Friday Night Videos: Stevie Nicks

Welcome back to Friday Night Videos, where we wish a happy birthday to the White Witch herself, Stevie Nicks!

You don't have to know a lot about me to know that I LOVE Stevie Nicks.   Tuesday May 26 is her birthday and we are going to celebrate here this weekend.

Whether with Fleetwood Mac or on her own no single artist has ever influenced my writing more.  To this day if I am going to write something new about witches I put Stevie and let the words flow.

We first hear of Stevie Nicks in the 1975 self title Fleetwood Mac album. Stevie and then boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham had joined the band bringing Rhianon with them.  Stevie had heard the story of Rhianon from a book, and only later heard of the Welsh Goddess.  She would often introduce the song as "This is a song about an old Welsh witch..."




Stevie went on to record her first solo album.  The enchanting Bella Donna.  While many of us were already in love with her from Rumours and Tusk, this solidified her hold as the Queen of Rock.
"The Edge of Seventeen" came about because Stevie could not understand Tom Petty's wife's thick southern accent.   Either way it gave us one of the enduring Stevie Nicks images, the White Winged Dove.




Fleetwood Mac was at their height when 1982's Mirage was released.  The album had a number of hits but the most Stevie of all the songs was "Gypsy".  Mirage my have been the swan song of the Fleetwood Mac that was, but Stevie never rose higher.




Shortly after the Mirage tour came to an end Stevie threw herself right into the recording of what would become, in my humble opinion, her greatest album to date.  This is the album I had playing on cassette when I wrote the first draft of the witch class. This is the album I listened to on CD when I made my 2nd Ed. Netbook. And this is the album I listened to on MP3 when I wrote The Witch.
The Wild Heart is one of the best albums ever.  My memory of this album is I got it for my 13th birthday just as soon as it was out.




Featuring keyboards by none other than the Purple One himself, Prince, "Stand Back" is not very witchy, but I love it all the same.




"Nightbird" the song that launched a 100 characters. I wanted my witch character to be as awesome as this song and to look like Stevie. It was 1983, but it is still just as true today 32 years later.
This version from "Solid Gold" is still one of my favorites.  In an age when artists were just lip-syncing their own songs  Stevie was singing hers.  She is joined here by her longtime back up singer, best friend and sister-in-law Lori Nicks singing the parts that Stevie over-dubbed on the album.




Stevie has spent years trying to escape the image of the "Witchy Woman" only to embrace it full on in season 3 of "American Horror Story".  The finale for "Coven" was an episode featuring what can only be called a Stevie Nicks video.  The song and the episode was called "The Seven Wonders".  The album was Tango in the Night from 1987. The last Fleetwood Mac album I ever bought on tape.  Yeah. We used to buy tapes.



You can watch the American Horror Story: Coven version below.




There are so many more of course. But that is good for tonight.

Character Creation Challenge: Quest of the Ancients

So an interesting thing happened this week.  I posted my Rhianon character for AD&D 1st Edition and I was pointed to a Dragonlance adventure that featured a very thinly veiled version of Stevie Nicks! Well, you could imagine my surprise at that.  Then double that I tracked down the said adventure, DL15 Mists of Krynn, to discover it was written by none other than Other Side favorite and the only guy more obsessed with witches than me, Vince Garcia.

I grabbed the adventure and read it through.  Yup. Totally Stevie Nicks. 

This got me thinking.  The adventure is low-level, deals with a powerful witch, but one that is here to help the party, not fight them. 

It also deals with a witch traveling across the planes. 

Seems like a perfect fit for my War of the Witch Queens campaign!

The adventure was written in 1988, so a little bit before Garcia's publication of the "Druids of Rhiannon" Dragon Issue #155 and his Magnum Opus, Quest of the Ancients.  Given the Stevie-like character on the cover of both editions of his game, it seemed certain that they were somehow related.

The Game: Quest of the Ancients

I will admit I am rather fond of this game.  I spent some time talking about it in the past here so you can read all of those posts for more detail. But suffice to say that this game is a Fantasy Heartbreaker in the classic sense, still though I can't help but be fond of it.

The Character: Sarana

So there is a character in DL15 Mists of Krynn, Stevie, who really is a very, very thinly veiled version of Stevie Nicks. Now I am totally fine with that. But she isn't the only one. On the cover of the 1st Edition of Quests of the Ancients, pictured above, is Sarana. She is the one in the pink dress.  She is also a thinly disguised version of Stevie Nicks.  In the book she is listed as a 20th level Witch/Bard, but no other stats are given.

The Second Edition/Printing cover makes this a bit more obvious.

And if that wasn't enough, here is the dedication found in both printings.

Again, I am right there with him on this. He even mentions Dark Shadow's Angelique here and then again in REF5 Lords of Darkness as an NPC vampire. 

Sarana is an interesting case.  I can be perfectly ok with the idea that Sarana from QotA and Stevie in Dragonlance are one and the same. Sure, Stevie is listed as a grey elf and Sarana as a human.  One or other of those could be glamours or disguises.  I am likely to say elf or half-elf.  

Now "how" do I get her there? Well for that let us follow the story of her co-cover girl Raven TenTolliver.  I gave some insight to her goings-on in this post of her appearance in the Forgotten Realms.  Raven has been known as "Raven," "Whisper," and even "Rhiannon" (!) over her years.  It looks like in the Forgotten Realms book, LC1 Gateway to Ravens Bluff, she is largely retired and runs an inn.  You can read some of the details here, here (lifting words from LC1), and a bit on the Inn she runs in Ravens Bluff.  While retired she was a 25th level witch/20th level assassin!

So Raven left her group of adventures and then settles in Ravens Bluff in the Forgotten Realms, Sarana finds her way to Krynn, where she gets trapped and is sometimes known as Stevie. I split the difference and made her into a half-elf. She is a follower of the Faerie Goddess Rhiannon.  Given this I *might* have her in the Feywild and not Krynn.  I need to read over the adventure more to see. 

Sarana (Quest of the Ancients)
13th level Half-Elven Witch

Armor rating: 0
Tactical move: 10'
Stamina points: 68
Body points: 15

Stats: St 10; Ag 13; Cn 15; IQ 18; Ch 19; Ap 19: Lk 7

Attack 1
Combat phase: 3
Dmg: 1D4+1 (dagger) or by spell
Ethics: G
Size: 5'1", 125#

Witch Abilities
A: Create Focus ()
B: Additional Combat Skill Slot (2 for 4 total)
C: Create Potions and Elixirs
D: Form Coven

Skills (180 pts)
Animal Handling: 40%
Nature Lore: 60%
Calligraphy: 40%
Danger Sense: 10%

Spells

Rank 1: Beguile, Catfall, Evil Eye, Helping Hands, Lirazel's Silent Scream, Magic Dart, Read Magic Script, Slumber, Trick, Witch Warrior
Rank 2: Discern Magic, Enchant Bracers, Fire Darts, Fire Tounge, Net, Night Sight, Stone Speak, Tell Sight, Witch Wand
Rank 3: Charm, Crystallomancy, Energy Blast, Laughing Skull, Sheet Lightning, Spirit Talk, Witch Mark
Rank 4: Hex, Illusion, Shape Change, Shooting Stars, Transform, Witches Eye
Rank 5: Cauldron of Magic, Lirazel's Pocket Dimension, Polymorph, Witchfire
Rank 6: Aura of Fear, Control Weather, Pentagram of Protection, Talisman
Rank 7: Vision Globe, Witch Ward

That's a lot of spells.

For my War of the Witch Queens, I made D&D witch stats for her too.

Character Creation Challenge

Tardis Captain is the originator of this idea and he is keeping a list of places participating.  When posting to Social Media don't forget the #CharacterCreationChallenge hashtag. 

RPG Blog Carnival

This month's RPG Blog Carnival is being hosted by Plastic Polyhedra. They are doing Characters, Stories, and Worlds, so that fits right in with everything we are posting this month.

Check out all the posts going on this month at both of these sources.

Five Albums, Five Days: Stevie Nicks - The Wild Heart (1983)

The search for my muse continues.

The year is 1983 and it is my 13th birthday.  There was was always a lot big "to do" about your "Golden Birthday" when you were a kid. That is when your age matches the day you were born.  I was born on a Friday the 13th in June and now I was 13.

Not sure what I got that day from others.  But I do know one.  My best friend Steven Todd gave me a copy of an album by an artist we both loved.  But in truth, I think he did it so I would stop borrowing his tape.  The artist was the immortal Stevie Nicks.
Last year for my birthday my wife got me the extend cut rerelease.   It was like listening to it for the first time again.

The Album: Stevie Nicks - The Wild Heart (1983, 2017)

Sabrina the Witch

Oddly enough one witch I almost never talk about is Sabrina The Teen Aged witch.

Not because I don't like her, I just don't know all that much about her.  I knew of the Archie comic, but never read it.  I watched the old Filmation Saturday Morning Cartoon and enjoyed that.  I never watched the TV series though with Melissa Joan Hart or the cartoon spun off from it.

Truthfully I never gave her much thought other than starting up a sheet for her in Buffy with a note to watch some of the episodes.  My idea then (2001-2002) was to have the MJH version meet up with the Cast.  That never happened since I went full on into another series.  She never even guest stared in my next series about witches, which is kind of a shame really.

It probably would have stayed that way until fellow Eden writer Thom Marrion hadn't included her in his "Swinging 70's" character write-ups.  Course there she was "Sabrinia, the Late-20 to Early-30s Witch".
http://edenstudiosdiscussionboards.yuku.com/sreply/34780/Swinging-Seventies-

But I liked the idea so much that I thought I'd update that version of her.  I always wanted an older matriarch sorta witch character in my game.  Someone that was not active in the normal affairs, but had history.  Plus I also wanted someone that pretty much had the entire supernatural world owing her favors.
And of course I was dying to use Stevie Nicks as casting in something.  Given my history with her, it had to be something special.  Sabrina as a character might not have been my first choice, but I am happy how it all worked out.

Sabrina the Late Middle Aged Witch
(based on Thoms original)

Note: All respect to Thom Marrion for this. This is an idea I had kicking around in my head for a while. Plus I have ALWAYS wanted to use Stevie Nicks as the Queen of Witches in my games. I was listing to the "Wild Heart" today and decided to do this.

Sabrina Spelman-Krinkle
Age: 63, played by Stevie Nicks
Very Experienced Investigator (Semi-Retired)

Name: Sabrina Spelman-Krinkle
Motivation: Not much motivates her now
Creature Type: Human
Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Constitution 2, Intelligence 4, Perception 4, Willpower 5
Ability Scores: Muscle 10, Combat 12, Brains 16
Life Points: 26
Drama Points: 20
Special Abilities: Attractiveness +2, Contacts (Supernatural) 5, Emotional Problems (Depression, -2), Love (Tragic), Magic Family, Occult Investigator, Occult Library(Amazing), Secret (She's a witch who belongs to a powerful magical family), Magic 8, Supernatural Senses (Basic and the Sight)

Maneuvers
Name;Score;Damage Notes
Dodge;12;;Defense Action
Grapple;14;;Resisted by Dodge
Kick;11;8;Bash
Magic;21;Special;Varies by spell
Punch;12;6;Bash

Thom gives us an idea of what Sabrina was doing in the 70s since that time Sabrina married her long time love Harvey Krinkle which was no end of controversy, a Spelman marring a mortal (though it had been done before) and eventually she rose up in ranks in the Witches Council. After the death of Samantha Spelman-Stephens, Sabrina was the logical choice as the successor to the Queen of Witches. Logical to everyone except to Sabrina herself and maybe Harvey (but not like the Council cared for his opinion), it was in fact their mistreatment of her husband and their non-magical daughter (though their other children were magical) that she finally took on the role. She had hoped to change the Council from the top down. The trouble was the Witches Council is an old organization and moves slow. It took her months to even get them to install a computer in her office.
After years of fighting the system Sabrina is now tired of fighting. Her reason to fight, Harvey, died a couple of years ago and now she is not much more than a figurehead with the true operations of the Witches Council being run by Tabitha Stephens.
However dont let her apathy fool you, Sabrina saw more of the supernatural before age 17 than most teams of occult investigators see their entire lives. Like the previous Queen of Witches, her (great) Aunt Samantha, Sabrina has the full might and power of the Council at her disposal. Though it would take something considerable to get her attention.

In your games: Sabrina looks over her life and sees the wasted years fighting the council, working to keep the council and her family both happy and she has ended up here, older, alone and pleasing no one. Her stats have not changed much to reflect this stagnancy of her life. Think Queen Victoria after Albert died. I even have her wearing black.

Also I like the idea that if you bring her into the game it needs to be for a really good reason.

Stevie Nicks on American Horror Story Coven

The writers for American Horror Story: Coven continue to pick ideas out of my head and will be featuring Stevie Nicks on an upcoming episode.

Seriously, it is like they read this blog! (Ok, I know they don't)

New Orleans? Check and check
Witchcraft Traditions? check
Stevie Nicks? Check
Witch Queens? Check.

Ok all of that is to be expected really.  But it has still been a really fun ride!

In other TV-Witch news, "Witches of East End" has been picked up for Season 2.

Friday Night Videos: Guest VJ Elizabeth Chaipraditkul of WITCH

Welcome once again to Friday Night Videos!

Tonight I want to welcome my very first Guest VJ.
Back on the original FNV guest VJs were a staple.  Usually they had something to promote, a new movie or TV show, or they were pop-culture icons.

Tonight I want to welcome my very special guest Elizabeth Chaipraditkul, author and designer of new game WITCH!

I featured WITCH this morning on my Kickstart your weekend post so please check that out.
So without further ado here is Liz!
--

Hi! I am Liz and I was asked by Tim to guest VJ and make a playlist based on my game WITCH and what I listened to while creating it. This was difficult and I spent a lot of time agonizing over my Spotify playlists and YouTube history before I came to this core essence list. I hope you enjoy it.

Florence and the Machine - No Light, No Light


When I need to get in the mood for writing I love listening to beautiful things and for me that is Florence and the Machine. Their lyrics stay with me and make me think. No light, No Light is no exception. It is a simple love song with beautiful lyrics. “You are the night time fear, you are the morning when it’s near, when it’s over you’re the start, you’re my head, you’re my heart.” When creating WITCH, the fluff pieces that are meant to tempt and entice readers, I try to emulate what I feel when I listen to Florence and the Machine

Lana Del Rey - Gods & Monsters



Lana is so apathetic in all her songs, it is brilliant. I am a pretty passionate person, at least I like to think so, and Lana is the perfect Yin to my Yang. Furthermore, the subject matter of her songs is darkly shallow, the perfect mood for a simple noir setting- smoking a cigarette, sipping a martini, and trying to hide the run in your stockings. Lana Del Rey just works for WITCH, she’s mysterious, deceptively shallow, and seductive- just like magic.

Johnny Cash - I Hung My Head



Anything Johnny Cash was the soundtrack to my university years. He is a fantastic storyteller. His voice conveys so much emotion, it’s clear and it’s strong. I try to emulate Johnny when I write and listening to him clears my mind. I Hung My Head is one of my penultimate favourite songs by Mr. Cash, it is a simple story of utter tragedy. It makes me think a lot about WITCH, what would you do if you did something so stupid, what would you give up to get out of a stupid mistake you made?

Stevie Nicks – Edge of Seventeen



We’re shaped a lot by our parents. I wasn’t the coolest kid in school so, when I wanted to get into music, I asked my mom to buy me “cool” tunes (big mistake). She came back with Fleetwood Mac. While this didn't make me the most popular kid, I am now happy she did. I love Stevie Nicks and she helps me when things just aren't working the way I want in WITCH. Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac are my editing music. They get my head bopping, they allow me to let go of crappy pieces of text I through were brilliant weeks ago, and the help me get work done.

Shireen - Unmarked



Shireen is actually a band who’s lead singer I know pretty well. She’s my friend and her name is Annieke and she has the voice of a siren. Normally, when you meet people and they tell you they have a band you cringe a bit. (Note: This normally has nothing to do with the band and more me just being too judgmental). However, when I heard Shireen I was sold. Their music is amazing and haunting. I ended up listening to this one track so much while working on our Kickstarter Campaign. It’s a perfect song for WITCH (especially if you take the lyrics a bit too literally).

Thank you for listening in with me. I had so much fun compiling this list :).
If you like the playlist and you’re interested in our Kickstarter for the corebook of WITCH, please check it out here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1568822309/witch-a-dark-modern-fantasy-role-play-game

--

Tim here again. Thanks Liz. That's a great playlist.
Are you interested in being a Guest VJ here at Friday Night Videos? Send me an email at timothy.brannan@gmail.com

100 Days of Halloween: DL15 Mists of Krynn

When I talk about witches and D&D one of the last places that usually comes to mind is Krynn and Dragonlance. BUT believe it or not, there are some strong connections between my witches and the first Dragonlance Trilogy.  Usually this can be summarized with me thinking that "this could use some more witches" where the "this" is the trilogy.  Witches are mentioned in the first book but that was only a tease.

So. How does DL15 Mists of Krynn fit into all of this? Glad you asked.

DL15 Mists of Krynn

PDF. 128 pages. Color covers and maps. Black & white interior. 

This book contains 12 mini-adventures (pages 2 to 100), nine discussions on various creatures and races unique to Krynn with adventure hooks or lairs, and eight NPCs. I printed the monster section out and stuck it into my Dragonlance Monstrous Compendium binder.

I am going to be upfront here and say this is not a review of the entire book, but rather just of the mini adventure The Tanglewood Keep, and I'll briefly touch on one of the NPCs, Ladonna.

The Tanglewood Keep

This adventure is a basic MacGuffin hunt, but it has some nice features about it. First off it was written by a friend of the Other Side Vince Garcia. I have featured his Quest of the Ancients RPG many times here.  Secondly, while the adventure is simple, that is its greatest strength. It is not really about the quest to find a stone, it is about getting the PCs from their home world (Greyhawk or now the Realms) to Krynn via the magic mirror in the adventure.

The characters are introduced to kender, tinker gnomes, and draconians in short order. They get the full Dragonlance introduction before the mud on their boots from their home world is even dry.  

I ran this one for my family at home and at Gen Con 2021 and in no short order they all wanted to kill poor Twil Topknot! It was a fun adventure and I am glad I got to do it.

The book itself does have an "Adventure Path" feel about it with adventures to take the characters from the 1st to 15th level. Tanglewood Keep is for adventurers of 1st to 3rd level. If you want to play in Krynn and don't want to do the War of the Lance, or do what I did and have it as a "background noise," then this is a good choice.

This adventure also introduces us to the magic-user cough*witch*cough Stevie. I'll get to her later.

Ladonna

I admire the layout of this book. Everything is rather modular with the monster/race bits fitting on a front and back page (reading the PDF) and the NPCs fitting one per page. It makes printing this out rather convenient.

Ladonna is another entry from Vince. She is a 17th-level black robe (aka evil) wizardess. But you would be forgiven if you read her entry and didn't think she was a witch. I mention her here since, well she is witchy and from Vince Carcia.

Stevie aka Sarana

In the adventure, we meet Stevie. She is a 12th-level white-robed Grey Elf wizard. Given the adventure is for characters levels 1 to 3 there is no way the PCs are going to mess with her. Her description is pretty much Krynn's Stevie Nicks. I mean she is better qualified to go get her rock than the characters are. So is Twill for that matter. But none of that is important really. What is important is the fact she is here. 

Stevie also has a not-too-coincidental resemblance to another Garcia character, this time it is Sarana from his Quest of the Ancients.  

For my run of this, I combined Stevie (grey-elf) and Sarana (human) into one character, Sarana (half-elf). Seriously if I had pulled out a witch-like character named Stevie in front of my family they never would have taken her seriously. They know who I am.  Much like the PCs, Sarana is trapped here from her own world. Unlike the PCs she has decided to remain.

War of the Witch Queens hook

At the end of the adventure Sarana/Stevie tells the group she fears the Queen is dead.

Honestly. If I never get to the other adventures these NPCs, the little adventure, and the monster pages has all made this a great choice for me. 

Character Creation Challenge: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 1st Edition

Up until 2000 if you said "D&D" most people thought of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition.   Indeed it was AD&D that dominated the later part of the 1970s, 1980s, and with 2nd Edition the 90s. Though that is for tomorrow's post.

Today I take on the game that I played the most and the one that dominates the imagination of so many still today.

The Game: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

A lot of ink, both real and virtual, has been spilled on the whats, whys, and hows of the differences between Basic D&D and Advanced D&D, so I see no need to spill more here.  Suffice to say that they are different games, though we freely mixed them back in the day. 

The evolution of D&D from Original to 5th edition sees it's first divergence here. 

In the AD&D 1st Ed years there was no official witch class.  There were however many unofficial and semi-official witch classes.  I talked about the Dragon Magazine #43 witch yesterday but I used it for Basic D&D.  The class was famously, or maybe infamously, updated in 1986 for AD&D in the pages of Dragon #114.  It was, and maybe still is, one of the most popular versions of the witch ever made for D&D.

The Character: Rhiannon

Ah. If I had a dime for every Rhiannon I have run into over the years. 

Not that I can blame anyone. The Golden Age of AD&D was the early 80s and the Queen of the music charts was Stevie Nicks. "Rhiannon" by Fleetwood Mac was released in 1975 on the album Fleetwood Mac. The second Fleetwood Mac album to feature this title, and their tenth overall, but the first with new couple Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham.  But in the 1980s it wasn't this album or even the insanely good and popular Rumours or Tusk that grabbed me and my imagination. No it was Stevie's solo efforts Belladonna and (especially) The Wild Heart that began my deep, deep love affair with witches.

Rhiannon would be an old witch in my games today. Likely a relative or even a spiritual Goddess-mother to Larina.  But today she is the young Maiden who "rings like a bell through the night" and looks for a lover.  I can't help think of her as anything but the famous art Elmore drew in the Dragon #114 piece.  If she looks a little like Stevie, well, maybe Stevie looks like her.

Rhiannon
1st level Witch, Sisters of the Moon coven, High Secret Order
Chaotic Good

STR: 11
INT: 16
WIS: 13
DEX: 13
CON: 11
CHA: 15

AC: 9
HP: 3

Saving Throws
Witches use the best of Cleric & Magic-user Saves.

Poison or Death: 10
Petrification or Polymorph: 13
Rod, Staff, or Wands: 11
Breath Weapon: 15
Spell: 12

Saves +2 against other witch magic

Spells
1st (1+3):  Darkness, Mending, Seduction, Sleep

Equipment
Dagger, backpack, iron rations, water, 50' rope, staff.

Everything you need for a witch character in 1986

I think an updated, and more mature, Rhiannon will need to grace my War of the Witch Queens games sometime.

Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night
And wouldn't you love to love her?
Takes to the sky like a bird in flight
And who will be her lover?

Character Creation Challenge

Tardis Captain is the originator of this idea and he is keeping a list of places participating.  When posting to Social Media don't forget the #CharacterCreationChallenge hashtag. 

RPG Blog Carnival

This month's RPG Blog Carnival is being hosted by Plastic Polyhedra. They are doing Characters, Stories, and Worlds, so that fits right in with everything we are posting this month.

Check out all the posts going on this month at both of these sources.

Friday Night Videos: Fall into Autumn

The first day of Autumn is Wednesday Sept. 23. Though the first day of Meteorological Autumn was Sept. 1 and Labor Day, the unofficial start of Fall (what we call Autumn in the US) was Sept. 7.

So however you look at it, Autumn is in the air.
I love Fall/Autumn.  I am still wired so much into the academic calendar to feel like Autumn is the start of a new year.

So here are some songs celebrating Fall and the end of Summer.

Was there ever a song more about September than Earth, Wind & Fire's "September"?  Do you remember the 21st of September?




I will admit, I liked Green Day back in the day, but right around the time American Idiot came out I had kinda out grew them.  Still this is not a bad song.  This is not the 8 min long minin movie version.




And the summer became the fall, I was not ready for the winter.

I have posted Stevie before.  This is a triple rarity.  This was a song on "Solid Gold" that was not lipsynched. It is also a video that was never as far as I know ever shown on Friday Night Videos. Also it featured a very strong performance from Stevie's own sister in law Lori Nicks. Lori sang the chorus here, but on the album Stevie sang both parts.  I really like Lori's voice and love it when she sings duets with Stevie.
Here is Stevie Nicks, the White Witch of Rock & Roll, with "Nightbird" from The Wild Heart.



I talked about John Cougar Mellencamp a while back.  Growing up in the Midwest Fall also means Harvest. Well....it means that everywhere, but just as my rhythms as an academic are defined by the school year, the harvest is very much part of the world I grew up in.
Plus it is great fucking song from a great album.



I have said it before, but Led Zeppelin is pretty much AD&D in music form. OR is that AD&D is Led Zeppelin in RPG form?  "Ramble On" from Led Zeppelin II is one of those songs that just cements this idea.  Part ballad, part metal, it could be a song about an adventurer "mine's a tale that can't be told" complete with Tolkien references.





Don Henley's "Boys of Summer" was just one of those songs that was always on the radio the Summer of 1985 and it was the perfect song for that time too.  Building the Perfect Beast was a fantastic album, but I will talk about it another time.
Here is the Atari's version.  I have actually seen a Black Flag sticker on a Cadillac.




AND just because today is Casandra Petersen's aka Elvira, The Mistress of the Dark's birthday today.
Yeah....I did actually listen to this song when came out.  You can't judge me.

Friday Night Videos: Women Rock!

Growing up I had a friend that knew every actress' name, movie she was in all these details about their lives.  In college I had another friend who did the same thing with all these supermodels.

When asked who I found attractive or "liked" I would always say names like Stevie Nicks, Deborah Harry or Joan Jett.  For me it was always about the rock girls.

It is also no surprise that most of the female PCs and NPCs I have or have had were based on the women whose albums, tapes and CDs I would buy.

So with the new Supergirl show on now and Jessica Jones on tonight in the US here are some of my favorite ass-kicking superheroines.

This should not be a surprise to anyone I have already featured great performers like Shirley Manson of Garbage, Stevie Nicks,  So here are a just a very few of my favorites.

I have always loved Joan Jett.  She is just so goddammed cool and can rock with the best of them.  She has SOOO many great songs, but this one always gets me going.  Plus it is the "theme song" for the Grazzt/Iggwilv love affair.  That's their dirty little secret...they actually love each other.




Ever hear a song and thought "man I need to do something with that!",  Pat Benatar's "Shadows of the Night" from 1982's Get Nervous was always that song to me. It is very, very likely that the "Midnight Angel" later became Nox.  I always loved her and yes I did have a witch character that looked like her in the 80s.   I never liked the video for it to be honest.  If had been thinking about this I should have made my own video with footage of her on Charmed.  Yes. She was on Charmed for an episode.




Speaking of Nox. "Because the Night" was written by Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen thanks to the manipulations of Jimmy Iovine (who is immortalized in my games as well).   Patti Smith is such a powerful singer that most people can't do this song justice.  Bruce can.  Natalie Merchant did a good job, so did Shirley Manson.  But they can't compare to her version.   This is one of my favorite songs.




I was once asked if I thought Siouxsie Sioux was attractive. I said yes without hesitation and then I showed them the video for "Kiss Them For Me".  It's not the most iconic Banshees' song, but I really like it.




One of my favorite bard characters looks just like Aimee Mann. What can I say, she is so damn cute and more talented than a truckload of pop-princesses.




Even Darth Vader loves Blondie.  "The Tide is High" is not really related to any gaming, but damn. Deborah Harry in her prime.




What do a Gateway 486, an HP Desk Jet and Hormonally Yours all have in common?  They were the essential ingredients to the first time I sat down to collect all my notes for the Witch class.  I mention the printer because I still have that printout with a couple hundred hand written notes.
Hormonally Yours was the second album from Shakespears Sister featuring former Bananarama singer Siobhán Fahey.  "Stay" was a big hit with me in 92. I thought she was so hot back then, still do in fact.




Very, very, very few people (not just singers) have left such a mark on my psyche as Sinéad O'Connor.  Seriously. I can divide time into two very distinct and very different points. The time before I heard The Lion and The Cobra and the time after.  I have talked about Sinéad before, but the amount I have talked about her doesn't reflect what her music has meant to me.  "Troy" is not my favorite song on this album, but it is damn close.



I think this a good place to stop.  I can do a part 2 later!

Q is for Quest of the Ancients

Q is for Quest of the Ancients, an RPG I discovered back in the days when I was getting "out of" D&D and looking for something else.

Quest of the Ancients can be described as a D&D clone, a D&D add on or as a collection of someone's house rules.  The author, Vince Garcia, had some publications before QotA came out including some material for AD&D2 and White Wolf magazine.  So he was not a noob to this.

QotA fills that same slot of near-D&D that you will sometimes find other games living in. Similar to the Atlantean series from Bard Games.  Lejendary Adventures is one that comes to mind as well.

Why did I pick it up?  Simple, it was advertised as having the most complete Witch class ever made.  I forget where I read that, but I knew I had to pick up a copy.  So I did. I was a bit underwhelmed, but there were some good bits.

While the game certainly has it's impressive moments, it never struck me as bringing anything new to my table.  I liked the Gypsy class, the Witch class was interesting, but everything else seemed like a poor-man's copy of AD&D.  There were a ton of classes in this book, something like 15 or more, and a bunch of spells.

I want to talk about the witch class for a bit.  Now in general I liked the witch.  Garcia was obviously pulling from some of the same books I was when he wrote up his witch.  Also (and you can tell by looking at the cover) this was a thinly-veiled attempt to have a "Stevie Nicks" character class.  I can't say I disapprove of that.  There was also a gypsy class which was divided into Male and Female gypsy.  I kinda made sense, kinda didn't.  I see what the author was trying to do, but I don't think it worked out as well as he liked.

I have always wanted to pick up the second edition.  I don't know if much has changed in it, but the cover art is much better (featuring the same characters).

I like this cover to be honest.  The Witch looks more like Stevie Nicks than ever and the wizard looks like he has gained a few levels.

I have wanted to get this, but can't actually bring myself to buy it until I see what some of the differences are between the editions.  I am hoping that there is something here above and beyond the first edition, but I am fairly sure there is not.    In the beginning of the 90's this might have been a cool game to play, but today it looks a little a dated.  A+ for effort though.

Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quest_of_the_Ancients
http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=8756

Buy
Noble Knight Games (best place to get it really)

ETA: And check out Jeff Grubb, also doing QotA for his Q post.  http://grubbstreet.blogspot.com/2011/04/q-is-for.html

Friday Night Videos: Women Rock!, Part 2.

A while back I posted a bunch of videos from women that rock.
It was quite popular.

I said then that a part 2 was in order.  So here it is!



K's Choice wis a band from Belgium that had some notoriety in the mid to late 90s.  The biggest album was 1995's Paradise in Me which gave us the hit "Not An Addict". This was a huge song for me during my Sojourn in Hell period, for what should be obvious reasons.  My biggest issue with K's Choice is that for years I swore they were Canadian.   This is the European version of the video which I prefer.




Speaking of the 90s, no one, and I mean no one, does angry like Tori Amos.  Don't think so?  Listen to her lyrics sometime, especially songs like "Me and A Gun", "Pass the Mission", "Spark" and "Cornflake Girl" or to a lesser degree "Crucify".  Taylor Swift sings about someone and it is fodder for Twitter. Tori Amos sings about someone and it is Primal Scream Therapy.
Though the song that always gets me is the first time I saw her.  "Silent All These Year" from the phenomenal Little Earthquakes.

My scream got lost in a paper cup
You think there's a heaven
Where some screams have gone

Never fails to get to me.




I am not all about pathos.  Last time I mentioned my love of Siouxsie Sioux and the Banshees.  That is still true. But I was thinking back to the first song I ever heard of theirs.  Without a doubt it has to be "Cities in Dust".  I remember hearing this all the time in the hey of MTV. I actually sat down to listen to the lyrics once and realized it was about Volcano Day.




At this point do I really need to explain why I am including Stevie Nicks?  No. Ok good.  But I will add that this is my favorite song from the fantastic The Other Side of the Mirror.  This is a more adult and more mature Stevie.  This is a woman that knows who she is and where life is going.  At 31 she was more interesting than the "Wild Heart" girl of her early to mid 20s.




Last time I also mentioned Joan Jett, but I really need to give a shout out to the band that gave us Joan Jett, Lita Ford and Cherie Currie, The Runaways.  The Runaways have been given their due more lately. There was the bio-pic in 2010 and appearances of their signature song "Cherry Bomb" in both Lollipop Chainsaw and Guardians of the Galaxy.   The version from the movie is not too bad, but lacks something raw that original had in droves.




Taylor Momsen may have gotten her start as "Cindi Lou Who" but thankfully for all of us she sold her soul to darkness.  Just kidding...mostly.  Well years later she is fronting the band Pretty Reckless and she seems to be constantly trying to shed that wholesome image.  She is, in some sense, the spiritual successor to The Runaways.   She looks like Cherie Curry and tries to sing like Joan Jett.  She isn't bad and the band has some good songs.  "Heaven Knows" might be the most recognizable.




So who are your favorites?

White Dwarf Wednesday #19

The summer of 1980 I turned 11, and White Dwarf published issue #19 for June/July.

Let's take a moment and look at this Les Edwards cover.  Some sort of ghoul or demon coming up out of a pit (a ghoul according to his website).  He is not here to welcome us to the dungeon or give us candy.  I love the detail of this image.  But it is not the only detail we should look at.  Note how the magazine is up 15p from last issue (and 50 cents in the US, Canada and Australia).
We are treated to some more full-page ads.  Again, I enjoy these and they are a different insight to the time and too what was popular.  Up front, Chaosium is no longer "The Chaosium".    An ad as a letter from TSR detailing what is coming to the UK this summer from TSR.  The new Deities and Demigods book as well as the  Modules GW1, S3, B2 and Q1.  Interestingly enough B2 is listed as both for D&D and AD&D.

An aside.  We are really getting into the time when I was hardcore into D&D (as opposed to the last 30+ years I guess).  I can't help but reflect on when this was all so new to me and new to everyone else.  Popping in my MP3s from Stevie Nicks "Bella Donna" (ok that was 81, but hey).

An ad for the the new Ares magazine and the new game John Carter, Warlord of Mars. (Aside #2: Must pick up John Carter on Blu-Ray today!)

The editorial this issue is about the lack of back issues (tell me about it!!) and how they will publish the White Dwarf compendiums, one "The Best of White Dwarf Articles"  and the other "The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios".  I remember wanting those both so bad back in the day.  It was not till post college, a steady paycheck and the magic of eBay that I was able to fill in my gaps.

On to the articles!

Trevor Graver gives us a criminal background for Traveller characters.  Again, I love these old mags because they were so system agnostic.  Everything was thrown in together.  Traveller, D&D/AD&D, Runequest, it was all here.

The Fiend Factory is back with some low level monsters.  The Empopath, which is like a low-level psychic frog.  The Stormbiter, a sort of air-elemental of the desert, similar to a Dust Devil.  Undead Horses (what it says on the tin), the Werefox which I think is the same the would later appear in Monster Manual II. And the Darkhawk which is an evil looking, but not evilly aligned, undead hawk.  Monsters still have Monstermark ratings.

A Runequest mini-scenario, Jorthan's Rescue, by Stephen R. Marsh & John T. Sapienza Jr. is up next.  It looks pretty solid to be honest.

Next up is a page on how there has been an interest of late of new character classes and some ideas behind the new Beserker class that follows.   Roger E. Moore then presents the Berserker as a complete class.  This is an order of magnitude above other classes in terms presentation, use and how it was written.  The class is complete on one page.

ANOTHER mini-scenario by Tom Keenes is next.  Ogre Hunt is presented as suitable for 4-7 moderate to low-level characters for C&S.  At only a page and 3/4s it is smaller, but does what it sets out to do.

Open Box is up with new games.  Starfire from Task Force Games is a tactical naval space battles game for 2-3 players.  It gets a solid 8/10.  Magic Realm from Avalon Hill has been a constant search for me at game auctions. It is described as a fantasy-adventure role-playing game with a board.  While reviewer Colin Reynolds likes the magic battles, he downgrades it for it boardgame like set up.  I get the feeling that this game was in his mind neither RPG or board-game.   It gets a 7/10.   We also have two books from Fantasy Productions Inc. The first is High Fantasy, which reminds the reviewer of D&D. It has some interesting design ideas, including a to hit vs dodge mechanic, but the rest seems uninspired. Don Turnbull gives it a 4/10.  Fortress of Ellendar is an adventure module to be used with High Fantasy, but it fares better with a 7/10.  Finally the first official adventure for Traveller, Adventure 1 The Kinunir gets 9/10 from Bob McWilliams.

Lew Pulsipher gives us an article on magical wards for AD&D. Very interesting, not just in terms of content, but as an extension of D&D scholarship; articles designed to expand some minor bit of game esoterica. This sort of thing will fill magazines for years to come and websites and blogs long after that.

The Letters section has the typical comments on Fiend Factory, but also some letters on the differences between the 1st and 2nd printings of the new MM and DMG, with one complaining that the different "editions" came too soon on the heels of the previous one.  Somethings never, ever change.

Treasure Chest gives us some pre-gen NPCs instead of magic items.

The next article is something of an archaeological find really. It discusses the future of CM gaming, that is Computer Moderated.  The Archaeopteryx of today's MMORPGs.  The game is called Starweb from Flying Buffalo Inc. The turns are still sent and returned by mail, but all the moderation is done by computer.  What is most interesting I think is not that this was the first entry into what would today become a business either adored or reviled (or both) by traditional Table Top RPG fans, but that Starweb is still going on! http://www.flyingbuffalo.com/swrules.htm.  This is what I love about these retrospectives, the archaic knowledge of a bygone time AND how it is related to today.
I suppose it should be noted that the reviewer sited a number of problems with Starweb, I don't think he foresaw it would still be running 32 years after publication.

We end with news of some new character sheet books coming from TSR and the C1 module.  The Empire Strikes Back is mentioned with the often quoted "three trilogies" idea.
We have ads. A lot of them in fact, with finally a full page ad for Top Secret again.

White Dwarf grows also to 36 pages (including covers).

This was a great issue to be honest.  Lots of great finds here.  Again, the issues and debates we today were going on then.  In one issue we get Edition Wars! Computer vs. Table Top play!  Power Creep!  Gamers of game X vs. Gamers of game Y! Fun stuff.

What else was going on in RPG history?  Well You can read about White Dwarf here.
James at Grognardia is doing a retrospective of Ares every Tuesday.
Matt over at Land of Nod is doing Dragon by Dragon every Sunday.

Mona Dowie, In Memoriam

You may have already heard or read this by now, but artist and friend of the Other Side Mona Dowie lost her fight with cancer this week.

Her husband +William Dowie informed everyone via Facebook that Mona had passed at 9:08pm on September 13.

Sadly the bills for cancer and now the funeral don't go away.
So if you have a few coppers you can spare please head over to her fundraiser and spare what you can.
https://www.gofundme.com/Mona-Shaffer-Dowie

I feel honored and privileged to have known her. We talked games and our mutual love for witches and Stevie Nicks.  We chatted at length on how she completely got my character Nox.  I shared with her notes from my old Buffy game describing her and she drew exactly what I had without even knowing it.

My thoughts are with her family and especially her husband William at this time.
I can't even imagine what he might be going through now.

Practical Magic for the WitchCraft RPG

Practical Magic

Note: I am not setting this up as one of my October Movies since it is not really horror, and I have seen it so many times now that I could not count it.

FOR MORE THAN two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in town. If a damp spring arrived, if cows in the pasture gave milk that was runny with blood, if a colt died of colic or a baby was born with a red birthmark stamped onto his cheek, everyone believed that fate must have been twisted, at least a little, by those women over on Magnolia Street. It didn't matter what the problem waslightning, or locusts, or a death by drowning. It didn't matter if the situation could be explained by logic, or science, or plain bad luck. As soon as there was a hint of trouble or the slightest misfortune, people began pointing their fingers and placing blame. - Intro to Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman (and the movie as a voice over by Aunt Jet).

Sally Owens: I dream of a love that even time will lie down and be still for.

While I set out to like The Craft and didn't so much, I was also set to dislike Practical Magic and found it to be very enjoyable. Sure both Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock can get on my nerves at times, they both turned out a very enjoyable performance. What really increased my enjoyment of this film was the book.



Practical Magic is based on the novel written by Alice Hoffman. Ill admit that I have never read anything else of hers and I read this book only after seeing the movie. But I am glad I finally did. Despite the title and subject matter, Practical Magic is not really about magic or witches but about sisters and their bond. It is also about love, both platonic and romantic, but mostly about a deep connection between people. Hoffman showcases this with her portrayal of the three generations of Owens witches; Frances and Bridget, Sally and Gillian, and Antonia and Kylie. It is interesting to note that the only Owens witch without a sister is Maria, the same Maria whose spell against love turns into the Owens Curse.

Practical Magic, the movie, has a lot going for it. Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman make very fetching witch sisters. It is the first major roles for future stars Goran Visnjic (Hotel Sarajevo was his break out role, but this was his big American one) and Rachel Wood. Plus I always liked Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest from their earliest works as well, not to mention a soundtrack by Stevie Nicks. Although she had no lines, I also thought Caprice Benedetti was great as Owens clan matriarch Maria.

The Movie vs The Book
The movie is really is more in line with the universe of WitchCraft than the book (the witches have more power), but the book is much better. The movie and the book do have some significant differences. In the book Sally spends a great deal of time away from the Aunts to try to live a normal life, only to discover that normal is not really what she wanted. This is touched upon in the movie, but not to the same degree. There is more interaction with and between Sallys daughters Antonia and Kylie in the book. Plus the movie reverses the two daughters and has them a little younger. In the movie Jimmy Angelov is Bulgarian and a lady killer in the figurative and literal sense. In the book Jimmy Hawkins is American and just a dumb hood that sells some kids some bad drugs. Both are though are close enough to each other to me to be the same character, so I opt for using Angelov. Goran Visnjic gave an inspired performance as Eastern European-cowboy-Dracula; much more interesting than Hawkins punk thug. Besides, a drunk Goran Visnjic singing You Were Always on My Mind while planning to kill Gillian is very creepy. Not the same creepy as his I am really into sisters now, but still creepy.

So where the movie and book differ, I am likely to go with the book. Ill use the casting from the movie, keep the movies power level for the witches and minor bits here and there.

The Owens Sisters
Each generation of Owens sisters is presented below. You will notice that in most respect the sisters, while physically different from each other, have very similar stats. This is on purpose. The sisters were one part of the genesis of my Anamchara Quality and my example of their use for non-romantic love and for WitchCraft.
In the case of these stats I kept them at the power level and age they were in the movie (the movie was out in 1998).

Gillian Owens: You southern shrew!
Aunt Jet Owens: Ingrate!
Aunt Frances Owens: Goodie two shoes!
Sally Owens: WITCH!

Associations and Concepts
Well, Alice Hoffman didn't consult with C.J. first, so the Owens don't quite fit, but that is not to say we can't make them fit somewhere. Their attitudes, powers and history remind the most of the Wicce. They, Frances and Jet in particular, are great Weird Ones, but really Eccentric ones would be a better choice of words.

Aunt Frances Owens (Stockard Channing)


Sally Owens: All I want is a normal life.
Aunt Frances Owens: My darling girl, when are you going to understand that being normal is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage!

Aunt Frances is the older of the two aunts. She is tall, thin, formidable and looks very much like a Harry Potter witch. If we continue with the book timeline she would 90 today, and most likely still alive.

Strength: 1 Intelligence: 4
Dexterity: 2 Perception: 6
Constitution: 2 Willpower: 5

Life Points: 32
Essence Pool: 51

Skills: Rituals (Wicce) 5, Driving (car, standard transmission) 1, First Aid 1, Herbal Medicine 4,
Qualities: The Gift, Essence Channelling 3, Increased Essence Pool 6
Drawbacks: Accursed (The Owens Curse), Emotional Problems (Fear of Commitment) 1, Status -1
Metaphysics: Affect the Psyche 3, Cleansing 4, Consecration 2, Symbols of Protection 3

Aunt Bridget Jet Owens (Dianne Wiest)


Aunt Jet: This is what comes from dabbling; I mean you can't practice witchcraft while you look down your nose at it.

While Frances would allow the girls to eat chocolate cake for breakfast because others say she cant, Aunt Jet would let them do it because she cant say no to them. Cheerful, plump, short, she would be 88 in 2010

Strength: 1 Intelligence: 5
Dexterity: 2 Perception: 6
Constitution: 2 Willpower: 5

Life Points: 32
Essence Pool: 52

Skills: Rituals (Wicce) 6, First Aid 2, Gardening 4, Herbal Medicine 4,
Qualities: The Gift, Charisma 2, Essence Channelling 3, Increased Essence Pool 6
Drawbacks: Accursed (The Owens Curse), Emotional Problems (Fear of Commitment) 1, Status -1
Metaphysics: Affect the Psyche 3, Cleansing 4, Consecration 2, Symbols of Protection 3

Frances and Jet thought they were going to die together at ages 94 and 92 respectively. That all changed when they had to take in their youngest sisters daughters Sally and Gillian after her death. They raised the girls as their own for years. Their own husbands had died years ago due to the Owens Curse. Frances and Jet are old-school witches. They dress in all black, with funny hats to hide (barely) wild and crazy hair. They ran a very successful, but secret (secret in the way that everyone knew but no one ever talked about it) potion business. They provided potions to cure all sorts of ailments, the get rid of spirits, but most famously were their love potions. They would warn the women who came to them that they were asking for trouble, but in the end they took the money and women left with a small vial. The Owens sisters where also well known for their gardens. When spring came theirs would be in full bloom with jasmine, rosemary, verbena and garlic while their neighbors would still be muddy from the thawing snow. The lilac, lavender and roses grown there could be smelled from blocks away.

Sally Owens (Sandra Bullock)


Sally Owens: Since when is being a slut a crime in this family?

Strength: 2 Intelligence: 5
Dexterity: 2 Perception: 6
Constitution: 3 Willpower: 5

Life Points: 34
Essence Pool: 26

Skills: Rituals (Wicce) 2, Craft (botanicals) 3, Herbal Medicine 3
Qualities: The Gift, Attractiveness 1, Essence Channelling 1 (3), Increased Essence Pool 1, Anamchara (Gillian)
Drawbacks: Accursed (The Owens Curse), Emotional Problems (Fear of Commitment) 1, Impaired Seneses*
Metaphysics: Affect the Psyche 2, Cleansing 1, Elemental Fire 1

*Cant see orange since her first husbands death (from the truck that hit him).

Sally Owens wanted nothing more to live a normal life. Her mother died soon after her father did. He died from the Owens Curse, she died from a broken heart. So she and her sister Gillian went to live with her two aunts. From a very early age Sally displayed the greatest potential, but she turned her back on magic and witchcraft to avoid the curse. She even tried to avoid love, but as fate would have it she fell in love with man named Micheal, got married and had two wonderful daughters. They opened an herbal bath products store. Sally used her knowledge of herbs to create botanicals. Then one day she heard the Deathwatch Beetle clicking away the minutes of her husbands life, Sally ran to find her husband, only to see him get hit by an orange truck. She spent the next year depressed and never left her bed.
One day her sister comes back into her life.

Gillian Owens (Nicole Kidman)


Gillian Owens: Hang onto your husbands, girls!

Strength: 2 Intelligence: 3
Dexterity: 2 Perception: 6
Constitution: 3 Willpower: 4

Life Points: 32
Essence Pool: 26

Skills: Rituals (Wicce) 2, Craft (botanicals) 3, Herbal Medicine 3
Qualities: The Gift, Attractiveness 2, Essence Channelling 1 (3), Increased Essence Pool 1, Anamchara (Sally)
Drawbacks: Accursed (The Owens Curse), Emotional Problems (Fear of Commitment) 1, Mental Problems (Mild Lechery)
Metaphysics: Affect the Psyche 2, Cleansing 1, Mind Hands 3/3

Gillian was the younger of the two Owens sisters. She was the partier. While Sally even at a young age tried to get her homework done, eat her vegetables and go to bed at a decent hour, Gillian was running off with first one boy or another. Soon boys that were terrified of her when she was a preteen, couldnt stop following her when became a teenager and adult. If Sally inherited Maria Owens magic, then Gillian inherited her ability to break hearts and turn other women against her.

Gillian and Sally also have the Anamchara Quality, WitchCraft version. While there is obviously a strong love here, it is the sisterly type. The type born out of tragedy, only Gillian understood Sally and visa versa. While they were as different as night and day, they were really one complete person. Maybe this is a by-product of the Owens Curse, since no man could become their soul mate they needed a proper substitute.

It would be interesting to see if the same unfolded for Antonia and Kylie.

Antonia Owens, 16 (Alexandra Artrip)

Kylie Owens, 15 (Evan Rachel Wood)
blond (dyed, normally black) hair.

NOTE: in the book, Antonia was the oldest and Kylie was the younger. In movie this was reversed. I am opting for the movie casting, but the book characters. This is fine since Kylie ending up much taller and looking more like Gillian.

Kylie Owens: Mom, I'm worried about Antonia. Did you know that she put on her mouse ears and drives around town, all liquored up, NAKED?

Children (to Antonia): Witch! Witch! You're a bitch! Witch! Witch! You're a bitch!
Sally Owens: You'd think after three hundred years they'd come up with a better rhyme!

I have not stated out Kylie and Antonia yet. My plan was to introduce them into a game as sisters, but nothing more than that and see where they go. But at last count I have the stats for close to a hundred different witches. Its hard to keep up, let alone try to work them all into a game.

Both are Gifted and are more powerful than Sally and Gillian. I had decided on not giving them Anamchara. In the book they just didnt get along so well, except at the end and it left me wanting more.



Can love really travel back in time and heal a broken heart? Was it our jointed hands that finally lifted Marie's curse? I'd like to think so. But there are some things that I know for certain: Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can.
- Sally Owens

http://practicalmagic.warnerbros.com/
http://www.alicehoffman.com/hoffman-practical-magic.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practical_magic
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120791/
http://www.amasveritas.com/

Friday Night Videos: Flashback 1982

Welcome back to Friday Night Videos!

Tonight I want to pay homage to the years that really got me going D&D wise.  1980, 1981 and 1982!

So this morning I was reading Arlee Bird's blog Tossing it Out.
Lee is the brains behind so many great blog challenges including the April A to Z challenge.

This morning he was talking about music and it's relationship to people.  For me though music has always been about the times it was in or what was going on when I heard it.  The cue for me to switch gears tonight and focus on 1982 was his use of the fantastic Alan Parson's Project, Eye in the Sky.  The meaning of the song of the same name is debated; is it about 1984, security cameras or something else.  For me this song will ALWAYS be about the module B3 Palace of the Silver Princess.  The "Eye in the Sky" in this case is the evil creature/god Arik and his ruby eye.  This song was on constant rotation the entire time I bought and first ran this adventure.




From the same album is a song my younger brother and I loved, "Psychobable". To me the song was more about horror and nightmares and that certainly had a huge effect on the style of game I ran even back then.  This was only compounded when I got my first copy of Chill.
This video is an odd one but I really like it.  The creator re-edited an old Orson Welles student film to go with the song.  For me it just fits.




Few albums are more "D&D" than Blue Öyster Cult's Fire of Unkown Origin and few songs more so than "Veteran of the Psychic Wars".  Let's look at the song's pedigree for a moment.  It was co-written by Micheal Moorcock, author of the Eternal Champion series. It is about the greatest, or at least the most popular of all the Eternal Champions Elric of Melniboné.   The song also appeared in the movie Heavy Metal.  On the releases I saw this was during the Taarna sequences.  The song is an ode to any D&D character ever. It is practically a Grognard anthem.  I would revisit the imagery myself during the years I was running my "Willow & Tara" game, Episode 5: Veteran of the Psychic Wars.




Last week I talked about how much Stevie Nicks influenced, well, pretty much everything I have ever written.  "Leather and Lace" was another song from Bella Donna that I loved.  This one I also connect to B3.  In particular the love story of the Princess and the White Drake.  In the original version of the adventure (written by Jean Welles) he was the bad guy.  In the revised version (by Tom Moldvay, the hero of 1981!) they became lovers instead.  I have to admit I like his version better than hers.



In the opposite direction of the sentiment of Leather and Lace we have Greg Kihn, whom I always associate with the start of the "video age".  "The Breakup Song" was from Kihn's album Rockihnroll.  The truth is, just like the song says, they just don't write 'em like that anymore.




This is one is kind of a cheat. I loved this song back in the day, but never associated it with gaming till much, much later.  Donnie Iris' "Ah! Leah!" from Back on the Streets.  Though it was out in 1980 I am sure I never heard it till 81.  Like Veteran of the Psychic Wars this song became part of the "soundtrack" of music I listened to when working on the Buffy RPG and then later Ghosts of Albion.  "Leah" was immortalized in my game universe as the name of the woman that married Tara's brother Donny in "Strange Sort of Homecoming" (which itself is named for a Sting song).




"Let me be the one to say when I've had enough..."

Sum songs capture an age perfectly.  Others only capture the feeling, and in retrospect are perfect.  Santana's "Hold On" is that sort of song.  It's too Latin sounding to be really part of the early 80s. But yet here we are and this song is perfect at describing the time.  The first track released from 1981's Shangó.



Got to concentrate, file away
Every last detail
Don't want to lose what's going down
I want to remember everything I'm feeling
Should time try fading or stealing something away.

What are your favorite memories from 1981 and 1982?