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Zatannurday: Deviant Art

I am a huge fan of Deviant Art.  I love that they give up and coming artists a place to showcase their talent. And there is quite a bit of talent there!

So here are some of my favorite Zatanna pics from Deviant Art.


zatanna and raven by ~gianmac on deviantART


zatanna and raven colored by ~gianmac on deviantART


Zatanna quick sketch by *mainasha on deviantART


Zatanna - DSC by *zet on deviantART


Zatanna by ~Kawuamo on deviantART

More soon!

Even Witches have Itches, Part 2

Happy Harry?  Hogwarts Hanky-panky?

Please let that be the last time I ever say "hanky-panky" on this blog.

Anyway new easter egg from the 3rd Harry Potter film.
Found by the Daily What?  http://geeks.thedailywh.at/2011/06/09/harry-potter-innuendo-of-the-day/ 

Madam Vastra and Jenny for Doctor Who RPG

AGAIN WARNING: There are some MINOR Spoilers here for the new Doctor Who episode, A Good Man Goes to War.  If you have not seen it yet, you might want to come back here after you do.

My post about Vastra and Jenny for Ghosts of Albion was very popular.  No surprise really given how popular the  characters currently are.

So it seems only proper then that I also stat them up for Cubicle 7's Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Space RPG.  Maybe if I get cheeky I'll even stat them up in Traveler and FASA's Doctor Who game.

You can re-read the background for them on my Ghosts of Albion post.

Madame Vastra

"The Great Detective"
Story Points: 10

Attributes
Awareness 4
Coordination 6
Ingenuity 4
Presence 4
Resolve 4
Strength 3

Skills
Athletics 4
Convince 2
Craft 1
Fighting 5
Knowledge 2
Marksman 3
Medicine 1
Science 2
Subterfuge 2
Survival 2
Technology 2
Transport 2

Traits
Alien (Silurian), Alien Apperance, Brave, Code of Conduct, Eccentric (Mild Cruelty, Speciesm), Gadget (Perception Filtre), Last of My Kind (sorta, only awake Silurian in Victorian London), Tough

Tongue Lash (Strength +2, poison)

Equipment
Perception Filtre (Major Gadget)
Katana (Strength +4)

Home Tech Level: 5-6 (higher than 21st Century Earth, but no indication of FTL travel).

Vastra as a human. 

(in reality Neve McIntosh who played Vastra)

The Silurian Tongue Lash has a lethal poison.  Vastra, like all female Silurians, can choose whether or not her lash injects the poison or not.

Vastra is very devoted to Jenny, her companion and love.

Jenny Flint

Story Points: 10

Attributes

Awareness 3

Coordination 4 

Ingenuity 3

Presence 3

Resolve 4

Strength 3

Skills

Athletics 3

Convince 2

Craft 1

Fighting 4

Knowledge 2

Marksman 2

Medicine 3

Science 1 

Subterfuge 2

Survival 2 

Technology 0

Transport 1

Traits

Attractive, Brave, Face in the Crowd, Obligation (Madame Vastra)

Equipment

Katana (Strength +4)

Home Tech Level: 4

Jenny is the human companion and paramour of Madame Vastra.  To normal people they keep up the façade of a Lady and her servant girl. Jenny had been a servant but she was also already knowledgeable in the healing arts. A skill that has served the combat prone Vastra well.  Jenny herself is not slouch at combat, having trained with Vastra many times.  She is just as deadly with her katana as is her mistress.

Using Vastra and Jenny in Your Game
If you are going to go to Victorian London anytime soon (and you must if you are playing Doctor Who) then Madame Vastra and Jenny are going to be there.  They can be the focal point of an episode, important side characters (as they were in AGMGTW) or just a rumor.


There has been discussion and a post of stats for DW:AITAS already on the Doctor Who boards.
http://dwaitas.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=characters&thread=1469&page=1

But, shouldn't we aspire to be the Hero?

Back in the late 80s, but mostly in the early 90s there was a trend towards "dark" games.  Not just in terms of horror, but dark, grim subjects.  Obviously the ultimate expression of this zeitgeist was the classic "Vampire: The Masquerade", but you could see it in the FRPGs of the time too.  I called it sort of the anti-D&D mentality.   D&D was, at the time, about being a hero-even a super-hero, in a world that needed them.  Sure there was still plenty of "killing things and taking their stuff" but often the things killed were black and white evil, and saving the world was still the end game of many campaigns or at least the published ones.
This anti-D&D mentality was drawn out of the then perceived watering down of AD&D2's content.  In fact there are a number of publishers and authors from the time that I have talked too that have said they published their game in opposition to the loss of demons and devils from AD&D2 or as reaction to the popular media's stance on D&D.  "You think D&D is evil? Wait till you see my game!! ".  Such was the design philosophy of the products from Death's Edge Games.

We kinda got out of that for a while.  But now it seems we are heading back into it again only this time without some sort of reactionary motivation to account for it.

I like horror games. I have worked on a fair number of them over the years and one thing all horror games struggle with is the desire to motivate their players while putting fear into their characters.  Sometimes this is via mechanics.  The Fear saves/checks of many games are usually the first thing used.  The Sanity checks of Call of Cthulhu is also a prime example of a mechanical feature that has effects on the character and the player.  The game Dread does this brilliantly with Jenga blocks.  You can instill a sense of foreboding and doom in players IF you are willing to try.

The latest batch of supposedly Grim-Dark FRPGs don't do that.  They are more akin to the reactionary games of the early 90s.

I am going to pick on one as an example, but there have been and will be others.

I don't like "Lamentations of the Flame Princess: Weird Fantasy Role-Playing".

It tries, oh so hard, to be edgy, but really all I see is like watching a little kid dress up in their mother's or father's clothes and pretending to be big.

Let's start with the suggested reading.  This is now nearly boilerplate text in any RPG these days.  Not just to include it, but to include these exact same authors.  There is a reason though, the works of Clark Ashton Smith, H.P. Lovecraft, Poe, Howard and Tolkien are all fantastic as sources for a game.  Each had a level of storytelling that was sublime.   LotFP is not sublime and I wonder truthfully if the author actually read those books.

The idea, as I take it, is that LotFP is supposed to be "wierd", but outside of the splatter-porn art and questionable abundance of violence on women, there is nothing in the game that I don't have already in Swords and Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord or Basic Fantasy.  Except with those games I get monsters.
Now the author claims there are no monsters because monsters should be unique.
Frankly that is not only lazy, it's bullshit as well.  The game has an introduction book aimed at new players, yet goes on to tell these new players to make monsters without ever giving them anything to work from?  That's also just bad design. This of course is the bias of an author who has not seemed to have played many games outside of AD&D; I am not sure what games Raggi has played, but venture outside of AD&D and there are a lot of ways to have monsters and make each and every encounter with them unique and fearful.

Let's compare this to Call of Cthulhu the pinnacle of horror gaming for most.  There is a whole chapter on monsters, right there in front of everyone.  In fact there is even a skill in the game so characters can know something, maybe a lot of something, about each and every one.  It still does not do them a bit of good.  Raggi quotes Lovecraft and Smith, but his depiction of what you do with those elements are almost antithetical to what the authors were actually doing.  Browsing through the art (which is fantastic by the way, when it is not over doing it with the violence on women) there is nothing here that would actually have appeared in any Lovecraft or Smith book.  Yeah, there is the vague Nyarlathotep-looking creature on the back cover of one of the books, but that was the exception rather than the rule.   He took the time (and use that phrasing rather loosely) to not include monsters, but didn't bother to say much at all about mood, tone and how to generate a sense of horror that doesn't involve a disemboweling.

Horror is not the only factor in these newer Grime Dark games, there is after all the Grim.
Well to get a good idea on how to best do this I'll take a very recent example, The Northlands, which I reviewed a while back is grim game. The stakes in this game are high; you screw up you will freeze to death and that is your best option.  It very successfully impresses on you the feeling of doom; yet people still live here and make a life out of it.  The Scarred Lands from Sword and Sorcery Studios a few years back is another grim world.  They are grim, but not to the point of nihilism. People/Characters still can rise up and be something more than they are now.

And so far I don't like Dungeon Crawl Classics.

Why are we looking at a game and extolling it's "non-heroic" mien as a virtue?

Plus, on a pragmatic point, neither of these games are particularly original or new.  What new has been added?  Specialists (LotFP) are new and I'll grant that something that would work well in a Swords & Wizardry game.  DCC? Well I am still reading through the BETA to be honest with you.  The art reminds me of the old school art, but lacks the charm of it.

I like the old school games. I still love playing B/X and it's modern clones.

Butt what I did then is what I like to still do now.

Play the game, save the village, town, kingdom,  or even just the princess (or prince), defeat the monster, and be the Hero.

I have both the Deluxe and Grindhouse versions of LotFP and I'll pick up DCC too.
I doubt I'll play either.

Demons Run...when chased by Madame Vastra and Jenny

WARNING: There are some MINOR Spoilers here for the new Doctor Who episode, A Good Man Goes to War.  If you have not seen it yet, you might want to come back here after you do.

Ok?
Good.

Back?  Ohmygodwasthatthecoolestthingyoueversawinthehistoryofdoctorwho!!!???

And of course by that I mean the Victorian Silurian katana wielding Consulting Detective and her human paramour Jenny.
That's makes them perfect for Ghosts of Albion in my book!

I am going to have to do a bit of speculation, but I have some good sources and I consulted Jason Vey who did the EXCELLENT Doctor Who game guide for Unisystem.

Background: Madame Vastra came up from her home deep underground when she thought underground workers were trying to invade. They were not, they were only working on the underground subway system. She was ready to go to war on them when the Doctor arrived to help her.  He was able to save the humans and the Silurians.  Vastra, indebted to the Doctor vowed to repay him helping her.  She knows quite a bit about the Doctor and about Time Lords.  She knows about regeneration and even calls the Doctor "old friend" on many occasions.

At some point she met a young serving girl named Jenny and the two entered into a partnership. They shared adventures as disguised vigilantes/detectives and a romantic partnership as well.

In 1888 Madame Vastra had just ended the career and life of serial killer Jack the Ripper when a blue box appeared in her parlor...

We have little to go on of these two. But if the web traffic out there is any indication then they are already wildly popular with people asking for a spin off!
You can read their TARDIS files here, Vastra and Jenny.
They have their own Facebook page, Deviant Art page,  and an article on After Ellen.  All before the show even airs in America.

Madame Vastra
Very Experienced Master

Life Points 50
Drama Points 10

Attributes
Strength 3
Dexterity 6
Constitution 4
Intelligence 4
Perception 4
Willpower 4

Qualities
Silurian (Homo Reptilia)
Attractiveness +1 (+2 with Perception Filter on)
Charisma
Hard to Kill 4
Fast Reaction Time
Natural Armour (+2 to Armor)
Nerves of Steel
Perception Filter (acts as a Glamour, disgusses her true form) (see below)
Resources 8
Situational Awareness
Status 4

Drawbacks
Honorable (Minimal)
Love (Jenny)
Mental Problems (Mild Cruelty)
Minority (Woman)
Obligation (The Doctor, Important)
Obligation (The Yard, as a consulting detective, Minimal)
Secret 3 (is really a Silurian pretending to be human)
Secret 2 (Lesbian living with another woman)

Useful Information
Initiative +11
Actions 2/1
Natural Armor +2
Observation 1d10 +9
Fear +5

Skills
Armed Mayhem 5
Art 0
Athletics 5
Crime 3
Drive / Ride 1
Engineering 3
Fisticuffs 4
Influence 4
Knowledge 3
Knowledge (Silurian Technology) 3
Languages 2 (Silurian, English)
Marksmanship 5
Notice 5
Occultism 0
Physician 1
Wild Card

Combat

Maneuver	Bonus	Damage	Notes
Dodge / Parry	+11	-	Defence Action
Grapple	+11	-	Defence Action
Katana	+11	12	Slash / Stab
Punch	+10	6	Bash
Tongue Lash	+11	3	Sting
- Poison	-	Special	Strength 4 (same as Con Score)

Madame Vastra in the Ghosts of Albion world is a hunter of criminals.  She is not above killing them herself, she is a trained Silurian Warrior after all.  She does posses a Perception Filter which acts as a Glamour allowing her to pass as human.  Though due to the nature of the device, and it's fragility, she prefers to don a cloak and hood when "hunting".

Vastra as a human. 

(in reality Neve McIntosh who played Vastra)

The Silurian Tongue Lash has a lethal poison in it that has a Strength value equal to the Silurian's Constitution score.  Vastra, like all female Silurians, can choose whether or not her lash injects the poison or not.

Vastra is very devoted to Jenny, her companion and love.

Jenny Flint
Experienced Journeyman

Life Points 40
Drama Points 10

Attributes
Strength 3
Dexterity 4
Constitution 3
Intelligence 3
Perception 3
Willpower 4

Qualities
Attractiveness +2
Hard to Kill 2
Fast Reaction Time
Nerves of Steel
Situational Awareness

Drawbacks
Adversary
Honorable 2
Love (Vastra)
Obligation (The Doctor, Minimal)
Secret 1 (Lesbian living with another woman) (Jenny's is less than Madame Vastra's since she is of a lower class and has less status to loose)

Useful Information
Initiative +9
Actions 1/1
Observation 1d10 + 6
Fear +5

Skills
Armed Mayhem 4
Art 0
Athletics 3
Crime 2
Drive / Ride 2
Engineering 1
Fisticuffs 3
Influence 2
Knowledge 3
Languages 1 (English only)
Marksmanship 2
Notice 3
Occultism 0
Physician 3
Wild Card

Combat

Maneuver	Bonus	Damage	Notes
Dodge / Parry	+8	-	Defence Action
Grapple	+8	-	Defence Action
Katana	+8	12	Slash / Stab
Punch	+7	6	Bash

Jenny is the human companion and paramour of Madame Vastra.  To normal people they keep up the façade of a Lady and her servant girl. Jenny had been a servant but she was also already knowledgeable in the healing arts. A skill that has served the combat prone Vastra well.  Jenny herself is not slouch at combat, having trained with Vastra many times.  She is just as deadly with her katana as is her mistress.

Using Vastra and Jenny in Your Game
The question is why not use them? Or. How can you not use them?  Seriously.
If you are not happy with the Doctor Who connection then make Vastra a reptilian alien from Conspiracy X or a type of demon or even go out further and make her an Unseelie Lady, working to remove the taint of dishonor she sees her people have done.
The Victorian Era is so full of crime and mystery that there is enough for these two to do.

Good to see my regular GM already thinking of things to do with these two.
http://rhoninsramblings.blogspot.com/2011/06/i-really-want-to-do-something-with.html

On Blogfests, Part 2

My numbers held out.

I had a huge gain in followers according to Cyclopeatron's rankings.
http://cyclopeatron.blogspot.com/2011/06/fastest-growing-osr-blogs-of-april-and.html

Up 40 by his count and another 3 since he did the list.  43 new followers is not a bad deal.

Thank you all for thinking I have enough interesting things to say to keep on coming back!!

I have some updates on Liam's book, the next Dragonslayers game, the Witch book, what I am doing for Gen Con and how interspecies, intergalactic, Victorian, lesbian crime fighters might just be the next big thing.

Stay tuned!