Bad Ass Erol Otus Elf

I've been on an elven kick as of late for reasons I'll not yet reveal, but the result is that I'm looking at a lot of roleplaying supplemental material covering our pointy-eared counterparts. When it comes to roleplaying material for elves, Roger E. Moore's articles on the demihumans in D&D certainly stands out. There's a reason that the deities he created in those articles still linger on in the game to this day.

It has been awhile since I read his "The Elven Point of View." I haven't looked at it since my return to old school gaming and thought I should reacquaint myself with its contents. I fired up my Dragon Magazine Archive and found it with a quick search. And there, right smack in the center of the article's first page was this

I certainly did not remember this depiction of an elf, but it is truly a bad ass one. This ain't Orlando Bloom chewing fletchings off an arrow. This is an elf that's going to wreck your day with either his twisty staff of flying lanterns, his eldritch eye magic, or his long sword of Dead Kennedys.

Sometimes all you need is an alternate take on a stereotype to change your entire world view. From now on, all my elves have this guy as a relative.

Your Adventure Design Homework for the Weekend

I read this quote today in an interview with Keith Morris (Black Flag, Circle Jerks, OFF!) and it sounds like just the sort of adventure the OSR minds would cook up. My plate's full, so someone else is going to have to take this one.

Hercules versus The Three Stooges. Or, the Three Musketeers get transported to Mars where they’re going to fight the evil king of Mars, and, as it turns out, Mars is like the party planet; all the women are running around naked and there aren’t very many guys, so it’s kind of like Australia where there’s like 10 girls to every guy. Something like that.

Extra bonus points if you can squeeze in Bigfoot.

And Miss All This?

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.

R.I.P. Derf Scratch of FEAR

It’s been adequately demonstrated that on a hypothetical Venn diagram, this blog falls within the sets of both “old school D&D” and “punk rock.” Both came to prominence during the 1970s and both have had a tremendous influence upon yours truly. Unfortunately, the two have another commonality: the passing of their elder statesman. That punk even has any elder statesmen remaining is surprising enough, but that doesn’t make losing another any less somber of an event. And, as Pitchfork is reporting, Derf Scratch, the original bass player for the seminal Los Angeles punk band FEAR has joined that ever-increasing list of dead punk rockers.



There’s a very nice summation of his career over on The AV Club, so I’ll merely state that FEAR is one of my top ten favorite bands to come out of the L.A. punk scene. Longtime readers might remember that I saw the current lineup of FEAR play just last summer. Although not as musically competent as some artists or socially aware as others, FEAR was a band that always evoked a response from its audience—and that’s what every artist hopes to do. It also was at its best when original members like Derf and Philo were on the band’s roster. Derf also gave us the saxophone track on the very anti-New York City “New York’s Alright (If You Like Saxophones)”—a song which I should theoretically despise as a native New Yorker, but nevertheless brings a smile to my face.

Here's to Derf.