Archive | September 15, 2017

“Curse-teroids” Lexicon Game

Sep15

I am considering running a slightly-atypical game of Lexicon to fill in all of the gaps in my MRI-created world (lot of time to sit and think, you know), “Curseteroids.” ☄️

(technically, Curse-teorites, but hey)

I would be using the Order Variation Follow the Phantoms and the type variation Codependence.

I’d be open to up to 8 other people, and am holding 4 slots for the people who played with me in Inspector Caracal’s earlier Lexicon game.

Why atypical?  Because I already have a novel started in my head for this setting, which requires SLIGHTLY more background than the normal, to quote, “You are all scholars arguing about how the Void Ghost Rebellion led to the overthrow of the theocracy and the establishment of the Third Republic.” I.e., we will all be scholars of some sort working on the Enclopedia, uh Cursteroidia, but I’ve set up the introduction to the world.

Since time immemorial [at least 500 years] the land of Otenysa has been beset by the Curse.

The Curse manifests as flaming rocks from the sky, some as small as a fist, some as large as a city.

Some land with a physical presence; some have only a magical shape, but all of them wreak havoc on the world around them.

A Curse Rock has a range of effect normally in proportion with its size; within that range of effect, buildings are destroyed or simply changed — melted, their material altered, turned upside down.  Animals are killed or changed, shrunk or grown, their colors changed and their milk or wool or meat altered.  Humans, too, are changed, magic given or taken away, ears and limbs and nose grown or shrunk, added or reduced, skin altered, internal organs broken.  Some of the changes are survivable; some or not.  Some are beneficial; most are not.

Any given Curse Rock will have the same sorts of effects on everything of a given “type” hit by its wave, leading to Balkanization of groups of mostly-humanoids.

Things I need for plot of The Potential Story:

  • Water (possibly also things like rock?) will have a muting effect on some Curse Rocks and an amplifying effect on others
  • In the waters off the East of the mainland there is a small island chain.  Situated mainly on the largest island, there is a nation which has been untouched by Curses for over 200 years — the longest of anyone — and whose last curses were mild and mostly-beneficial
  • This leads to them being a bit smug and superior, and it also leads to “missions” to the mainland to bring them technology, foodstuffs, and the like.  These missions are *cough* not always well-received.  

That’s it. There can be any number of “races” of altered stock of humans, plants, etc.  There can be almost any effect you can think of from the curse rocks.  There can be almost any level of techno/magic from Stone Age to Approx. Development Of Electricity, and almost any sort of magic that you want.  Any governmental system, any utopia or dystopia, and any extant or historical nation from the size of a single city to up to half the continent.  

The mass of one land mass has been determined, as well as a broad handwave of the Island of “Elves”, but the rest of the planet is up for grabs, as is geography, climate, where exactly the equator is in re. this land mass… 

So!  Anyone Interested?

  1. Me
  2. Lilfluff
  3. Rix Scaedu
  4. []
  5. []
  6. Literorrery
  7. Sauergeek
  8. [you]
  9. [you]
  10. [you]

 

 

The Hidden Mall: Into the Woods

Sep15

“If we see a faun,” Abigil muttered, “I’m running away.  Just so you know.  All right, so, we’re going to go…”  She consulted her mental map.  “This way.”  She jutted her chin. “And we’re going to go quietly, Liv-one, because Liv-two is right.  It’s snowing.  We want to move quietly.  Liv-two, we need to deal with that wound, okay?  Snow tracks are bad enough, but you’re trailing blood.  And we want to move fast, because we’re going to freeze to death if we don’t move.”

They took a hurried moment, Abigail holding tightly to Liv-one’s hand, while Liv-two cleaned up her wound – a scrape high on her leg – and tied it with half of the scarf Abigail had used.  She cut the scarf with a long, nasty knife – Abigail didn’t ask where she’d gotten it.  She wasn’t sure she wanted to know how long that Liv had been in the malls. Or, for that matter, where Abigail-two had gotten to.

And then they hiked.  They were moving in a mostly-straight line, not because Abigail thought it was a good idea, but because the trees were way too dense to move through otherwise.  Once, when she thought she saw an opening, the trees seemed to shift, and the opening was gone.

The only positive, as far as she could tell, was that the snow was falling fast enough that their tracks were obscured.  There was no wind, either, which was a blessing of sorts.  

She was still pretty sure they were going to freeze to death.  Wherever they were didn’t seem to have doors, didn’t even seem to be a mall.

“Hunh.”  Dirty-Liv stopped and frowned. “Did you see that?”

“S-s-s-ee what?” Clean-Liv was clinging close to Abigail.

“Oh, come on, if I’m not that cold, neither are you.  Did you see something moving in the trees?”

“There’s no room for anything to move,” Clean-Liv complained.  “It’s all packed together like – hunh.”  She frowned at the trees.  “Abigail, do you see that?”

“What?”  Abigail hated the way she wanted to snap at her friend, and the way her heart sank at Liv’s did-you-see.

“There, between the trees, or maybe in the trees.”

“Don’t tell me it’s a beaver,” Dirty-Liv groaned.

“No, but it’s, look.”

They looked.

Abigail frowned.  

It was a doorway.  In a tree.  It was a little small – all of them would have to duck – but it was definitely a doorway.

“Well,” Abigail muttered, “at least it’ll get us out of the snow.”  She tilted her head.  “Go ahead and open it, I guess.”

🌲🌳🌲

 
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What I Did on My Summer (not-really-Vacation)

Sep15

So, let me tell you about my summer!

🌞

So far, Summer 2017 has involved medical foo, home renovations, surprise!funeral and not-a-surprise godbaby.

Medical Foo I have blogged a bit about in That Was Spinal Tap and That Was Spinal Tap Two.  I’ve also fic’d and freewrote about it in Diagnostic Machine and Just A Little Structural Rot.

The long and the short of it: After more doctor visits, blood tests, and spinal taps than seems reasonable or even probable (and two MRIs), I have a diagnosis and will start drug treatment soon.  It’s not a thrilling diagnosis, but, to quote Arnold, it’s not a tumor. (It’s not a baby either.  I don’t think they’d need a spinal tap to tell that one).

I now have three weeks without blood draws or doctor visits, and if my dentist calls, I’m going to tell them I’m out of the country for a while.  Or something.  No more co-pays kthnxbai.

Did I really just say kthnxbai?  Please forgive me.   Continue reading →