Friday, November 19, 2010

The Dragon and the Phoenix: wrap-up

The Dragon and the Phoenix ran for 13 episodes and it was great fun.

We set out to show we could tell a great story and even a better one than the source material and I think we succeeded.
Here are some random things we learned while writing and playing these episodes.
Their first semester living together Willow and Tara arranged their schedules to always be near each other.

They also rearranged classes so they could both come home during the day to watch "Jerry Springer" though they told everyone else it was so they could watch PBS.

Tara's first meal back as a human? Chicago style deep dish pizza. She tried crawfish etouffee but discovered she was in fact still allergic to shellfish.

Tara does not drink at all. She has smoked some pot in the past (mostly highschool) but no longer.

While Willow was in high school she discovered some old journals of Jenny Calendar where she talked about being "outrageously bisexual" with her roommate in college. It made her feel more comfortable about her own questioning sexuality.

Dawn has walked in on Willow and Tara having sex 4 times. Xander has walked in on them 0 times.

Willow can disco. It is not something she is proud of or even talks about, but her father (a HUGE Saturday Night Fever fan) taught Willow how to dance when she was little, she remembers it all to this day.

Willow is ambidextrous, she can write equally well with either hand.

Tara hates ponies. She loves to ride horses but thinks ponies are evil.

Tara has a set of witchcraft ritual tools. She prefers to cast rituals with her athame when she can. Tara discovered that Willow is also capable of using Tara's ritual tools (not something that is normally done).

The Cast has both memories of Tara and memories of her sister Kara. Generally there is no conflict with these.

Tara's mother was named Megan, her grandmother Deidre. Her father's name was Robert. Tara's middle name in Ann. Her brother would tease her and call her "Annie", to this day she hates the name and will not use it.

Dawn knew she was psychic as early as Episode 1. In the finale she was given a glimpse of her futures as well. One where she was a doctor and another where she becomes a physicist.

Anya and Xander split up after a couple of months. They do not get divorced until some time later. I toyed with the idea of Anya also being pregnant and might still do that.

Buffy begins dating the police officer Tony Foster. In one possible future shown by the Mouth of Leviathan she and Tony are married.

Spike is not seen or heard from again. He is rumored to be "alive" somewhere.

Clem the Demon can do complex mathematical calculations in his head.

Giles had a religious upbringing. While his mother was a duty-bound English Watcher, his father was a Irish Catholic. Giles was brought up in both the Catholic and Angelican churches. No wonder he rebelled.

Luna the Seraphim was one of my D&D characters from back in the day. Her original character sheet says she was rolled up in 1982.

Charmed influences abounded. Rack was a "Charmed" style Warlock and had no soul. He was in fact stealing powers from the magical kids in his thrall. Cordy had become a Whitelighter.

The plane of Leviathan was taken from the Monster Smackdown book, it was augmented based on the old Dragon Magazine adventure "Nogard", the demonic wasteland from Charmed and the last planet in the Heavy Metal movie. Leviathan himself is Leviathan from Armageddon. He is demonic as well as a mad god due to all the demonic "souls" he has been feeding on over the millennia.
We took a break and then went into the next season of episodes, Season of the Witch,  those were not as playtested as much.

I'll post the Season of the Witch reports starting next year I think.  Holidays coming and all.

3 comments:

Tim Knight said...

"They do not get divorced until some time later. I toyed with the idea of Anya also being pregnant and might still do that."

So are you still gaming with these characters?

Thanks for posting these summaries, Tim, they have been both interesting and inspirational.

Thanks also for giving some sort of explanation for who Rack was - he was a major sticking point for me in the old series (and I know I've banged on about this before), but he never "made sense" in the Buffyverse as I thought I understood it.

Looking forward to your next round of summaries next year.

Timothy S. Brannan said...

Tim,

Keep in mind. We turned into a Charmed-style warlock. As it was he DIDN'T make any sense as he was written. Plus if he were human that meant another person Willow had killed. As a warlock with no soul he wasn't a "person". Plus the actor had been on Charmed too (IIRC).

Yes I am still using these characters. Season of the Witch will show what direction we took them.

christian said...

Wow! I love the direction you took the characters. I look forward to seeing what your group does next.