“You awaken in a cold sweat…”

The dream your PC had last night was:

1-Your comrades were sitting around the campfire, gnawing on cooked human limbs. Their meal interrupted, they looked up at you with eyes that shone like a cat’s. Putting down their gruesome meal, they began crawling towards you as you struggled to free yourself from your bedroll. Wound as tight as a shroud, your arms were pinned as your friends stalked ever closer…

2-You were lost in the fetid halls of an ancient dungeon, one you’ve never encountered before. A thunderous rhythm, like a demonic heart, filled your ears as the shadows gathered about you. Turning a corner, you found yourself confronting the leering skull-face of the first companion you ever lost. With a rictus grin, he beckoned you to join him down into the dark…

3-You were enjoying a lavish banquet meal in the hall of a strange king. The provender was good, the wine excellent, and the companionship superb. A tickle in your throat interrupted your dining, stubbornly resisting all attempts to clear it. Then, the first of many small, hairy spiders began to climb from between your lips and onto your plate. This trickle quickly became a torrent, followed by your skin splitting as a horde of skittering arachnids broke free from their nest inside you…

4-You stood alone on a rocky strand, the waves breaking against the unnaturally sharp rocks that lined the water’s edge. A clump of pallid kelp rocked on the tide, coming closer with each breaking wave. As you watched, the kelp rolled over, revealing it to be the water-logged and crab-picked visage of your mother. Her dead eyes stared at you accusingly and her sodden lips worked silently, mouthing accusations of your past faults and failures. Soaking arms grappled you from behind, spinning you about to face the barnacle-spotted face of your father, his beard strung with dead anemones and jellyfish. He leaned in to kiss his favorite child…

5-You stood atop a craggy promontory, perched hundreds of feet in the air. Before you lay a wasteland of fire and ash; in the air above it, great black birds with yellow eyes and tattered feather rode sinister thermals and their hoarse cries croaked loudly in your ears. The sun glared hotly, revealing the picked bones of a thousand nations in the sand and soot below. You had the power to stop this, but your fear would not let you do what needed to be done. A shadow, like that of a titan rising from his restless slumber, blots out the landscape, shrouding you in night. SOMETHING approaches from behind. You feel its talons reaching for you, but you cannot—will not—turn to face what can only be the agent of your deserved punishment…

6-The ground gives way as you walk down a narrow forest path. A sound like ice breaking in the spring thaw hits you ears immediately before the pain explodes from your legs. With legs broken by the fall, your arms flail, struggling to keep yourself from sliding deeper into the earth as you grasped for plants that ripped free from the ground as gravity continued to claim you. Then, the first pair of fangs stabbed into your legs. You disturbed a nest of vipers in your fall. Your legs and waist became targets for their knife-like fangs as they struck again and again, pumping searing venom into your calves, thighs, and groin…

Pleasant dreams.

Dragontales: “Sir George”

The Dragontales anthology (and yes, I’m still working my way through it) does its best to appeal to everyone, no matter what their preferred flavor of fantasy might be. So far we’ve seen game fiction, pulp sword & sorcery, and second-wave feminist faerie tales; it must therefore be time to delve into the comedic to lighten things up. We get it in the form of Carl Parlagreco’s “Sir George.”

Like most of the authors whose work resides in Dragontales, Parlagreco seems to have been an unknown writer who caught the eye of Kim Mohan & company when assembling the anthology. It is possible that this Carl Parlagreco is the same one associated with The Spartacus File (the dates seem to fit in any case), but again a cursory web search reveals little about the author’s post-Dragontales writing endeavors.

What is evident is that Parlagreco has a fondness for puns, play on words, and is undoubtedly familiar with the works of Douglas Adams: “Sir George” is that kind of tale. In it, we are introduced to the eponymous protagonist, a dragon who awakens one morning to deal with both a sore throat and a bold (if inept) knight named Byron Elpus, Lord of the Pristine Lands. Yes, that makes him “Lord Elpus,” who is just the first of several outlandishly-named characters.

Lord Elpus needs George’s head so that he can marry his beloved, the glorious Maiden Form. George, being rather attached to it, manages to convince the knight errant that a solution exists that would allow him to keep his cranium while still meeting the conditions placed upon Elpus. And thus an unlikely buddy tale in the vein of Dragonheart is born.

The illustrations that accompany the story are the work of an artist who signs his or her work as “Yeehan,” “Seehan,” or “Geehan” depending on how one interprets the first letter in their signature. The pieces are all competently rendered and their style fits a lighter, funny story.

Sir George is a one of the shorter tales in the anthology and being a comedy piece (especially on that relies on a lot of puns to deliver its comedic punch), there’s not a whole lot of depth or subtext to read into. That doesn’t mean it’s a poor tale, however, although one’s enjoyment will largely depend on your own attitudes towards word play in humor. Some of the puns are more dated than others, while still others are likely to sail over the heads of younger readers. It also ends on a slightly ominous note depending on how one chooses to read it.

Wong & Boris, Culinary Masters and Chefs of Renown

When the jaded palettes of nobility grow tired of stag, peacock tongue, and turkey-stuffed-with-chicken-stuffed-with-duck, they summon the legendary chefs, Wong & Boris. Once word arrives in their Kitchen Stronghold that their talents are required, the two masters of the culinary arts sally forth with the caravan of prep cooks, mobile larders, and chest of endless herbs & spices to wherever their skills are wanted. They charge a fortune for their efforts (one banquet they prepared for the Sultan of Yugglestan resulted in the economic collapse of the county’s infrastructure), but the results are well worth it.

It should be noted that Wong & Boris provide only the means to prepare and serve a meal, and the necessary garnishes and seasonings that accompany it, not the dish itself. For that, they typically rely on their employer or any number of wayward adventurers with empty pouches, loose morals, and questionable common sense. More than one out-of-work adventuring band met their end on a quest that bean with the appearance of an apron-clad, funny hat-wearing, mysterious stranger with an outrageous accent who sidled up to their tavern table with an offer of work.

These adventurers are tasked with the job of locating, killing (or sometimes capturing), and returning with the carcass of creatures running the gamut from anhkhegs to dragons to purple worms to tarrasques—all of which Wong & Boris have a dozen recipes for. Those adventurers who succeed with aplomb may even be granted a seat and plate at the meal (although usually seated at a small folding table near the kitchen).

The Society will now come to order.

Yes, it’s May and the month-long A-Z meme has come to an end. At last, I feel free to emerge from my cave, blink the bright spring sunshine out of my eyes, and eat a hiker. For those of you who participated, I’m glad you all had fun. It wasn’t to my liking because I thought it was too forced and too long a meme (I thought the same about “Hot Elf Chicks” but that was only a single day so I grinned and endured it). Happily, I get to have my own opinions without caring what everyone else thinks or needing to justify them just like you do. I nevertheless hope this turns out to be a one-time experiment.

While everyone was alphabetizing themselves, I decided that it was a perfect excuse to dodge out of the blogosphere and attend to other business—and I got a hell of a lot done. I didn’t miss composing posts at all, leaving me even more certain that my decision to draw things to a close here on the Society of Torch, Pole and Rope is the right one. It’s definitely getting to be time to move on to the next thing for me. What that is, I’m uncertain, but this is the final year of the Society for sure.

April saw the near completion of the two projects that stand between me and committing myself full time to the Stonehell sequel. There likely remains a little cleanup work to be done on those, but I anticipate that in the next few weeks, Stonehell 2 will be my main concern. It’s time to finish that once and for all. More details on the mystery projects will be forthcoming when I’m allowed to speak openly about them.

Somehow I managed to fit in a sci-fi and fantasy convention during the 90k words I was writing, and I spent three days annoying the hell out of Frank Mentzer and the rest of the gaming guests at ICON 30. Having first attended ICON 7 or 8 and sporadically returning throughout the years, this was the first time I felt that I was on the other side of the wall. I was not attending as a fan, but as someone with a vested interest in the state of gaming. In the past, I’d be doing the celebrity Q & A thing. This time, I was attending workshops on the future of RPGs or how to sustain your interest and finish a freelance writing project in order to keep yourself and your publishers happy. The last one was responsible for one of those “Holy shit, I’m actually a writer” moments. Ending the convention by playing OD&D with Frank Mentzer was a nice way to bring the weekend to a close, although it didn’t really end then. I left the con to run my Labyrinth Lord game and promptly killed the entire party when negotiations with a young red dragon broke down.

Between the TPK and breaking for Easter, I think the year-long campaign has started to lose momentum, something which can be terminal for a game if not corrected. Today’s game had to end early because I was in too much pain from an old back injury to keep things going until our normal stop time. Plus, we lost 3 of the 6 replacement PCs on the first level of Stonehell (exploding flame toad & two potions of poison) so it was time to call it a night. With Mother’s Day next weekend and a playtest of something else the week afterwards, it won’t be back to Labyrinth Lord until May 22nd. That’s a long break and I hope we can recover.

A lot of my uncertainty about the future of the campaign can be blamed on the fact that it’s now spring. My long-time friends know that as soon as the weather changes, I get spring fever and go a little flaky. The last thing I want to do is sit inside and pretend to be outdoors when there are woods to be walked, beaches to be visited, and friends to see. But I can’t pretend this is the sole reason. I’ve been running hot and cold on vanilla fantasy for a while now and it might be time to do something very different. I’ll have to see how things play out in the next couple of weeks.

On the “News of the Highly Implausible” front, due to some strong suggestions by unnamed individuals, I finally broke down and got on Facebook. Some of you have already discovered this and sought me out. I’m pretty open about befriending fans and contemporaries, but don’t expect exciting insights into the mind of Mike and whatever I’m working on. I did join the Stonehell fan group though, and I might release advance looks at the dungeon through that page a week before I post them here. We’ll see.

The blog roll will be returning slowly starting tonight. I’ll undoubtedly overlook some folks, so please don’t take it as a slight if I do. There’s just so much more out there now and I can’t (and don’t) follow everyone’s work. There are more comprehensive lists than my own.

And there we go. I hope we have some fun again together before I turn off the lights and lock the door.

S&W WB Acquired

UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who contacted me in regards to my White Box search. Deals have been made, swag negotiated, and arrangements...er, arranged, so I'm all set. You guys are indeed the greatest role-playing fan base in existance today. I'm proud to be a part of the OSR, whatever that means this week.


Some of my regulars know that I'm a slave to whimsy and odd ball ideas. My latest has me thinking of projects to tackle once Stonehell is complete.

That vein of thought has managed to merge itself with a discussion I had with someone a few weekends ago, and I'm now thinking of coupling it with Swords & Wizardry White Box.

I'm aware that the WB rules remain available, but part of my idea involves taking a seed and nurturing it to its ultimate end--for weal or for woe. Thus, BHP White Box is almost ideal for my purposes.

Having just missed an eBay auction for one, I thought I'd cast my net upon the waters of my readers and see if someone has a gently used set they'll never find a use for. If so, before you put it up on eBay or offer it up to Noble Knight, drop me a line and we'll see if we can come to terms in either cash or swag.

R.I.P. Poly Styrene

The iconic lead singer of X-Ray Spex (and perhaps greatest of the "punk names"), Poly Styrene has died from cancer of the spine and breast. I always had a love for X-Ray Spex, one spawned by both Poly Styrene's one-of-a-kind vocals and the fact that they used a sax in a punk band in a non-ironic fashion.





Dammit.

Checkmate

In case you’re wondering, I decided to take April off from blogging so that I could get some more important things accomplished. The fact that I was so disappointed by a large percentage of blognards jumping on the A-Z bandwagon probably means that I needed a break from the echo chamber for awhile anyway, so why not kill two birds with one slingstone, neh?

I’ve temporarily killed my blog roll. It’s been long overdue for a revamp and I wasn’t looking forward to seeing it filled with A to Z entries for the next 26 or so days, so I pulled it down. It will returned afresh along with me next month.

Anyway, to tide you over until May, here’s a picture of me playing OD&D with Frank Mentzer this past Sunday. Call it “H is for Ha Ha!”

Informal Stonehell Poll Results

To give everyone a deserved break from all the April Fool’s bullshit and the “A-Z Blogging Challenge” that is going to make everyone’s blog roll look like Alphabet Soup for the next month (and “Oh what a JOY that’s going to be,” says the man who has been there, done that, and wrote a book about it), I wanted to extend my gratitude to everyone who took the time to provide feedback yesterday.

As I mentioned, I had my own bias before I asked the question and I’m glad to see that the majority of people are of the same mind: Keep it Labyrinth Lord and leave out the AEC. That’s pretty much what I’ve been doing in my home game and I always meant to keep the published version as close to the basic rules as possible. I shall strive to continue in that vein and remain pure to my original intentions.

That being said, if I do happen to decide that Level Eight really, really, really needs a floating, multi-eyed, eyeball monster, I might cite the appropriate page number in the AEC rather than take up valuable page real-estate reinventing the wheel yet again. Such occurrences, if any, will be limited to the absolute minimum and only be done when I feel there is no better route to go than to use something form the AEC. But such measures will be of the last resort variety.

Thanks again, all. Looks like it’s time to put my mining helmet back on, pay off my kobold guides, and see what lays beyond the Vrilya check point on Level Five. I’ll send progress reports as they develop.