Zatannurday: Ryan Sook

To followup on last weeks Justice League Dark, here are some Zatanna images by artist Ryan Sook.
You can find his website here, http://www.ryansook.com/

Dinosauria! Characters

I have been promising to get some characters up for Dinosauria.  Here is the first.  John is not just the first one to be posted but he was the first character to be created for Dinosauria proper.  He is actually the idea of my good friend Steven Todd and this character is actually registered with the Screen Writers Guild in Hollywood since he was to appear in one of the movies Steven worked on.  So it is a really treat that I am getting to work on him here and use him in my adventure.

John Mulgrew
Frmr. U.S. Marshall
Drama Points: 10
Life Points: 47

Attributes (20)
Strength: 3
Dexterity: 5
Constitution: 4
Intelligence: 3
Perception: 3
Willpower: 2

Qualities (20)
Acute Sense (Vision) (2)
Hard to Kill 3 (3)
Ex-Soldier (5) (Ex-Marshall)
Nerves of Steel (3)
Renown/Reputation (Known/Good) (3)
Resources Moderate (2)
Special: Magical Sight (2)

Drawbacks (up to 10)
Addiction (minor, smoking, drinking) (1)
Honourable (1)
Mental Problems (Severe Obsession – Avenge Dead Family) (2)
Obligation (1)
Recurring Nightmares (1)
Secret (deals with supernatural) (2)

Skills (25) (+8 from Drawbacks)
Armed Mayhem 4
Art 1
Athletics 2
Crime 2
Drive / Ride 3
Engineering 0
Fisticuffs 4
Influence 1
Knowledge 2
Languages 1
Marksmanship 5
Notice 5
Occultism 2
Physician
Science 1
Wild Card

Useful Information
Observation: 1d10 +8
Initiative: +5
Armor: +1 (leather duster)
Fear: +5
Actions: 1 Mental /2 Physical

Combat
Name Bonus Damage Notes
Punch +9 6 Bash
Rifle +10 20 Bullet
Pistols +10 12 Bullet* John has two Colts, one with regular rounds, the other with his special gold rounds. Once empty a Pistol needs 1 round to reload.

John Mulgrew is a former U.S. Marshall. Back in the days when was a Marshall he and his family lived in the new state of Texas where his job was to make sure that the local population was “controlled”. This meant he hunted down American Indians that had broken the law.

After a particularly long a bloody battle, John came home to find his wife and two children killed. Not just murdered, but ripped apart. Insane with grief he ran off to find out who did this. He was discharged from the Marshalls, but he didn’t care he only wanted to find who killed his family. He was convinced it was an Indian and had tracked the culprit to the Dakotas.

One night he made his camp near a cross roads only to be awoken by a strange man dressed as a gentleman cooking a foul smelling diner over his campfire. John raised his gun to the man, but the man only asked John to give him his gun. John, without thinking, handed it him. The man unloaded John’s revolver, a .44 Colt Dragoon, and reloaded it with cartridges made of pure gold. He loaded in six and handed John a seventh. He then told John that he knew what he was hunting and this gun will give him the ability to kill it. If he didn’t want the gun, just leave on the ground, but if he took it up then he only had seven shots to kill seven monsters and then John’s soul would be his.

John woke up the next morning with no sight that the man had been there, but his gun was still loaded with the gold bullets. Tucking it deep in his saddle bag, John rode on.

John had followed a trail of destruction all the way to the Dakotas. There he found an Indian. The two men tried to kill each other till they were stopped by a beast with long claws and blood stained white fur. It stood as a man, but thin and nearly 9 feet tall. The creature attacked them both. The Indian seemed to be using some sort of magic to attack the creature which harmed it, even while John’s shots from his normal gun were ignored. John recalled the gun with the gold bullets and he shot the creature which killed it instantly.

John and Indian, who he learned was named Husun, tended their wounds. Husun told John that the creature was a Wendigo and it had killed everyone in his camp. It was also the creature that had killed John’s family and all the families between here and Texas. He told John his gun was an evil thing, but now that he had used it he could not be rid of it.

John and Husun, whom the locals called “Blackfoot”, traveled together for a while investigating the paranormal. John tends to drink a little too much, but it is the only way he can sleep at night without the nightmares of the Wendigo killing his family.

John and Husun have come to England as Guests of the wealthy Lord Dyus Paton. Lord Paton has been unable to attend tonight’s diner at the Crystal Palace due to illness, but has sent along John and Husun in his stead, knowing the august crowd would enjoy seeing a real live American Cowboy and Indian.

Heartbreak & Heroines

Today I stumbled on this new RPG on Google+ and was lead to it's page over at Kickstarter.  It has me very intrigued.

The game is called Heartbreak & Heroines and you can find it's Kickstarter page here, http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/caoimhe/heartbreak-and-heroines-rpg

Now my first reaction to this game was one of excitement.  This sounds like a great game and it fills a needed place in the RPG community.    My later reaction, after reading some of the other hype about this game, was we couldn't get this game fast enough.

Here is something about the game from the site.

Heartbreak & Heroines is a fantasy roleplaying game about adventurous women who go and have awesome adventures -- saving the world, falling in love, building community, defeating evil. It's a game about relationships and romance, about fairy tales and feminism.

You play a fantasy heroine (or hero, if you prefer) whose heart has been broken. She's experienced some loss so great that she's taken up her sword, her tome, her staff, or her wand and walked away from her place in society -- by becoming one of its defenders, fighting back the darkness that endangers everyone.

Heartbreak & Heroines is first and foremost a fantasy adventure game. It's not preachy and it isn't a textbook about feminism, but it's written from a feminist point of view. It challenges some of our assumptions about the role of gender in gaming but at the heart of H&H, it's about being a heroine (or hero) and finding your way to happiness in a dangerous world. I hope to produce something that Dwayne (McDuffie) would have enjoyed reading.

And the art looks good too. Here is a sample of the cover.

I have to admit it reminded me of this:

The author, Caoimhe Ora Snow, is unknown to me, but she has a blog or two or three, and a couple of threads over at RPG.Net one of system notes and another that is a FAQ.  This of course has lead to the predictable thread denouncing the game (a game none of the posters have read mind you) on RPG.Net as well.   Though the one thing, the one fact really, that stands out is this game made it's goal and then some in 48 hours.  I have known some Kickstarter games that can't do the same in 48 DAYS.

The system is the same as found in Wandering Monster High School, which is here, http://www.1km1kt.net/rpg/wandering-monster-high-school  and may just a little related thematically to another game the author has done, Awesome Women Kicking Ass, http://boldpueblo.com/downloads/awka/awesome-women-kicking-ass-1.0.pdf

It is also beginning to make some noise on the various blogs.  But it should not surprise anyone that these are generally more positive.
http://nitessine.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/delicious-flamewars-heartbreak-and-heroines/
http://errantgame.blogspot.com/2011/07/heartbreak-heroines.html
http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=5800
http://gomakemeasandwich.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/from-the-mailbag-heartbreak-heroines-win-mtg-wtf/
http://gmskarka.com/2011/07/19/inclusion-in-rpgs/

I think the idea is an interesting one and I am glad to throw some support behind it.

These Dwarves...

Look freaking awesome.

I am glad they don't look like D&D dwarves or Rankin/Bass dwarves or even the ones I pictured in my head when I read the Hobbit the first time.

I am so looking forward to this movie and I have every faith in Peter Jackson's vision.

Alas, Borders

I have waxed on about Borders and it's previous incarnation Waldenbooks before.
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2011/04/o-is-for-otherworlds-club.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/09/reflecting-on-d-sometimes-you-cant-go.html

Sad to report that Borders is now facing it's final doom.

I will miss Borders, even if I rarely if even buy gaming material there anymore.

The trouble I think is the same reason why you don't see that many old-school record stores anymore.  The digital media revolution came and Borders did not change fast enough.  Yes there was also that revolving door of CEOs, and I have heard others complain about how the quality of the stores just went down hill.

I feel bad for the employees; this is a hard time to be out of work.  I still feel bad for the company too, they seemed to have been doomed really since the start of the 2000s.  And I also can't help but feel a tinge of guilt.  Sure there was nothing *I* could have done.  But I did choose to buy from Amazon and my FLGS instead, though my involvement one way or the otehr would not have helped Borders.  It will help my FLGS though.

I hate to see this happen all the same.

Pipes of the Susurrus: Sleeping not yet dead...

"I watched as the faerie woman produced a long flute that appeared to be carved from the leg bone of some animal.  At least I hoped it was animal.  She began to play the horrific looking instrument and despite her effort the music, if indeed it could be called that, never rose above the level of a whisper.  The small army of undead soldiers chasing us suddenly stopped and began to sway to her phantasmagorical playing.  She paused briefly and took the flute from her lips.
'Come now.' She said, winded from her playing. 'The dead do not sleep long under the susurrus.'"

- From the Journal of Larina Nix

In many role-playing games that feature vampires, zombies, and other forms of the walking dead, one feature is fairly constant.  The Undead are immune to sleep, charm, and other mind-affecting magic.  In Ghosts of Albion for example the dead do not sleep, in most fantasy RPGs you also can't charm them or use some form of mind-affecting magic to get them to do your bidding unless you are the necromancer that summoned them.

Given that undead are frequently encountered (even outside of horror games) and used as adversaries then it should stand to reason that someone would have found a way around this.  Well in my games it is the fae or maybe the elves in yours.

The following text is released as Open Text under the OGL.  No other part of this post or art is released under the OGL.

Pipes of the Susurrus

Pipes of the Susurrus or Susurrus Pipes appear as a variety of different woodwind instruments.  The most common is that of a flute, but pan pipes are also common enough.  Rumor persists of a greater Pipes of the Susurrus in the form of a set of bagpipes and created by the Queen of the Seelie Court herself.

In all cases, the pipes are made of bone.

In order to use the pipes, the wielder must have the appropriate skill (Perform, Music, Instruments, or what is acceptable in your system) and spend time practicing the unique music that comes from the pipes.
Once done then they may use the pipes to induce a sleep-like state in all undead that can hear the music.  The stupor remains with them for the duration of the playing and for half that time again.  If the undead are attacked then the spell is broken.

Alternately a spellcaster can spend some time with the pipes and use it as a new material component when casting spells that would normally be ineffectual against the undead.  This extends to sleep, charm, and hold spells, but not to ESP or other mind-reading spells.

Pipes of the Susurrus are very rare. The secret of their manufacture are not known to many and the ones that have been made are often destroyed. Intelligent undead (Vampires, Liches, Ghosts) know them on sight and will make all attempts to destroy them.  The undead fears the pipes since they induce not a sleep-like state for them, but a death-like state, and most undead fear death more than mortals do.

Section 15
"Pipes of the Sururrus" Copyright 2011, Timothy S. Brannan

Monster Mash Movie Blogathon

I am joining the ranks of the Monster Movie Blogathon over at Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear.

For my participation I'll be watching the 1958 classic "The Screaming Skull".  It's for research.  I promise.