[A-Z Blogging Challenge] A is for The Sword is AWESOME!

I'm going to have to eat a bit of crow with this blog post. My family has a long history of "worthless Christmas gifts" from the year of multiple copies of "Dragons of Autumn Twilight," to the early nineties when I got one of those Lollapaloser flimsy sleeveless flannel shirts with an attached flimsy hood (because I liked punk rock...) and the "$25 worth of Costco gift certificates" debacle (great, a present that means I have to wait in line forever to buy a giant box of granola bars). Oh well, it's not like one should expect their parents to get them Sodom vinyl LPs and early OOP TSR products.

So this year my sister, bless her square heart, got me a copy of The Sword's "Warp Riders" for Christmas as "Blair likes metal." Yeah Blair likes metal... the same way Jamie Mal likes Dungeons & Dragons. Blair likes primitive, bestial low-fi thrash, doom, sludge, grindcore, black metal, power violence...you get the picture.

So, of course, I was less than enthused with that gift, although my making lemonade out of lemons reaction was "Well a fair amount of my friends are hipster-ish so I can just re-gift it whenever I hear of a birthday..."

Today I had to take the day off work due to a strained back; after my 11 am wake-n-bake I was restless, bored and lookign for something to entertain me. I spotted my copy of "Warp Riders" gathering dust and thought "Why don't I put this on and laugh my ass off at how slick and false it is!", the metal-nerd version of Mystery Science Theatre 3000.

Well, although the production was slicker than what I was used to, after a few minutes I was sucked in! I really let my "underground nuclear goat chaos punk hessian" stance interfere with enjoying some awesome music, as this album really kicks ass!

This band really has it all: awesome riffs & hooks, psychedelic space fantasy lyrics, and lush production that propels you on nebulae of pot smoke through the cosmos!

I really learned my lesson about being judgmental about "bands not being underground enough," and I have already discovered a bunch of awesome new bands on youtube like Priestess, Queens of the Stone Age, Muse and Probot just from looking at music with an open mind, and I encourage you to do the same.

I know that when I resume DMing Planet Algol games that The Sword "Warp Riders" will be the official album of the Planet Algol campaign, and I encourage all of you to check out this kickass band.

Now here's a little random table of "The Sword Inspired Plot Hooks"

1 - Tres Brujas - The party encounters three witches, are they potential allies or adversaries?
2 - Warp Riders - The party finds a downed starcraft, do they dare to ride the warp?
3 - Night City - The party arrives at a city ...where it is always night!
4 - Arrows in the Dark - Out of the darkness arrows fly at the party ...what is this ambush?!?!
5 - The Chronomancer, Pt. 1: Hubris - The party encounters a sorcerer with unusual time-manipulating magic, however he/she suffers from hubris!
6 - Lawless Lands - In their travels the party has to cross a land without any lawful authority...danger and crime abounds!
7 - Acheron/Unearthing the Orb - The party comes across a party of archaeologists studying ancient Acheronian ruins ...and they have just discovered a mysterious orb!
8 - Astraea's Dream - An NPC, names Astraea, just had a mysterious dream that bodes of adventure for the party!
9 - The Chronomancer, Pt. 2: Nemesis - The party encounters a time-manipulating sorcerer who is being hunted by another time-manipulating  adversary who seeks to punish them for their hubris!
10 - (The Night The Sky) Cried Tears of Fire - After sunset storm clouds gather; the clouds...they look like embers...why is the lightning flaming? Oh gods no...the rain..it burns!

Burned Out!!! (and possible solutions)

I suspect this is a condition that affects all DMs eventually, and I've wrestled with it in the past, but for the past couple of months I've felt Burned Out as a DM. Interestingly enough, this burnout seems to be the result of non-RPG-related factors.

I'm not going to go on a "woe is me!" jag here....I know I have it better off than the majority of the folks in this world and that you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other. But brooding about crap has a way of impairing one's enthusiasm and creativity, and I haven't been working on Algol material (and another "secret" project) nearly as much as I'd like.

I'm not about to 86 this blog or give up on DMing (although I've been considering a brief sabbatical), but I do feel a need to re-charge my RPG creativity, and have been considering several projects in order to take a break from Algol/alternate with Algol/do some one-shot's (or micro-campaigns) and get Stoked! again.

Some of the projects that I've been mulling over include:

- A small, digest-sized, free to download, Sword & Sorcery/Weird Fantasy/Science Fantasy D&D zine; crudely illustrated by myself and done in a punk rock/underground comic style. Something in the 8-16 page range, done for fun. I've considered the following names: Cyclopean; The Jewel Throne (..of the Earth),  IIIrd Gatekeeper; and Voronya...I was going to go with "The Black Ziggurat"...but the Black Ziggurat belongs to everyone. Let me know if any of these names tickle your fancy!

- A Vancouver Old-School Micro-con: Certainly not an original idea, but it would be great to set up a weekend for some awesome old-tyme rpg antics, especially if some of our neighbors from BC, Alberta and the USA were able to make it (yes, I am talking about you! If you are 10% as awesome in person as you are on the internet you could help make the best weekend ever!). Rent some cheap hall or meeting facility, set up a schedule, and play a butt-load of D&D, Gamma World/Metamorphosis Alpha, Traveller, Boot Hill, Tunnels and Trolls, Runequest, Call of Cthulhu, Star Trek, Car Wars, et al...

- "The Vance Sector:" interstellar sci-fi adventure campaign heavily, heavily inspired by Jack Vance. I'm waffling between Traveller, Terminal Space, X-Plorers and Stars Without Number for this.

- Dune D&D: A houseruled D&D game in the universe of Frank Herbert's Dune, although probably quite a while before the events in the book. Space Feudalism!

- Fallout!: I'm not sure if I'd use Gamma World or Mutant Future's Mazes & Mutants as the base, and I'd probably incorporate a 3E style skill system, but it would involve the post-apocalyptic Canadian prairie, vault-dweller PCs, Canadian Tire money, way too many kinds of firearms and ammo, Mad Max-esque vehicular warfare, and using soft drinks instead of booze for the "heal 1d6 hp once a day" houserule.

- Gene Wolfe tribute campaign: Either set on a post-historical Earth or in an O'Neil cylinder; although it would definitely not be a railroad, there would be a "central campaign quest" in the vein of The Book of the New Sun and The Book of the Long Sun. Would every PC be unaware that they are a Cleric? ;)

- "The Lemurian Age", a Sword & Sorcery campaign set in the Lost Prehistory of the Indian Ocean: The Kerguelen microcontinent, Kamari Kamdan, Africa, Mesopotamia, India, Southeast Asia, Australia, & Prehistoric Marsupial Megafauna. Inspired by Conan and Atlantis: The Second Age.

- Empire of the Petal Throne: Using the original OD&D variant rules...but set on Mars! With additional Barsoom, HG Welles and The Dictionary of Mu influences.

- 80s Action! Movie campaign: Something in the vein of Commando and Miami Vice. Mini-Uzis, sinister Eurotrash in turtlenecks, crazed coke dealers, and rescuing The President's Daughter!

- Carcosa: Although Algol is heavily influenced by Carcosa, Geoffrey's creation is an entirely different beast, far more grim and far less "Jack Vancian" than my Algol game. OD&D and crazy dice conventions!

- OD&D: Of course this could be combined with several of the above ideas, but I want to try out pre-Greyhawk style LBB OD&D; d6s and d20s only!

Man, just thinking about the above options gets me fired up, just the thing to get me out of this rut...I gotta run these ideas past the gaming group.

There are Crypts Deep Beneath the Surface Where Horrible Things Lurk in the Eternal Darkness...

Perfect soundtrack music for exploring ancient, filthy crypts and battling the things that lurk in the suffocating darkness deep in the rotted flesh of the planet's crust. Coffins literally makes people lying in a bed dying of cancer headbang...

"That Cactus Lady Has a Nice Rump on Her" & Doom Metal Tuesday

Courtesy of Wesley/Fat Cotton & his partner in crime R. Ruddock, a pair of Cactoids of Planet Algol. Also, here's some Doom Metal:

"Like an Everflowing Stream..."

"...is the lifesblood of slaughtered PCs, let the dice fall as they may." I've been in a very metal mood lately and some of you have expressed enthusiasm for my music posts so I'm opening the floodgates. This lyrics of the below song by Dismember (who are the best live death metal band I've ever seen) could be about the cycle of random, brutal death and new characters in a gritty, lethal D&D game.

Override the overture
Behold the overwhelming power
Trampled and [fucking] mangled
By the hordes of terror

The process of death is our fate to be
From the skies blood drips like rain
Tell me how I suffer, tell me how I'll die
My arms stretched out in eternal pain

The life that we knew drowned in the stream of death
The agony within tears my worthless being

Crushed
By the blasphemous horror inside
Enter a world
Beyond this [fucking] global tomb

Mesmerized
By the visions of things past and gone
My death arrives
My fate to be it must be done

Laid to rest
Shut my eyes
Live no more
Die a countless times

To the burial ground
Our flesh are bound
Our souls will live on
With the powers beyond

At the end
I'm still so cold inside
Once again
I would like to share my memories of life

Show me
The realm where nothing dies
If such a place exists
Please guide my eyes !

Australia's Portal sound like being inside a rusty submarine being thrown about on jagged basalt rocks by a hurricane while titanic monsters battle and mate in the churning black waters. And they also have a creepy Lovecraftian theme done with class and style.



British dirtbag biker doom with songs about Conan and Mi-Go...



Summoning of the multi-headed worm god (Sarku? The Dhol?) from the bottomless black pool of filth in a blasphemous subterranean vault...