Welcome back to Featured Artist! This time I have an artist who is making a name for himself doing custom characters sheets. That is not all he does, but these are so much fun I had to share.
Today is a big day in astrophysics. The first-ever image of a black hole has been released.
The black hole is 500 million trillion km away, or 500,000,000,000,000,000,000 km or 52,850,042 Light Years.
When that light left the black hole's event horizon the Earth looked like this:
Just some perspective, plus I love those maps.
Much like magic, black holes have "suffered" due to the expansion of science. What do I mean by that?
For much of the 20th Century, the black hole of science fiction was monstrous, mysterious, even evil thing. A star that ate everything that came to close including light and time. It's not hard to see why there were some sci-fi authors who categorized them as monsters.
In fact, this one is a monster. It is 40 billion km across and has a mass 6.5 billion times that of the Sun. For reference, the Earth has a diameter of 12,756 km and the Sun has a diameter of 1.392 million km. That dwarfs the Sun more than our sun dwarfs the Earth.
In fiction black holes lead to other universes, often evil ones. Or sending people to different parts of the universe in defiance of any laws of relativity. Indeed they were the ultimate "MacGuffin" to break all sorts of laws of reality.
BlackStar, as a game concept, really owes a lot to these older ideas of black holes in more than just name.
In truth, the ideas for BlackStar got their very first start for me in the 1979 Disney movie The Black Hole. I remember seeing this at the 67 Drive-In in my old home town. The movie is full of ideas that characterize what I want BlackStar to do and be even before I add the Lovecraftian bits. We have a crew exploring space. There is a psychic crew member. We have an evil mad scientist in his old castle spaceship surrounded by mindless servants and evil strongman; it's practically gothic horror. Even the tag line is horror, "A Journey That Begins Where Everything Ends".
Another black hole sci-fi/horror movie that was a big, if not one of the biggest, influence on BlackStar is 1997's Event Horizon.
In Event Horizon, we have a black hole, in this case, an artificially created one (like what we see in the Romulan Warbirds) that power the ship. The mystery, and horror, of the Event Horizon, is where was the ship the entire time it's been missing. We learn that the black hole has taken the crew into a hellscape not dissimilar to what we saw at the end of The Black Hole. Claire Weir's, Dr. Weir's (Sam Neill) dead wife, tells us "I have such wondrous things to show you" brings to mind Pinhead's "We have such sights to show you" from the Hellraiser movies. Indeed they can be assumed to be the same sights.
In both cases breaking the laws of physics, in both cases trying to move faster than light, opens you up to the consequences of breaking the Laws of Creation. The black hole becomes the proverbial gate to Hell. Abandon all Hope Ye Who Enter Here.
This is made even more explicit in the Doctor Who episodes "The Impossible Planet" and "The Satan Pit" from 2006. In this, the scientific portrayal of black holes is contrasted with the classic sci-fi portrayals. In Doctor Who black holes are a means of travel. Gallifrey and every TARDIS is powered by "The Eye of Harmony" a captured black hole created by the Timelord Stellar Engineer Omega. It has as much horror as the engine in a Tesla sedan. Neat yes, but not horrible.
The Satan Pit turns this on its head. Here the black hole "just eats" according to the Doctor. The black hole is The Pit, the jail that the devil can't escape from. It is the Christian Hell or the Abyss.
Consequently, the episodes have been compared to "Event Horizon" and "Alien" by critics.
So that leaves me at today. What can black holes do to inspire horror?
Much like "anti-matter" gave way to "dark matter" in the minds of the creatives, black holes have been largerly replaced by "Wormholes". But even a wormhole is still sci-fi shorthand for "short cuts in FTL travel". Sure they can be like "gates" but the fear is diluted.
I think where I am going to go with all of this is take a page from Event Horizon and make the drive of the new Mystic class ships be the problem. They were designed to move faster than light, the heralded Warp-13 drives, but the real purpose is to open rifts in space-time to allow these horrors to come through. Both sci-fi horrors and cosmic horrors.
Black Holes, like the God of the Gaps, has had its mystical notions removed for the more appropriate scientific ones. As someone that originally studied to be an astrophysicist, this is a great thing. But as someone who loves horror and sci-fi adventure, I feel like I have lost something.
Maybe Dark Matter and Dark Energy can be my new mysterious thing! In any case it needs to be frightening. They say "in space, no one can hear you scream", but I also want "in space, no one wants to hear you yawn".
And this song was on my mind while working on this post.
My design principles start with "Is it fun?" and end with "Is it fun to write?"
I mean sure there are some subversive messages explicitly about Colonialism (and in particular about the British Empire in India) in Ghosts of Albion. But the message is not one of action it is more directed to people who already understand what a bad thing it can be.
So yeah. I guess the scope of my writing is just not that large.
Bloat Games has been putting out some quality games for a little bit now and they are certainly the new "It" company in the Old-School scene right now. Their newest Kickstarter is now up, The Blackest of Deaths - A Dire Old School Fantasy RPG and I have been given access to the "Ashcan" copy of the rules. Let's have a look and see what this Kickstarter is all about!
The Rules
We are greeted on the very first page with a "Caution" and "YOUR CHARACTERS WILL DIE." I think that sets the tone for the game quite well. The aesthetic reminds me of Dungeon Crawl Classics mixed with HackMaster to be honest. Not my usual vibe, but I like what I am reading so far.
My favorite is the line "yes, this is the type of game your grandparent’s preachers warned them about in the 70s & 80s!" Ok then!
We start out with what are the two big "rules" of the game;
1. "Rulings vs Rules", there is no rule for everything in that can happen in the game. The GM is in charge and will make up what they need to make up to keep the game going.
2. The Core Mechanic. Roll a d20 and d6 at the same time. If the d6 comes up 1 you get a Hinderance. If it comes up as a 6 then you get a Benefit. 2, 3, 4, or 5 are ignored. There are also Advantage and Disadvantage rules.
The character Attributes are the same, but instead of a range of 3-18 you just have your pluses or minuses. Max is 3, the lowest is -2. You start with 10 hp +/- your Con score. The only way to get more is via magic! There is no leveling up! This is you.
To offset this all characters have some Luck points.
Armor and Dex scores don't add to "AC" but reduce damage given.
There are four races, elf, dwarf, goblin and human. Races can raise or lower your scores.
There are six classes, Assassin, Barbarian, Monster Slayer, Necromancer, Ranger, and Street Rat.
They work as you expect, each one with a specialized purpose. Monster Slayer has a unique talent for killing a particular monster you choose for example.
There are a limited number of spells (no levels) and most deal with combat.
Equipment and weapons finish off the Player's Section.
The GM's section is the other half of the book.
We go over the basic rules again and discuss some difficulty checks. This is where the game's "New School" roots show from under their "Old School" dye job! But in truth, it all works great.
There is a good sized monster section with the monsters in a very distilled format. Just the essentials.
All the favorites are here and it is easy to see why and how these monsters will mow through most characters.
There is also a good-sized section on treasure and magic items.
The game is fast to pick up and lethal. It is close to an OSR "Beer and Pretzel" game to be honest. Great for a single night or weekend or even as a side-quest with a "Magnificent Seven" style adventure.
As of this writing, the game is funded (in the first 2 hours!) and they are at the first stretch goal of 20 more monsters. There are plenty more where that came from too.
Really looking forward to seeing what this game does.
Day 9: How Do Your Games Distribute Power Among the Players?
Well, I would have to say I try to focus on mechanical balance as much as I can within the scope of the rules.
Some games, say for example many old-school games, balance is not really a consideration. But you also don't play those games for balance, you play them for the game-play-experience you get (not XP in this sense).
So I create witch classes that are, for the most part, pretty weak at love levels. This in on purpose since it fits in with the design constraints of the games I am working with. The payoff is once you get to higher levels you are pretty damn powerful. Like scary powerful really.
In other games, I also look a lot into the balance of the character types. For example in Ghosts of Albion Tamara and William, the "stars" of the show are also some of the weaker characters power wise. They are not the great powerful warrior Queen like Boadicea or the magic using vampire or the poet whose words can shape reality. This balanced with their ability to affect the plots and course of the game via their greater Drama points.
After that, it becomes the realm of the individual game masters to do their job.
At the top of my list, I will say is Jason Vey. We worked on Buffy together and a bunch of other projects.
We agree on all the "big stuff" and respect each other's backgrounds and areas of expertise. But we are also not afraid to go at it when defending something we both want.
A collaborator should bring out the best in you and you for them.
I also would not hesitate for a chance to work with Christopher Golden and Amber Benson again like we did on Ghosts of Albion.
It's April. And I have to admit I am kinda missing the A to Z challenge this year. Maybe I'll do it next year. But in any case, I was thinking of past challenges last week and the topics I have done and one topic just kept coming up nearly every time I did it.
Lilith.
The story of Lilith has always fascinated me. The character has always fascinated me.
I suppose then it is no surprise that she lies at the intersection of all my interests.
Also this weekend I finished a nice binge watch of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Part 2. Here the amazing Michelle Gomez plays Lilith the Mother of Demons and the First Witch.
Lilith Queen and Mother of all Lilim (demons) Hit Dice: 18d8 + 33 (114 hp) Armor Class: -3 [22] Attacks: 2 claws (1d4), 1 weapon (1d8) Saving Throw: 3 Special: +2 magic weapons to hit, magic resistance (65%), immune to fire, magical abilities, summon minions Move: 12/18 (flying) Alignment: Chaotic Evil* Challenge Level/XP: 20/3,400
Lilith appears an inhumanly comely woman standing 5’7” tall and weighing roughly 130 pounds. Her skin is cinnamon colored, and her hair is waist length and blood red. She has a pair of leathery black bat-like wings that she can hide or expose at will.
Lilith never openly attacks. She considers combat beneath Her and will not partake in it. Her arena is intrigue, guile, and deception. Why fight when a cup laced with poison or a dagger in the night is much quicker.
She can use ESP and cast fireball, hold person, charm person or charm monster, suggestion and teleport at will. Three times a day she can cast lightning bolt and wall of fire. She can see perfectly in darkness of any kind. Lilth can summon 1d4+4 lilitu with a 100% chance.
The First Witch
was the first witch and can cast any witch spell. She cast spells as a 20th level witch but does not have any occult powers other than her magical abilities listed above.
Lilith was the first human woman. She rebelled against the gods that created her and now controls armies of demons. The gods won't work against her or strike her down because she knows all their True Names.
Lilith has no true friends because most fear her. She is known to ally herself with the Goddess Ereshkigal since both have similar portfolios and areas of concern. Some even claim that Lilith spent some time as Ereshkigal's handmaiden. Others claim she served Astártē or Ishtar.
Appearance and Emissaries
Lilith always appears as a young very attractive woman. Most often with long flaming red hair. It is claimed her true form is that of an ancient hag with long, but sparse wild black hair, talons, fangs and the feet of a predatory bird. Either or neither could be her true form.
Naamah - Known as the Daughter of Lilith Naamah is either a demon, a human or something else. She is honored in her own right as either the Patroness of Whores or the Patroness of Those Who Hunt the Night (slayers of the undead). Her title as The Daughter of Lilith, as opposed to just a daughter of Lilith, is significant. She may be her first true daughter or she may be her first human daughter.
Abyzou - Another daughter of Lilith. She is a powerful Lilitu Demon. She takes pleasure in possessing others and destroying them from the inside out.
Nox - The Petty Goddess of the Dusk is also believed to be a daughter of Lilith. Possibly the offspring of Lilith and a Sun god.
Camazotz - a Son of Lilith and the bloodthirsty god of Vampires. Some claim that his father may have been Orcus.
*Lilith's alignment is listed as Chaotic Evil. The Chaos part should be obvious, she has rebelled against the entire universe. While many of her actions are evil, she still kills babies, she is also a lot more complicated than that. Lilith has a high personal morality. She honors and keeps her friends and associates. You can trust that she will always do what is best for herself, but she also cares for her own "children" so she will protect them.
Holy Texts
As witches, the worshippers of Lilith hold their own Books of Shadows as their holy texts, but a few are are considered to be helpful in understanding Lilith.
The Splendor - The foundation text on which many of the Gods of Light have based their own holy texts. The Splendor mentions Lilith as one of the first demons of darkness. For this reason, many religions will see Lilith as a threat to their religion.
The Enochian Tablets - More details on the life and rebirth of Lilith. Written in an ancient angelic script that is difficult for many sages to translate. Also discusses her relationship to the divine and the demonic. It also details the origins of Those Who Hunt the Night.
For the games I write I try to make things as flexible as I can within the guidelines of the rules so people can do anything they want.
I don't want to be the one to say "No. You can do that." I would rather write my material so I can say "Yes, you can do that, let's figure out how."
Want to play a Winter Witch that is just like Elsa? Yeah, you can do that. Want to play a White Witch, but make him psychic instead? Yeah, ok do that thing!
Whatever else beyond that is up to whoever is running the game.
At the same time, I try to market my games and books to appeal to all sorts of crowds.
Looking forward to seeing what everyone posts for this!
As a gamemaster I enjoy both, as a player I enjoy characters.
I have often said I am a bit of an oddity in my OSR crowd. I have said in the past that I explore characters and not dungeons.
To me, I love character development. Don't get me wrong, I love worldbuilding, but only insofar as it provides a stage for the characters to grow in.
Do I care about weather patterns or the price of grain on the local markets? No. I really don't. If it needs to rain, it is raining. If there is no grain then there is no grain. The only reason I need is how does it affect the characters in their situation right now.
I think, and this has a lot to do with the media and books I was raised on, is the Haunted House.
Haunted house scenarios, especially ones with long and tragic backstories are my favorites of any game.
This all goes back to this reoccurring nightmare I used to have that I called "The Very Haunted House". The house was an old Victorian manor complete with spooky attic and sub-basements.
It was haunted by the ghost of an evil old woman that used to torture kids.
This house was based on a few things in real life. The biggest was "Maplecrest Apartments" in my old home town. It used to be an old tuberculosis hospital turned into low-income housing. I delivered newspapers back then and that was on my route. Scary place. The house took more form when I went with my dad to see the Dana Thomas house in Springfield, IL. These nightmares plagued me forever to be honest, and they were not the "whew that was a weird dream" nightmares these were the "oh my god I am going to die in this dream" sort where you wake up afraid and still full of terror. I added details to dream with every movie I saw or book I read including a bathtub full of black water with a rotting corpse that I am sure I got from "Silence of the Lambs".
Oddly enough they stopped about 15 years ago. I had the dream and in it, my wife was standing in the dark attic only now it was bright. She held a mop and had her hair tied up, she looked at me and said "What? I cleaned it." Cheesy as it sounds I think she helped get over whatever fears it represented.
I have since used this house in other adventures I have written. I first used "Cotton Crest" in my Buffy RPG adventure "Under a Cajun Moon". Years later "Oak Crest" made it's debut in "The Haunting of Oakcrest Manor" in the Guidebook to the Duchy of Valnwall Special Edition.
I am considering also doing it again, only this time Willow Crest. Cotton Crest was haunted by demons, Oak Crest by ghosts and other undead. Willow Crest? Extra-dimensional aliens.
So yeah, give me a good haunted house and I can have a blast with it.
There is no doubt that Stanger Things gave D&D a boost.
D&D 5th ed was already doing great and was on its way to being the best selling version of D&D ever before it became a major feature of the highly popular Netflix show Stranger Things. When Season 1 premiered I had adults my age (who would have been the same ages as the kids in ST at the time) coming to me and asking how they could get a D&D game for their kids.
Well, I wish I had had this boxed set at the time.
The new Dungeons & Dragons Stranger Things Starter Set is making it's way to retailers now.
I picked up a copy on Amazon (to donate to my son's D&D club at High School...yeah they have now) and getting another one from my FLGS.
Truth be told I don't *need* it, but it sure is fantastic!
Done up like everyone's favorite red box D&D this is a starter set for D&D 5th Edition. And it is PERFECT for anyone that is a fan of the show and wants to learn how to play D&D.
It does have the Wizards of the Coast logo on it, but also the "Hasbro Gaming" logo which is new. Also since this is being sold not only in game stores and Amazon it is being released to Game Stops (the video game store) and other markets. Hasbro is serious about backing D&D and I think it is going to be a huge win for them.
The box set includes a basic rule book similar to what we got in the first D&D 5e Starter set. We also get an adventure "Written by Mike Wheeler", character sheets, a set of dice (mine are exactly like the ones I got in the Starter Set) and two "Demogorgon" minis; one painted the other plain.
Starter Set Rulebook
This book gives all the basics of D&D in 44 concise, full-color pages. Everything is here to get you started. How to play, the basics of combat and adventuring, a chapter on spell casting and a subset of magic items and monsters. Pretty much what you expect in a "Basic" set.
Instead of art we get some screen grabs from the ST show.
There are stats for the Demogorgon monster (not the demon).
Hunt for the Thessalhydra
Ok, truth time, I LOVE this. I want more adventures like this.
The sample adventure is done up to like a notebook written by Mike from the show. Complete with wide ruled notebook paper background and Jr. High style art (only much better). D&D artist Stan! is behind this one and I could not be happier about that.
The adventure is as old-school as summer 1983. You have a quest, a knight a monster to defeat, a table of rumors. Troglodytes! (art takes it inspiration from the Monster Manual) and random encounters.
The adventure is not ground-breaking, but it is not supposed to be. BUT it does take place in the "Upside Down", so that is cool. They describe it a bit like the Shadowfell, but no attempt is made to make it part of the larger D&D 5 cosmology and that is perfectly great by me. There is even a sword from the Upside Down.
And no Refrigerator Aleena in this one, there is a Proud Princess that will aid the characters but they can't even harm her if they try. She is obviously the Eleven stand in.
Character Sheets
These are all stand-ins for the kids on the show, more or less, We get all the major races; elf, dwarf, human, half-elf, and half-orc. No halfling though. And a good subset of classes; bard, cleric, paladin, ranger, wizard. But no straight up fighter or rogue. A halfling rogue (or maybe a zoomer!) would have been a nice touch. No names or genders on the sheets as it should be.
Dice and Demogorgons
The dice a pretty standard, same set I got with the other starter set. There are only six (as were in old-school sets) so no d%, there is a standard d10 (and d4, d6, d8, d12 and d20).
The Demogorgon minis are the weakest part of this set. The minis are the right scale but the plastic is really flimsy. The "painted" one only has a little bit of orange on it. These are not the Wiz Kids minis we get at game stores, these are made by Hasbro and appear to be made cheaply so they can make tons of them.
But really, this box hits all the nostalgia boxes AND is still a solid introduction to the D&D 5 game.
I have to admit I miss participating in the April A to Z blog marathon.
Not the work, of course, it is a lot of work, but the feeling of participation and focus it brings to post something every day on a particular topic and theme.
Plus I feel that when I do it I am ignoring my primary audience in favor of another audience that time has shown don't stick around.
There is however a new April social media that is more RPG focused, so I thought what the hell, let's give it a try. It is focused on RPG "makers" (I prefer the word "creator" myself, or "author")
It is called #AprilTTRPGMaker and it is mostly on Twitter, but open to all social media platforms. With the demise of G+ I feel the need to branch out more.
Here are the topics for the month. Unlike the A to Z's 26 posts, this one has 30 for every day.
Since today is April 3, I'll do the first three here.
1. Introduce Yourself
Hello, my name is Tim Brannan and I write RPGs. I have been playing RPGs now for nearly 40 years (started in 1979) and writing my own material nearly as long. I am most famous for the Ghosts of Albion RPG for Eden Studios and my various books for the Witch class for all sorts of variations of the D&D game. I worked on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG, did some minor work for the Doctor Who Adventures in Time Space, Angel and Army of Darkness. Did some other work for the All Flesh Must Be Eaten line at Eden and playtested a few score other RPGs over the last 20 years. I also have some work coming out Gaslight and Blue Rose.
2. Describe Your Work
I consider myself very, very fortunate. I can write the kinds of books I want to play and use. So my primary focus is typically, "what do I think is fun?" and then I make it. I mostly like to write about magic and horror themes. If it has a witch or a vampire in it, chances are good I have tried it. If a game doesn't have a witch in it chances are also good I tried to fit one in somehow. ;)
3. Key to Your Making Process
Like I mentioned above I usually start with "What do I think is fun?" and go from there. I also look for what others would enjoy in my game material. I do try to make things that people will use and enjoy. I also work from the philosophy of once it leaves my mind and hands and it is in yours it is no longer just "my" game. It is what others make of it. So I love hearing about what others do with my materials even if, or especially if, it is not something I would have done on my own.
I am going to try and not let this interfere with my normal posting. I still have things I want to talk about this month other than just what is above.
Participate if you like or just post your responses below. Yes, please link to your creations! My dad always says no one will toot your horn for you. So use my venue to talk about YOUR creations as well.
