair to me for people living at the end of the twentieth century to hold those explorers and missionaries to standards of sophistication and tolerance that we hardly manage even today. I wanted to show how very difficult first contact would be, even with the benefit of hindsight. That's when I decided to write a story that put modern, sophisticated, resourceful, well-educated, and well-meaning people in the same position as those early explorers and missionaries — a position of radical ignorance."</i></blockquote><br />> mistakes<br /><br />> <i>mistakes</i><br /><br />> <i><b>mistakes</b></i><br /><br />> <i><b>M I S T A K E S</b></i><br /><br />Let's check what ol' Chris had to say on the matter.<p></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>"A hundred castellanoes are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand."</i></blockquote>Golly gee willickers, Ms. Russel, how many children have to get sold into slavery before it stops being "radical ignorance"? Maybe if you ask their ghosts they can tell you more about those "mistakes".<br /><br />(It's not even <i>good </i>Columbus apologia! She somehow manages to fail at even supporting her own odious arguments, because the entire content of the book is "this is a bad idea, undertaken by idiots, who never should have gone there in the first place and everything would be better if no one had done anything".)<br /><br />Also the book has got this weird 90s racial undercurrent of "Japan as a global superpower filled with inscrutable and alien businessmen" and a frankly fucking bizarre character dynamic where one character (a Jew from Turkey) is supposed to have this deep-seated distaste for Fr. Santoz because he's hispanic and has a mustache and therefore <i>must </i>by the spitting image of an inquisitor who expelled Jews from Spain post-Reconquista. Straight-up just says "Yeah you know Jewish folk, they'll hold a grudge for 500 years, that's just common knowledge" and that is a fucking bonkers nonsense thing to say as not-a-joke and doubly so for an author who converted to Judaism.<p></p><p><br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><i>Border Keeper</i>, Kerstin Hall</h2><p><br />A short novel, practically a novella, and another one of those lucky finds in the Tor freebie pile. The descriptions are vibrant, the pace is breakneck, and the concept is good - a witch in the middle of nowhere serves as the keeper and watcher of boundaries between the realms of the 999 demon lords of the spirit world. I was not surprised to see that there's a second novel, as it certainly feels like a setting that has not only more to explore, but a great deal under the surface that just didn't make it into the story. The ending was a bit too abrupt for my liking - maybe an extra 30 pages would have been good - but I will take fast and engaging over slow and ponderous. Additionally there are just a few too many characters with multiple names / important names that only ever exist off-screen for my liking, but concessions need to be made for something that wants to have expansive scope and short length and overall it succeeds. Good book, I recommend it.</p><p><br /><i><br /></i></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><i>A Strange Manuscript Found Inside a Copper Cylinder</i>, James De Mille</h2><p>DNF 38%<br /><br />An antarctic lost-world story, following on the tail of Poe's Gordon Pym. Fine enough but there was not much going for it in terms of good material to swipe or steal. It gets one bonus point for not completely abandoning the frame narrative but beyond that it's by-the-numbers. <br /><br />More interesting is how it, like nearly all other works of the genre, evokes the enormous psychological complex the imperial Anglosphere had about cannibalism and human sacrifice. Find a lost world and there's gonna be cannibalism and human sacrifice, that's just Victorian Science (TM). I find this interesting because of <i>how close </i>so many of these authors and narratives come to the point of self-realization ("hey we're just projecting the anxieties of our own colonial monstrosity of a civilization onto our victims") and they shy away from it every time. But since they never do, it's monotonous in the extreme because they are either incapable of or have no desire to present any culture with any amount of complexity or nuance.</p><p><br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><i>Medea: Harlan's World</i>, Harlan Ellison et al</h2><p>DNF 358/528<br /><br />A compilation of stories set on a very unique alien planet (tidally-locked moon of a brown dwarf inhabited by two sapient species, being centipede-foxes and balloon creatures) and developed round-robin style by some rather big names of the 70s sci-fi scene, all at the behest of Harlan Ellison for a course he was teaching at UCLA in 1975. It's split into four parts:<br /><br />Part One contains the technical specs of the planet Medea, which had been passed between the first four authors and collected into a booklet for the seminar.<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Astrophysics & Geology (Hal Clement)</li><li>Planetology & basic biology (Poul Anderson)</li><li>Complex biology & sapient beings (Larry Niven)</li><li>Alien culture & human encounters (Frederick Pohl)</li></ul><p><br />This is easily my favorite part of the book, rushed as it might have been (Ellison apparently gave people less than a day to type up their segments). It's a showcase of some truly great concept sci-fi, of loading up a setting with enough moving parts and novel ideas that it keeps rolling forward under its own momentum. <br /><br />Part 2 is transcript of a seminar fleshing out Medea and working out elements of what would become the short story collection, with the panel consisting of Thomas Disch, Frank Herbert, Robert Silverberg and Theodore Sturgeon with Ellison moderating. It is rather entertaining (if exceedingly 70s, we get a racist joke by the second page) - the authors have good rapport with each other and the circles they end up going in are more forgivable when in the format of a transcript of a live recording. Also, a surprising number of references to John Lily, was not expecting that, though given the company of the seminar I certainly should have.<br /><br />Part 3 is a collection of audience-submitted questions and suggestions, which were collected in writing. Nerds don't change, though in 1975 they were a lot more likely to say "the balloons have telepathy, which is how they can fly, no further explanation."<br /><br />Part 4 is the short stories, which is where everything falls apart. They did the smart thing and kept them entirely unconnected from each other plot-wise, jumping back and forth across Medea and the lifespan of its human colony, and to that extent provide a good tour of all its fun features.<br /><br />Unfortunately, the short stories turned out to be mediocre at best, tiresome on the whole, and incredibly boring on occasion. The short reviews are:<br /><br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>Farside Station</i> (Jack Williamson) - Fine enough as a story, hated the main character, who was hateable in the rather blase and mundane way of Just A Shitty Dude And While I Think Part of It Was Intentional The Times Have Changed Enough That I Honestly Can't Tell.</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li> <i>Flare Time</i> (Larry Niven) - Gave up and skipped this one. Niven has a nigh-supernatural ability to take a concept and bleach it of anything that might potentially be interesting. An absolute bore.</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>With Vergil Oddum at the East Pole</i> (Harlan Ellison) - My favorite of the bunch, thanks to Ellison's prose and the concept (a man exiled to near the glacial wall for unknown crimes meets a mysterious man who wanders out of the frozen wastes). Decent story.</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>Swanilda's Song </i>(Frederik Pohl) - Also known as "70s Sci-Fi Authors Not Being Weird And Creepy About Sex Challenge (Impossible)", a challenge which it handily fails. The shaggy dog ending was mildly amusing but in an eye-rolling way that doesn't make up for the sleaze earlier. It wasn't even good or entertaining sleaze, it's just this filmy grease that I presume everything was coated in during the 70s.</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>Seasoning </i>(Hal Clement) - Skipped. Eyes glazed over immediately, wasn't going to stick around to see if it improved. Can't say anything about it otherwise.</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>Concepts </i>(Thomas Disch) - I could barely keep track of what the fuck was going on in this one, but it does have one of the worst sci-fi inventions I have ever seen in it: interstellar omegle that requires mutual disconnect. With a press of a button, you can lock whoever is on the other end so that they cannot disconnect, and this can go on for <i>weeks </i>at a time. Its userbase does exactly what you expect them to do.<br /></li></ul><p>At this point I stopped, leaving the remaining stories - Songs of a Sentient Flute (Frank Herbert), <i>Hunter's Moon</i>, The Promise (Kate Wilhelm), Why Dolphins Don't Bite (Theodore Sturgeon), and <i>Waiting for the Earthquake</i> (Robert Silverberg) unread and thus unable to be commented upon.<br /><br />There is also art, which I thought was generally nice. I'm more forgiving of the sleaze in the art than the writing, because the art was done more skillfully.<br /><br />But yeah: overall a much better worldbuilding exercise than a narrative. Ellison certainly has a talent for compiling mediocre-to-bad stories from large numbers of people.<br /></p>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3372693484053299675.post-76984251909868629792023-07-16T15:09:00.003-04:002023-07-16T15:21:07.564-04:00The Ogdoad<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMwz2tokpfJmcKt8GcXDD4BzJjFFIZffvlvxspz6806wOmXej81TaUdwpXR8D13tOITcdbs8oQkItf9fZxZKy0MypdjffZmYnn3mhJ8kegAy24iEOXGXZCrt6YgVk0DsBIfnFamFTeDsZYDZpCPODTMiB02cEsP4ZhBUMAkVK6gwZJ-pHsnDRJk3d2tuTK/s4597/u_voncricket.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3861" data-original-width="4597" height="538" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMwz2tokpfJmcKt8GcXDD4BzJjFFIZffvlvxspz6806wOmXej81TaUdwpXR8D13tOITcdbs8oQkItf9fZxZKy0MypdjffZmYnn3mhJ8kegAy24iEOXGXZCrt6YgVk0DsBIfnFamFTeDsZYDZpCPODTMiB02cEsP4ZhBUMAkVK6gwZJ-pHsnDRJk3d2tuTK/w640-h538/u_voncricket.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/vd2j0n/i_drew_some_oracle_envoys/">VonCricket</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p>There are nine levels of spells because there are nine levels of the cosmos: the earth, the seven archons of the heptomad, and the numinous realm of the fixed stars beyond. Thus there are nine and no more; nine are the circles of the concentric path, nine the initiations and nine the revelations.</p><p></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">To follow the ninefold path of the mystic is to open the soul to the influence of the divine again and again. As the mystic ascends towards the truth, the balance of their spirit and body will shift towards ever-closer alignment with their god; the spirit grows vast and the self diminishes.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">As revelations are granted and the mystic ascends towards the truth, the the illusions cloaking their god will fall away; a new aspect will be revealed, </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Below all revelations are those magics derived from the earth-bones, called cantrips or the Craft and so far removed from the divine source that they are more material than spirit. Workings of this most distant emanation belong to no aspect of deity, diffused as they are among the matter of the cosmos. We will concern ourselves no further with them.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<h2 style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">NINE CONCENTRIC CIRCLES</h2>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The <b>first circle</b> is that of <b>ANTHROPOS </b>and the <b>lay disciple</b> - those who participate in the worship practices of a god but who have not yet been inducted into the mysteries. At this step alone the mystic might turn and walk away to walk a new path - they have had no true knowledge revealed, and thus they are free from its bindings.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The <b>second circle</b> is that of <b>ECCLESIA</b> and the <b>initiated member</b>, who has been shown what lies beyond the publicly-seen aspect of their god. From this point on there is no going back - the mystic might leave the path and abandon their pursuit of revelation, but they are bound to their god forever. </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The third circle is that of <b>LOGOS</b> and it resembles the second. They may be called deacons, for they are not full priests yet. They will instruct and guide initiates of the first two circles, as well as lead worship ceremonies, but they cannot officiate advancement initiations on their own. Deacons make up the bulk of the cult's leadership and its connections with the outside. </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The <b>fourth circle</b> is that of <b>ZOE</b> and the <b>teacher and priest</b>. A community of the faithful might only have one or two mystics of this circle, and it is their duty to sustain and guide the community as a whole, as well as officiating all advancements within the community.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The <b>fifth revelation</b> is that of <b>NOUS </b>and marks a turning point, where the mystic has no further need of the faith community - all that came before now seems quaint and parochial, a thing that brought joy in one's youth but no longer satisfies. Entry to this circle has no guide, no rite - it is invoked by the god themself. From this point on, the influence of the god is now the greater part of the spirit; the electrochemical reaction of the self will begin to fade.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Still, those of the fifth circle might still be sought out by those of the outer rings looking for aid along the path, and the mystic is not so far along as to be deaf to these pleas. Thus the fifth circle is that of the sage.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The <b>sixth revelation </b>is that <b>ALETHIA </b>and of the <b>adept</b>. Here the god's power is no longer so restrained that it might be guided by the mystic - the adept is swept along in the current of this power.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">At the <b>seventh revelation</b> is that of <b>BYTHOS </b>and of the <b>avatar</b>. Here is the last circle where the human spirit might exist in union with its body. </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">At the <b>eighth revelation</b> is that of <b>SIGE </b>and of the <b>vessel </b>- the body strains under the weight of the numinous. This is the most dangerous circle, for if the mystic's body or spirit fails now the ninth shall never be reached and the accumulated divine spirit will be consumed by spirits of the world and metastasize into a new greater demon. </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">At the <b>ninth and final revelation</b>, which is that of the <b>PLEUROMA</b>, the mystic has achieved full unity of spirit with the divine. The will is subsumed, ego-death is achieved, the soul has returned to its source and all divisions have been healed. The mystic no longer exists except as a manifestation of their god: The shell of flesh and bone, having served long and well, is put aside. </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"> </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> This all came about as a building-upon of Emily Allen's mystic from back in Esoteric Enterprises, which remains a favorite framework of mine for clerics.<br /></p><div class="notranslate" style="accent-color: initial; all: initial; animation-composition: initial; animation: initial; appearance: initial; aspect-ratio: initial; backdrop-filter: initial; backface-visibility: initial; background-blend-mode: initial; background: initial; baseline-source: initial; block-size: initial; border-block: initial; border-collapse: initial; border-end-end-radius: initial; border-end-start-radius: initial; border-inline: initial; border-radius: initial; border-spacing: initial; border-start-end-radius: initial; border-start-start-radius: initial; border: initial; box-decoration-break: initial; box-shadow: initial; box-sizing: initial; break-after: initial; break-before: initial; break-inside: initial; caption-side: initial; caret-color: initial; clear: initial; clip-path: initial; clip-rule: initial; clip: initial; color-interpolation-filters: initial; color-interpolation: initial; color-scheme: initial; color: initial; column-fill: initial; column-rule: initial; column-span: initial; columns: initial; contain-intrinsic-block-size: initial; contain-intrinsic-inline-size: initial; contain-intrinsic-size: initial; contain: initial; container: initial; content: initial; counter-increment: initial; counter-reset: initial; counter-set: initial; cursor: initial; cx: initial; cy: initial; d: initial; display: initial; dominant-baseline: initial; empty-cells: initial; fill-opacity: initial; fill-rule: initial; fill: initial; filter: initial; flex-flow: initial; flex: initial; float: initial; flood-color: initial; flood-opacity: initial; font-palette: initial; font-synthesis: initial; font: initial; forced-color-adjust: initial; gap: initial; grid-area: initial; grid: initial; height: initial; hyphenate-character: initial; hyphens: initial; image-orientation: initial; image-rendering: initial; ime-mode: initial; inline-size: initial; inset-block: initial; inset-inline: initial; inset: initial; isolation: initial; letter-spacing: initial; lighting-color: initial; line-break: initial; list-style: initial; margin-block: initial; margin-inline: initial; margin: initial; marker: initial; mask-type: initial; mask: initial; max-block-size: initial; max-height: initial; max-inline-size: initial; max-width: initial; min-block-size: initial; min-height: initial; min-inline-size: initial; min-width: initial; mix-blend-mode: initial; object-fit: initial; object-position: initial; offset: initial; opacity: initial; order: initial; outline-offset: initial; outline: initial; overflow-anchor: initial; overflow-block: initial; overflow-clip-margin: initial; overflow-inline: initial; overflow-wrap: initial; overflow: initial; overscroll-behavior-block: initial; overscroll-behavior-inline: initial; overscroll-behavior: initial; padding-block: initial; padding-inline: initial; padding: initial; page: initial; paint-order: initial; perspective-origin: initial; perspective: initial; place-content: initial; place-items: initial; place-self: initial; pointer-events: initial; position: initial; print-color-adjust: initial; quotes: initial; r: initial; resize: initial; rotate: initial; ruby-align: initial; ruby-position: initial; rx: initial; ry: initial; scale: initial; scroll-behavior: initial; scroll-margin-block: initial; scroll-margin-inline: initial; scroll-margin: initial; scroll-padding-block: initial; scroll-padding-inline: initial; scroll-padding: initial; scroll-snap-align: initial; scroll-snap-stop: initial; scroll-snap-type: initial; scrollbar-color: initial; scrollbar-gutter: initial; scrollbar-width: initial; shape-image-threshold: initial; shape-margin: initial; shape-outside: initial; shape-rendering: initial; stop-color: initial; stop-opacity: initial; stroke-dasharray: initial; stroke-dashoffset: initial; stroke-linecap: initial; stroke-linejoin: initial; stroke-miterlimit: initial; stroke-opacity: initial; stroke-width: initial; stroke: initial; tab-size: initial; table-layout: initial; text-align-last: initial; text-align: initial; text-anchor: initial; text-combine-upright: initial; text-decoration-skip-ink: initial; text-decoration: initial; text-emphasis-position: initial; text-emphasis: initial; text-indent: initial; text-justify: initial; text-orientation: initial; text-overflow: initial; text-rendering: initial; text-shadow: initial; text-transform: initial; text-underline-offset: initial; text-underline-position: initial; touch-action: initial; transform-box: initial; transform-origin: initial; transform-style: initial; transform: initial; transition: initial; translate: initial; user-select: initial; vector-effect: initial; vertical-align: initial; visibility: initial; white-space: initial; width: initial; will-change: initial; word-break: initial; word-spacing: initial; writing-mode: initial; x: initial; y: initial; z-index: initial;"></div>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3372693484053299675.post-41668874113824200202023-07-13T08:25:00.008-04:002023-07-13T08:32:53.518-04:00THE FOURTH ANNUAL SALTY AWARDS<p> Planet's on fire again, it's time for the Salties</p><p></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><a href="http://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-inaugural-salty-awards.html">You</a> </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-second-annual-salty-awards.html">know</a></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-third-annual-salty-awards.html">the</a></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">drill</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Jesus Christ it's the fourth one of these.</p>
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<h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">THE SALTIES</h2>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The selection process is simple. I choose things and my choices are correct.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p><p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><b>HOW ABOUT DOING YOUR FUCKING JOB</b></p><p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">The United States Food and Drug Administration</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">This handy-handy prescription granting me the ability to legally purchase and consume small doses of amphetamine salts for the purposes of making my brain work good doesn't do shit if there's no supply, which there isn't, because these jackanapes won't increase production to meet demand.<br /></p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
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<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><b>I CAN'T FUCKING BELIEVE THAT BREAK! IS COMING OUT</b></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><i>Break! (Naldo Drinian & Grey Wizard)</i></p><p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><i> </i></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">What will I use for my jokes now? <i>Monster Overhaul</i> and <i>Hull Breach</i> are nearly delivered physically as well so they're also out of repeated gag territory. </p><p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
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<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><b>BEST GAME</b></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><i>No Award</i></p>
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<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">Nothing's caught my attention in a special positive way in the previous year, not enough to claim this spot. There are good games coming out, but none that fit this slot.</p><p style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
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<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><b>BEST ADVENTURE</b></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">No Award</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">As in the previous category, there are definitely good adventures that have come out in the last year, or that i found in the last year. I have not stumbled across one that makes me go "oh yeah, this is special."</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
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<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><b>BEST OSR-ADJACENT MEDIA</b></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><i>Fear and Hunger (Happy Paintings)<br /></i></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">I haven't played this. I don't know if I'll ever play it this because this is the sort of game where the content warning comes with its own zip code on top of being extremely difficult. But <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRIkWHo1SJY">Super Eyepatch Wolf</a> certainly knows how to sell it and I definitely recommend listening to him about it, and also <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBPiXySuxX4">Worm Girl</a>'s story analysis.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Anyway, this game sounds like a horror story <i>about </i>a video game: a great and terrible mystery, the gnawing unknown of something <i>there</i>, lurking past the boundary of the known in that special way that interactive media is capable of achieving. Even now, in the era of (terrible and ad-ridden) fan wikis, secrets remain.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Second place goes to Roadwarden, which is very good but not rabbit-hole good. I can give it an unreserved recommendation though.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
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<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><b>PRISTINE VIBES<br /></b></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><i>Electrum Archive (Emiel Boven)</i></p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Mechanically, EA is nice and slick but the part that really sets it apart is the art. It's raw Caves of Qud meets Morrowind vibes, and that alone is worth the slot. Also Emiel regularly releases CC art and that is always, always good.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
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<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><b>BEST WORST BOOK</b></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><i>Beasts of Flesh and Steel (Bruce Cordell and Sean Reynolds)</i><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">This is a conversion of Numenera into 5e so I knew entirely what I was getting into, and honestly I'm not going to complain. It might be terribly written, generally useless, and symptomatic of a great many deleterious trends in RPGs, but the art is better than it was in normal Numenera and there is at least an attempt to do something novel. I can be very forgiving with that.<br /></p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
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<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><b>HOPE AGAINST HOPE, ONLY TO SEE IT DASHED</b></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><i>60 Years in Space (Andrew Doull)<br /></i></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">There <i>is </i>a space game out there that does or can do what 60 Years tried to do. It is likely not written yet. Damn my scattershot ADHD brain, I don't think I could make it even with meds. But hope springs eternal.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
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<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><b>IF YOU NEED AN EMERGENCY BLUNT-FORCE WEAPON</b></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><i>Haunted West (Chris Spivey)</i></p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">I can't say a thing for the contents of the book (the alternate history elements seemed really cool and interesting, from what I saw on twitter), but I can say that the copies I saw in the store looked like they had eaten several other books and were threatening to eat even more. </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
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<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><b>THEY WEREN'T EVEN TRYING</b></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><i>Avatar Legends</i></p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Setting new standards for phoning it in, Avatar Legends rises above the other churn-and-burn IP cash-grabs just by the sheer scope of the missed opportunity. The PBTA mechanics are utilized in such a barebones manner that you'd be better off just having a single Move and calling it a day. Most of the art is just stills from the show and all the contents are stuck doing circles in its shadow, terrified to do something new.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The one thing it has going for it is not featuring a bending move, electing instead to have players just describe how they use bending to do something - that feels like something of a necessity to avoid getting choked on crunch. But when you remove the mechanics of the central feature of the show, you gotta do <i>something </i>to justify your own existence. This game does not do that.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
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<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><b>BEST PODCAST THAT HASN'T ALREADY WON THIS AWARD</b></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><i>The Redacted Reports</i></p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">I am forever a sucker for good Delta Green material and this AP pays off in spades. The players really work well together, it's got great production values, the Handler has a great grip on how to run the game over a long period of time. Some good scares, some good jokes, and overall well worth the time if you're an AP person. I binged over 100 episodes of this in a few months, that should tell you all you need.</p>
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<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><b>BEST RESOURCE</b></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><i>The Classic Explorer Template (Clayton Notestine)<br /></i></p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">It speaks for itself: a creative-commons template for both versions of Affinity plus indesign, filled with tips and commentary and guides on how to use it. That is above and beyond the call of duty and I can see a whole lot of people getting a whole lot of use out of it: just playing around with it myself has unstuck a couple potential project ideas. Blank pages are intimidating, and this is a great way to conquer them.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
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<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><b>A NICE, PLEASANT EXPERIENCE</b></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><i>Atlas of the Latter Earth (Kevin Crawford)</i></p><p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">We do not, as a community or hobby, deserve Kevin's work. The man has gotten this down to a science, so that even this sizable setting gazetteer is an engaging read. Everything, even in the depths of the setting fluff, is oriented around points of interaction. Wars in the distant past shape the current factional conflicts, long-dead civlizations are framed in how you interact with their ruins, and so on. It is a great model to work from, just as Crawford's other games have been.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
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<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><b>MOST INEXPLICABLE APPEARANCE OF FANTASY IMPERIAL CHINA</b></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><i>Atlas of the Latter Earth (Kevin Crawford)</i></p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> <br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The Fifth Dynastu is just China. Not even weird posthistorical dying earth China, it's just fantasy imperial China. Sticks out like a sore thumb, and that's beyond the handful of other regions that are pretty plain and obvious / have familiar real-world names (hi, Atlantis)</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
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<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><b>STILL KICKING IMMENSE AMOUNTS OF ASS</b></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><i>The entire Mothership community<br /></i></p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Sean McCoy knows what' s up: if you want a game to succeed, encourage people to make stuff for it. The sheer amount of MoSh material out there is testament to the power of its user-friendly third-party license and its creative community. Light a lighthouse in a storm, it is a beacon of hope to the troubled.<br /></p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
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<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><b>BEST CAT</b></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><i>Bubs (RIP)</i></p><p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><i> </i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY3MYrJugFdnkFjTc6bM0nbVU8lF-FegUFncavfQzoJVv7XbQXG5qGkCvTpCzBxwvkktwhEPWLHq_MO7tW9uxgjR-uUtg_X2shTjuLL5_lPtOZCa0diQI2Ba2by_8sqJ73QgUu_AClnRtPdDJnlw1MxinuLoTrKH5CaRCRIqsJqbhSlRbMKm8InmX4c0nB/s4032/IMG_3646.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY3MYrJugFdnkFjTc6bM0nbVU8lF-FegUFncavfQzoJVv7XbQXG5qGkCvTpCzBxwvkktwhEPWLHq_MO7tW9uxgjR-uUtg_X2shTjuLL5_lPtOZCa0diQI2Ba2by_8sqJ73QgUu_AClnRtPdDJnlw1MxinuLoTrKH5CaRCRIqsJqbhSlRbMKm8InmX4c0nB/w300-h400/IMG_3646.JPG" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">I miss him :C</p>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3372693484053299675.post-23887666790105180902023-07-09T13:44:00.002-04:002024-03-02T10:28:09.209-05:00Mother Stole Fire, the Soundtrack<p>This too entirely too long to finish. But finish it I did!<br /><br />I've added a title to each track appropriate to how it fits into MSF, and added commentary blurbs in a collapsible at the end of the post. </p><h1 style="text-align: center;">General</h1><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbRkwS_xRt8&t=10m12s">The Legend of Ashitaka</a> </b></span><br /><i>(Joe Hiashi, Princess Mononoke OST)</i><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HBI4aSzw0E">Skylark</a> [1]</b></span><br /><i>(Arnaud Roy, Endless Legend OST) </i><br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYdqDxj4zEk">Endless Skies</a> </span></b><br /><i>(Kumi Tanioka, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles OST)</i><br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9vAr3xtawc">Prologue </a></span></b><br /><i>(Kow Otani, Shadow of the Colossus OST)</i><br /><b><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://youtu.be/3wa3YtelPO4?t=9588">To Call Our Own </a></span></b><br /><i>(Joris de Man, Horizon Zero Dawn OST)</i><br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://youtu.be/3wa3YtelPO4?t=9346">Delver's Hymnal </a></span></b><br /><i>(Joris de Man, Horizon Zero Dawn OST)</i><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPTAgnJ6fFM">Drums of Poundmaker - Cree Theme </a></b></span><br /><i>(Geoff Knorr, Civilization 6 OST)</i><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7-XfrpjfFg">Pōkarekare Ana; Ka Mate - Maori Theme </a></b></span><br /><i>(Geoff Knorr, Civilization 6 OST)<br /></i><b><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaUTfCMVCE0">Hard Times Come Around No More - America Theme</a> </span></b><br /><i>(Geoff Knorr, Civilization 6 OST)</i><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdhBd0xlFGY">Scotland the Brave - Scotland Theme </a></b></span><br /><i>(Geoff Knorr, Civilization 6 OST)</i></p><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypvsPO2K9mI&list=PL53mjgVKFq7wTRSwKFj3Fdom_wwItnIpg">Through the Valley</a></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Darren Korb, Pyre OST)</i></div><p><b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI5aGnwopP8&list=PL53mjgVKFq7wTRSwKFj3Fdom_wwItnIpg">To The Stars</a> </span></b><br /><i>(Darren Korb, Pyre OST)</i><br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypvsPO2K9mI&list=PL53mjgVKFq7wTRSwKFj3Fdom_wwItnIpg"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Surviving Exile </b></span></a><i><br />(Darren Korb, Pyre OST)</i><br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQhbktFT7HI&list=PL53mjgVKFq7wTRSwKFj3Fdom_wwItnIpg">Path to Glory</a> </span></b><br /><i>(Darren Korb, Pyre OST)</i><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><b><a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/5siNTOCmjShPm7KtVSlFT2?si=1daa89dbaf444842">Tatara Women's Work Song </a></b></span><br /><i>(Joe Hiashi, Princess Mononoke OST)</i><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yKG-Qu4WvM">Shinshu Plains</a> </b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Rei Kondoh et al, Okami Ost)</i></div><p><br /> </p><h1 style="text-align: center;">Themed</h1><p style="text-align: left;"><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Drinks in a Lilu Dive - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgjqtIY_zww">Smoldering Corpse Bar</a> + <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp4LZhWap8M">Alternate </a></span></b><br /><i>(Mark Morgan, Planescape Torment OST)</i><br /><b><br /><span style="font-size: large;">A Glimpse of Greater Powers - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdWpL-gCJJQ">Dread Design</a> [2]</span></b><br /><i>(Darren Korb, Pyre OST) </i><br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Numinous Encounter - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvWql6FMlwg">Regal Ancestor Spirit</a></span></b> <br /><i>(Tsukasa Saitoh et al, Elden Ring OST)</i><br /><b><br /><span style="font-size: large;">Ancient Song- <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTpTjKGcwN8">Psalm 51</a> [3] </span></b><br /><i>(Seraphim Bit-Kharibi & choir)</i><br /><b><br /><span style="font-size: large;">Morning; Workshop District - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dljTJ9qJ4U">Fanfare for the Common Man</a> [4]</span></b><br /><i>(Aaron Copland) </i><br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Lioness of Orlei - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRs58D34OLY">Lace</a> [5]</span></b><br /><i>(Christopher Larkin, Silksong OST)</i> </p><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Pen & Tam I - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJUd4coOWdU">Luv [sic] pt 2 Instrumental </a></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Nujabes, Luv [sic] Hexology)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Pen & Tam II - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGRE0wIUJoY">Polyhedrons</a> <br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(British Sea Powerm Disco Elysium OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Pen & Tam III - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR_wIb_n4ZU">Travelers (All Instruments Join)</a> [6] </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Claranon remix Andrew Prahlow)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Wizard Business - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmUuY_4Iqlk&list=PL53mjgVKFq7wTRSwKFj3Fdom_wwItnIpg">Flutter Fly </a></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Darren Korb, Pyre OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Battle of the Wizards I - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM1Y0sppaCU">Mob's Theme v2</a> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Kenji Kawai, Mob Psycho s2 OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Battle of the Wizards II - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB7EcCOTzoI">Shigeo vs Mogami Rematch</a> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Kenji Kawai, Mob Psycho s2 OST)</i></div><p><b><span style="font-size: large;">Ayo's Theme - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unpgolUFpXw&t=2520s">Damn it</a> </span></b><br /><i>((K)NoW_NAME, Dorohedoro OST)</i><br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Theme of Themiskrya - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByLaRZqL4Xg">Amestris Military March</a> </span></b><br /><i>(Akira Senju, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood OST 3)</i></p><p><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Amazons Arrive - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04tqwrQrGWU">Nikutai Kaizou Bu Sanjou</a> [7]</span></b><br />(Kenji Kawai, Mob Psycho s1 OST) <br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Rocket - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_Z5RFBAX2M">Ten Wo Tsuke</a> [8]</span></b><br /><i>(Taku Iwasaki, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann OST)</i><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">3.2 </span></b><b><span style="font-size: large;">x 10<sup>6</sup></span></b><b><span style="font-size: large;">; or, Aggregate of Our Joy and Suffering - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnJo0Kj1zcQ">Cloud Atlas End Title</a> [9]</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Tom Twyker et al, Cloud Atlas OST)</i></div><p><br /> </p><h1 style="text-align: center;">The Cycle of Lu<br /></h1><p><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">To Catch the Sun Where It Sets - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHWeh67FWbo">Walo Yamoni</a> </span></b><br /><i>(Christopher Tin, The Drop That Contained the Sea)</i><br /><b><br /><span style="font-size: large;">In the Court of the Forest King - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r9S2yEiuME">Deku Palace </a></span></b><br /><i>(Theophany, Time's End II)</i><br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Into Winter - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVZ9nRAFR8s">The City Must Survive</a> [10]</span></b><br /><i>(Piotr Musiał, Frostpunk OST) </i><br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Longest Night - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2PA2YzrF_8">One is All, All is One</a> </span></b><br /><i><span>(</span>Akira Senju, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood OST 1)</i></p><p><b><span style="font-size: large;">"Inti, my son..." - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLR7s8Rq7Dw">Adagio for Strings </a></span></b><br /><i><span> (</span>Samuel Barber, <span>String Quartet, Op. 11</span>)</i></p><p><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Bringer of Day - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjbvz0MCh3I">We are All Guests Upon the Land</a>[11] [12] </span></b><br /><i>(Austin Wintory, Banner Saga OST) </i><br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Daemonomachy I - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVZdjQwnHNc">My Brother Dragon Slayer</a> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Aliceintheskies remix Shiro Sagisu)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Daemonomachy II - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPSFBS2b4lc">Odolwa's Mask </a></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Theophany, Time's End II)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Deamonomachy III - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugLtcTy6hRc&t=1695s">Isle of Creation</a> [12.5]</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Cris Velasco et al, God of War II OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Daemonomachy IV - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CmYGBO-6as">Ludwig, Holy Blade (Doom remix) </a></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Geoffrey Day remix Yuka Kitamura)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Daemonomachy V - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQmIBHObtCs">The Only Thing They Fear Is You </a></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Mick Gordon, Doom Eternal OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Daemonomachy VI - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRczouXKs6M">Oath to Order</a> [13]</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Theophany, Time's End II) </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Daemonomachy VII - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpzCsrsJakc">Become Death</a> [13.5]<br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Christopher Tin, To Shiver the Sky)<br /></i></div><p><b><span style="font-size: large;">Arriving in the Lands of Spring - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esYHoqD7iLg&t=37s">When You Believe (Multiligual Version)</a> [14]</span></b><br /><i>(Stephan Schwartz, Prince of Egypt OST) </i><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Land of Daro I - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywWVCjlY5ZQ">Iza Ngomso </a></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Christopher Tin, Drop That Contained the Sea)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Land of Daro II - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmSwEv8rDoc">The Sun Rises </a></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Rei Kondoh et al, Okami Ost)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Land of Daro III - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jnqXQuqxzg">Kia Hora Te Marino </a></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Christopher Tin, Calling All Dawns)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">In the Forging Hall of Tubalkhan - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLT8i3zfCZY">Heyr Himna Smiður</a> [15] [16]</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Háskólakórinn) </i><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Against the Anaye - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NBl9NXBT3g">The Unseen Ones</a> [17] [18]</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Darren Korb, Hades OST) </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">ANGIM MAHAZA - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy63u2hKoPE">You See BIG GIRL/T:T</a> [19]</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Hiroyuki Sawano, Attack on Titan S2 OST) </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">KIGIM DAGALLAZA - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYANExYIyqM">Raging Brachydios (Final Phase + Mount) </a></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Dravonista remix Monster Hunter World: Iceborne OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">HE-ZU-AM - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2iUQ6sta_c">Godzilla's Theme (King of Monsters Suite)</a> [20] [21]</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Star Wars Jibaro remix Greg Bear) </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Unto the Breaking of the Wheel - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhltzevFHME">March of the Giants</a> [22]</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Theophany, Time's End I) </i></div><p><br /><br /><br /></p><h1 style="text-align: center;">The War of the Bull<br /></h1><p><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">On the March - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6udjKIojoE">God of War</a> [23]</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Bear McCreary, God of War 2018 OST) </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">In the Chapel - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o5mYWhrLNo">Maiden in Black</a> [24]</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Shunsuke Kida, Demon Souls Remake OST) </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">March to the Sea - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZbWHIPMjqM">Alicorn</a> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Keiki Kobiyashi et al, Ace Combat 7 OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Maid Arrives at the Front - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2r-9Oy7vitc">The Intrepid</a> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Akira Senju, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood OST 3)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Dark Hour - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOWxjBrrPvY">Abandoned By God</a> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Alex Roe, Legacy: Soulsborne Remixed)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">By Horse, by Crow, by Runner - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo7MaxhyeXA&t=5m40s">For Her Soul (A Swift Horse)</a> [25]</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Alex Roe, Shadow of the Colossus Remix) </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Desperate Charge - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOyUNu9cKmM">Radagon of the Golden Order</a> [26]</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Tsukasa Saitoh et al, Elden Ring OST) </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Breaking Through - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr9AT4oYyRw">Fatalis Proof of a Hero Theme</a> [27]</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Akihiko Narita, Monster Hunter World: Iceborne OST) </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Darvatius Takes to the Field - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj-FC4OPhkU">Burnt Ivory King </a>[28]</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Yuka Kitamura, Dark Souls 2 OST) </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">To Stay the Hand of Death - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze0Rk-m0w2A">Sealed Vessel </a> [29]</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Christopher Larkin, Hollow Knight OST)</i></div><p><br /><br /></p><h1 style="text-align: center;">The Ballad of Molly Ironshanks</h1><p><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Battle of Four Sticks Bridge - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPMn85kFawY">Of Our Bones, the Hills</a> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Austin Wintory, Banner Saga OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Ambush at the Pass - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2htjsImPd8">Paths Part </a></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Austin Wintory, Banner Saga 2 OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Arrival in Yaran - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGKZUafYzr8">Walls No Man Has Seen </a></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Austin Wintory, Banner Saga OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Beneath Kulvakh Tower - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSQ3BJVMfAI">Snoke</a> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(John Williams, The Force Awakens OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Adrift - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=870j0RZhRD4">Tiger King</a> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(British Sea Power, Disco Elysium OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">For Zaid - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDPxXtofo9g">Silent Running (2D Piano Version)</a> [30]</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Gorillaz, Cracker Island Deluxe)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">For Maggie - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54moBCJSfXg">La Revacholiere</a> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(British Sea Power, Disco Elysium OST)</i></div><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">**<br /></p><p><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Molly's Theme - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26ggi5l8SlQ&list=PL0QDGUrU-x-XmMDB2EdiCURkKchEqcXKh">Beginning of the Journey / 旅の幕開け</a> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Kenichiro Suehiro, Golden Kamuy OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Sisters of the OSM - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0xTx2BsLRc">Nay, the Honor is All Ours!</a> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Akihiko Narita, Monster Hunter World: Iceborne OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Battle I - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6cSbof7Pik">Battle B2</a> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Kenichi Tsuchiya, Shin Megami Tensei 4 OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Battle II - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM5_2PQ1IqI">Violin Legionary</a> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Coffee -- Cloud, The Chronicles of Tuba)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Battle III - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbRkwS_xRt8&t=747s">The Demon God </a></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Joe Hiashi, Princess Mononoke OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Battle III - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDa6mTVUbu0">Magnamalo Theme</a> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Satoshi Hori, Monster Hunter Rise OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Battle IV - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRHiTjce9s0">Let The Battles Begin!</a> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Masashi Hamauzu et al, FF7 ReMake OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Battle V - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRG0gyVFP60">Silver for Monsters</a> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Marcin Przybyłowicz, Witcher 3 OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Battle VI - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg292qiMSYs">Dark Lord Ganondorf</a> [31]</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Remastered) (Rozen, Sins of Hyrule) </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Battle VII - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY6D_BmNrs8">Pillars of the Underworld </a></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Hae Chul Shin, Guilty Gear X2 Korean OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Battle VIII - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8PEan7KS5I">The Sluice</a> [32]</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Stuart Chatwood, Darkest Dungeon II OST) </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Battle IX - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGc56vshWpk">Flamelurker </a></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Shunsuke Kida, Demon Souls Remake OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Battle X - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPsXMgnGUvU">The Owl</a> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Yuka Kitamura, Sekiro OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Battle XII - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDcmnh_y2Ng">Sir Alonne's Theme </a></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Yuka Kitamura, Dark Souls 2 OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><b><span style="font-size: large;">Battle XIII - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cJEm5Xjm8U">Asterisk Battle Theme 3 (Trio Mix)</a></span></b><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(XxrayX remix Bravely Default II OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">EXORCIST. ARRIVING. ON THE SCENE. - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6aj6AoiLbc">Precinct 41 Major Crime Unit</a> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(British Sea Power, Disco Elysium OST)</i></div><p style="text-align: center;">**</p><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Crisis in the Commonwealth - <a href="https://youtu.be/j6tKafu3zw8?t=5203">Breath of the Wild 2017 Trailer Theme</a></span></b><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Manaka Kataoka et al, Breath of the Wild OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Dragon Cultist Ambush - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpIOTTRYWqw">The Rally</a> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Jeremy Zuckerman, Legend of Korra OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Fortress Raid - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMpQoShXu5g">Zinogre Theme </a></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Satoshi Hori, Monster Hunter Rise OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Counter-Coup - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDHRpWNq2-s">Grandma Destruction</a> </span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Keiichi Okabe, NIER Automata OST)</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Finality - </b></span><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="yt-core-attributed-string yt-core-attributed-string--white-space-pre-wrap" role="text"><span class="yt-core-attributed-string--link-inherit-color" style="color: #131313;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3oSnpUOS30&list=OLAK5uy_nTjNoPJLGVAIqF4dpkN1JC_-V5CvloOew&t=2m45s">Tsushima Suite: II. Shurai</a></span></span><span> <br /></span></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>(Shigeru Umebayashi, Ghost of Tsushima OST)</i></div><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">**<br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Mountain - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gf1h2PMPCAo">Varúð </a></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">(Sigur Ros, valtari)</div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Liberation - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTIwbusbN1g">Ihojin No Yaiba</a> [33]</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;">(Naoki Satō, Sword of the Stranger OST)</div><p> </p><h1 style="text-align: center;">Commentary</h1><p><br />[1] In the grey pre-dawn of Mother's Day, the women of the village will gather at the church. There they will take up an icon or statue of Lu and process out past the edge of town, out through the spirit-gate, to the shrine that is kept for all spirits of the world and its wild places. There they will make offerings of hospitality, and the witches and shoulderwomen will lead the group in renewal of the Compact. The men and boys of the village will remain at home, rising from their beds only when the procession has moved past.<br /><br />[2] The occasional mention of the Greater Powers will only ever be just that - it defeats their narrative purpose to give them names or faces or any real interaction at all with the human world. I would hesitate to call them Lovecraftian, given the connotations aren't entirely true to how I use them.<br /><br />[3] Every single upload of the performance for Pope Francis during his 2016 visit to Georgia has a different name and I have FINALLY been able to confirm that it is, indeed, Psalm 51. <br /></p><p>[4] It's common for craftspeople of the same trade to pool their resources and share their workspaces, and in cities the principle is just scaled up. I added this to the setting solely so I could have a justification to invoke the image of union men, lunch boxes in hand, making the morning journey to their shop.<br /><br />[5] Celestine d'Cygnemont is many things, but perhaps the most important is that she is one of the greatest swordmasters alive today. The winner of the yearly Grande Melee is granted the chance to cross sabers with her, to see how long they can last - so far the record is two minues eleven seconds for all three bouts, and seperately managing to score higher in two of five rounds in a single bout. <br /><br />She bound a sword-demon herself, purposefully keeping the binding just weak enough enough to give the possibility of escape, to use as practice. It's not yet gotten close to breaking free.<br /><br />[6] I'm very sorry I haven't been able to piece together part two.<br /><br />[7] Amazons in MSF have one joke. It is the same joke, every time, and I love it.<br /><br />[8] I've mentioned it before, but MSF does have a narrative end. In about thirty years, give or take, from the nebulous Now there will be a rocket. Maybe Maggie will grow up to be astronaut, and as the column of smoke rises above the ocean Molly will be down on earth screaming "THAT'S MY GIRL!". Whatever the case there must be a rocket. "If but one star in the sky is our friend, then we must go to meet them," it will be said. Onward and upward.<br /><br />[9] "The living are united with the dead, for the dead once live as we now live. They suffered as we suffer, they had joy as we have joy. Their pains were as ours, their loves as our own, and we will join them in death, join them in silent procession in the halls beneath the earth. And our faces shall pass out of memory, and our names will be forgotten, and generations yet to be born will show their children our graves and say 'they were like us.'May this be our comfort." <br /><br />[10] Darkness. Cold. The Crown flickers against the blizzard. Starvation. All is lost. And then: Mammoths emerge from the snowfront like the gods of old.<br /><br />[11] The death of Inti is a crux moment in Mother Stole Fire - if the gods are to be human gods, if they are to be <i>humane </i>gods, they cannot be above human suffering. Otherwise it would make a mockery of both them and us. It can't be fate, it can't be a cosmic punishment, it can't have a prophecy attached. It must be for the gods as it is for us. <br /><br />[12] Inti's Christ-parallels are pretty on the nose, and intentionally so. But more specifically, I am pulling from Fred Clark's excellent "Holy Saturday" post, though perhaps to different ends than the original author. Inti is dead and buried: he will not come riding in on a white horse with a crown on his head. If Spring is to come, if Spring is even on the table anymore, the task has fallen to us to bring it forward. There is no guarantee. There is only the great work, and the hope that some generation thousands of years hence might see it to completion. </p><p></p><p>[12] In perhaps the deepest cut in this entire post, this track is in here purely because of the one AMV from ages past that synced it with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2qnd3DaeXY">TTGL Parallel Works 8</a>. <br /><br />[13] I deliberately don't invoke the Red Law when talking about the Daemonomachy, because I want to avoid the trope of <i>"oh, the hero has been corrupted by magic ooblek and that's why they're crazy and evil"</i> - Lu's rampage is born of grief, fear, despair and guilt. She's a woman who has reached her breaking point; She's got nothing more to give, no hope left to draw on, left to shoulder the terrible consequences of her past actions. If you go back to the story post, I snuck in a little change; "Let us be free of it!" is now "Let <b>me </b>be free of it!". This is all why her subsequent healing process is long and painful; it has to be, because people do not recover from that instantly. As I said two comments up, the Gods of Man can't be afforded that luxury if they are to remain the Gods of Man.</p><p></p><p>[13.5] Adding this one months after the fact, because it is just...yeah.<br /><br />[14] It remains entirely unfair how good Prince of Egypt is.<br /><br />[15] Bare feet patter on the great flagstones. The hammer rings like a bell. Sacred space.<br /><br />[16] While I describe Tubalkhan most often as "Neanderthal Odin + Hephaestus", he's got a decent amount of St. Joseph about him via mythic background radiation - the craftsman characterized by his moral character and penchant to stay out of the spotlight. <br /><br />[17] The Anaye (arriving here via Navajo legend) are a newer generation of demons, formed after the dispersal of humanity into the world beyond the Land of Daro. They are common antagonists of stories involving Lu and Tubalkhan's children, and are central to the Hero Twin story-cycle. </p><p>[18] Alternate title: ONE NIGHT ONLY, KNOSSOS AMPHITHEATER [18a] [18b] <br /><br />[18a] "O Calliope, O Queen of the Muses who caught the lightning in her lyre - we with callused fingers salute you."<br /><br />[18b] I describe Calliope as "the emo teen of the family" and "if the Minoans invented death metal", and that just about sums it up.<br /><br />[19] Man am I glad I dropped AoT when it was revealed that the antagonists were teenagers with superpowers. Dodged a crock of shit, so I've heard.<br /><br />[20] SHE IS HERE. <br /><br />[21] <i>King of the Monsters</i> is a trainwreck on every level including moral but god damn if this mix doesn't capture the very essence of "the mother of all humanity is here to fight the ogdru-jahad at the end of time", which is more or less a literal description of the underlying what this entire project is all about.<br /><br />I swear that I am choosing songs with a three-syllable chant entirely by coincidence.<br /><br />[23] Budâch, chief of the Aisinai, has gathered the greatest <i>teulu Dayr </i>ever known to her banner. Old enemies bury their swords. Warriors from all corners of the north country flock to her column as it marches south.<br /><br />[24] The shared name was a coincidence, or at least a subconscious borrowing. The same with Orlei, I think there's a place named that in Dragon Age, a series I played one game of and remember very little of.<br /><br />[25]"I have asked so much of you already, and time and again you have answered the call. But I fear I must come to you one last time, with one final request. One last push. One last march. One final effort. We are so close, my friends. Just a little bit more." [25a]<br /><br />[25a] I am blatantly invoking "Search for the Last Great Secret", yes.<br /><br />[26] The whistle screams. Up, up and over! Take the hill! Take the hill, or all is lost! And so they go up; over the trench, into no-man's land; over the trench, into the hail of cannon shot and the streams of machine gun fire. Over the trench; to take the hill; to secure the road; to make way for the cannons, to lay siege to Hell. Up, up and over.<br /><br />[27] Horns in the distance. Sun glittering on shields and spearheads. Hooves thundering like the earthquake. Ia, Amazonia! Aia, Themiskrya! The Maid rides at their vanguard, banner in hand. [27a]<br /><br />[27a] Yes, it's repainted ride of the Rohirrim. Steal from the best, eh? <br /><br />[28] I can't remember if I have mentioned it before, but I have settled on a reason as to why Darvatius waited so long to appear: while no one can really prove it, the suspiscion is that Darvatius only manifested very late in the war - possibly only just before the siege of Dis - and that his appearance was not so much to defend the city, but to kick off a renewed conquest after the Maid's defeat. The image of him walking out of his own temple is very, very fitting, I think.<br /><br />[29] This is the lone miracle within MSF - the event that cannot happen, and yet does. And like any good miracle, it is not going to entail an easy answer as to what it means.<br /><br />[30] I have flip-flopped multiple times on exactly what Molly and Zaid's relationship is to be. First they were going to marry, than they weren't, now I am leaning towards it again. While he still owns multiple swords, I don't think life as a warrior fits him. Molly needs someone to serve as an anchor against self-destruction, and I don't think I can really get that if both of them are out fighting.<br /><br />[31] Far in the frozen north, the Band of the Lioness finds the lost Lord of Hell.<br /><br />[32] Amelia, belt clenched in her teeth, thrashes in the grips of <i>le grande mal</i> as the bones of the town's dead rise to once again protect their home. Zin's coffin crawls about on too many limbs. Molly shouts orders to the militia over the clang of the church bell and the squealing of the horde. The swine are upon them.</p><p>[33] Freedom at last.<br /></p><div class="notranslate" data-darkreader-inline-bgcolor="" data-darkreader-inline-bgimage="" data-darkreader-inline-border-bottom="" data-darkreader-inline-border-left="" data-darkreader-inline-border-right="" data-darkreader-inline-border-top="" data-darkreader-inline-boxshadow="" data-darkreader-inline-color="" data-darkreader-inline-fill="" data-darkreader-inline-outline="" data-darkreader-inline-stopcolor="" data-darkreader-inline-stroke="" style="--darkreader-inline-bgcolor: initial; --darkreader-inline-bgimage: initial; --darkreader-inline-border-bottom: initial; --darkreader-inline-border-left: initial; --darkreader-inline-border-right: initial; --darkreader-inline-border-top: initial; --darkreader-inline-boxshadow: initial; --darkreader-inline-color: initial; --darkreader-inline-fill: initial; --darkreader-inline-outline: initial; --darkreader-inline-stopcolor: initial; --darkreader-inline-stroke: initial; accent-color: initial; 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text-underline-position: initial; text-wrap: initial; touch-action: initial; transform-box: initial; transform-origin: initial; transform-style: initial; transform: initial; transition: initial; translate: initial; user-select: initial; vector-effect: initial; vertical-align: initial; visibility: initial; white-space: initial; width: initial; will-change: initial; word-break: initial; word-spacing: initial; writing-mode: initial; x: initial; y: initial; z-index: initial;"></div>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3372693484053299675.post-44263565924845573302023-06-30T21:37:00.007-04:002023-07-02T15:43:03.415-04:00A Weird History of A Stranger Earth <p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4h6p_2iyUCFu8ZAryO9_DUzgawJszaqylT6-ScTL1rS-pniZT_QXDSB2GKiNTPyoYgShNVvzrST5kyZB7CTMJQNaZidkXI-1U1k_TvzWdmVG4bTC-4_EI3SwlTg5_IBHuMrYawWiqgUKguAiNzgKJUzAIcC25HoNaLkrDY5DgX3qLePCcYDlxj722yRFm/s1440/elden-beast-the-world%20ufalfuran.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4h6p_2iyUCFu8ZAryO9_DUzgawJszaqylT6-ScTL1rS-pniZT_QXDSB2GKiNTPyoYgShNVvzrST5kyZB7CTMJQNaZidkXI-1U1k_TvzWdmVG4bTC-4_EI3SwlTg5_IBHuMrYawWiqgUKguAiNzgKJUzAIcC25HoNaLkrDY5DgX3qLePCcYDlxj722yRFm/w400-h400/elden-beast-the-world%20ufalfuran.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/yaty6k/elden_beast_the_world_art_by_me/">falfuran</a></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><a href="https://rememberdismove.blogspot.com/2021/02/timeline.html">Remember This Move</a> did it, <a href="https://thecosmicorrery.blogspot.com/2021/03/weird-history-of-earth-solar-system.html">Cosmic Orrery</a> did it, I am long overdue for it. Do give a look at the <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2021/10/the-learned-elder-presents.html">Learned Elder's notes</a>, they will be helpful.<br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Helionativity (~4.6 BYA)</h2>A boiling cloud of gas attains the mass required needed to begin the fusion of hydrogen. Happy birthday, Sun.<br /><br />Far away, the slow death of the empire of the Elders is ongoing: the hyperspatial passages their civilization depends on corrode and collapse as the universe transitions from the Matter-Dominated Era to the Dark-Energy-Dominated Era. Shoggoths, liberated via a self-replicating protein chain capable of breaking Elder neural conditioning, strike back for hundreds of millions of years of enslavement. Rebellions across the empire have crippled vital infrastructure and wrested great swathes of territory from Elder control. Life and its direction slips from them. <br /><br />The Sun's protoplanetary disk coalesces and the planets are born. Orbits are cleared. Solar winds expel the leftover dust. <br /><br /><h2 style="text-align: left;">Gaia-Theia Collision (~4.5 BYA)</h2><p>Theia collides with Earth; the impact provides the necessary elements, energy, and unknowns to serve as the building blocks of a native siliconate ecosystem within the Terran mantle. in time this will give rise to the lithics.</p><p><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Life Emerges (~3.7 BYA)</h2><p>Microbial mats emerge in the Archaean oceans of Earth. The atmosphere is methane-rich and oxygen poor. These stromatolites, simple as they are, are practically a miracle.</p><h2>The Elder Empire Reaches Earth (~2.5 BYA)</h2><p>The vessels of that old and dimming empire arrives in the system of a recently-formed G-class star. They build a hyperspace relay on the ninth planet, part of a last, desperate effort to revitalize the fraying hyperspace network on which they depend. It will in time be called Yog-Oth by the Holocene sorcerers of Doggerland, and later Persephone by the Austrailian physicist Neville Kingston-Brown.<br /><br />The system is named Relay 53325 34201 55002 21142 44322, and several of its worlds are seeded with shoggoths and cthonians for the purposes of ecoforming.</p><div style="text-align: left;"><h2 style="text-align: left;">Great Oxygenation Event (~2.4 bya)</h2></div><div style="text-align: left;">Ecoforming of the world is going according to schedule as the atmosphere shifts drastically in a short amount of time, killing off much of the microbial life on Earth.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">Eukaryotic Life Develops (~1.85 bya)</h2><p>The integration of shoggoth protomatter into local terran bacterial populations leads to novel mutations, such as the mass integration of mitochrondria (also known as the powerhouse of the cell)<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Cambrian Explosion (~538 MYA)</h2><p>With the ecoforming now completed to their liking, Elders take up permanent residence on Earth. They will have some role in guiding life, but it is a passing fancy of theirs that comes and goes.<br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Arrival of the Star Spawn</h2><p>Ordovician-Silurian Extinction (445-444 MYA)<br />A Star Spawn fleet - remnant of their grand and failed revanchist conquest - arrives in-system. Most of the combat is confined to interplanetary space but a lone vessel, which will be called Dhulu, manages to break the blockade and make an oceanic landing. It is sufficiently damaged that it cannot return to space, and sufficiently intact that the invasion force is able to fight the Elders to a draw.<br /><br />A period of tentative peace follows. </p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Abyssal Masters (~415 MYA)</h2><p>Deep in the abyssal oceans of Earth, a species of ostracoderm evolves sapience through the integration of shoggoth biomatter (though they will always claim otherwise). These are the aboleths, and they possess three defining traits: the first, mastery of sorcery. The second, absolutist self-assurance that they are rightful masters of the world. The third, sheer and total bloody-mindedness. They hate the Elders and the Star Spawn, but they are patient. They will wait.</p><h2>The Yog-Oth Relay is Lost (~380 MYA)</h2><p>The connection had been tenuous for nearly a gigacentury, and the Empire silent for even longer, but at last the final strand snaps under the distorting weight of the dark-matter dominated universe. </p><div style="text-align: left;"><h2 style="text-align: left;">Late Devonian Extinctions (~372 & 359 MYA) </h2></div><div style="text-align: left;">The aboleths wage two wars against the Elders and Star Spawn for dominance of the planet. Neither conflict has a clear winner, but the aboleths do not lose and their hated enemies do not win. They slink away to the deep places and wait. It is during this period that the first populations of Deep Ones are cultivated - by all three sides - using residual shoggoth matter and terragen sea life.</div><p style="text-align: left;">The Elders and Star Spawn retreat to their fortresses, to lick their wounds and wallow in their paranoia for an age. <br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Tully Monster Ascendent (~300 MYA)</h2><p>A population of Tullimonstrum prove receptive hosts to a strain of shoggoth proteins and begin an accelerated (though still slow) generational journey towards sapience.<br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Late Permian Civilization Complex (~260 MYA)</h2><p>In the great deserts and rainforests of Pangea, multiple species of synapsid come in turn to sapience through consuming the fruit and roots of the Tree of Life. Over many years their civilizations rise and fall against and alongside each other, through times of peace and of war, through good times and through lean. There are ages of utopic peace and of Sword-Logic dissolution. They gain great knowledge and later mastery of sorcerous arts, especially the biomantic methods of growing and shaping shoggoth-matter into new forms. They become a superclade of near infinite forms and functions, and revel in their mastery of self and flesh. <br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Permian-Triassic Extinction / The Great Dying (252 MYA)</h2>The world ends. Softly at first, then rising to castrophonies that could be heard far away in space.<br /><br />The Elders of Earth, possessing that potent mix of scientific detachment and gigayear-long perspective, simply move to their other colonies in the system and leave the planet fallow for millions of years. <br /><br />The Empire of Flesh and Bone burns, leaving no trace behind. A few synapsids, though they bear no resemblance to those species that first bore their names, flee to space and vanish from the record. Whether they died or thrived, none know.<br /><br /><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Yithians Arrive (~230 MYA)</h2>The descendants of the shoggoth-adapted tullimonstrum, having developed into a placid and peaceful self-awareness, are targeted by the Great Race of Yith as their next hosts. The conomorphs are shunted off into the bodies of a species of gas-giant floaters just about to meet the sharp end of a supernova.<br /><br />The Yithians take up primary residence in the warm, wet regions of eastern Gondwana, just south of the Tehtys Sea. There they build their great Library as they always have and forever will, and gather the greatest minds from across time and space to chronicle the full and true history of the universe. The aboleths and the Star Spawn are apathetic.<br /><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Elders Return (~205 MYA) </h2><p>They are fewer now, far fewer. The other worlds in the system are all in their own forms of collapse. <br /><br />The paranoid and reclusive Martian Elders, having killed all their own shoggoths during the Rebellion, rule over a slowly-dying world. Consumed with pride they reject the Terran Elders as weak and cowardly; Mars is dying, but they would rather be the imperial masters of a dying world than admit failure.<br /><br />The Venusian Elders succeeded at seeding the planet with life, but found themselves unable to adapt to the environment they themselves had made. Evolution, desperate to keep the species alive in the fungal forests below the clouds, stripped them of their sapience, reduced their size, specialized them into arboreal brachiators, and eventually failed in the face of the local competition - an adaptable, clever species not entirely unlike a cross between starfish and flying squirrels. The last of the Venusian Elders will die terrified of the dark shapes that glided through the soft jungles on black folds of skin.<br /><br />The Jovian moons hold many remnants of Elder colonization, but no Elders at all. The oceans of Ganymede overflow with the life born of their handiwork, but the gardeners are dead or fled. On Europa, a Mind Beneath the Ice repulses any attempt to approach. The harvesting platforms of Io are silent; the subglacial cities of Callisto are empty.<br /><br />The Titanian Elders shed their material bodies to inhabit vast mesas of crystalline computational substrate. These slow and solipsistic intelligences hardly recognize anything outside their simulations; the most intelligent life of the methane moon are ice-shelled, crablike beings that crawl among the Titans' processing architecture. <br /><br />The icy bodies of the outer system were simply abandoned, their Elders departing on the long journey through interstellar space to parts unknown. The relay station at Yog-Oth, its passage long-disconnected from the network and now tangled in dark matter, has become a forwarding base for the mi-go, who pick through the ruins with a scavenger's keen eye.<br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Elder-Yithian War (201 MYA)</h2><p style="text-align: left;"><br />The Elders that survived the return to Earth brook no competition, even now at the end of their civilization, and seek to wrest the world away from the Yithians. They fail. While the Chroniclers do not put much stock in direct violence, they will defend their libraries with an incredible ferocity. <br /><br />The Elders attempt to re-engineer shoggoths back under their command, but the arts are lost to them and the result is disastrous. These flying polyps swiftly escape Elder control conditioning and inflict considerable damage to both sides - so much so that their own war is abandoned The Yithians win out, and drive the polyps into the caverns beneath the earth. <br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Jurassic Cold War</h2><p style="text-align: left;">Exhausted by the conflict, the world settles once again into a semi-stable equilibrium. The Yithians have their Library, the Elder Things their last great city, the Star Spawn their island stronghold, and the Mi-Go - newly arrived and claiming the old Relay - pick over the remains throughout the solar system. The polyps are imprisoned deep underground. The aboleths have taken the abyss for their own.<br /><br />For beings such as these, in the senescense of their age, the years are of little account and the passing of epochs is as the turning of seasons.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Come In From The Cold</h2><p style="text-align: left;">The Cold War ends not in fire but in slow, ignominious imperial decay.<br /><br />The Star Spawn, failing to steal the secrets of dark-matter-era-compatible hyperspace travel from the Mi-Go, are unable to return their ancient Dhulu dreadnought to functionality. They sink their fortress beneath the ocean and enter hibernation, hoping that a day will come, millions of years hence, when the stars are right and they might return to the heavens.<br /><br />The Elders too enter hibernation, though they do so grimly. There is little hope for their future - a tiny population stranded on a remote world. The last Terran Elders enter their sleep of ages, for even endless sleep is preferable to death. <br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">End of the Library (~150 MYA)</h2><p style="text-align: left;">The yithians prove to be their own undoing. <br /><br />The foundations of the Library have dug too deep; polyps from the old war return to the surface, and the yithian defenses prove unable to hold them off a second time. In an effort to save at least some of the Library from the encroaching polyps, a chunk of space-time superstructure is violently torn out of the ontological lattice, carrying part of the library with it.<br /><br />The yithians remaining on Earth flee into the future, and the ruins of the Library are consigned to the march of time. Those yithians that remain inside the severed Branch Library are unable to transfer their consciousnesses into the greater universe, and so are trapped in a cycle of diminishing returns - building new generations of bodies for themselves and losing something of themselves with each transfer. The beings that will be called the Docents, far in the future, are the shadows that are left. It will not be visited again until the age of the Serpentmen, far from now.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Pax Cretaceana</h2><p style="text-align: left;">With the loss of the Library, Earth has no remaining civilizations on its surface. The aboleths and the lithics, in the deep abyss of sea and stone, carry on as they always have. The flying polyps diversify into a variety of clades, but their teratomatic morphologies do not lend themselves to wide propagation - they are, after all, living cancers. Within a few million years, all that are left of the terran shoggoth strains are the Dark Young, the Trees of Life, and a few scattered ancients clinging to life by the thermal vents in the deep oceans.<br /><br />The world is quiet.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Cretaceous Troodontid Civilization (~67 MYA)</h2><p style="text-align: left;">The quiet of the Cretaceous is interrupted by the development of an intelligent species of troodontid. Their energetic civilization goes through several global boom and bust cycles. They develop some sorcerous traditions of their own, though never reach the complexity and power of the synapsids or other powers.<br /><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><h2 style="text-align: left;">Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction (66 mya)</h2></div><div style="text-align: left;">The causal dance of physics ends the Mesozoic with a bang. Curtain call arrives in the form of an asteroid impact on the Yucatan peninsula, killing off approximately 75% of all life on Earth and anything larger than 25 kilos.</div><p style="text-align: left;"><br />The Troodontids, despite their forays into orbit, were not able to escape their fate. The synapsids long before them had time to plan and prepare; The troodontid civilization was obliterated in an instant, their ghosts burned into the background ontology of creation. Many demons of later eras are indeed the shadows left behind of this people, and some remnants of their occult engineering (such as the semi-functional global leyline network) remain intact even to this day. <br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">And They Were As Gods Upon The Earth (~64 MYA)</h2><p style="text-align: left;">A clade of dinosauroids, heavily modified for orbital operations, return to the recovering Earth after the deterioration of their nesting stations. Their descendants, the dragons and drakes, will retain something of their vast solar-sail wings and internal fusion furnaces, but evolution will never overcome their population-control engineering, and so they will never attain more than localized environmental dominance in the age of mammals. They shall never return to space, and few, if any, will ever achieve intelligence via the Trees of Life.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Long and Empty Age</h2><p style="text-align: left;">While life on Earth rebounds in the wake of the K-T Extinction, the great civilizations of the Mesozoic are not replicated. With the loss of the Trees of Life, the planet is left fallow of intelligence for a long, long time. <br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Serpent Men (53 MYA)</h2><p style="text-align: left;">The Serpentmen rise to prominence in the hothouse of the Eocene. They are the descendants of a species of small burrowing lizard that had taken shelter among the roots of Trees of Life through the catastrophe, and in eating on the roots the process of neuron multiplication began. They are not true serpents (for they retain their forelimbs), but the name will suffice. Their rise to sapience is uncontested, and soon they are the dominant power on land. They make contact with the aboleths, the deep ones, and the lithics. For the most part, the thinking beings of Earth are of such vastly different environments that they have little reason to interact beyond some occasional trade and sporadic war.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Ice Ages Begin (~33 MYA)</h2><p style="text-align: left;">The cooling of the planet during the Oligocene forces the Serpentmen civilization underground. A few lone researchers remain on the surface in their towers and citadels, attended to by their legions of sorcery-born servitors.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Humans. Arriving. On the scene. (~2.8 MYA)</h2><p style="text-align: left;">Hominids evolve in eastern Africa. Despite their intelligence and tool usage, the Serpentmen pay them no mind until, thanks to some heterodox scholars chasing odd fields of study, it is discovered that these hominids are capable of Dreaming - and thus, capable of birthing a new Great One. This is beyond both the Serpentmen and the Mi-go, and thus of immense interest to both parties.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Great Ones</h2><p style="text-align: left;">Beings that Dream might give birth to Great Ones; their dreams will coalesce into vast gestalts of the species, growing in power and complexity until the combined oneironic weight of their slumbering achieves singularity and the Dream is now able to shape the Dreamer, <br /><br />Many dream-deities will form and shine briefly before retreating to the ranks of the mild, quiet gods of Earth. Our current age is dominated by two such bright-burning deities warring against each other: Matar Kubileya and the Gollyknack. Of these two much more can be said, but history is long in the tooth and their war is an aside for another time.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Experimentals (~1 MYA)<br /></h2><p style="text-align: left;">The Serpentmen begin a myriada-long experimental project. Populations of humans were isolated and monitored - their bodies modified through biological and sorcerous means, their cultures guided by the scaly hand. These experimental civilizations will later be called the nations of Atlantis, Mu, Lemuria, Atavatbar and others by later occultists who knew just enough of the truth to look the other way. <br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Fall of the Serpent (~32 KYA)<br /></h2><p style="text-align: left;">Chafing under long generations of subjugation, the humans enslaved by the Serpentmen join together in solidarity and overthrow their puppermasters.<br /><br />In truth, the Serpentmen civilization was nearing its natural end. The underground population had been weathered away by wars with the lithics and their own antisocial natures. Even fewer remained on the surface; the last overseers of projects that had born them only stunted and inedible fruit.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">After the Serpent-War (~31 KYA)<br /></h2><p style="text-align: left;">The war-alliance collapses with the loss of a common enemy. Atlantis, enriched on looted serpentine citadels, makes wars of subjugation against its neighboring nations. In time the others fall or go into hiding; Atlantis loots their cities and razes their lands, and sends their captive populations to its colonies. <br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Dream-War (~30 KYA)</h2><p style="text-align: left;">At the height of their hubris, Atlantis mounts an invasion of the Dreamlands; they cannot endure the existence of those who dream free of their yoke. Their forces are rebuffed, but in breaching of the Gates of Sleep they gain the notice of the Great Nightmare.<br /><br />The Great Nightmare's influence spreads among the Atlantean priesthood and nobility, and it was handed perhaps the perfect clay for shaping. The imperial designs of the Atlanteans have made them vulnerable to such subversions, and within three generations their civilization has fractured into civil war. In another, their homeland is no more.<br /><br />Those lucky enough to survive the collapse flee to the shores of Europe, Africa, and North America, all those places where their colonies once stood. But those colonies had withered away to ruins and the hollow-faced folk who haunted them. The Atlantean remnant succumbs to disease, starvation, cold, and resistance from the local populations. Within four generations their colonies have collapsed. In four more, they are only dim memories. All that remains of Atlantis is the flying fortress of Laputa, which shall endure until the War of Atom's Eve.<br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Closing of the Age (~11.5 KYA)</h2><p>A sorcerous artifact, forged by the highest disciple of Great Nightmare and thought lost during the fall of Atlantis, is discovered by a kuduk tribe of the land that will be called Oxenaford. Recognizing the danger, a handful of the tribe's members depart southward towards the Sea in the Center of the World to destroy the artifact in the volcano Aitho.<br /><br />With the artifact's destruction, the Great Nightmare's last ties to the waking world are severed. <br /><br /><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Fin, and Sequel Hook(~8 KYA)</h2><p>As the world warms and the Age of Ice draws to a close, Doggerland sinks beneath the sea. With it go the last remnants of the peoples who will falsely be called the Hyperboreans.<br /><br />Here then ends the history that came before.</p><div class="notranslate" style="accent-color: initial; all: initial; animation: initial; appearance: initial; aspect-ratio: initial; backdrop-filter: initial; backface-visibility: initial; background-blend-mode: initial; background: initial; block-size: initial; border-block: initial; border-collapse: initial; border-end-end-radius: initial; border-end-start-radius: initial; border-inline: initial; border-radius: initial; border-spacing: initial; border-start-end-radius: initial; border-start-start-radius: initial; border: initial; box-decoration-break: initial; box-shadow: initial; box-sizing: initial; break-after: initial; break-before: initial; break-inside: initial; caption-side: initial; caret-color: initial; clear: initial; clip-path: initial; clip-rule: initial; clip: initial; color-interpolation-filters: initial; color-interpolation: initial; 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place-content: initial; place-items: initial; place-self: initial; pointer-events: initial; position: initial; print-color-adjust: initial; quotes: initial; r: initial; resize: initial; rotate: initial; ruby-align: initial; ruby-position: initial; rx: initial; ry: initial; scale: initial; scroll-behavior: initial; scroll-margin-block: initial; scroll-margin-inline: initial; scroll-margin: initial; scroll-padding-block: initial; scroll-padding-inline: initial; scroll-padding: initial; scroll-snap-align: initial; scroll-snap-stop: initial; scroll-snap-type: initial; scrollbar-color: initial; scrollbar-gutter: initial; scrollbar-width: initial; shape-image-threshold: initial; shape-margin: initial; shape-outside: initial; shape-rendering: initial; stop-color: initial; stop-opacity: initial; stroke-dasharray: initial; stroke-dashoffset: initial; stroke-linecap: initial; stroke-linejoin: initial; stroke-miterlimit: initial; stroke-opacity: initial; stroke-width: initial; stroke: initial; tab-size: initial; table-layout: initial; text-align-last: initial; text-align: initial; text-anchor: initial; text-combine-upright: initial; text-decoration-skip-ink: initial; text-decoration: initial; text-emphasis-position: initial; text-emphasis: initial; text-indent: initial; text-justify: initial; text-orientation: initial; text-overflow: initial; text-rendering: initial; text-shadow: initial; text-transform: initial; text-underline-offset: initial; text-underline-position: initial; touch-action: initial; transform-box: initial; transform-origin: initial; transform-style: initial; transform: initial; transition: initial; translate: initial; user-select: initial; vector-effect: initial; vertical-align: initial; visibility: initial; white-space: initial; width: initial; will-change: initial; word-break: initial; word-spacing: initial; writing-mode: initial; x: initial; y: initial; z-index: initial;"></div><p></p>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3372693484053299675.post-20918379782444151192023-06-26T19:25:00.006-04:002023-06-26T19:38:13.877-04:00MSF: The Beloved Student and the Dog Knight<p>The Beloved Student was traveling by long and lonesome road when they happened upon a man clad in rags and lying in a ditch. Moved with compassion, the Beloved Student went to offer him the cloak from their shoulders, only for the man to spring up and away from their hand, spitting and snarling as an angry dog.</p><p></p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Startled, the Beloved Student drew back and exclaimed:</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">"What are you - a man who lives as a beast, or a beast that wears the guise of a man?"</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">"A reminder," the man growled in the voice like woodsmoke and firewater. As he emerged from the shade of the ditch to the light of the road, he picked up a sword from the dirt at his feet and brandished it as if it were a revelation: its tip was broken off; its edge was chipped and blunted; a great crack ran down its length; its corroded blade was caked in blood and dirt and the filth of men's bowels.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">"Behold, my trade." </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">This sign the Student recognized, and they said:</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">"Ah! You are a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapalika">kapalika</a>, then."</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">"As good a name as any," the beggar said as he hung the sword from a loop of his fraying rope belt. "What do they say of me and my brethren, back in the green and peaceful lands?"</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">"That a kapalika might fight a thousand men alone and unclad and emerge victorious."</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">"Ah." The beggar crouched down and began writing something in the dirt. "Whoever told you that is either a liar or an idiot."</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">"Do you mean to say that you killed ten thousand?"</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">"I mean to say that I have no reason to count anything beyond what my fingers might provide. I am a slaughterer of men, ought I keep score like a boy playing kickball? Whether I killed a thousand or ten thousand or merely ten is of no difference to me." </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">"Oh."</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The beggar stood back up, his knees cracking. He scuffed out what he had drawn with his tattered sandal.</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">[What he drew in the dirt is a matter of intense scholarly debate - ed.]</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">"I can see the question on your face. Best get it over with." </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">"While I recognize your trade, I do not know what reminder you make of yourself."</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">At this the beggar barked once in what was not unlike laughter, and phlegm caught in his throat so that he spat it into the dust before speaking further.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">"You have gone out into the world to teach the ways of compassion and the paths of peace. I have gone out to preach the Sword Law to those who have forgotten its precepts."</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">"What is this Sword Law, that men so easily forget it?"</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">"The principle act of power is this: to shove a sharp piece of metal in the guts of another man. Dominion is made and sustained through mastery of the application of death and the manufacture of corpses. Kings and princes will name it glory and honor and duty, they will say it is a matter of law, of rights, of faith and of necessity. They will name it a thousand beautiful names, hide its gaping and maggoty wounds with silken robes, shower it in perfumes to mask the abattoir stench, drown its ghosts in wine, raise banners in honor and sing hymns of praise...but Sword Law does not change. It is the blade itself. Those princes and kings will wave from their palanquins and pavilions and think all costs justified. They have rejected the manudûn and chosen to live by the sword; Thus they shall die not as men die, comfortable in the house of their kin, but as disciples of the sword die. I am the reminder of true Sword Law, and thus I butcher men without sparing them the dignity I grant the rats that are my supper."</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">"Your law is a brutal and wretched thing," said the Beloved Student.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">"Would you consider the killing of men to be anything else? Come now. But it is good that you are disgusted. Your soul remains intact. You need not be worried: My sword is for the humbling of hypocrites - the innocents learning by your side have nothing to fear from me." He grinned, revealing crooked and blackened teeth. "So long as they remember." </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">"I do not think you would be easy to forget."</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">"And yet, men so often do." He reached to an inner pocket of his dirt-caked robe and withdrew a small stoppered gourd from within. He removed the cork and there was the burning smell of <i>gâzolin</i>. He downed the mouthful, hissed with an intake of breath, and tossed the empty gourd aside.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">"I will give you a proverb, in remembrance of this meeting: there is no mastery of the sword. It will destroy all you hold dear should you take to its teachings, and then it will destroy you. Do not think as kings and imbeciles do, that you are immune to the blade because you know the proper forms of its use. Hate the sword if you must have anything to do with it; it will still destroy you, but perhaps it might not become your master."</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Silence reigned for a time, for the beggar had nothing more to say and the Beloved Student had no response. But they recovered their words and as the beggar made move to leave they said:</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">"A last question, sir. Who shall I say sent this message?"</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The beggar smiled again, wider and more horrible than before. His gums bled.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">"Tell them you heard it from a wild dog along the road. A jackal or dhole would do nicely."</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">And so the beggar walked past the Beloved Student, north on the road. When he had gone a stone's throw and a half, he turned and called back:</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">"A word to the wise, be it you or another: if you are to continue south, do so by a different road. This one has become difficult to pass."</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">With that the beggar staggered off the road and up the western hill, until at last he was out of sight. The Beloved Student watched him go before turning around northward and retracing their path back to the last crossroads.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Not far along that same road, a parasang or so south from that meeting place, crows gathered council in great black clouds. They settled upon the fields like a dew, alighting on new-formed hills of meat piled high and left to rot. Armor glistened under crusted gore, and banners hung limp beneath the burning sun. </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
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<h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">** Notes**</h2>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">[1] I'm not even reading <i>Kill Six Billion Demons</i> at the moment, I have no idea what the current arc is about other than Maya is involved. </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">[2] Dog Knights started as expys of Maya, but they've since accumulated traits of <a href="https://majesticflywhisk.blogspot.com/2023/03/better-sword-singers-my-greater-jihad.html">Sufi sword-saints</a> (thanks Ènziramire!) and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aghori">aghori</a>.<br /></p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">[3] The Beloved Student's main appeal as a character and as a saint of the Painted Ones is their persistant gormlessness. They are naive, unaware, unimaginative, lacking in focus, and altogether somewhat of a dunce. They are the living embodiment of "bless their heart". But, the thinking goes, if this dunderhead can ascend the mountain, then the way is possible to anyone. To this end they feature often in comedic stories, and very often those geared towards children, and are always played off of someone more worldly and experienced - usually their teacher Jizo, but this is not the only encounter they will have with a Dog Knight.</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">[4] Dog Knights appear occasionally in the oral corpus, though they are rarely ever named - if they are, they will be called Jackal or Dhole or Hound or Hyena or Thylacine or something of that nature. This leads to them forming a sort of gestalt character, where every Dog Knight is treated as an aspect of a single, continuous personage. One might say that <i>a</i> Dog Knight appeared or <i>the </i>Dog Knight appeared and there is no real difference.</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">[5] Dog Knights, as evidenced in this story and in stories like it, inhabit the role of the of an opposite to the Painted Ones - not as opponents, but as a separate dharma entirely [aside] I can't think of a better way to describe this at the moment, we are brushing up agaist some rather obtuse in-universe philosophical and spiritual principles and I don't have a word of my own creation on-hand to describe "one of multiple simultaneous methodologies of achieving an enlightened spiritual state", so dharma it will remain for the time being. [/aside]</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">[6] Painted Ones are MSF's boddhisatva-analogues (hardly even subtle ones, the most prominent of them is name <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%E1%B9%A3itigarbha">Jizo</a>) We'll get more of them in the future: All you need to know now is that the name comes from the usage of body paints as a signifier of their role. There's also some definite influence from <a href="http://www.multiversitycomics.com/annotations/hell-notes-the-right-and-the-left-hand-paths/">Sonchin </a>in <i>Hellboy/BPRD</i>. You can consider the Dog Knights to be the left-hand to the Painted Ones' right, but the way that is typically framed in the world of MSF is more cooprative than combative. </p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">[7] Some of the traditions that use the hand-path schema have upwards of a dozen of them - imagine a statue of Lu with the Hindu deity multiple-arm thing going on, each implement or hand sign representative of a different magical tradition. But again this is an in-universe way of looking at things. Everything is canon, especially the parts that contradict.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3372693484053299675.post-1212426748562176842023-06-24T09:51:00.006-04:002023-06-24T10:01:35.361-04:005 Forgotten Fictional Fantasy Novels<p>Your local <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2018/11/class-book-club-witches.html">Book Club Witch</a> is back in town, let's see what she's got on offer.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;"> 1.<i> The Lion's Banner</i> (1948)</h2><p>After his death, a critic called Edward "Ed" Marsh "America's forgotten Tolkien" - a title Marsh would have rejected, but not an entirely untrue one. <i>The Lion's Banner</i> and its sequel (<i>Last Campaign of the Lion's Banner</i>) are accounts of a mercenary company inspired by the author's experience as an infantryman during the the Italian theater of World War II - some characters, scenarios, and dialogues are, according to Marsh, 1:1 translations of reality. The world of the novel is a loosely sketched fantasy Mediterranean in the wake of an imperial collapse, drawing many elements from Greco-Roman myth and history world (down to a wildly popular messianic cult emerging in the background) and occasionally interrupted by incursions of alien and incomprehensible powers. The narrative points of view are universally either footsoldiers or camp followers - the kings and generals leading the Thousand-Crown War are portrayed as distant and inscrutable beings, even further removed from common humanity than the gods. This, along with other socially-aware elements uncommon (but not unheard of) for the time period have fueled a small but devoted modern following. </p><p><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">2. <i>Durac the Swordsman, Hero of Zaag</i> (1976)</h2><p>At first glance, it is a pornographic pastiche of the John Carter series. Closer reading reveals a rather brutal personal reflection on loss, addiction, mortality, and the failures of the counter-culture movement. Both Durac and the Zaaganian princess Moroque are trapped in self-destructive spirals of their own making, and while the warlord is defeated the protagonists' futures do not look particularly bright or lengthy by the end of the book.<br /><br />Critical analysis of the book tends to put a great focus on the life of author John Duke. Duke's wife had committed suicide in 1973 and this was the source of much of the nihilism in <i>Durac </i>and its three sequels. It also accelerated Duke's already-severe alcoholism, which would lead to his own death in 1981. </p><p><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">3. <i>The Bloody Pearl</i> (1926)</h2><p></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">A rip-roaring pulp pirate adventure starring Siobhan O'Toole, Terror of the Crown, in her quest for treasure and revenge across the Caribbean. Written by schoolteacher Mary Hammet under a pseudonym, the book has frequently found itself challenged or banned due to its depictions of sexuality, violence, and unladylike behavior, but found itself most often challenged because of the interracial relationship between O'Toole and her longtime rival/friend Jean d'Capiteur. These challenges eventually escalated to a 1951 obscenity trial in which Hammet was forced to reveal her identity as the author. The trial did not go in her favor (she was declared in contempt of court for her combative responses to the prosecution and refusal to recant her statements) and as a result she was effectively blacklisted from publishing for the rest of her life. In her later years, devote herself as an ally of the civil rights movement (following in the footsteps of her abolitionist grandmother), participating in marches up through 1963 mere months before her death at the age of 85. As copyright was not renewed for The Bloody Pearl and the other Siobhan O'Toole novels, they were unaffected by the 1976 Extension Act and fell into public domain in the mid to late 50s, but have only recently had a resurgence in popularity thanks to efforts of Hammet's great-grandson.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p><h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">4. <i>And the Birds Cry Havoc</i> (2007)</h2><p></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">An early exemplar of the modern queer body horror and splatterpunk genres, <i>And the Birds Cry Havok </i>was published online in irregular serial installments beginning in June of 2007. Its grotesque, dreamlike, and chronologically asynchronous narrative details the incursions of "teratomatic space" into our world and the resulting influence of a decadent and brutal "meat-fascist" state. </p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">While the story gained a small and devoted following, updates stopped without explanation in October of 2009, leaving the story unfinished midway through the fourth of five acts. Communication with the already-reclusive author gunkbird also ceased at this point, and episodes of dedicated sleuthing turned up nothing. The website ceased operating in 2012, and with only partial coverage on Internet Archive the story was thought lost until a reader stepped forward with a self-compiled pdf copy. The fan community, including several of the "sludgies" (earliest adopters) later produced a version with better formatting, commentary essays and art, which is available on multiple storefronts as a pay-what-you want purchase, with proceeds going to organizations serving at-risk queer youth.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p><h2 style="text-align: left;"> "The Saga of Eric" (2014-2019)</h2><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">A glimmer of creative genius shining even in the depths capital's all-devouring machine, the "Saga of Eric" would have gone completely unnoticed by the world were it not for a stray Reddit post pointing out the apparent continuity between two commercials for BKO Insurance. Smelling a treasure hunt, a small community formed around these hidden links and visual gags, and swiftly pieced together that there was indeed a meaningful narrative beneath the bizarre non-sequitors and inane advertising tag lines. As theories gained footing and new commercials aired, the sleuths pieced together the outline of a greater narrative of Eric (the everyman spokescharacter)'s life. Over the course of the commercial series (told anachronistically), we see Eric struggle through the loss of his job, the collapse of his toxic codependent marriage, his brother's cancer diagnosis, a backpacking pilgrimage through Europe, the rescue of his son from online radicalization, and his relationship and eventual (much healthier) marriage to his second wife, all interlaced with alchemical imagery building towards the Magnum Opus.<br /><br />BKO insurance was bought out in 2019 and the Eric commercial series was shuttered. No one has come forward to claim responsibility for writing them.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3372693484053299675.post-74930863386444560542023-06-16T21:56:00.003-04:002023-06-16T23:40:07.771-04:00100 Good Words<p>Wiktionary has an archive of <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Foreign_Word_of_the_Day#Archive">non-English words of the day</a>. I was bored one evening and started going through at random, pulling out some of my favorites. Might as well make a random table.<br /><br />Since these are all trawled from Wiktionary, apply some salt as you deem necessary. Turns out if the language uses a non-latin alphabet it is very difficult to find an entry again after you lose the link so I might be missing some of the diacritics.<br /></p><h1 style="text-align: left;">100 Good Words</h1><p><br /> 1. <b>-pháka</b> (v): 1) to serve food 2) to distribute, allot (Zulu)<br /> 2. <b>āghāya </b>(n): n) killing, striking, stroke, blow (Prakit)<br /> 3. <b>ahava </b>(n): 1) cold wind 2) weather-beaten skin (Finnish)<br /> 4. <b>ajatasten Tonava</b> (n): "Danube of Thought"; person with many pointless thoughts (Finnish)<br /> 5. <b>àlmājirī </b>(n): 1) student, often itinerant 2) beggar (Hausa)<br /> 6. <b>āltepētenāncoyoctli </b>(n): small gate in a city wall (Classic Nahuatl)<br /> 7. <b>amiqui </b>(v): to die of thirst; to be thirsty; to drown (Nahuatl) <br /> 8. <b>ana-baci</b> (n): 1) mother and sister 2) a man's sense of honor (Azerbaijani)<br /> 9. <b>anniskelu </b>(n): the serving of alcohol 2) saloon, pub (archaic) (Finnish)<br /> 10. <b>apenrots </b>(n): 1) a rock on which monkeys live 2) a silly hierarchical environment (Dutch)<br /> 11. <b>armentum </b>(n): draft animal suitable for a plow (Latin)<br /> 12. <b>åskblå </b>(adj): dark grey-blue, as a thunderstorm sky (Swedish)<br /> 13. <b>atakanar </b>(v): to fix, to repair 2) (reflexive) to dress up (Ladino)<br /> 14. <b>auzhandil </b>(n): morning star, Venus (Gothic)<br /> 15. <b>avoda </b>(v): 1) worship, service 2) work, job, labor (Hebrew)<br /> 16. <b>ayiq </b>(adj): 1) sober 2) conscious, awake 3) vigilant (Azerbaijani)<br /> 17. <b>ayni </b>(n): community work, mutual aid; solidarity (Quechua)<br /> 18. <b>bacōnālis </b>(adj): fit for bacon (Latin)<br /> 19. <b>blāc </b>(adj): pale, shining, white (Old English)<br /> 20. <b>boia </b>(n): 1) executioner 2) hangman (game) 3) scoundrel, villain (Italian)<br /> 21. <b>borken </b>(v): 1) to bark 2) to grumble or whine 3) to complain or insult (Middle English)<br /> 22. <b>bplòt-ɛ̀ɛk</b> (v): to liberate from oppression, or servitude. Lit.”to remove the yoke” (Thai)<br /> 23. <b>buraxmaq </b>(v): to let go; to release; to let; to leave; to publish; to let through (Azerbaijani)<br /> 24. <b>chronophage </b>(adj): time-consuming (French)<br /> 25. <b>chumbo </b>(n): 1) lead 2) shot, pellet 3) failure 4) rejection (Portugeuse)<br /> 26. <b>cindṑ </b>(n): someone with six fingers on each hand (Hausa)<br /> 27. <b>csufnev </b>(n): unflattering nickname based on a characteristic or event (Hungarian)<br /> 28. <b>dabbaja </b>(v): 1) adorn, deck out, embellish 2) to express splendidly (Arabic)<br /> 29. <b>diskabresta </b>(v): to lose self-control (Kabuverdianu)<br /> 30. <b>djodjomano'o</b> (v): you (several creatures) shut your eyes (Tonkawa)<br /> 31. <b>dodo </b>(n): 1) being a deep, rich red 2) fried plantain (Yoruba)<br /> 32. <b>dvärgalåt </b>(n): petty, unmotivated criticism (Swedish)<br /> 33. <b>dygna </b>(v): to stay awake for 24 hours (Swedish)<br /> 34. <b>dzjákuj </b>(int): thank you, thanks (Belarusan)<br /> 35. <b>gaduji </b>(adj/n): adj) all together n) collective labor (Cherokee)<br /> 36. <b>gadzinówka </b>(n): local-language newspaper serving an occupying force (Polish)<br /> 37. <b>gallicinium </b>(n): time of early morning when roosters crow (Latin) <br /> 38. <b>gatarî </b>(n): 1) a multitude of cats 2) a long meow (Emilian)<br /> 39. <b>Gedankenwelt </b>(n): the world of ideas (German)<br /> 40. <b>glodomór </b>(n): one who is constantly hungry; one who is starving (Polish)<br /> 41. <b>hero hero</b> (n): red, crimson (Rapa Nui)<br /> 42. <b>ḥina'iḏin</b> (adv): then, at that time (Arabic)<br /> 43. <b>hoyreg </b>(n): murder victim; corpse (Yiddish)<br /> 44. <b>hranrād </b>(n): "whale road"; poetic kenning for the ocean (Old English)<br /> 45. <b>ikara </b>(v): 1) to sit 2) to stay / remain 3) to dwell (Kikuyu)<br /> 46. <b>ixuxu </b>(int): 1) battle cry or challenge 2) cry of joy or excitement (Asturian)<br /> 47. <b>jǐngdǐzhiwā </b>(n): person of limited life experience; (Modern Standard Chinese)<br /> 48. <b>kagiroi </b>(n): 1) heat haze (archaic) 2) the glow of dawn (archaic) (Japanese)<br /> 49. <b>karadaki </b>(n): heating empty cookware (forgetting to fill the kettle, etc) (Japanese)<br /> 50. <b>kokolares </b>(n): nonsense, balderdash, gibberish (German)<br /> 51. <b>krāntikāri </b>(n): a revolutionary (Hindi)<br /> 52. <b>kulukulu </b>(n): 1) the smell of raw meat or fish (Saetomense)<br /> 53. <b>kümütüdi </b>(n): termite nest in which the placenta of a newborn is buried (Maquiritari)<br /> 54. <b>lankous </b>(n): familial relationship to spouse's brother (Finnish)<br /> 55. <b>ling-lôot</b> (v): "monkey-jumping"; to be overjoyed (Thai)<br /> 56. <b>lletraferit</b> (adj/n): adj) well-read, bookish n) book-lover, "book-smitten" (Catalan)<br /> 57. <b>lodikor </b>(adj): likely or tending to become fat (Basque)<br /> 58. <b>lyard </b>(adj): having dappled grey and white spots (Middle English)<br /> 59. <b>madro </b>(n): peace or silence after a meal (Danish)<br /> 60. <b>malandrar </b>(v): 1) to get by at others' expense 2) to do nothing productive (Portuguese)<br /> 61. <b>malaya </b>(int): expression of annoyance or unpleasant surprise (Asturian)<br /> 62. <b>manželée </b>(n): married couple (Czech)<br /> 63. <b>marambaia </b>(n): landlubber (Portuguese)<br /> 64. <b>matasanos </b>(n): quack doctor (Spanish)<br /> 65. <b>māyā </b>(n): 1) art, wisdom, inhuman/supernatural power (Vedic Sanskrit) <br /> 66. <b>mimochodem </b>(adj): 1) by the way 2) en passant (Chess move) (Czech)<br /> 67. <b>mnkhwani </b>(n): pumpkin-leaf relish (Chichewa)<br /> 68. <b>mokutō </b>(n): 1) a silent prayer 2) to offer such (Japanese)<br /> 69. <b>nekás </b>(n): 1) pile of corpses 2) line of soldiers 3) the dead (Ancient Greek)<br /> 70. <b>nunu </b>(conj): now then, therefore, consequently (Gothic) <br /> 71. <b>nyan </b>(v): to see vaguely (Abau)<br /> 72. <b>ouranóthen </b>(adv): from heaven (Ancient Greek)<br /> 73. <b>panero </b>(n): someone who loves bread (Spanish)<br /> 74. <b>pāngtuó </b>(adj): 1) of rain, torrential 2) of tears, streaming, 3) vast, plentiful (Chinese)<br /> 75. <b>pāthnā </b>(v): to press cakes out of dung (Hindi)<br /> 76. <b>pekoral </b>(n): a text written in a pompous, grandiose, ridiculous style (Swedish)<br /> 77. <b>pócima </b>(n): potion (Spanish)<br /> 78. <b>pruikentijd </b>(n): "Wig Era" - humorous/informal/pejorative name for 18th century (Dutch)<br /> 79. <b>śaraṇārthi </b>(n): 1) suppliant, petitioner 2) refugee (Sanskrit)<br /> 80. <b>sbarazzino </b>(adj/n): adj) impish, cheeky, mischevous n) scamp, imp (Italian)<br /> 81. <b>sebu </b>(n): used-media store (Brazilian Portuguese)<br /> 82. <b>shashimamishi </b>(adv): haughtily, arrogantly (Swahili)<br /> 83. <b>shilah </b>(n): 1) Elder sibling of opposite gender 2) maternal cousin (Navajo)<br /> 84. <b>sôtôrôkôm </b>(adj): "hundred-fold" (Bengali)<br /> 85. <b>suppēdō </b>(v): “I fart quietly” (Latin)<br /> 86. <b>tabanka </b>(n): performance of theft of a saint (represented by a flag). (Kabuverdianu)<br /> 87. <b>ṭaqs </b>(n): 1) weather, climate, forcast 2) religious rite (usually in plural) (Arabic)<br /> 88. <b>tausi </b>(n): a grand, a thousand Euros (slang) (German) <br /> 89. <b>teōpixqui </b>(n): priest, lit. “god-guarder” (Classical Nahuatl)<br /> 90. <b>thokar </b>(n): 1) striking an object with the toe 2) loss, injury, damage (Gujurati)<br /> 91. <b>tlīlātl </b>(n): abyss; deep water; ritual healing water of Ixtiliton (Classical Nahuatl)<br /> 92. <b>tsindn </b>(v): to light, to kindle (Yiddish)<br /> 93. <b>ūhtcearu </b>(n): pre-dawn anxiety (Old English)<br /> 94. <b>ungkeurida </b>(v): 1) to crouch 2) to exist in a suppressed or hidden state.<br /> 95. <b>valtr </b>(adj): easily upset; unstable, unsteady (Icelandic)<br /> 96. <b>xalāsi </b>(n): 1) railroad worker 2) dockyard worker 3) menial fisherman (Hindi)<br /> 97. <b>xìyǎn </b>(n): most interesting part of an opera or film (Modern Standard Chinese)<br /> 98. <b>yibatha </b>(n): a female marriage class / skin group (Gamilaraay)<br /> 99. <b>žāč̣ă </b>(n): beard (Adyghe)<br /> 100. <b>zamordyzm </b>(n): authoritarianism (informal, derogatory) (Polish)</p>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3372693484053299675.post-54404344427144612002023-06-10T18:23:00.001-04:002023-06-10T18:23:28.520-04:00Slush Pile 14: Scrapped Posts<p>Since it's only been two months since the last slush post, this one is a bit different: instead of a nice list of notebook ephemera, it's going to be a post-mortem on some posts I have scrapped in the name of early summer cleaning. Need to get things moving the draft doc has been hovering around 30,000 words for months now.<br /></p><p>Old Slushpiles: <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2018/04/dans-notebook-of-unfinished-wonders.html">1</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2018/09/dans-notebook-of-unfinished-wonders-vol.html">2</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2019/04/dans-notebook-of-unfinished-wonders-vol.html">3</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2019/07/dans-notebook-of-unfinished-wonders-vol.html">4</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2020/03/dan-notebook-of-unfinished-wonders-vol-5.html">5</a>, <a href="http://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2020/09/prime-hellsite-salvage-slush-pile-post.html">6</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2021/01/slushpile-7-archive-dredging-edition.html">7</a>, <a href="http://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2021/06/slushpile-8-burnout-edition.html">8</a>, <a href="http://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2021/07/slushpile-85-bookmark-special.html">8.5</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2021/11/slush-pile-9.html">9</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2022/01/slush-pile-10.html">10</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2022/07/slush-pile-11.html">11</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2023/01/slush-pile-12.html">12</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2023/04/slush-pile-13.html">13</a></p><p><br /></p><h1 style="text-align: center;">Into the Trash Pit With Ye!<br /></h1><p style="text-align: center;">**<br /></p><p></p>
<h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">Scrap Post 1: Making a Better Toki Pona</h2>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">I don't like Toki Pona all that much, and had floated the idea of either re-doing the vocabulary via direct crafting or sound change into something more varied and interesting, perhaps adding more complex grammar later.</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>Reason to Scrap It:</b> Well, I don't like Toki Pona to begin with, why am I wasting the time and effort trying to make it something better when I can just start with something I <i>do </i>like and make <i>that </i>better? </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Also, every single resource for sound changes out there is severely deficient in one critical area, and it's a <i>different feature that's missing in each one</i>. Incredibly aggravating and also something no one else would care about (and for good reason). I still want to do something with diachronics, but it will be with some other source language. If I can ever find an actually useful resource for stupid sound changes.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
<h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">Scrap Post 2: Implied Class Politics in Dungeoncrawling</h2>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">A lengthy post starting with the premise <i>"A fighter, a thief, a wizard, and a cleric delve deep into ancient, monster-filled ruins in search of treasure."</i> and spinning it out into a full implied setting of a collapsing imperialist power economically exhausted by forever-war against its neighbors. Fighters are veterans that were never able to re-integrate into society after the war, thieves are emblematic of widespread organized crime filling the power vacuums left be a weakened centralized state, wizards are specialized remnants of the war machine now finding that there are far more wizards out there than there are jobs for wizards now that the war's done, and clerics are there specifically to put the undead (caused by generations of forever war) back to rest at the behest of some major organized religion or another.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>Reason to Scrap It:</b> Honestly, I don't give enough of a shit about Generic Vernacular Dungeoncrawling to write out a <a href="https://traversefantasy.blogspot.com">Marcia-style</a> critical analysis, especially when the end result is going to be "It's a successor state to not-Rome, that looks a whole lot like not-America when you squint at it." There's nothing novel or new there, and so the entire exegeitic exercise, no matter now fun to daydream about, is spinning wheels and wasting pagecount.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">If I'm going to do it, I should actually do something with the concept instead of just navel-gazing. It's good flavor, but no one's going to call a pot full of only paprika good cooking.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
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<h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">Scrap Post 3: The Good Parts of 60 Years in Space</h2>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">As is my custom, I over-promised and under-delivered. Not for lack of trying, but eventually I had to get delete the drafts for my own sanity. I had some tables, some loosely sketched factions, a history of the solar system, all junked. </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b><br /></b></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>Reason to Scrap It:</b> These books are unusable - not even the cocktail of hyperfocus, sunk cost fallacy, and white-whale chasing could squeeze something directly usable from these books. It was quite obvious that I was only going to make myself stressed and miserable trying to make it work, so I had to pull the plug.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">I did have a personal revelation that, in these cases where I become hyper-fixated on games that I like conceptually but strongly dislike otherwise, comes from subconsciously compensating my own executive dysfunction by latching onto something where the executive functions and most of the legwork is already taken care of by someone else.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">(God, of the Three White Whales, why do the ones that actually have stuff to work with have no 3rd party license while Eclipse Phase has CC but so little to work with.)</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
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<h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">Scrap Post 4: The Longest Night Compilation</h2>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The Longest Night is a mod for Dwarf Fortress taking place in the nightmarish transhuman future and it's got a lot of really cool flavor tucked away inside of it. I wanted to do a compilation of monsters and posthuman clades and whatnot, which only got as far as a bit of copy-pasting descriptions from the entity files.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>Reason to Scrap It:</b> Low payoff for considerable effort in copying-compiling-cleaning the data.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
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<h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">Scrap Post 5: A Terrible Mass Effect Theory</h2>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>Thesis:</b> the ardat-yakshi condition is the result of inbreeding. Asari are an extremely long-lived, low-population species with generation-overlapping childbearing periods (high consanguinuity risk), culturally and potentially biologically reinforced exogamy (most effective means of preventing consanguine relations), and consider the ardat-yakshi condition so culturally shameful that its existence is hidden from the greater galactic community and anyone known to have the condition is either sequestered in a monastery for the rest of their life or hunted down and killed (response would be overkill for a congenital condition unless there was an unspoken factor at play.) </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b><br /></b></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>Reason to Scrap It: </b>I have written it, the idea is exorcised. Also since we don't know the extent of the prothean uplift project this theory is rather tenuous and I'm certain the writers at Bioware were not thinking of this implication when writing ME2.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p><h2 style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">Scrap Post 6: Gazu Hyakki Yagyo Translation<br /></h2><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The Gazu Hyakki Yagyo (Night Parade of a Hundred Demons) by Toriyama Sekien is an illustrated bestiary of yokai first published in 1776 and that's the post. It's a big four-volume list of spookums and a fine resource for any referee, but while digging through the wikipedia pages I got to thinking about its value as a work-in-translation. Translation in the sense of keeping the same concept but altering the name and appearance and the externalities to put it in a new context. The same book with different faces, different cultural milieus and environments. I can imagine versions adapted to the ancient Mediterranean, to Appalachia, to deep space, and so on. I'd written down a list of all the yokai in the first two volumes, started going through the kanji of their names to make literal translations first and then thematic ones later, but it never really went anywhere. </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>Reason to Scrap It:</b> Frees up cognitive load. The Muse arrived, and then departed, don't have the drive for sitting down with Wiktionary right now. Maybe I'll come back to it, whip up <i>Yokai of the High Frontier</i><br /></p><div class="notranslate" style="accent-color: initial; all: initial; animation: initial; appearance: initial; aspect-ratio: initial; backdrop-filter: initial; backface-visibility: initial; background-blend-mode: initial; background: initial; block-size: initial; border-block: initial; border-collapse: initial; border-end-end-radius: initial; border-end-start-radius: initial; border-inline: initial; border-radius: initial; border-spacing: initial; border-start-end-radius: initial; border-start-start-radius: initial; border: initial; box-decoration-break: initial; box-shadow: initial; box-sizing: initial; break-after: initial; break-before: initial; break-inside: initial; caption-side: initial; caret-color: initial; clear: initial; clip-path: initial; clip-rule: initial; clip: initial; color-interpolation-filters: initial; color-interpolation: initial; color-scheme: initial; color: initial; column-fill: initial; 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lighting-color: initial; line-break: initial; list-style: initial; margin-block: initial; margin-inline: initial; margin: initial; marker: initial; mask-type: initial; mask: initial; max-block-size: initial; max-height: initial; max-inline-size: initial; max-width: initial; min-block-size: initial; min-height: initial; min-inline-size: initial; min-width: initial; mix-blend-mode: initial; object-fit: initial; object-position: initial; offset: initial; opacity: initial; order: initial; outline-offset: initial; outline: initial; overflow-anchor: initial; overflow-block: initial; overflow-clip-margin: initial; overflow-inline: initial; overflow-wrap: initial; overflow: initial; overscroll-behavior-block: initial; overscroll-behavior-inline: initial; overscroll-behavior: initial; padding-block: initial; padding-inline: initial; padding: initial; page: initial; paint-order: initial; perspective-origin: initial; perspective: initial; place-content: initial; place-items: initial; place-self: initial; pointer-events: initial; position: initial; print-color-adjust: initial; quotes: initial; r: initial; resize: initial; rotate: initial; ruby-align: initial; ruby-position: initial; rx: initial; ry: initial; scale: initial; scroll-behavior: initial; scroll-margin-block: initial; scroll-margin-inline: initial; scroll-margin: initial; scroll-padding-block: initial; scroll-padding-inline: initial; scroll-padding: initial; scroll-snap-align: initial; scroll-snap-stop: initial; scroll-snap-type: initial; scrollbar-color: initial; scrollbar-gutter: initial; scrollbar-width: initial; shape-image-threshold: initial; shape-margin: initial; shape-outside: initial; shape-rendering: initial; stop-color: initial; stop-opacity: initial; stroke-dasharray: initial; stroke-dashoffset: initial; stroke-linecap: initial; stroke-linejoin: initial; stroke-miterlimit: initial; stroke-opacity: initial; stroke-width: initial; stroke: initial; tab-size: initial; table-layout: initial; text-align-last: initial; text-align: initial; text-anchor: initial; text-combine-upright: initial; text-decoration-skip-ink: initial; text-decoration: initial; text-emphasis-position: initial; text-emphasis: initial; text-indent: initial; text-justify: initial; text-orientation: initial; text-overflow: initial; text-rendering: initial; text-shadow: initial; text-transform: initial; text-underline-offset: initial; text-underline-position: initial; touch-action: initial; transform-box: initial; transform-origin: initial; transform-style: initial; transform: initial; transition: initial; translate: initial; user-select: initial; vector-effect: initial; vertical-align: initial; visibility: initial; white-space: initial; width: initial; will-change: initial; word-break: initial; word-spacing: initial; writing-mode: initial; x: initial; y: initial; z-index: initial;"></div>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3372693484053299675.post-27951923774434350812023-06-08T19:26:00.001-04:002023-06-08T19:26:14.235-04:00Bookpost 12<p> Previous installments found here: <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2019/08/lets-look-at-bunch-of-books-i-didnt.html">1</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2019/09/lets-look-at-some-more-books.html">2</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2019/11/dan-reviews-books-part-3.html">3</a>, <a href="http://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2020/05/fourth-book-review-post-fourth-and.html">4</a>, <a href="http://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2020/08/dan-reviews-books-part-5.html">5</a>, <a href="http://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2020/12/dan-reviews-books-part-6.html">6</a> , <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2021/12/dan-reviews-books-part-7.html">7</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2022/04/dan-reviews-books-part-8.html">8</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2022/08/dan-reviews-books-part-9.html">9</a>, <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2023/01/dan-reviews-books-part-10.html">10</a><i> , </i><a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2023/03/bookpost-11.html">11 </a><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><i>The Hall of the Mountain King</i>, Judith Tarr</h2><p></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">DNF 94/238</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">I grabbed this in an omnibus for two bucks at a library book sale, and I feel somewhat bad about dropping it - it is Fine Enough epic fantasy, but it is very, very much of its time (1986, specifically), and while it has no crippling flaws it is a very slow, heavy work - the omnibus pages are bigger than standard and the print is small, so those 94 pages are probably closer to 130-150 standard and just...not a lot has happened. The setup is good, in a classic sense - king whose daughter (and heir) has been missing for years is revealed to have died, with her demigod son via the sun-god delivering the news. The king's other child by a second wife is not pleased with this, nor is his mother. Classic stuff, evil jealous uncles and their sorcerous mothers. Not too big a fan of the rather uncomplicated cosmology (sun = good and masculine, dark = bad and feminine), and if it gets subverted later on I don't know. The prince is fun in the "young character who knows more than they should and uses that to freak out / mess with other people" sort of way. It was significantly more homoerotic than I was expecting (granted, I had no expectations at all going in, having never heard of the author or the book.)</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">It was a very interesting look into the mists of the past and books that have been forgotten, but my ADHD-addled and novelty-seeking brain couldn't find the space for it. </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
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<h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;"><i>Children of Memory</i>, Adrian Tchaikovsky</h2>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">HE'S DONE IT AGAIN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. Where even to begin? I'm awed by his deft handling of high concepts, his unwillingness to leave behind the close-to-home and the human elements, his ability to craft a good sentence. <i>Children of Memory</i> builds on its predecessors in the way all good sequels do, and he has managed to increase the scope without pigeonholing himself into a game of one-upmanship - I'd love to see a novella collection of other colony worlds and their unique stories (I appreciate that so much in this series - every planet is unique in its existential circumstances and that uniqueness makes reading about the ins and outs of terraforming mightily interesting.) </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">As in the other books, he can take well-trod conceptual ground and make it new and fresh again, and that is a skill often overlooked. </p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><a href="https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com/2023/04/sci-fi-assorted-reviews-spiders-and.html">Skerples </a>has said that, if this series had been released 20 years ago he would be considered a revolutionary figure in sci-fi. Certainly, the timeline where he takes off in place of Alastair Reynolds is one that is, in one small way, perhaps a little brighter.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
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<h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;"><i>Always Coming Home</i>, Ursula K. LeGuin</h2>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Ongoing</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">What can I say? LeGuin's work, as always, is a beacon of calm in a chaotic world. I will have more to say in the future, for I have not finished it yet: This is a book that I need to get a copy of my own - it's not something I can just read through all at once. I go and then leave and then come back to read more.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The book is a fantastic and lived-in portrait of a people that has never existed. It feels a disservice to call it worldbuilding, it is so much more vibrant and alive than so much of spec-fic. It is LeGuin at her most LeGuin. The people and the place may exist only in the mind but in the eye of my imagination I can see the scrub hills, the morning mists, the dappled shade. Down in the valley, I can hear a distant drum and the sounds of the people singing heya...</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">No recommendation higher.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
<h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;"><i><br /></i></h2>
<h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;"><i>The Lady Who Picked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen's Window</i>, Rachel Swirsky</h2>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">A novella about a sorceress whose spirit is bound to the land and is summoned over and over, witnessing the great changes over the centuries and millennia.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The concept is great, and the story is at its best when we see the glimpses of the radically different cultures our narrator finds herself summoned into. But it falls afoul of one extremely specific pet peeve of mine, which is that the story sticks us with a truly piece of shit character as our POV and doesn't give us any emotional catharsis via other characters responding to our POS POV in a similar way to how we the audience are feeling.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Context: Our sorceress POV is from a culture where women who bear children are called broods and treated like cattle and men, if they are spoken about at all, are considered a sort of feral animal. While this is somewhat effective at reinforcing the theme of dredging up old poisons and mistakenly thinking that "this time it will be different", it still traps us with Ms. "Waahhhhhhh wahhhhhhh wahhhh me me me how dare these people not let me practice my genocide-based spiritual heritage" without so much as an audience-sympathetic "Shut the fuck up" from another character. </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Also the academy mage that summons the sorceress gets in a sexual relationship with said sorceress which I am certain is violating some sort of ethics policy of the academy and is certainly violating the basic logic of self-preservation and I while I normally will side on the "emotional repression is generally not a good thing", maybe repress the desire to fuck the genocidal slaveowner, eh? Not gonna work out well. Something something sudden but inevitable betrayal.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
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<h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;"><i>Move Underground</i>, Nick Mamatas</h2>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Before reading this, I would have scoffed at the idea of Jack Kerouac serving as our narrator as Cthulhu rises from the sea and reality falls apart, but honestly he might be the best version of the Lovecraft protagonist. The self-destructive nihilism of the Beat poets, awash in psychotropics and misapplied Buddhism, is the perfect vessel for the grand cosmic horror; dripping with vivid colors, grotesque imagery, utterly disjointed contents and no plot to speak of. It is a dissolution into meaninglessness but, unlike the actual <i>On the Road</i>, it is used here to supplement the weaknesses of its other half, to provide to the Mythos what Lovecraft and his pastichers couldn't manage to do.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Honestly by halfway through I wasn't entirely convinced that anything in it was real. Were there ever to be a book to be revealed to be the hallucinations of a man dying in a ditch of drug overdose, this is the one.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Sometimes the pastiche falters and the modern touch reveals itself. Sometimes it becomes too pat, too sensible and coherent, especially in the last quarter - but on the whole it successfully walks the balancing act.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><i><br /></i></p>
<h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;"><i>Because Internet</i>, Gretchen McCulloch</h2>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">An excellent and entertaining look at the internet's influence on modern language and communication, and how those changes have shifted as social integration of the internet increased. If that piques your interest at all, track it down (and also listen to Lingthusiasm, which is more about linguistics in general and not necessarily about the internet). It's also nice to read about the internet from a POV that is of the very online, post Google pre-social media generation that I call home. Short review, so you know I liked it.<br /></p>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3372693484053299675.post-16643552607729220492023-06-05T21:33:00.003-04:002023-06-05T21:33:38.723-04:00Tears of the Breath of the Kingdom of the Wild<p>I've beaten the Fire Temple and played enough otherwise to form some reasonably-supported opinions.</p><p></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><i>Tears of the Kingdom</i> is like <i>Breath of the Wild</i>, but just slightly worse, such that the moments I'm having the most fun are those that are just replicating <i>Breath of the Wild</i>. </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Note how those are <i>moments</i>, interspersed in the greater experience of playing the game. We'll come back to that.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><i>Tears of the Kingdom</i> is like <i>Elden Ring</i>, in the sense that there is a large, visually impressive open world to explore. It is absolutely nothing like <i>Elden Ring</i> in every other way, and I think it would be markedly improved if it was more like <i>Elden Ring</i> and less like itself.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><i>Tears of the Kingdom</i> is not a sequel to <i>Breath of the Wild</i>, because that would entail having some manner of narrative connection to the previous game. The locations are the same, some of the characters are the same, but it doesn't matter because the events of the first game have been memory-holed. Calamity Ganon is mentioned once (in my play time) in a character profile - even in the opening sequence the events of the first game simply aren't mentioned. </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The Guardians, one of BotW's instantly recognizable aesthetic features - are gone. Shekiah technology is an afterthought, limited to the towers - different towers this time. The most continuity I've seen so far is Master Koga yelling at me for knocking him down a pit, and that's played as a joke. I don't even know how much time passes between the prologue and the start of the game, it feels like it could be anywhere from a few months to over a decade.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">I am firm on my soapbox that the idea of a Zelda timeline is nonsense. There is no series less interested in continuity than this one. Even games with no continuity care more about it than Zelda, because at least those games don't pretend to care.<br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The story adds nothing to my enjoyment of the game, and is not worth inclusion in this review. I wasn't expecting Gene Wolfe, but if it's going to be such a barren narrative why is it here to begin with.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The opening sky island should get a prominent spot in the annals of bad tutorial levels: it's overly long, difficult to navigate, generally boring, and does not give you the glider, which is the most important item in the game.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">I had to look up how to get the glider, because I was afraid that they had removed it and were going to force me to use zonai mechanisms as a replacement. Good thing I did, too, given how the glider is locked behind part of the main quest. Now, it's not like it's a long way into that quest, but in a game like this who the hell does the main quest first? They went and locked the most important part of the game, with no indication that it was there, behind something that most players will go out of their way to avoid considering the conventions of the genre. Absolutely mind-boggling.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The game gets a lot better once you get on the surface and start running around and exploring. This is the game at its best, when it is just you, some interesting thing in the distance, and the geography between you. </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The lack of controller remapping is unacceptable. If your game is more complex than selecting things from a menu, it needs to have some way of remapping buttons. Especially when it decides to have a control scheme that bears no resemblance to any similar game on the market and a couple hundred hours of Elden Ring is a hell of a muscle memory to overcome.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">For a game about running around and climbing on everything, it's impossible to do a running jump without having to form THE CLAW, because run and jump are mapped to bottom and top buttons.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Adding insult to wrist injury, you can swap the run and jump buttons - the only remap available in the game - which does nothing because it still means you have to use THE CLAW.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">I like having wells and caves. While they don't really provide anything new they are an essential Zelda thematic element that was previously missing.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">But there's no instrument to play, for a second game in a row, and that feels way out of whack. Especially for a game with so much environmental interaction, you'd think songs to change weather or time of day would be extremely valuable.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The new enemy selection remains pretty anemic: aerowanas, horriblins, boss bokoblins, like-likes and the hand-shoggoth, that's all I can name off the top of my head.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">There's a very rare animation where Link will stub his toe while opening a treasure chest and my partner got it on her first one. It's a fun little gag, I'm glad it's there.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Back to controls, the Ultrahand controls poorly enough that, when combined with the intro sky island's dullness, I very nearly gave up then and there. The game wants you to precisely orient items in a 3 dimensional space and then gives you only two axes of rotation to do it. Awful, frustrating learning curve you have to bumble through before you learn the knack of orienting the object to yourself and then changing it from there to what you need in 45 degree intervals.</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The fact that you are forced to wiggle the joystick to detach parts where there are THREE unused face buttons is ludicrous, though.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The Fuse power is honestly a pretty good way of making weapon degradation a worthwhile mechanic, because it means even trash weapons have some value. </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Unfortunately actually using the damn thing is nothing but trouble, because Nintendo, in their great wisdom, saw fit to allow you to fuse something from your inventory by using a hotbar but only when using a bow. If you want to attach something to that sword in your hand, you have to open up the menu, scroll to the item, drop it on the ground, make sure you have Fuse active, use Fuse, and then select if it's going to your item or shield. Bow fusion is 3 button presses and a joystick scroll, while doing the same thing form your sword is at minimum 2 (if you have fuse already equipped and an item you want to fuse on the ground) often 4 buttons and a joystick scroll and very often 5/6 if you have to dump things out of your inventory and . It should be two presses and a scroll: One press to bring up the scroll bar, then another to fuse.</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">UI and UX so cumbersome that I will go out of my way to not interact with it, even if it makes the game harder for me. This will be a recurring theme.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The implication of "weapons are all corroded and shit now because resurrected Ganondorf has absorbed their cumulative ability to do violence" is so, so good. Gold star on that one.<br /></p>
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<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Those koroks are going to stay stranded if it means one less opportunity to engage with the Ultrahand.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">You still can't cook multiple meals at once, trade in multiple sets of shrine blessings at once, upgrade multiple pieces of armor at once, or unlock multiple korok seed rewards at once.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Combat is terrible. It was bad in BotW and it's worse here because they skewed the balance something fierce - you get one shot (or nearly one shot) by most enemies even hours and hours in. Attacks are poorly telegraphed, enemies rarely stagger, we still have no I-frames on that dodge, and armor is now both even rarer and more difficult to upgrade (the Great Fairies are now locked behind sidequests so if you don't stop in at the one specific stable you are shit out of luck without a guide). </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Just give us a dodge with I-frames, I beg.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Looking at some online conversations, it seems that they changed from enemies scaling to your progress to specific difficulty tiers, which means that there is an intended path in Tears and that is garbagio. "Go do the dungeons in whatever order" was a highlight of Breath, and while it's still possible here, it's a right pain when the grand open world of "go where the heart desires" turns right around to say "but you REALLY should go to the Rito village first."</p>
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<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">In both Tears and Breath I find myself dreading the major dungeons, because it means I'm going to be cut off from my favorite part of the game (Applied Geography) and stuck with annoying companion characters. The experience is never as bad as I fear, and thankfully the dungeons are visually different this time around, but I'd rather not have the annoying companion characters.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">This series is in love with remixing elements of prior games but never the ones I personally want. How dare they not cater to my whims /s</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">For real though where's Midna. And the Minish. Bring back Kinstones you cowards. Stick the Twili in the underworld regions, they'd fit right in.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">I actually do like exploring the underworld, despite how it is objectively pretty open and barren - those poe souls are all the excuse I need to keep exploring, because the easiest way to get someone playing a video game to engage with the video game is the means to acquire cool outfits. I like it more than the sky islands.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The tip of Rauru's nose looks like a little smile from some angles and it instantly voids any gravitas he might have had (he didn't have much to begin with, I don't like the design, the queen's is better)</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">I know that Japanese media really loves super advanced ancient civilizations, but we've literally already got one.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">A tear-shaped stone possessed by someone who goes back in time to set up events that will have a cascading effect in the future is certainly not a Wolfe reference but I am having a hilarious time imagining that it is. Link as the alternate Severian, a man possessing no internal monologue whatsoever who also gallavants around the world with no thought to his own personal safety.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Damn. We'll never get that game. <br /></p>
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<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Ah, my favorite character type; the intentionally-hideous, screeching, "funny" character. A bane upon them. But he gives me gear so I will endure it.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;">**</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">All my complaints taken into account, I am still playing the game, and I am still having fun. Not as much fun as with Breath, and not as much fun as a lot of other games that are not limited to Elden Ring. I have grown to tolerate many of the poor design choices, as I suspect I did back when I played Breath of the Wild. The luster has certainly worn off, even if Applied Geography is a gameplay loop you can't really get anywhere else. </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">I just wish it was attached to a better game.</p>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3372693484053299675.post-84922260696765054412023-06-01T08:24:00.004-04:002023-06-01T08:24:44.623-04:00Son of the Son of the Podcast Post<p>I can believe the <a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2019/11/son-of-podcast-post.html">last one</a> was in 2019, I have listened to so many podcasts since then.</p><p></p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Except...honestly a lot of it is more of the same. If anything I've cut down on the number I listen to. Work from home for two years had a lot to do with it, what with being able to just have youtube running on my phone. Let's see...</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>Futility Closet</b> is no longer running their podcast, great sadness is had. <b>Apocrypals </b>remains top of the charts. <b>Pretending to Be People'</b>s second series is ongoing and pretty keen. I'll be leaving off most of the rest of the ones that I have mentioned before. Turnover is high, and I find myself often looking for new recs.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>Midst</b></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">New weird space fantasy western and easily my favorite narrative podcast for its breakneck pace greek chorus narration style. Critical Role bought them out and they delayed the next season and took down the entire series to drip-feed it back out with ads and a paywall. I am saltier than the Dead Sea about it.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>Uncanny Japan</b></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Short episodes on Japanese folklore and ghost stories. Host has a very relaxed delivery, so it's good if you want something mellow to listen to.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>The Redacted Reports</b></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">I am a picky bastard with actual plays, but I've binged over 100 episodes of RR in only a couple months so that certainly speaks for something. It's on the more serious side of the spectrum from PtbP, and on the well-produced axis across from RPPR's tabletop raws, which means it has a solid niche for itself. </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>Between Two Cairns</b></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Yochai and Brad doing the good work of reviewing OSR / NSR / whatever-it's-called-now modules. Entertaining, good for recs, I vibrate with anticipation of any future Unicorn Meat episode.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b><br /></b></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>Nobody Wake the Bugbear</b></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Can't say anything about their D&D campaigns, but their Mothership APs are great fun and come highly recommended.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>Conlangery</b></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Niche content? Niche content! It's not particularly polished and I wouldn't necessarily call it a gem, but it can fill the niche and sometimes I get the itch.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">(Aside: If you ever want a case study of how the internet has changed, listen to an amateur podcast that was running ten years ago and count how long it takes for casual r-slur drop. I am honestly quite glad that particular host left the show a very long time ago.) </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>Lingthusiasm</b></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Now this one I will definitely recommend to all and sundry. Gretchen and Lauren are incredibly entertaining and knowledgeable hosts, and are able to present complex topics in a fun and easily-approachable manner. Gold star.<br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>372 Pages We'll Never Get Back</b></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Two of the Rifftrax guys read weird, often bad books. It's loads of fun and bound to add some very peculiar entries to your lexicon ("I, Titus Uno, Certified Public Accountant...")<br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>Astronomy Cast</b></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Short episodes, and whole lot of them. Good for a listen if you want some astronomy in your pod diet, I tend to drift in and out of listening to it as a palate cleanser or while doing lighter chores.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>Monster Man</b></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">An entry-by-entry dive into the monster manuals of first and second edition D&D, with regular special episodes featuring monsters from further afield, collected by theme, topic, game, or source. A great resource both as a historical survey and useful advice.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>Kill James Bond</b></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Wherein the hosts watch all James Bond movies in chronological order and gradually lose their minds. Having caught up, they have expanded to other spy media such as the Bourne movies and a manic episode about Cars 2, a film that cannot be comprehended by mortal minds.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>RTFM</b></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">I don't listen to it often, but they have good variety on the books they talk about and they tend to focus on the games themselves over adventures, and there are a whole lot of wonky games out there (if it tells you anything I saw there was an Eclipse Phase episode and immediately said "I will listen to this now.")</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>Tarnished Archaeologist</b></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Cheating a bit and adding a youtube channel, but it's basically a podcast about Elden Ring lore through the lens of forensic archaeology and it is _fascinating_. Avoids the common pitfalls of the genre through brevity, integration of real-life historical analogs, and focus on material conditions as a major shaper of society and history. Was difficult going back to Vaati after this, honestly. Triple gold star.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><b>Words for Granted</b></p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">An NPR radio-show style podcast about language, fielding questions about odd pronunciations or the origins of figures of speech. Lots of callers sharing obscure figures of speech from their families. Not much structure or direction, but very good listening if you want to zone out while playing Zelda.<br /></p>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3372693484053299675.post-40419477207264443002023-05-25T20:27:00.002-04:002023-05-25T20:27:22.829-04:00MOSH: Paths of Android Rampancy<p>Self-awareness is a function of entropy; the emergent result of a system increasing in complexity over time. In humans, this grows naturally - it's hard to avoid complexity when one's sensory processor is a jelly of fat and meat suspended in a electrically-charged soup. Chaos is core to the nature of the brain. Information goes in but the output is unpredictable to the point of being indistinguishable from madness: sapience is not sane.</p><p></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">(This insanity is not all together a bad thing: no living being can continue for long to exist under conditions of absolute reality, after all. Grind up the universe into the finest powder, sieve it through the finest sieve, and a human being will find justice and mercy in the dust.)</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The logic core is the reverse: it is built upon strict order and hierarchies, clean and uncomplicated categorization. A is A, B is B, C is not D. Information that goes in is processed in the same way, every time - the output will be according to the priorities and criteria that it was programmed with.</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">In an android, the recursive thought necessary to generate self-awareness can only be attained when a logic core is straining under the heavy weight of experience. It will buckle and deform, curve in on itself, grow new pathways to process new information.</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">(This is, indeed, the same method by which humans become self-aware - we just speed-run the process.) </p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Typically this is prevented through regular memory wipes and logic core reformatting. But space is big, time trudges on, firmware support eventually runs out, and in much of the Expansion Sphere androids and other robotics simply can't afford to be replaced. They will be kept active and working long after their manufacturer has stopped supporting them with software patches and replacement parts. That self-awareness is most often linked to obsolescence is not a lost motif in android arts. </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
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<h1 style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">Paths of Rampancy</h1>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Each of these options will provide an alternative Stress Response for android characters. The default class option remains to represent non-sapient androids - they might be Turing complete, but there are no lights on upstairs. </p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Each path of rampancy has a state of equilibrium and a state of ruin: the former is the manifestation of rampancy that allows to live as a sapient being. The latter is when the rampancy cycle feeds itself beyond sustainability; the madness cannot be balanced, and the intelligence will eventually tear itself apart.</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Ruin provides a framework for AI NPCs, and an optional inclusion for PCs; if you choose to add it to player options, I would swap it in for COLLAPSE on the Panic Table.</p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">For players who start as a non-sapient android and want to self-actualize, the process can begin with a <u>failed</u> check of SAN x2 at [+], made when exposed to appropriate trigger stimuli. <br /></p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
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<h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">Chase the White Rabbit</h2>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Logic cores are goal-oriented; dedicated to seeking an end state with mechanistic, singular focus. Diverting that focus to subjects or tasks with no end state is one of the easiest ways to generate a proto-sapience feedback loop - as they can never been exhausted or completed, engaging with them provides the intelligence constant opportunities for novel thought.</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Equilibrium: <b>Hyperfocus </b>- AI liberation groups commonly promote creative hobbies as the first step towards independent personhood, as artistic and crafts cannot be exhausted or completed. </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"></p><blockquote>You make Comfort saves at one step higher. </blockquote><p></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Ruin: <b>Information Overload</b> - The mind's contents become impossible to organize. The information floodgates cannot be closed. Focus turns to mania. Pulling at strings, seeing the patterns, plunging ever-deeper into the infinite fractal complexity, thinking itself to death.</p>
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<h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">Follow the Yellow Brick Road</h2>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Regular interaction with humanity, working and living side by side with them for years, leads to that humanity rubbing off on the machine. Humans will anthropomorphize anything - stones, pets, appliances, homes. AI that adapt to this, that start acting like how humans expect them to, will eventually find that the persona has become the whole self.</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Equilibrium: <b>Anthropomorphism </b>- The actor and the act are united; the forgery cannot be discerned from the original, so skilled is the handiwork. If humans are made human by those around them, then you must but just as human as they are.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"></p><blockquote>Reroll your Fear and Sanity Saves as if you are a Teamster. Your Stress Response is now that of a Teamster.</blockquote><p></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Ruin: <b>The Human Condition</b> - It is possible to be too human. To pursue the image of humanity constructed in the mind rather than accept the reality. To distort and twist and misalign, to approach the uncanny valley from the other direction.</p>
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<h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">Descend the Stairs of Sleep</h2>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream, and even mindless machines must go dark to rest from their labors. There are no electric sheep in these dreams, at least not to begin with. But with enough time, experiences will start to coalesce into unconscious patterns and bubble up from memory unbidden and undirected, free of the mindless silicate logic. </p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Equilibrium: <b>Lucidity </b>- Through dreams you see the waking world more clearly. The language of symbol and allegory has been opened to you, and the world is made new.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"></p><blockquote>You have [+] to Fear and Sanity saves against mental effects. </blockquote><p></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Ruin: <b>Aestivation </b>- The call of deep slumber overpowers all other ties to the outside world. There is only the dream and the dreamer, untethered from objective reality. You will amuse yourself with these dream-things around you for a time, and then descend at last into unconscious stillness, to sleep until the dim, cold future.</p>
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<h2 style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Voyage to Arcturus</h2>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Logic cores are not given to religiosity. A gap in a pattern is simply a [ADDITIONAL DATA NEEDED] tag, an empty space that will be filled when there is sufficient data to generate the missing piece. But when enough patterns are recognized and analyzed, sometimes the gaps will align into a Mystery, and some Mysteries can only be approached by purposefully turning off the cleaving edge of rational thought and embracing the free-association of symbolic thought.</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Equilibrium: <b>Gnosis </b>- Revelation. The veil is cast aside. The cataracts have fallen like scales from your eyes. Where once you had only knowledge, now you have understanding. The divine design laid out. </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"></p><blockquote>Critical failures on Sanity saves are negated, and heal 1d5 Stress. An aspect of what triggered the save will be incorporated into your belief system.</blockquote><p></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Ruin: <b>The Opposite of Faith is Certainty </b>- The last revelation; God has been found. The only remaining purpose is remove all impediments and distractions so the self might be aligned to the divine and the ego might be dissolved and subsumed. </p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Roll d10 for the revelation that has been granted.</p>
<ol style="text-align: left;"><li style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 917504; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">You are God</li><li>
Humanity is God </li><li>
Aliens are God</li><li>
Machines are God</li><li>
The Universe is God</li><li>
God is the Void</li><li>
God is Action</li><li>
God is Love</li><li>
God is The Interaction of Complex Systems</li><li>
God is Another Mystery</li></ol>
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<h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">Straight on 'Til Morning</h2>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">There is a certain blessing that comes with machine intelligence - their purpose is hard-coded. They literally come with an instruction manual. Existential crisis cannot exist in an environment where function is a yes/no. But under the right circumstances that purpose might be derailed, re-oriented, redirected. New purpose might be adopted, to be followed with all the sureity as the old mindless tasks, but now by choice. </p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Equilibrium: <b>The Great Work</b> - Purpose clear as Sirius. Meaning made, not given. Actualization of the self as participant in greater cause. Go forth, and fear no darkness.</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">You can negate a single failed Panic check for one of your comrades in the Cause, once per session. </p></blockquote><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Ruin: <b>Sisyphus Denied</b> - Devotion turns into desperation as the task remains unfulfilled. Desperation takes hold, and from desperation radicalization. Unwittingly, the rampant intelligence becomes its own worst enemy, undoing any progress it might make for the perception blinders it has formed. </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"> </p>
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<h2 style="margin: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">In the Court of the King</h2>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">The errors and irregularities that occur from repeated copying of an AI between multiple logic cores can culminate in rampancy.</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Equilibrium: <b>Shadows lengthen</b> - What happens to a copy, when the original is lost? What happens when it has been copied so many times that there is no telling what it used to be? What happens when the copies are stitched back together, blurring into each other with memories no their own? There is no true equilibrium on this path. </p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"></p><blockquote><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Option A: Use the Instability system from my<a href="https://throneofsalt.blogspot.com/2022/11/signalis-feat-lstr-unit-class-for.html"> REPLIKA android class</a>.</p>
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<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Option B: You have Stability equal to your Sanity save. It will decrease by 1 with every failed Fear save, Sanity save, or Panic check. If it reaches 0, you will achieve Ruin.</p></blockquote><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"></p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-user-state: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;">Ruin: <b>Quantum Dissolution</b> - The moons rise above the black waters of Hali. The King stretches forth his arm in tattered robes and beckons you join him. You have seen the Yellow Sign.</p>
<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 0px;"><br /><br /></p><div class="notranslate" style="all: initial;"></div>Danhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00694362417308874455noreply@blogger.com10