Ghosts...

Alright, so I asked my lovely Cupcake for a topic and she said ghosts with a question mark at the end of it. I’m not sure why the question mark was there. I guess that’s probably an indication that she wasn’t sure, and I should take the post wherever I felt it was necessary to go. As for where that is… I couldn’t tell you. Lol.

I guess I could just start talking and see where that gets us.

Ghosts are believed to be a paranormal occurrence that is often cited as proof of an afterlife. The belief is that ghosts are the remains of a person’s soul, what was left over when their physical body died, and usually, it’s believed that ghosts are created when someone has a violent death or where they die in a way that they weren’t exactly ready for it. And, as such, their soul tries to continue to exist without the body, trapping their soul here on the material realm and preventing it from moving on to the afterlife. Even though the soul tries to remain on the material plane it isn’t one hundred percent successful. You see, ghosts are immaterial; they lack mass, and exist merely as a collection of energy that shifts between our plane (the material plane) and this other second plane called the ethereal plane. The ethereal plane kind of overlaps ours and exists basically as a field of energy that connects all life… yes… the ethereal plane is the Force.

Now, that’s pretty much what I know textbook wise about ghosts.

Have I ever had any experiences with ghosts?

I can’t rightly say that I have. Not one hundred percent to my knowledge. I’ve never seen one in person. I’ve never been in the room when a strange voice comes out from nowhere. But, that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in ghosts. Just because I’ve not seen one, doesn’t mean I’ve not felt one.

The ethereal plane, or the Force if you prefer, is something we’re all in contact with. And, as such we have the ability to “sense” certain things about it and our surroundings. That feeling you get when somebody is staring at you, and you’re not looking in their direction, that is information transferred via the ethereal plane. Or cold spots, when a suspected spirit is in the room it will drain the energy away from the point of its manifestation and anybody near that spot will feel the air get cooler. Think of it this way, heat is energy, if it’s getting cold the energy is going away. Then there’s the doom and gloom feeling. The moment when you simply know that something’s wrong, that there’s something that’s not natural in the same room as you. I’ve had that feeling many a time… usually in graveyards. This is why I stay far far away from graveyards.

Now… what else can I say about ghosts…

They make interesting enemies when it comes to table top RPGs. Why? They’re almost impossible for the PCs to hit without special weapons, and if used right, they can really force some wonderful role-playing moments. Convincing a ghost that it’s dead, and trying to help it move on to the afterlife; that would be a killer trip for anybody. And, often, the PCs will loot whatever corpses are left after a battle. This can make for an interesting recurring villain as a ghost will hunt down the person who stole from it and do whatever they can to get what was stolen back. And, in that same vane they can make excellent quest givers. I could cite examples of the latter in a wide array of games on the market today, and yes, many of those examples would be RPGs.

Now… what else… I could probably go on… but I really don’t want to. It’s getting late, and I want to go to bed now.

Gnite kids.

Ryan

7-12-14

Trolls

You got a purty mouth. Heh. Heh. Heh.

Big ugly green monsters without too much going on inside their noggin, and most of them have the ability to regenerate. That’s probably all you really need to know about trolls. But, cutting the post off there would be kind of lame. So, I’ll see what else I can weasel out of these critters.

Trolls, in Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder, are just shy of being a giant in height (nix that, they are giants) topping off between seven and eight feet tall and weighing anywhere between three and eight hundred pounds. If they have hair it’s greasy and limp and their noses often look like it’s been broken one too many times. They favor swamps, bogs, and moors as their homes. Trolls, like I mentioned above, have the ability to regenerate hit points over time and re-grow limbs and such. It’s not a fun thing to come up against, especially if you’re lacking a torch, or a campfire, or a weapon with a flame enchantment on it.

Another interesting thing to note is the lack of gender among trolls (at least from my point of view and my house rules) as they reproduce asexually. To make more trolls you cut a piece of an existing one off and a new troll, minus a few points of intelligence from the base troll, will grow in 3d6 days. This makes it really nasty for adventurers who hack and slash their way through a whole troop of trolls and don’t take the precaution of burning the bits and pieces after the fight. What that group gets is an army of pissed off trolls tracking them down later in the week.

And, one fun thing that comes along with this is making a smart troll.

According to 3.5 stats for a troll the average intelligence is a 6. This means the troll gets a -2 modifier to anything that requires the use of intelligence. And, if you’re making a troll PC you take a -4 racial adjustment to whatever you rolled for intelligence. The statistic block even goes so far as to state that 3 is the lowest a trolls intelligence can drop.

So, how do you make a smart troll?

First, you bring a little malevolent pixie named Damien Trollbringer (he’s been mentioned on the blog before) into the picture.

Second, you pick up as many wondrous items as you can that give bonuses to intelligence.

Third, you let Damien go at applying all of these magic items, ointments, potions, and what have you, and then use a Wish spell to bind all of the items to the troll as if they were a natural part of his body.

Not Revenire the Troll King, but I can't draw so he's close enough.

The result is Revenire the Troll King. Revenire (the last time I looked at the character sheet) has an intelligence of 35 giving him a +12 to any intelligence related skill. He used this intellect to escape Damien and went about creating an army of super trolls. He used his own fingers to spawn the first ten of his army, those are his generals, each with an intelligence of 30, the subsequent generations, after the fourth, is back to having average troll intelligence.

I would do the math on that, but it seems like it would be a lot. At a random guess, I’d say you’d have around 100,000 trolls, assuming that each general cut off all ten fingers, and then the next generation did the same, and so on and so forth.

Yeah, that’s an epic level adventure waiting to happen J

Anywho, I’m off.

Later kids.

Ryan

4-10-14

My Cupcake

My topic for today was supposed to be skinwalkers, and while I have that post half written I think I’ll wait and post it tomorrow. I’ve got something else to talk about today. Something that I feel is quite inspirational.

Let me see if I can set the stage for it, so you can feel the same way about it.

I think off and on (a dangerous prospect) about what I’ve accomplished in my life and all the potential I feel has been wasted. When I think about these things I get quite morose, and one of the number one subject I think about is school.

I messed up in college. I really did. I know most of the blame for that falls at the feet of a diseased I will mention no further, but I still feel the fault is mine. I could have fought back and worked towards the potential I thought I had. Well, the potential I know I had. Don’t get me wrong, I accomplished a lot. I graduated, and I have a bachelor’s degree at my house waiting to be framed and put on the wall in my office. But, it wasn’t bachelor’s degree I wanted. It wasn’t any of the degrees I wanted.

And, that’s what I was thinking about last night. I was missing being in school, knowing I could do better, especially now with all the steps forward I’ve taken. I was thinking about the degree programs I could apply myself to now with the same discipline and energy I put towards keeping up with my daily goals. I thought of several.

I want an associate’s degree in forensic psychology and addiction counseling because of my interest in the field of psychology.

I want an associate’s degree in software and web design because my sister inspired me to go for that field. And, I made a promise to a friend that I would design a program that made a DM’s life a just a little easier. He’s gone now, but I’m going to keep that promise.

I want to finish all the bachelor’s programs I started. The history and English focuses in literature and writing. And, I want to get a bachelor’s in psychology for the same reason I want the associates.

There are even two master’s programs I want to go through. I want an MFA in creative writing, focusing in particular on writing novels. And, I want a master’s psychology, again, that’s because of the same reason I want the associate’s and the bachelor’s.

Those wants and desires right there require one thing above even the determination I could put into those programs. They require money, a literal mountain of money.

And, that kind of brings us around to the point I wanted to say about my cupcake. She came into my writing room and stood beside me and asked why I was down. I told her about the school thing and about how much it was cost, and she looked at me and said two words: Then Write.

Then write.

Like the answer was as plain as the nose on her face, so much was said in those two words; so many feelings that I don’t even know how to describe them, but she knew the answer as she always does. I doubted myself, and my ability to make a career out of writing. But, she doesn’t doubt it. And, I don’t think she ever has.

Then write.

Words really can the world, and now that mine’s been changed, I need to get to work.

Thank you Cupcake, for everything you’ve done and everything you will ever do for me. Thank you for being able to see that little flickering flame inside of me, and knowing exactly how to feed it. I will write, and I will make you proud of me, and that one thing is what will make me happiest in this world. I love you.

Ryan

4-3-14

Why Didn't We Start In A Tavern?

So, I’m being a little lazy today. This is something I wrote for my current creative writing project Why Didn’t We Start In A Tavern?. It’s not the first scene, but it’s my favorite scene thus far. I always like baddies like this. Lol.

Ryan

3-18-14

The air in the cave was unlike any else there had ever been. It was eons old swirling in and over itself for all eternity.

Infinity.

A pair of snakes, one eating the other locked in a great loop.

This was how the air thought of itself. It thought it would never change, though that everything about the cave, the paths to and from it, and the clefts that gave it shape and form would never change.

Things change.

It’s the way of things.

Some say that the face of death changes with every tick and tock from a clock. The face of death in this cave was pale, white sunken flesh near to translucent and with eyes as solid orbs of cerulean. The face of death had a crack, twisted and broken for a mouth. It was screaming obscenities that even the wind couldn’t hear. Its hair was frozen in thin strands, sticking out in every direction, and the ears were curved and pointed like the cruel tip of a scimitar.

The wind had known this face for eternity. It had always been down here in the depths of the cave: always and forever since the goddess Gaia gave birth to the bastard face of death. Lady Celita, she who is the moon made flesh, ave this face a kiss, a crescent on its brow and made it sleep forever more.

Things change.

It’s the way of things.

A hand that had never known the warmth of life flexed inside the ice. The fingers bent and what had once been solid broke free.

The cave and the wind trembled then, as the face of death and the body attached to it moved. First the hands, curling into fists, then the biceps bulging, muscles contracting, and the arms came free. They moved through the ice, were one with the ice, as if it were water, and the fists slammed out through the thin pane of ice and rock.

The wall split, and rock and ice flew like shrapnel, cutting ribbons through the air that thought nothing would change. The hands and arms worked back and forth, clearing the path as it sent rock after countless rock through the air. The wind cried and moaned in pain, but couldn’t stop what came next.

The face of death came free from the ice, and it filled its lungs for the first time since birth. The face of death inhaled, savoring the little joy of killing all that remained of the air that thought things would never change.

Things change.

It’s the way of things.

The face of death was free from the wall and from the ice. It stretched and flexed and learned how to use parts of itself it never knew it had. The face of death turned to face the void it had been trapped in and there hid his armor. It was frosted full plate mail, made from an alchemical mixture of black ice and black iron. There was a shirt of chainmail made from the same material, each of the links fashioned to look like hail stones. This the face put on first, then each of the great plates of shaped ice and metal. The face had no need for aid, as the suit knew its master and responded to the call. It smiled as it pulled the gloves and gauntlet tight and at long last drew its helm from the ice.

The helm was a masterpiece, ice and metal shaped into a great polar bears head with a crown of ice sickles rising from the peak. The snout came down to cover the face’s cracked mouth and nose, the bear’s teeth cutting into its flesh. The face of death smiled, relishing in the pain. And, it took one last item from the ice.

Things change.

It’s the way of things.

This item was massive with a long rod of adimantium and coiled mithril, spiraling up in a hellish dance till it met the head of the sledge. This was the heart of all ice. It was blacker than coal with a cold that sapped the strength from what air remained. This heart had been mined from the depths of Niefelheim, and fashioned into a weapon fit for the gods.

The face smiled as it caressed the heart of ice with a lover’s touch. The depths captured within the ice gave a start as the ancient magics worked this way and that. The face’s smile grew wider. It turned to the side, swung the great sledge back with all its might, and drove the great hammer back into the void it came from. The world cracked.

Things change.

It’s the way of things.

Water swirled behind the ice in a great tornado as a hole was rent in the die of existence. The face of death pulled back and swung again. And, again. And, again.

Things change.

The army was there, standing ten thousand and more strong behind the void, behind the face of death. Long have they awaited this moment. Long have the ice elves kept their hatred burning in their frozen souls. They had been denied the earth, denied the air, and the light of the sun.

Now, they would deprive all things of life.

Things change.

It’s the way of things.

It’s the way of the ice elves.

Hannibal the Cannibal

In Grr's Voice: I made it myself!

Hannibal the Cannibal, the star attraction of the books Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, and Hannibal Rising (all by Thomas Harris). He’s also the star of the movies of the same name portrayed in the first three by Anthony Hopkins. Then portrayed by Gaspard Ulliel in Hannibal Rising and I thought he did a very good job in that position. And, now there’s a television series out based on Hannibal starting Mads Mikkelsen as Hannibal. He’s also doing a fantastic job so far as I’m concerned, and from what little I’ve watched of the television show.

Anyway, if you’ve lived under a rock for the last 33 years, Doctor Hannibal Lecter is a brilliant psychiatrist (though in the movies, show, and books he acts much more like a psychologist, a therapist). Who has a cultured taste for rare delicacies, namely those delicacies are his fellow human beings, thus the nickname Hannibal the Cannibal. Makes sense now, doesn’t it?

So, Doctor Lecter eats people, he murders them in interesting ways, and he does so without getting over excited. It was stated somewhere in The Silence of the Lambs that during an attack on a nurse at a mental facility he was kept at that his heart rate never went above eighty beats per minute. If that’s not the definition of cold calculated killer, I don’t know what is.

That and the attack on the nurse was random, a just because he could thing. There was no calculation to it. No time to think about it. It was a spur of the moment attack. And, he bit her ear off.

I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t bite a person’s ear off without my heart rate going over eighty beats per minute. I don’t think my resting heart rate even goes below eighty beats per minute. That’s probably not a good thing. Just saying.

Now, incorporating Hannibal Lecter into my game would be copyright infringement, and would bring a big fat lawsuit down on my head that I don’t want to deal with.

Ghoul--Dead and Hungry
wizards.com

Ghoul, Necromancer
by Butterfrog

With that being said, I would make him a ghoul necromancer. A ghoul is a relatively intelligent undead creature that was cannibalistic in life (or bitten by another ghoul) that continues to feast on the flesh of humanoids after death. And, necromancer is a wizard that specializes in the necromantic school of magic. (I’m sure somewhere in one of the books there’s even a Necromancer prestige (or core) class.) I would also heighten the intelligence from the ghoul’s typical level by fifteen or so points to give it Lecter’s mental superiority. I’d do the same with his charisma, giving it Lecter’s charm.

And, that would be interesting to see; a suave, debonair ghoul with blood dripping out of the corners of its mouth.

I might have to create a creature like that in the near future.

Ryan

3-15-14/3-16-14

Pixies-Damien

I really wish I knew how to draw... This looks nothing like Damien.
http://wolverine041269.deviantart.com/

Or to be more accurate I should say Damien, since I’m dedicating this post to my miniature titan of terror.

Damien Trollbringer is the name he gave himself when he decided the run of the mill pixie shit wasn’t for him. Sure, he enjoyed causing chaos, and he enjoyed causing it even more due to his demonic heritage. It was a miracle he even survived his birth. The younger pixies, in spite of the elders’ decision, wanted to destroy him. The elders protected him though, using powerful illusions cast on both the other pixies and on him. Even now, Damien maintains the ability to switch from pleasant looking pixie to his true half demon form.

Now, the chaos he causes is much more of the evil variety. Most of the time he won’t fool with little pranks, believing them to be childish and beneath him, but when he does he’ll set powerful spells, such as a planar gate (opened to a random lower plane) placed directly behind a door. Or he’ll scatter a box of fireball beads along a forest trail, then wait and watch for some poor fool to step on one.

Then there are the rage filled moments where Damien will fly into a village and just start killing. He’ll burn the whole town to the ground in one night. Maybe he’ll take two, and find a way to make the townsfolk kill one another.

Damien does run into problems though. Not goodly aligned player characters or NPCs that want his head. Nope, luck is his problem. That planar gate saw to the end of an evil wizard’s reign. The fireball beads were stepped on by bandits who were attacking a passing caravan. And, the villages he’s burned down and slaughtered everybody in town. Well… One was a cultist cabal and each soul in the town was tarnished by murder and sacrifice to a dark god. The other was a lawless village and haven for the malign.

These are facts that bother him to no end.

Damien has been touched by Locestra, chaotic goddess of luck and chance. This touch twists Damien’s actions. When he tries to cause evil and act as he feels a villain should act, his intentions turn into positive results. This infuriates him to no end and he’s pledged to kill Locestra because of it.

He has had projects that were successful beyond his wildest dreams, as well.

1     Tiny- Tiny is a half-ogre half-giant (uses the half giant race from Expanded Psionics Handbook) that Damien modified. He accelerated Tiny’s growth from infancy to adulthood and poured ever ounce of power possible into making Tine the strongest beast he’d ever seen (uses the paragon addition to his strength and charisma scores) but this caused extremely unsatisfactory results with Tiny’s intellect (Int 3, Wis 8, Cha 4). So, Damien created The Monocle, a semi-artifact that increases Tiny’s intellectual scores by two-thirds the paragon addition (+10 to each). This gives Tiny a true split personality, and the ability to just Hulk out.

           Revenire- Revenire, which means troll in Romanian, is considered the Troll King, and the very reason Damien uses the surname Trollbringer. Revenire is a troll Damien experimented on after Tiny escaped, and instead of focusing on the troll’s strength, he focused on its intellect. A troll knows nothing about combat tactics or military maneuvers, they’re lucky if they can speak. Damien knew a real threat in a troll was a smart troll. So, he reversed what he did with Tiny. He made Revenire brilliant, taught him the intricacies of magic. He taught military tactics to him, and everything he could think of. Damien literally made Revenire the most brilliant mind on the face of the planet. But, Damien didn’t put in a control switch. There was a great battle between the two, Damien versus Revenire, survival versus freedom, and magic was the weapon of choice. The two of them expended their most powerful spells and destroyed the tower Damien had built deep in the swamp. Damien woke up, days after the battle, but when he searched the towers remains he found no evidence of Revenire. He assumed Revenire died in the explosion.

Damien was touched by Locestra, the chaotic goddess of luck and chance, who finds Damien’s actions and the results of them entertaining. So, what’s the likelihood that Damien achieved something truly evil in the creation of Revenire? And, what’s the likelihood of Revenire walking away from that battle? Who knows? Sometimes, a mystery is the best type of chaos.

Ryan

3-8-14

Frankenstein

Is a novel by Mary Shelley, and it is one of the first intentional works of both science fiction and horror. Though, I believe it was categorized as a romance back when it was written. This categorization isn’t because the novel is a Harlequin bodice ripper, but because it was a work of fiction. Basically, you had two types (or genres) of novels, those that were based on actual factual events, such as travel logs or biographies, and those that were not (Frankenstein). Though, even Frankenstein has some basis in reality.

During the time the novel was written there was a natural philosopher (physical scientist) by the name of Giovanni Aldini. Aldini experimented with electricity and the human body to try and animate dead flesh by running an electrical current through it. These attempts succeeded to an extent. Running an electrical current through a corpse will cause the muscles to spasm and jerk, but there was no restoration of life (and not a single mention of a zombie). And, while the method of animation was not described in the book, it is implied that electricity was involved in the experiment. This also runs along the same lines as the multiple plays and movies based off the novel where the experiment itself occurs during an electrical storm and Dr. Frankenstein uses a lightning rod to harness the power of a bolt of lightning.

The novel could also have multiple inspirations coming straight from mythology. In a way it mirrors two of these tales. One being the story of Pygmalion and his statue named Galatea who was brought to life by Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and lust. Then there’s the tale of the golem in Jewish folklore, where clay, stone, or mud are shaped into a humanoid form and a piece of paper with the Hebrew word “shem” (one of the names of God) and was inserted in to the mouth or forehead of the golem. This act animated the golem, but did not give life, as God is the only one with the power to give life to the unliving.

As for working Frankenstein into a Dungeons & Dragons game, there is little more to it than opening the Monster Manual, Frankenstein’s monster, the flesh golem, was one of the original monsters included in the game, albeit the Dungeons and Dragons flesh golem lacks the intelligence Frankenstein’s monster developed over the course of the novel. The flesh golem is much more like the monster shown in the many movies and plays that have been based on the novel.

To get an actual representation of the monster (its name is not Frankenstein, just saying) you would need to craft the flesh golem (meaning you’re probably a necromancer, it’s not a requirement, but a likely path considering the nature of the construction materials), then once the monster is animated use a spell called Awaken.

Awaken is a spell that “awakens” an animal, plant, or construct by giving it an intelligence score higher than three. And, in the case of the plant, it generates an intelligence score, a wisdom score, and a charisma score. Animals have intelligence scores, usually below three, which makes them unsuitable as player characters, but with awaken they’re intelligence score is increased above three (the base minimum for intelligence) changing its type from animal to magical beast, animals also come with a wisdom and a charisma score. Constructs lack intelligence, completely, their intelligence score in a statistics block actually reads Int—. Awakening them generates an intelligence score (3d6), and it gives them the living construct subtype.

So, now I’ve got things set up for a particularly nasty villain, or a potential player character. But, that’s not really the way I plan on using it right now. No, the closest I’m getting to putting a flesh golem in the game (for right now) is a short story I’ve been working on. It’s called Respect for the Dead and the protagonist, Phelix Goldleaf, is fighting against one. Even more so than the undead he’s also fighting against, Phelix feels that the flesh golem is the most obscene thing done with the corpses of the dead. Mainly because it inflicts such disrespect on the former bodies turned into construction materials. And, if I talk about it too much more I’ll give away what happens in the story and then nobody would want to read it.

So, on that note, I shall talk to you all later.

Ryan

3-3-14/3-4-14

Gravity

Today’s topic is about something we’re all well acquainted with, though it took a falling apple to point it out to Sir Issac Newton. Yup, gravity, the constant enemy to those who like to stand up.

Cupcake lost a fight with gravity today, and it’s the third fight she’s lost in the last week if I’m not mistaken, and I lost one too, not too long ago. I’ve got a doctor’s excuse and x-rays to prove it.

I don’t have any broken ribs, but something’s wrong. I’ve got pain and this and that and I don’t feel like bitching about it right now. Me and Cupcake have both lost our battles with gravity recently, and that’s pretty much all I’ve got to say about gravity.

Now, I need to find something else to talk about.

Gravity is boring.

So, I’ll talk about role-playing instead. I don’t mean playing Dungeons and Dragons or any rpg video game (and not adult centric role playing) I mean just sitting down with a few friends, a pen and a piece of paper and pretending to be someone else for a while.

Writing is one way of doing it. Acting is another. Then you have the games, and all these things focus on a sort of transformation. Somewhere along those lines you stop being you, all your worries fade away. For a little while, at least, you don’t have to worry about where the rent money’s coming from or about what’s happening to the world at large. All that matters is that character and what’s going to happen next.

Escapism is the word for it, and I think it’s a word that bears repeating. We can escape from our lives and our responsibilities for just a tiny fraction of time. It really might be what keeps most of us sane.

I know I work out a lot of my problems when my pencil connects with the page. I can see all of it flowing out of me, through me, and transforming. Those problems and fears and hopes and dreams, all of them become the essence of whatever character I’m writing about. Whether it be about a gnome and a necromancer or a half-vampire and an army of the undead, they are the same because they are me, and they’re different because they’re my window into another world.

That might be why I like writing so much. I enjoy escaping, living these other lives like I’m Batman or some shit like that. And, I write because I want to share that joy with other people. I want my readers to be free from their worries, even if it’s just for one cigarette smoke filled night. I want them to be free and feel the joy and triumph, pain and sorrow of another. I want them to be free, and I want them to know that life is worth living because of those little moments of happiness, of freedom.

And, that’s enough preaching out of me. Later kids.

Ryan

2-26-14/2-27/14

Dreams

Dreams can be many things to many different people. They can be good happy things where everything is perfect. They can be terrible nightmares that hell couldn’t hold a candle too. And, then they can make absolutely no sense at all with the world seeming to be skewed this way and that. Then, you can also look at dreams as ambition; the thing you want to do with your life and the heights you want to rise too. A dream can be something you want.

My dream—at the moment—is to find something to say about dreams that doesn’t sound ridiculous. Lol.

I was talking to Cupcake about it, and we were basically talking about how I could use dreams in the story. She mentioned using mindflayers (psychic mini Cthulhus that eat brains) as antagonists who create perfect dreams for the PCs, with the downside being the PCs could never escape from their dreams when they realized it was a nightmare. The problem with that comes from the OGL. Mindflayers, also called Illithids, are not considered Open Game content. They are part of the Product Identity of Wizards of the Coast Dungeons and Dragons brand. Therefore, if I use them, then publish the adventure (as I plan to do with all of the adventures I write), then I will get a nice fat lawsuit dropped right on my head. And, that would just suck.

So, there won’t be any mindflayers in my game. That doesn’t mean I don’t have equally nasty monsters to take the place of those critters. But, talking about them here would give away the big surprise I’ve got planned for the PCs. (Please note that said surprise has something to do with the campaign as a whole and not just the current adventure.) That should leave them guessing for a while, lol.

Anyway, this surprise beastie has psychic powers far beyond the capabilities of any being the PCs have run into yet, and parts of it have the wicked urge to infiltrate an enemy’s dreams; a sort of psychological warfare, and, yes, they can easily take control of those dreams by tapping into the subconscious and finding the things the subject desires most in life and the things the subject fears the most. Then it would bend those things to get the subject to act the way it desires. If it wants to keep it from resting, it will give the subject the most terrifying nightmares possible. If it wants the subject to be overconfident in their actions, it will give the subject dreams about what it wants most.

Then if the beastie is pissed off at the subject it can put the subject through hell by subjecting it to a dream that it can never escape from. The body would wither and die slowly as the conscious and subconscious minds were tormented, even killed, time and time again so long as their bodies draw breath. Escaping from that sort of nightmare would be a helluva feat, and it would certainly be something entertaining to throw at the PCs. The first obstacle they’d have to overcome would be realizing they’re in a dream. The second would be communicating with one another. The third would be finding a way to break the beasties hold on them. All the while, the beastie would be watching them, knowing their moves before they’re made, and it would be entertained. Maybe it’s something that can’t be beaten.

Who knows?

Not I said the fly.

I guess it’s just going to have to be one of those adventures I write and play with my group to find the answer.

Now I bet Cupcake wishes she hadn’t made that suggestion about mindflayers. Lol.

Ryan

2-25-14

Werewolves

This is going to post on the 18^th, but I would like to note that it’s being written on the 17^th. It is the third post written on the 17^th, and any insanity that ensues from this point is not something I can be held responsible for. That is, if anything gets written beyond these three sentences, my brain seems to be in the mood to do very little. That’ probably a bad thing since I feel like I’ve got quite a bit of work to catch up on.

Oh my, we’re up to five sentences.

Anyway, on the other side of the planet is the moon, and the moon is something important to what we’re discussing. The title of the post is werewolves, so, naturally the topic is werewolves, and werewolves are governed by the moon.

I can honestly say that I have no idea why there is a connection between the two things. It could be that the full moon has always been associated with insanity, and that’s something I can attest to. I worked nightshift at Kroger, ten years ago at this point, and it was always on the full moon that the crazies came in. You get a higher percentage of drunks, stoners, druggies, you name it and people will take it to excess during the full moon.

That’s probably where the werewolf stories come from; people who went just a tad too far under the influence of the moon and potent drink. Maybe a bar fight got out of hand, and one man tore another’s throat out with his teeth. Maybe. I don’t know, and it’s really hard to tell.

Google might know, but that requires more movement and effort then I’m willing to put into it. It is something I’ll look up in the future, though. I’ve always found werewolves to be extremely interesting characters.

You have to wonder what’s going on in their mind during the transformation. Is it painful? Do they realize what they’ve become once the change is complete? Do they have control over what they’re doing? A lot of people would answer yes, no, no, and that’s not something I’m going to argue with. The way it’s depicted in the media and entertainment industry, transforming into a werewolf is an obscenely painful experience, and it’s a total Jekyll and Hyde effect on their personality. The wolf is instinct in its purest form (some would even say it epitomizes the anger and rage spectrums of emotion) and the beast is going to act solely based on those principles. Again, I could see it.

It also leaves the victim conflicted. They wake up in strange places, covered in blood, and with maddening dreams dancing behind their eyes. They don’t know if what they’ve done is real or if it’s a horrible hallucination. Their own instincts, however, point towards the reality of the situation.

And, that is one sort of story I like to tell. It’s the sort of story where a person not only has to find themselves, but to deal with the monsters hiding in the shadow of their hearts. I can relate to it, and I think anybody with any sort of illness can relate to it. Why me? Why am I doing these things? What’s happening to me? These are just a few questions one inflicted with lycanthrope might ask.

I don’t know if I’m making sense at all.

But…

I think it’s time to look at werewolves in relation to my Dungeons and Dragons game.

If we want to look at the broader spectrum of lycanthrope then I can say my PCs are currently embroiled in a conflict filled with wererats. Yes, people who turn into rats after being bitten by rats. I’m not sure what’s worse, thought. Being bitten by a rat and becoming a wererat, or getting bitten by a rat and contracting the Black Death. I think I might be ok with a permanent craving for cheese if I get to live without the horrid pain of the bubonic plague.

As for werewolves, I’m not sure yet. I’m sure I’ll find some way to include them in the story, but now is not the time for that.

Other were-creatures I’m considering are wereturkeys. I’ve got an idea for a holiday themed adventure locked away inside me brain, and wereturkeys are probably the most entertaining thing about it. Lol.

I guess that’s better than a wereduck though.

Anywho, I’m out. Later kids.

Ryan

2-17-14

Vampires

If you’re new to the blog, there are a couple of things you should know. First, I don’t come up with my own topics, my wife, Cupcake/Melanie, gives me a topic and I write about it. Second, I kind of make a little game out of it where I try to find a way to work the topic into upcoming installments of my Dungeons and Dragons game. My wife plays in my game as one of the player characters… so, you’d think she’d think of fun fluffy topics like princesses and ponies, but no, she gave me vampires instead.

Vampires are a staple in paranormal fiction (not just horror anymore) and I have to admit they’re probably my second favorite fictional creature (the first being dragons), so I feel like I’m pretty up to speed on how the whole vampire thing works.

Vampires, first and foremost, are bad guys. In the folk tales that gave them life they were villains, and when Bram Stoker penned Dracula he turned the vampire into an archetypal villain. Simply put, the vampire (and Count Dracula in particular) have been copied over and over and over again in all forms of media. They’ve been in books (duh), movies, comic books, paintings, songs, they’ve crossed genres and have been in space and became the centerpiece of the paranormal romance fiction. But, they’ve never really lost that edge, that “I am the bad guy” feeling. Hell, even Stephanie Meyer tried to convey that feeling in the Twilight books. (I don’t have a lot of positive things to say about those books, but her treatment of vampires as villains—James, Aro, Jane—is one of those positive things.)

So, when it comes to working vampires into my Dungeons and Dragons game that’s not a problem at all. I can see my world filled with these monsters that stalk the night, and beyond that there have already been vampires in my game.

Well…

Not in this game in particular, but there was in the last game. Though, it was a half-vampire/dhampire (whatever you want to cal it), and the PCs never came across it. I put the monster (a rogue and assassin named Guildenstern) in the game for later on in the campaign. He ran the mortuary in New Windhaven  (the starting town for the last game) and was going to become a recurring antagonist when the PCs hit level ten or so.

I was going to have it that he was hired to attack the PCs. I don’t remember what it was I had him hired to do besides playing antagonist, but it’s really not important now.

Life happens, things change, and for reasons I won’t mention we’re not playing that campaign anymore. But, I will keep in mind. Maybe our current PCs will piss some powerful lord off, and they’ll have a monstrous half-vampire knocking on their door in the middle of the night.

Anywho, I’m checking out for the night. Later kids.

Ryan

2-12-14