Tag: gaming

Which, I point out, has been successfully preserved! We can do it, if we get the fascist oilgarchs out of the way.

Read (manga): Tetragrammaton Labyrinth vol 3 (Ei Itou): This one I had not read, so it’s okay that I don’t remember it. Meg’s alarming backstory, then back to the present for massive demon attack, but some secondary characters have been promoted to PCs.

Played (Changeling the Lost): Berkeley 94. While everyone was talking last session, Everett was doing metalworking for his feelings. Melting things is apparently very therapeutic. Later, the group met up with Red and Badger at a coffeeshop to talk about fetches. Apparently Red and her fetch harass each other on Usenet. This reminds Theo to try to get a computer. Since she needs a job, having received the “thanks for your submission, expect a reply in 1d6+6 months” response to her stories, her brilliant plan is to get a job at a sketchy computer repair shop. Siddy also plans to go visit Sir Hiss again, since he may know King Mark’s backstory. Thessaly didn’t do much because her player fell asleep in lovely weather listening to cicadas.

Written (game design): 400:

If the wound die (plus hit margin, minus armor/toughness) isn’t
enough for a wound but kind of close, maybe it does a point of harm,
which stacks up and adds to any later wound die rolls? If it gets
to half the size of the wound die (so 5?) then it counts as fatigue
and if it gets to the full size (10) it’s a wound. Obviously we
could get complicated to let attacks add more than one harm, but
meh. Either it’s 1 wound or it’s 1 harm or it’s nothing. Take out
some blood to make cool red shades to protect from the gaze attack?
1 harm. Get some green slime on you? 1 harm per round. (Later I
may regret this.)

Let’s not get into psychic harm at this point. Psychic fatigue and
wounds are enough.

Does blood magic need more limitation beyond using your own blood?
Probably not if we set the costs appropriately.

Prophets are limited by the randomness of what happens when they try to
do the thing, and also by the horribleness of bad rolls. Unlike other
magical limitations, this could affect the whole party: biting snails
inside everybody’s armor! They also have some Psyche slots taken up,
though whether by mental problems or divine connections is probably not
answerable. Either way, if you somehow get rid of one, you stop
channeling that aspect of your god.

There should be some way for a prophet to eventually evolve into a more
controlled form of wizard, similar to a FTW but probably in a slightly
new paradigm, like foreign FTWs.

If we don’t have Harmony, what limits are there on the basic pushing that any
touched can do? Do we skip straight to psychic fatigue? That’s probably
fine for untrained usage like that, but martial arts and psychic powers
are like trained, specialized pushing so they shouldn’t be that
debilitating per use? Although, how bad is a slot of psychic fatigue?
Especially if you only get it when you blow a roll?

Also National Teddy Bear Day.

Played (Changeling the Lost): Berkeley 94. These wonderful weirdos definitely need teddy bears. Instead Siddy stress-cleans for 24 hours straight, with only one break to build some crow houses, while Thessaly plots dozens of murders on Lily. Theophania tries to write, but there are too many feelings in her warehouse, so she experiments on Thess and Siddy with her emotion magic. Yep, those sure are a lot of feelings! However, although she can give people feelings, she can’t take them away, so it doesn’t really help. Longfingers is hiding in the walls and misses all of this, but later she goes out looking for Mary, who she heard can teach her the dream magic to investigate the golden apple mystery. She doesn’t find Mary, but she does find Eve the vampire, who promises to help her find Mary in exchange for going dancing with her. None of the rest know anything about this, since they’re still at home wallowing.

Read (manga): Princess Resurrection vol 2-3 (Yasunori Mitsunaga): More movie monsters, more doom. Vampire who flies wearing a skirt. More doom.

Written (game design): 300, because I haven’t made up my mind to either restart the other project now that I know the emotional arc, or abandon it entirely because I’ve restarted it too many times. (Never mind the other other project, which has languished in complete neglect since I planned it out in more detail than ever before.)

In case you need to intimidate Monty Python, I guess.

Still on vacation today. It’s like a mix of Saturday (shopping), Sunday (impending work), Monday (laundry), and the Tuesday the calendar claims.

Played (Changeling the Lost): Berkeley 94. More time is spent at King Mark’s court, but not much more is learned. Hopefully everyone now has a good impression of Theophania and crew, though. Since Jack of All Asses has already butted in, Lily takes Everett and his friends to a good diner to meet her boyfriend. Apparently she has a type because her boyfriend is (big reveal music) Everett’s fetch. Bogglement ensues. Both of them are Everett, though, so they sit down and calmly discuss having a shared legal identity and how taxes will work and when they diverged. In the meantime, Thessaly, who was interested in Lily and then wanted to set her up with Everett and she’s dating Everett’s FETCH, and Siddy, whose fetch is known to be out there living her life with her family, flee outside for some therapeutic wailing and gnashing of teeth. Eventually, Theophania calms them down enough to go back inside and eat fries and fume while watching to make sure Everett and other Everett don’t explode like matter and antimatter. When Everett-2 has to go back to work, the real Everett goes off to have feelings on his own, and the rest head back to the warehouse to have their own feelings.

Read (manga): I’m In Love With The Villainess vol 8 (Aonoshimo, Inori, Hanagata): Everybody already knew who was gay, but there’s a lot more coming out in this volume!

Read (novel): The Demon’s Due (Deborah Wilde): 5th and final book, MC and her boy get together, the world is almost destroyed but then saved, etc. HEA!

Written (game design): 306.

I did that! Fortunately it was not windy, because I hate wind way more than extremes of temperature when eating outside.

Played (D&D5e): Librarians Errant: The grand finale! Reshelving Squad Upsilon’s allegedly brilliant plan to lure Walter to a special performance of The Troll Experience where everyone who’s anyone in Waterdeep is there works great, since it’s now actually Walter’s certifiably brilliant plan. All the audience is holding up glyphs, heroes are popping out from under the rings, Martin is chanting the spell that Renwick, 60′-tall gods are tangoing across the battlefield, no one has ever seen anything like it! Unfortunately, Walter (in Hotep-Sally’s body, of course) has retrieved the Bob the shoggoth-book that wandered off with Lilli and is happily using the dark spells within to summon foot-long earwigs inside Grumman’s armor and Flint’s ear. The Squad’s mightiest spells do nothing against Walter, though, as he deflects them onto his hapless bullywug minions, and the metaphysical mason jar Martin is trying to capture him is no better. Things are going pretty badly for the good guys when Bob repudiates her heel turn and knocks Walter into the jar! The world is saved! Promotions all around! Grumman’s mind is even retrieved from the giant earwig and put back in his body!

By next session, Teo will be in the UK getting prepped for an Education, so now we have to have a new campaign. Jeremy says he has an idea, so we’ll probably end up going with that unless he repents.

Read (manga): Yakuza Reincarnation vol 12 (Hiroki Miyashita, Takeshi Natsuhara): Fight against a horrifying demon, severe long-term soul damage, slightly more information on reincarnators, IMPENDING DOOM.

Read (comic): Banna: Sky Walkers (Beserat Debebe, Shiferaw Yinessu): A short African fantasy piece. About a boy, but I guess that’s okay.

Written (nothing): FAIL. My brain is completely empty. RIP whatever streak I had (only a couple of months since I went out of town at the beginning of July).

Or maybe it’s pictures by orangutans.

Played (Changeling the Lost): Berkeley 94. Lily agrees to introduce Everett and his friends at court tomorrow, and also dances with him, or at least they’re both in the mosh pit which is close enough for squeeing purposes. Everybody meets Little Mike and Red and Red’s conspiracy theories (which Theophania is happy to argue with her about). The next morning, the group and Thessaly’s hangover accompany Lily to the Albany Bulb where the king has his castle partly in the mundane world and partly in the hedge. King Mark himself is old and obviously unwell, but has Jack the Despicable to advise him, and a court of a few other changelings. The king sits in a chair at the foot of the throne, which has been rendered non-ergonomic by a huge bowie knife stuck into the back, which is obviously important but nobody is talking about it. Introductions are made, the benefits of the kingdom are talked up, Jack is wormy of tongue, Siddy makes friends with Big Mike the sasquatch(?), Theophania charms everyone with prettiness, no fealty is sworn (although Lily talks like the group is part of the kingdom). Jack, being a little shit, asks Lily if she’s introduced Everett to her boyfriend yet, but this does not break whatever it is between them, so hah.

Read (manga): Rainbows After Storms vol 4 (Luka Kobachi): The beach episode, where one of the main couple gets to show off by being curvy and the other gets to show off by being dashing! Also, return of the senpai who broke one of their hearts last year.

Written (game design): 149:

More things PCs often do:
– carouse and possibly wake up somewhere
– repair or sabotage a machine
– figure out what’s ailing someone
– heal someone up
– follow tracks
– befriend an animal, spirit, or other creature
– vibe check
– make friends

None of these are as great as “Seize or Hold by Force”, which is
probably a skills issue on my part. It’s hard to get too high-level with
fighting or direct conflict and still play it rounds, though, and we’re
not going full story-game. Yet. Probably.

Anyway, once we consolidate these, each one would have its own rating,
and there would be another rating for Act Under Pressure for everything
else. As previously established, not having an appropriate background,
time, tools, environment, etc, will increase the difficulty, so a high
rating on its own is not enough to let you do everything.

Fortunately, absolutely no one in the entire history of ever has cared what I found appealing, so we’ll concentrate on how this is also International Tiger Day.

Played (Changeling the Lost): Berkeley 94: We didn’t have Kelsey or Vivian, so played the evening where Thessaly gets drunk lost  and has to be rescued by Lily, the knight of the evil(?) king who seems to know and like Everett even though he doesn’t remember her. Thessaly brings her back to Stately Sanrio Manor, some information is exchanged, and Thessaly and Theophania bully Everett into going on a date with Lily. Next session, picking out a date outfit for him.

Read (manga): Monthly in the Garden With My Landlord vol 4 (Yodokawa): Is it still a landlady/tenant relationship if they’re living and sleeping together? Also lots of drama with the landlady’s old idol group.

Written (game design): 224:

If we’re going to do that, we should do similar for spending MP instead
of rolling a die. Although we still roll random polyhedrals to find out
how much Readiness and MP you have, so we aren’t eliminating that
mechanic entirely. I don’t think we want to, because if you’re looking
for a numeric output, the Action/Difficulty mechanic only gives four
possibilities with uneven probabilities. So let’s keep attack dice and
rolled MP costs.

MP are now called Harmony.

Time to stop and check how complicated a character is. Do we need to
throw some stuff out?

A character has
– Ratings for a dozenish Actions (list still to be finalized)
– List of Backgrounds
– Readiness dice (current Readiness values to be tracked on a postit)
– Harmony dice (values on postit)
– Melee, ranged, and magic attack dice
– Armor and resistances
– Movement rate and modes (swimming, flight, etc)
– Strength
– Size
– Ancestry feats and other abilities
– Physical inventory slots and what’s in them
– Spiritual inventory slots and what’s in them
– XP, unspent and total

Ancestry feats and other abilies, and the things in inventory slots,
will have additional information about what they do, unlike Backgrounds
which are what they say on the tin, so that’s more complexity. Overall,
though, I think that’s not too bad? I’m sure I’ll remember more stuff
that goes on the list later, though.

Also Space Exploration Day, although that’s become decreasingly cool over the past few years. Nazis ruin everything.

Played (D&D5e): Librarians Errant:In search of the fourth volume of the three-volume set of texts, On Ethereal Matters, Reshelving Squad Upsilon makes a journey through Bibliospace that will definitely have been harrowing when they tell this story later. In due course, they come to room or demiplane with many warning signs, and ghostly apparitions swarming over a labyrinth of shelves packed with books on the transmigration of spirits and similar matters. Flying over the labyrinth to shortcut it is obviously a bad plan, but it turns out that ground level is not much better, what with the possessing ghosts and haunted library carts and shifting paths and Dewey Decimal shelving. Also there’s somebody further back in the stacks carrying on, which probably doesn’t mean anything good. Despite Thaïs getting the life sucked out of her, Lilli and Flint getting possessed multiple times, and everyone getting run over by haunted library carts, they eventually make it almost halfway into the room, at which point the ankylosaur librarian shows up to scold them for making so much noise. The librarian is also upset about the noise caused by the How To Get Published seminar being run in the back, though, so Lilli agrees to shut them in exchange for not getting slapped around any more. And there’s the book! Victory! They quickly return to Renwick, who says he now understands how Walter got out of the previous trap and how to keep him imprisoned forever.

Looks like we have two or maybe three sessions left. No progress on finding new gamers.

Read (manga): Ghost Talker’s Daydream vol 1 (Okuse Saki, Meguro Sankichi): One of the series I put back into the TBR pile before taking to the used bookstore. Still raunchy and sordid and morbid, because people who die peacefully in bed don’t need ghost talkers to get them sorted.

Written (game design): 354:

I thought we could establish a couple of rules for magic based on what we’ve already established, but I’m not sure they hold up, except for “no plusses”. Magic can’t change an action rating, but it can provide tools, knowledge, and maybe even time to reduce the difficulty. A spell might be a really good tool that makes everything faster and has a larger effect, but if you don’t have the background, or do have adverse circumstances, you can be at 1D or more and still have to roll. This mostly applies to buff and environmental reshaping magic, I guess. Okay, let’s look at the six types of magic mentioned before.

  • Buff – As just mentioned, a lot of buff magic provides faster/more powerful tools for actions. Could also increase non-action stats like HP, damage, and movement, where plusses are not as objectionable.
  • Debuff – Absolutely something magic should be able to do, but any details have to wait for combat rules to be finished.
  • Environmental reshaping – Mostly similar to buff, but for the Craft an Object action, since it’s all about making new things or destroying old things, so this is fine.
  • Healing – Again, needs the rules for getting beat up and/or cursed to exist before we can say anything concrete.
  • Transportation – Immediate stuff is buffs for Get Over There, but larger-scale stuff like flying ships and teleportation gateways is probably just things you build?
  • Divination – I forgot about this one before, possibly because it’s messy. Historically divination is very common and very diverse, because everybody wants to know things, but it’s a pain in a game. Needs more attention later.
  • Attack – Again, fine for magic to do this, but most attack magic would be ranged, rather than melee, so we need those combat mechanics before we can go anywhere with this.

But just because we can put in magic to do all these things, doesn’t mean we should.

Last day of vacation. I took four bags of books to the used bookstore and only had half a bag rejected, got my medication sorted out so hopefully I can both not die and not poop until I want to die, and did some additional shopping that I failed at yesterday. It was a reasonable fake Sunday, but I had no sundae.

Played (Changeling the Lost): Berkeley 94. Everett is at work, leaving the rest of the crew at loose ends. Siddy declares she needs a walking stick, so everyone goes to ask Troll if he knows where to get one, and he shows them how to use BART tickets to get to the Goblin Market. Poor Siddy has some PTSD flashbacks from having once been sold at a goblin market herself, but manages to buy a walking stick without getting trapped into any unwanted bargains. Thessaly does not put the moves on the stick vendor dryad, although she clearly wants to. Theophania checks out the book stall, but it seems a little sketchy so she decides to maybe come back later when she knows more about this, and comes up with a clever plan to get materials for Siddy to make her some new shoes. Nobody is sure exactly what Longfingers has been doing.

Read (light novel): I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level vol 1 (Kisetsu Morita, Benio): An office lady works herself to death and gets reincarnated as an immortal witch who can just chillax in her extremely low-risk corner of the LitRPG world. Unfortunately for her, the XP adds up, and eventually somebody realizes she is the most powerful ever. Now she can’t chillax because cute girls (or monsters in the form of cute girls) keep coming to kill/serve/challenge/entreat her and she has to adopt them all and also fight dragons.

Written (game design): 307:

In OG D&D, one of the main paths for advancement was famously More Stuff, by
which we mean magic items. Equally famously, a lot of that was to get
More Plusses: +1 longsword, +3 plate mail, +6 headband of intellect. (I
like the way 5E does this better: a headband of intellect doesn’t give
bonuses to stack on top of the different-colored bonuses you already
have to Int, it just makes your Int 19. This is an approach I want to
use heavily when we need bigger numbers.) To be fair, there are a lot of
additional abilities as well: necklace of fireballs, lyre of building,
vorpal sword. These days, those are mostly spells that use a dedicated
pool of charges to be tracked separately, but whatever.

If spending magic points is wearing away your own soul, how do magic
items work? Do they have domesticated spirits inside them to do the work
of magic on the user’s behalf? That works with the 5E thing of magic
items possibly breaking if you use the last charge, although working a
spirit to death is a lot darker than just wearing out a tool. It could
also be that the magic item only provides the pattern, and you have to
do the magic yourself to stamp it into the fabric of reality. That’s not
as good for items that just do their thing, like the vorpal sword, but
it does remind me of my idea from long ago where spells were astral
tools that you had to equip, so a powerful mage would look like a
many-armed idol with a different symbol in every hand.

Happy merry to all my Canada friends!

Played (Changeling the Lost): Berkeley 94: This episode, Thessaly and Everett and Longfingers help Black Shuck ambush the lizard-pigs in the Hedge by chucking rocks at them and running away to where Black Shuck can grab one and do something unseen but doubtless horrible. It’s a terrible plan, but it works out okay. Siddy and Theophania have a much less exciting time staying ahead of their lizard-pigs until the bells drive them away. Everyone reconvenes at the coffee shop.

Read (manga): Failed Princesses vol 3 (Ajiichi):Still rereading. Now there are four girls all having feelings at each other, while on the school trip and in the hotel bath.

Written (game design): 284:

Spells that don’t do damage are even more unclear. Having two sets of HP
(physical and mental, typically) is something that’s been tried, but the
advantage to focusing on one track is so great that no one ever bothers
with the other. If we want to use the same mechanism, then it has to be
the same pool of HP, so everyone is as resistant to being turned into a
frog as they are to being fireballed or stabbed.

But on the other hand, what does it mean to cast a spell, or to resist a
spell being cast on you? In D&D, most (non-damage) spells fizzle because
there’s always a save to prevent anything from happening at all, as well
as the save to have the effect end after a round or two. Obviously you
can’t have debuffs ruining the calibration, but we don’t care about
that, and we also spurn the concept of to-hit rolls, so do non-damaging
spells just work, at least initially? When the victim’s turn comes up,
they can try to shake off the effect, which might require a roll or
something, but when you cast blindness on somebody, maybe they’re just
blind. Kind of a lame spell otherwise, right?

It should still be possible to resist a spell, but that can be a
specific thing, like casting protection from magic on someone before
sending them to rush the enemy wizard, or being a fireblooded sorcerer
when someone casts wave of icy death. Possibly ties in with my idea that
anybody can buy an amulet that protects against one instance of a
specific harm before burning out. Naturally, if you carry more than one
amulet, none of them work.

Excellent day to play Changeling!

Coworker K has returned from vacation, so we are not quite as short-handed. However, boss T is leaving soon, as the new overboss (metaboss? hyperboss?) makes changes to return the larger organization to what it was before new people came in and made their changes. Business, manne. It’s a scam from top to bottom.

Read (manga): FAIL. Tomorrow for sure, since I have to commute.

Played (Changeling the Lost): Berkeley 94.After surviving a night in the Grotto, the changelings split up to try to find some more information on this Queen Salome of Winter. Thessaly, Gretchen, and Everett head up into the Berkeley Hills to try to find the Cypress Yard where Salome buried something. Up in the actual hills, above the eccentric but mundane Berkeley architecture, they find an ancient stone wall ending in a spiral that is definitely a gate into the Hedge, but they have not managed to open it when Everett spots a black dog sneaking up on them. Remembering Black Shuck, the anti-gate-usage terrorist activist they met immediately after returning from Faerie, he gets everyone out of there, but Black Shuck intercepts them further down. Luckily he does not feel the need to punish them for messing about with gates, but he does warn them off the gate, which is particularly dangerous today because a hunting party came through it. Then he recruits the three of them to help him get one of the hunters. Meanwhile, Siddy and Theophania have snuck into the UC Berkeley library through the steam tunnels to see if they can find out what became of Salome. Before they can find very much, though, some of the scaly faerie cops invade the library, with dogs and also a picture of Theophania. Theo and Siddy combine their magic powers to get a senior librarian to throw the lizard-pigs out for not having a warrant, but it’s time to beat feet. They meet the fabled white alligator of the steam tunnels (his name is Sir Hiss, he’s kind of nosy but a fellow nerd) who tries to help them escape, but everywhere they see the outside, those damn lizard-pigs are there.

I got to try to turn people on to The Ancient Magus’ Bride, because it has a church grim, so that was good.

Written (game design): 222:

If there’s a curse associated with being able to spend magic points,
then it needs to bother bystanders; if only affects the adept, then
there’s no incentive for The Man to not forcibly initiate an army of
adepts (need a better name here) and just let them suffer between doing
40-person raids on dungeons or whatever. It should probably also get
worse the more there are hanging around together, so they don’t go off
and form their own miserable cursed society away from everyone else. But
what is the curse? It has to be pretty generic, maybe just attracting
monsters and meddling deities.

If large groups can’t form, though, that makes it hard to have dark
academia wizard schools/temples, though, so maybe fixed locations can be
warded. They’re also a known place people can come and bother you if
they need help, though.

Speaking of meddling, in Kala Mandala the PCs aren’t members
of an adventurers’ guild or anything like that, they belong to the
Bawan Meddling Association. Should adepts be treated like
tricksters/holy fools? That’s probably too much setting for the game
itself, but could go in a default setting (equivalent of Forgotten
Realms, but again we’re way beyond any feasible planning horizon).

Yay! It’s a day for me! I’m a stupid guy thing!

Played (D&D5e): Librarians Errant: The sending to Renwick’s grad student doesn’t produce any results after an entire fifteen minutes, so the Reshelving Squad sets off into Bibliospace. Somewhat later, as they cross the vast empty savanna of young adult romance, they see giant scavenging books circling in the sky way over there. It seems like a long walk, but Lilli conjures a divine meerkat that indicates that’s the way, so they go, and find a grad student, half-dead from the lack of serious literature, crawling across the landscape. This is Hannibal, Sophia Sharpe’s research subject assistant, who has been sent to find them and lead them to Renwick’s. This works great until, while fording the famous Stream of Consciousness, they are all swept away by a surge of best-seller nonsense and washed into a deep cavern on another plane. Which plane? The Library of Sobek-in-Chains, where Bob the Mummy sits on his throne, lording it over his army navy of crocodiles, and dominated in turn by the dark overlord Walter, of course! The fight is not much fun, because Bob has very annoying magic and everything is difficult terrain, and poor Lilli gets death-rolled, but Grimm can subvert the other crocodile, and Walter is only there in the form of seventeen books in a trenchcoat, which Lilli’s shoggoth is optimized against, so eventually Pergamum prevails. Finally, the Squad arrives at Renwick’s. Of course he can work out a variant on the spell that will trap Walter forever, but of course he needs someone to go fetch the fourth book of a famous three-volume set first.

Watched (live-action TV): Murderbot 1.6-7: Well, this is going quite far afield from the books! Also, the armor is giving SecUnit black-bordered word balloons.

Written (game design): 235 of rambling nonsense:

D&D defines a broad genre, but only a few elements of setting: wizards,
elves, swords, drow, dragons, dwarves, taverns, gods, ancient ruins,
orcs. (Maybe this is why it’s become the default Generic Fantasy setting,
although being amplified like a virus in video games and being adjacent
to LotR probably helped too.) It leaves open who the PCs are, at least
in theory, although somehow being an adventurer usually overshadows any
background and everybody starts with the same 3d6x10gp or standard class kit
or whatever. Is having the PCs set apart by their ability to use magic
consistent with this or not? They usually set themselves apart by their
behavior anyway, even if the GM has some idea of Renaissance social
roles (D&D hasn’t been medieval in decades).

The overarching question is, what do we need in order to replace D&D?
(Not worldwide, I don’t have that much hubris; just at one table.)
Anti-canon ancestry covers most of elves, dwarves, orcs, drow, etc,
unless someone is deeply attached to a specific feature from a specific
D&D edition that I don’t like (ie, darkvision). Any game can have kings
and castles and swords of one shape or another. I guess we’re back to
figuring out what wizards, gods, clerics, etc are like. Oh, and dragons,
because I also have opinions on how everything in D&D is a species
and/or one of an unlimited number of the same.

Not things that normally go together, unless maybe they mean the shoes?

Not as much work today as yesterday. Got the really smart guy to look at the mysterious problem, but he doesn’t understand it either, which is both good and bad.

Feeling gastrointestinal again. Is this related to the change in dosage of my meds? But I was taking the higher dose for a month without any of this!

Played (Changeling the Lost): Berkeley 94. The changelings explore the grotto of the Queen of Winter some more, using various poorly-understood magical powers, which confirms that someone is still supporting the grotto, and gives them a lead on a lockbox full of documents buried… somewhere (possibly involving cypress trees). Thessaly attunes herself to the grotto, so it’s partially hers, and Theophania tries to use her magical-security-suborning power to take over the rest of the lease, which results in alarming icy manifestations that feel like the faeries who kidnapped her to begin with. Nobody comes to eat them, but it’s still ominous.

Written (catgirl): 154.

I have some friends, but I’m not sure who is my best friend. Maybe Marith, maybe Ayse?

Played (D&D5e): Librarians Errant. Cut to the Temple of Sobek-in-Chains on the Demielemental Plane of Egyptology! Grim, having ended up in the trash compactor with the beautiful high priestess and her roguish love interest (but no wookie or droids), is fleeing the over-armored and under-trained Stormcroc Troopers down one corridor, and the rest of the Reshelving Squad is fleeing a quartet of literal giant crocodiles along the intersecting corridor. They’re reunited, but they have to make a stand! Fortunately Grim’s fey-granted power of animal control is extremely effective when the only significant threat is giant crocodiles, and the day is saved. The restored priesthood of Sobek will not be dismantling the giant sun-cannon on top of the temple, which surely will not be an issue. Decorations and rewards for all (including sweet crocodile tattoos of protection for Thaïs so people will stop teasing her about being unarmored), level UP! And now, back into Bibliospace to finish the journey to Renwick’s laboratory for advice.

We have to bring this campaign to a satisfying conclusion by the end of the summer, as two of our players are moving, and also figure out what to play next. Apparently people actually read this page? So maybe I should have something to playtest by then? And figure out how to explain all the D&Disms I want to get rid of in positive terms.

Read (novel): Like Cicadas (Fiori Manni, tr Emma Sayers): A girl goes to summer on the coast like her family always does, but this year all the girls her age are having puberty and making eyes at boys instead of wanting to do anything fun, and there’s a new girl who is completely amazing, and no one in 1990s Italy knows what lesbians are so great confusion and also great adolescent drama ensues.

Written (catgirl): 268.

Are you a hoopy frood who knows where your towel is at? Good, good.

Played (D&D5e): Librarians Errant: The Reshelving Squad (minus Grim) and their new Adorable Crocodile Boy flee from the molasses flood burbling down the tunnel… right into the clutches of Glinda and her Emerald City Pikemen! A sticky battle ensues, with blinding sugar-dust, plummeting tiny houses, and toppling lollipop trees. Eventually, Thaïs manages to get her eyes clear long enough to teleport herself and the Adorable Crocodile Boy to the realm above the Lollipop Forest, where she finds herself running late for a final exam that she hasn’t studied for. It was all a dream! In fact they are safe(?) and sound(?) back in the university, and soon learn that Grim has been dragged into the river that was running down University Street by a saltwater crocodile. The only reasonable conclusion is that Sobek is mad about his temple being taken over by the body-hopper and the squad is on the hook to fix it. Shoggoth Bob is bribed into regurgitating the spellbook found earlier, with the body-hopping spell which is so evil that nobody thinks they could learn it without an alignment change (except Martin, and nobody believes him), but Renwick is already a lich and a demigod of magic, so what’s the worst that could happen? The squad sets out for his laboratory, and as Lilli’s divination magic indicates that Grim can be retrieved from the temple of the god who took him, they will look for a temple of Sobek on the banks of the Dessarin Valley.

After gaming, I went all the way to Dave’s place to check on the cats, who were still fine. Good job being cats, guys!

Written (catgirl): 208.

Also underrated.

Played (Changeling the Lost): Berkeley 94. Everett has a run-in with fake cops at his work, but defeats them with the power of stoicism and railroad tracks, Thessaly does tarot readings, Longfingers takes more notes on how to be a grown-up lesbian, Siddy gets supplies for more urban farmsteading stuff, and Theophania does approximately nothing. I should probably drop out.

Written (catgirl): 197, splitting the different between a whole page and going to bed on time and thus accomplishing neither.

A marvelous invention, to be sure!

Played (Changeling the Lost): Berkeley 94: Thessaly decides she needs to talk to Tom-Tom, so Longfingers uses her new Hedge-navigating power to get everyone to the Gilman Project, where indeed Tom-Tom is vibing in the middle of the mosh pit. After some moshing difficulty, they get Tom-Tom outside and Thessaly grills him about the four seasonal monarchs, of which he was one before Mark (now King of the Eternal Summer) betrayed the others and broke Tom-Tom’s heart. Thessaly also seems to believe that the grotto where she and Theophania almost had a moment belonged to the Queen of Winter. So that was pretty heavy, and also Theophania has many questions!

Read (nothing): Nothing.

Written (catgirl): 124.

It’s where I keep all my stuff!

Played (Changeling the Lost): Berkeley 94:Despite Vivian’s hardware betraying her, the group eventually manages to get to Longfingers’s scheduled meeting at the coffee shop with Simple John, Mary, and Beth. (Theophania notices that Mary is excessively hot, which Thessaly doesn’t approve of, so maybe Longfingers will learn entirely the wrong lessons about how to be a grown-up sapphic.) They learn some more about being changelings, and take a trip into the hedge to learn how to make Contracts. Hurray for magic powers! Even if Thessaly is being all secretive about hers.

Read (game): Land of Cicadas: A sandbox setting for Cloud Empress. Some hexes are farmland, some are wasteland, some are perilous forest, some contain giant bugs, some contain the sky-city expedition in search of their missing Cloud Empress, several contain killer robots, etc. There is plenty of scope for hapless wandering PCs to get into trouble, and possibly even cause a tremendous uproar. Or get eaten by giant bugs, of course.

Written (catgirl): 159 of notes.

I have not watched any anime today, but I think in general I’m good on this one.

Played (Changeling): Ken’s 90s Berkeley game. Thessaly and Theophania escape from the grotto before the awkwardness grows too intense, at the cost of only one more level of damage for Theo (Thessaly is too cool to bleed everywhere, of course). On his way home from work, Everett is almost run over by somebody in Siddy’s parent’s old pickup who looks exactly like Siddy’s human seeming, but she drives away very quickly, so what’s up with that? Everyone meets back up at the Hello Kitty Warehouse to catch up on their various days, discuss fetches and moral vs faerie seemings and whether Siddy can reach high shelves now, and help Thessaly name the new security ravens.

Read (manga): Nightfall Travellers vol 1 (Tomohi): A middle-school newspapergirl and a new transfer student explore an extremely hilly and somewhat mysterious city to find the perfectly normal explanations for supernatural manifestations that people gossip about. The art is kind of smudgy and watercolory, although greyscale for most pages, which makes the city 37% more mysterious. I am not convinced that neither of the girls is a real ghost, though.

Written (game design): 232. Instead of having to roll damage, or always using the attack that does the most damage, what if any hit takes out the target, but they have resources they can expend to negate a hit. This is like the 1-hp dragon, or looked at another way, turns hit points from a boring single counter into a collection of distinct resources each with their own mechanical significance. (You want to block that arrow? Sure, spend a use of Shining Steel Plate Armor. A lightning bolt, though?)

Libraries are the best.

Played (Changeling the Lost): Berkeley 1994. We had no Kelsey, but our (new?) rule is that we’ll play if only one person is missing and it’s not the GM. This session, Everett gets his old job at the railroad back (Brookes rolled like eight successes!), Theophania goes to The Other Change of Hobbit to research horror magazines she could submit and covers for Longfingers sneaking upstairs to find a Hedge door and then meeting the fabled Simple John, Beth, and Mary, then Theophania and Thessaly follow the currents of magic through a theater basement and an abandoned 70s department store and find a one-way(?) pool of water(?) which leads to an abandoned grotto full of magical power (which they suck up for +1 Wyrd and full Glamour recharge each). There we leave them, alone in an extradimensional hideout with only bed. What will happen next week?

Read (short): The Knight and the Butcherbird (Alix E Harrow): Post-apocalyptic monster-hunting knight meets immovable librarian, discoveries about the new world are made.

Read (manga): The Tree of Death: Yomotsuhegui vol 2 (Masasumi Kakizaki): Our Cthulhoid undying ex-cop (really, that character design cannot be an accident) has been helping the shinigami and her mysterious blob for a year, and the enemy is finally closing in and using his connections to mortal life against him.

Written (catgirl): 111.

I’m much more suited to that than to Goddess of Fertility Day.

Played (Changeling the Lost): Ken’s 90s Berkeley game. Siddy figures out how to get glamour from crafting for people, and gets a recruitment(?) feeler from King Mark’s goon Jack Horner while everybody else finishes up pillaging the . Thessaly is off doing something so the rest of the group mostly kicks around discussing the philosophy of monarchy and deciding that going into the mysterious telecom(?) building with no windows or doors would be a bad plan.

Read (manga): In/Spectre vol 16 (Kyo Shirodaira, Chashiba Katase): Conclusion of the cliffs and ghost giraffe and idiots.

Written (game design): 171. New Plan! No levels, no XP, only experience and suffering!

I presume US National, so imported pandas.

Jus went to Davis for a robotics competition, and her team got second place! YAAAAYYYY JUS!

VTA management has not gotten their act together since yesterday, so I walked to gaming. Fortunately, it was not raining. The app for that said it would take 1:34 to walk there, and I felt like I have been getting slower since I stopped leaving my apartment, and then since I got Covid, so I allowed two hours. It actually took me somewhere between 1:05 and 1:10 to get there, which was very surprising to everyone except Dave.

On the way back, I walked with Dave, which was faster walking but we deviated from the app route to see other streets in Northwestern San Jose so it took a little longer.

Played (D&D5e): Librarians Errant: After a night of crocodile dreams that are surely not important, the Reshelving Squad decide to backtrack the purple worm to see what else might pop out of that hole to annoy their kobold friends. After numerous ups and downs, and many dents shaped like bullywug helmets, they find a huge cavern with a literally Cyclopean ruined city. All the treasure has been taken, but whoever was there before kindly left the swarms of stirges and brains-with-legs in place. This is annoying, but the real problem is that the last brain-with-legs ran off toward the exit with a definite Timmy-fell-down-the-well vibe. (It’s a brain with legs, all it has is vibes.) When Lilli scries out the area with sketchy divine magic, she spots some mind flayers, which nobody likes. Since the brain-legger didn’t deliver its message, they don’t seem to be coming into the cyclopean ruins, and nobody wants to pester them. Unfortunately, while the Reshelving Squad is finding the dead end, the mind flayers do advance, and set up for an ambush at the tunnel entrance. Since sneaking past is obviously not going to work, even not counting Grumman and his Steam Colossus, they decide to have Grim teleport to flank them, carrying Thaïs to a position where she can freeze all three of them. Of course the mind flayers knew to the minute when Lilli’s scrying magic would give out, and changed position, so they and their attack brains are able to counterattack more effectively than planned, but it’s not enough to save them.

Read (novella): The Orb of Cairado (Katherine Addison): Also in the world of The Goblin Emperor, soon after the Big Airship Crash, but it’s a sketchy academic solving murders and looking for lost treasure.

Read (manga): Call the Name of the Night vol 3 (Tama Mitsuboshi): Cursed Girl has some more magical adventures and develops a little more self-confidence when it could involve a book signing.

Written (catgirl): 165.

Thanks, Jeremy and Ken!

Sleeping wrapped in velcro bands and wires and nose cannulas and finger clamps wasn’t as bad as I feared, but it definitely wasn’t good, and I did have to get up early to take the stuff back to the place, so it was not a vigorous day. I’m also not sure I even generated any data, since I had to put on the velcro straps myself, and society wants single people to die.

Played (Changeling the Lost): Ken’s 90s Berkeley. Now our changelings hate this King Mark guy, because he sent a little punk to shake down their new friend Troll for hedge fruit (which he didn’t have, because he already gave it to Theophania & co).  They go into the hedge looking for fruit which they may give to Troll if he wants it, and find some stabapple (not edible, maybe useful for stabbing), something that causes the eater to try to eat more and more of it until they die, and grapes with eyes inside and vines that almost strangle Theophania before she can use one of her few contracts to disable the security. We close on them arguing (Theophania with gestures) over whether to steal the grapes.

Read (graphic novel): Codex Black: A Fire Among Clouds (Camilo Moncada Lozano): Mesoamerican fantasy! A girl with a god-inhabited shawl goes in search of her long-lost father, meets a boy (not like that) who has even more mysterious magic, they have some adventures, get mixed up in and robbed by yet more magic, etc. It is pretty cute and there’s not much on-screen human sacrifice.

Written (catgirl): 118.

But… only one per hand?!

Played (Changeling the Lost): Ken’s 90s game. Our n00bs finally find a good squat, an abandoned Japanese import warehouse with a bunch of leftover Hello Kitty dolls and a room that Siddy can fill with cozy furniture and cats at only a small secret cost in blood. The next day, finally well-rested (except Thessaly, who has been bed-surfing all along), they go down to Telegraph to meet Troll (yes) and swap him some copper wire looted from the warehouse while Siddy set up her mending-while-u-wait business. Theophania has no useful skills and is still hung up on cash money, so I think we see where part of her personal journey has to go. (Outside the box, although she’d rather go– anyway.)

Read (manga): Pulse vol 1 (Ratana Satis): She’s a heart surgeon who sleeps around and scorns romance, she’s a romantic young heart patient who scorns a transplant, together they make an obvious bet.

Written (catgirl): 122 of fixing minor issues. Soon I will be able to start adding new stuff.

 

Thank you, internationals, for showing it’s possible to not be complete fascists, even if it will take the US another 250 years to figure it out.

Played (Changeling the Lost): Ken’s 90s game. We got a new player, who seems pretty cool, even if her character unfairly knows more about what’s going on than my character does. We got distracted from finding a squat by SHOWER at the place Thessaly had been couch-surfing, but next time for sure!

Read (manga): Me and My Beast Boss vol 3 (Shiroinu): More corporate intrigue, more anti-human racism, but also more of the other characters shipping the female lead and her lion boss.

Written (game design): 105.

Sure, why not? Nature already abhors me, I’m sure!

Management wanted everyone in the area to go into the office for the two-hour all-hands, but I did not go. I am pretty sure I got the same +0 to morale over zoom.

Played (Changeling the Lost): 90s Berkeley. Our changelings make it to the flea market, meet fellow changelings Badger and Melanie and hear about how money is used by the fae to track runaways, immediately use all the cash they get from Nicole’s mending business to buy supplies instead of hoarding it– Cheese it! The fuzz!

Read (manga): This Monster Wants to Eat Me vol 1-2 (Sai Naekawa): A high-school girl with pronounced suicidal ideation ever since her tragic past gets accosted by a girl who claims to be a monster who wants to devour her when she’s spiritually ripe, but will keep her safe until then. Based on something that passes without comment in vol 1, I’m guessing every named character in this series is actually a monster, but we’ll see. No sign of yuri yet.

Written (game design): 138.

Also National Pork Rind Appreciation Day, which sadly has more relevance to my life. Where did I go wrong?

Played (D&D5E): Librarians Errant: The room that Grim and Thaïs disappeared into seems dark and quiet… too quiet. When the other reshelvers venture in, they find that the entire sanctuary has been covered by Mordenkainen’s nose exclusion zone to hide the extremely loud and obvious fight going on. Their teammates and Glady’s three henchmen are facing off against a horde of cymbal-banging clockwork crocomonkeys and a giant steam-powered robot crocodile, with the aid of a summoned water elemental! Things immediately get even worse as the Mechacroc blasts Mesoluna with a gout of steam and he loses control of the elemental, but somehow, despite steam and cymbal-banging and gigantic metal teeth and more steam, so much steam, the robots are put down and the contents of the secret temple library can be loaded into the extradimensional bookmobile and taken away for Martin and Gladys to haggle over. The wreckage of the nave and sanctuary are even cleaned up, so hopefully it will be some time before the hypothesized body-swapper figures out exactly what happened and who to come after.

Read (manga): Yakuza Reincarnation vol 9 (Hiroki Miyashita, Takeshi Natsuhara): Huh, looks like the isekai protagonist really is there to save the world!

Written (game design): 339, but mostly questions and not answers.

I like Lego, but I always feel like I should like it more.

Played (Changeling): 90s Berkeley. Nicole and Longfingers find a tiny door in the back of the auto body shop the crew is crashing in, which somehow lets changelings pass through into a secret realm of hostile tree-roots. Nicole befriends a mysterious squirrel-guy with sign language, and trades him left-over Chinese food for making a space in the Hedge (which is what this surely must be) where the crew can sleep safely. During the night, Longfingers hears strange noises, climbs around, and finds an exit into library somewhere, but does not make use of it. In the morning, the crew experiments with having Everett swear an oath to take Longfingers’s money from working at the club and use it to get supplies to make a sign for setting up Nicole with a While-U-Wait Mending business at the sketchy swap meet. He is successful in his quest and reaps the rewards of his vow. They also find a copy of the changeling zine by Simple John that they heard about before, which the players receive as an actual, semi-legible, amazing PDF.

Read (manga): Outbride vol 1 (Tohko Tsukinaga): A modern Japanese girl with no romantic experience meets Truck-kun and is awakened in a distant future by four gorgeous men who want her, as the only remaining human, to bear their hybrid super-children. She is not down for this for a variety of reasons, but she does have to make out with them to survive in the alien atmosphere of Earth’s cross-dimensional future and also they are obviously not going to take no for an answer. Not exactly my kink, alas.

Read (manga): Monster Cats vol 2 (Pandania): More of the same cats, some new monster types, still cute.

Written (game design): 105.

I absolutely do not understand quantum chromodynamics, but I hear it’s very important.

Despite confusion due to email failures, we did gather for food and gaming today.

Played (D&D5e): Librarians Errant. Reshelving Squad Upsilon now knows where they want to go, they just need a plan to get there. Several possibilities are discussed, but before implementing any of them, they decide to scout out the sewers for a way into the Temple of Sobek. Although no crocodiles have been seen in the temple for years, there is at least one large one in the sewers beneath, which chomps Grim and Thaïs good before being driven off; nevertheless, they persist in looking for more trouble. There is a manhole into the temple compound, all locks or traps long gone, so with their usual discipline and professionalism, the squad abandon the scouting mission in favor of rushing toward the book. The courtyard clears out while Grumman is being hex-wrenched out of his steam armor, so they make it all the way to the outer hall before running into anybody. There, a colorful bullywug in a revealing harness introduces himself at length as Inigo Frogtoya and declares his vendetta against Grumman for disrespecting the team’s recurring nemesis, Admiral Bigbugs. An extremely swashbuckling and fairly sticky battle ensues, during which Grim disappears to look for the third volume, but although it’s not easy, the rest of the squad manages to defeat Señor Frogtoya and he surrenders with honor. After getting frightened, Thaïs fled into the next room after Grim, but they haven’t come back with the book…

Read (manga): Witch Hat Atelier vol 13 (Kamome Shirahama): Continuing the arc with the city and the disaster and the Brimmed Caps and the ethics of magic that affects people.

Written: Not sure how to count when part of the changes are reorg because my script can’t separate that out, but I’ll call it 223.

Somebody once said something nice about a program I wrote, so I’ll take it.

Played: Changeling. Our dazed and confused escapees from Faerie make it back to Oakland and meet a nice gay satyr who trades them some lunch and some information for a promise from Nicole to fix something.

Read: The Butcher’s Masquerade (Matt Dinniman): In which a bunch of alien assholes get severely murdered, and serves them right. A lot of other people get murdered too, though. Also, Princess Donut’s dinosaur gets lucky.

Read: FAIL. I did not manage to make a dent in my oversupply of manga, because I suck.

Written: 127.