Sunday, May 28, 2006

gaming strangeness

Some comic moments from a game session with Fermius ...

Beware of the vorpal doberman.

Any time a bad guy starts to lecture, just hit 'em with the nearest table.

A sorceror optimist: "I keep dying and coming back -- life is good."

Jeff's vampiric goat of doom.

New spell: Transmute rock to puppies.

And ...

According to U.S. postal regulations, the only way to ship an eldritch horror is in a stone tube with magical seals.

(who says these games aren't creative?)

Monday, May 22, 2006

tumblewhats?

If you've ever driven through the Mojave or Arizona Desert at night, you know there are some windy places. Sand blows across the road, cars drive in crooked lines, things fly by that you can't focus on. And there are usually piles of tumbleweeds at the side of the highway. Every now and then the tumblers all leap out as a group -- yaaaaaaaah!

In fact, the tumbleweeds hunt in packs and pick off the weakest cars in the herd, those which are running on empty. You can see the cars at the side of the road, their windows bashed in and no clues to where the drivers went.

But it doesn't stop there. Cactus roots slowly drag the empty cars further and further from the road. And though there's never any rain, the carcasses rust quickly and sand creatures strip their paint away with digestive acids. Eventually the dead vehicles sink into the sand completely, and nothing is left but a mound of earth with a ring of agaves raising their spectacular stalks up to the heavens.

It's best to just drive on. Even if the little blue signs say there is food and gas at the next exit. Some of those towns are just rusty skeletons, picked clean by even larger monsters.

Leprecon

Hi - eek, ugh. What happened?

Well, I was out in Phoenix at Leprecon on May 5-7, drinking warm Morgans with fake pirates and I meant to login and post some stuff, but forgot the password.

Then I left my brain in a suitcase for a while.

Then I worked a few long days down at Stu Segall Productions as a production assistant on what turned out to be a soap opera drama thing. Still, I'm oddly at home on a film set, too bad most of the work pays scrap.

Then I turned 40. Dammit.