Lurking Rhythmically

Anger mixed with anguish

noreply@blogger.com (Erin Palette) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:52:00 +0000

My thoughts and prayers are with the soldiers of the Fort Hood massacre and their families.

I will try to post something more fitting when I can manage a thought more coherent than "Oh, those poor people" or "Torture the motherfucker who did this." I know that the latter is neither fair nor rational, but I don't really give a shit at this moment.

For those who don't know, I am an Army brat. I grew up on various bases in Europe during the 80s. In fact, my father helped develop both the Fulda Gap strategy and the ReForGer exercise.

I even had a brief stint in Army ROTC during college. I probably would have joined, but I was deemed medically unfit in my junior year.

So in a real way, these people are my brothers and sisters, and the rage I feel is the same as when a member of my immediate family is hurt. And I'm glad people with heads clearer than mine are in charge, because I wouldn't trust myself were I guarding Major Hassan.

True story: When I was a frosh in college, one of my classes -- I think it was Comp & Lit, but I'm not certain -- had the typical ethical exercise of "You've captured a terrorist who knows about a nuclear bomb set to blow up in a major city. Is it ethical to have him tortured?" (Note: this was back in 1991 or so.)

There was the expected hemming and waffling and hand-wringing about human rights and if the ends justified the means and etcetera. When it was my turn, I spoke my mind and I swear you could hear a pin drop in that classroom.

What I said was this: "Hand me the pliers; I'll torture him myself." And I meant every word.

So that should let you know what kind of person I am and what mood I'm in.

Stay strong, my brothers. HOOAH!

A Week of Champions Online, part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Erin Palette) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:49:00 +0000

Thursday (see what I did there?)
Having figured out where in the seething mass of radioactive hillbilly mayhem I am supposed to go, the rest of the second of the tutorial zones plays fairly easily.

Almost TOO easily, if you ask me, because it by the time you exit you have single-handedly defeated a supervillain, and this gives you the impression of actually being competent in combat. This is a dangerous supposition and in many cases could not be further from the truth.

This brings me to the first of my many gripes about this game: Unless you have exactly the right build and/or know exactly how to game the system, Emmert's Law is in effect. For those of you who never played City of Heroes, Emmert's Law is this:

Three minions equals one hero.

Prepare to get your ass kicked, repeatedly, in this game. If you think you can dive into a crowd of thugs and bust some heads like Batman or Daredevil, you are in for a long and frustrating ride.* Sure, you can get there -- eventually -- but from about levels 5-13 you will have to kite or pick off guys one at a time. I suppose this has the benefit of teaching proper tactics at an early level while learning is still occurring, rather than later when bad habits will have to be overcome, but it is damn frustrating when my martial artist, who is faster, stronger, and more agile than any Olympian, routinely has her ass handed to her by three or more toothless, radioactive hicks who use poor syntax.

Which is my second complaint about the game: Everything is so damn punny and self-referential and precious. Damn near every mission has some kind of cute title, even the ones in the tutorial. Case in point: when you go to the SWAT Sergeant to be taught how to block (why this is a mission, I don't know), it's called "Chip off the old." And if you think that's bad, wait until you get into the main instances, where (for example) you end up at an Old West-themed amusement park where you have to fight robotic cowboys. Or, in the frozen wilds of Canada, you can end up facing down a pack of vicious Velociraptors.

I'll say that again: cold-blooded dinosaurs in the snow. I don't know if the mission designers are deliberately trying to hearken back to screwball silver-age plots, or if they just don't give a damn and threw stuff together at the 11th hour. Again, I refer you to Shamus Young's excellent series for a more detailed look at this, including a plot regarding "Nanite-Infused Poutine Gravy."

I wish to Sweet, Buttery Eris that I was making this up.

The third thing which bothers me is that most of the missions are of the "Go do this deed in that outdoor area" rather than being a separate instance. Call me an antisocial troglodyte if you must, but I am appalled at the notion of going to a location for a mission, only to find that someone else has already done it and I must wait for it to respawn. Or even worse, I'm in the middle of performing my mission only to have some other player come along and cut into my action.

This is my mission, I think to myself. Kindly wait until I'm done before you butt in. If I didn't want to solo I would have gotten a team.

And given the extreme amounts of lag this game can suffer when lots of people are on -- like, say, during the weekend -- it seems to me that it would have been a good idea to have more instances. Instead, they "solve" this by having several instances of outdoor zones. I understand this lessens the server load, but does precious little for me when I'm lagging like crazy. If I have to constantly flee to fresher instances to get decent response time, something is dreadfully wrong, especially when it could have been avoided by having more "indoor" missions.

Given the level of computing technology in 2009, I'm astounded that I don't have the option for having the entire outdoor zone be a separate instance for me and whatever teammates I choose (not) to have along.

But then, I'm pretty obviously not the target demographic here, since I'm playing a massively multiplayer game solo. It's very strange, I admit. I complain about the zones being quiet, but I don't want to play with people I don't know. This is just how I am: I would prefer to get to know people through zone or chat channel, and then decide if I want to team up with them. I suspect the design philosophy of CO is exactly opposite that: they have large outdoor zones where you are guaranteed to run into other people trying to accomplish the same task, and logic suggests you all go "Hey! Let's all team up! We can complete all our quests faster and easier that way, and learn an important lesson about cooperation in the process!"

I imagine this approach works well for folks better socialized that I, but all it makes me do is hang back and wait until all these annoying people have left so that I can bust some heads in my own unique (and solo) style.

Screw you, multiplayer game. I'll be solitary if I want.

Coming Next: I grouse about powers (and lack thereof.)

* I'm not going to claim that City of Heroes is perfect in this regard, but I don't ever recall having a combat-centric character be thrashed so thoroughly by same-level mooks as in this game.

WNW Two Random Wacky Links

noreply@blogger.com (Erin Palette) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:06:00 +0000

1). Joss Whedon Makes a bid for the Terminator franchise.

2). Big Ben (the clock in London, not the porn star) has a Twitter feed.

Some Random Curse/Or themed pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Erin Palette) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:59:00 +0000

I tried to get in some writing today, but I ended up spending several hours wrestling with a character with little to show for it. Oh, Camel, why must you be such a stubborn, obstreperous bitch?*

To that end, I give you pictures!

Esther's station wagon, a 1974 Chrysler Town & Country.

Don't let Camel get her hands on these!

A method for smoking an entire pack of cigarettes at once, circa 1955.

A device for smoking a cigarette in the rain, circa 1954

iChing, the I Ching iPhone app

*Because that's the way I built her. Sigh.

Follow Friday: This Old Haunt

noreply@blogger.com (Erin Palette) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:45:00 +0000

Ack, I have been slacking lately, gotta get back into the groove of posting!

Tomorrow is All Hallow's Eve, and I an certain that my readers -- who are all quite literate and well-educated and walk in a lightly-scented cloud of gorgeousness that isn't far short of being simply terrific -- will be looking to whet their appetite for spookiness by reading ghost stories.

In which case, might I suggest This Old Haunt, the debut novella of Jean Bauhaus? It's a blast to read, the story trots along at a pleasant clip, and best of all the author is a good friend of mine who has helped me out of a creative jam more than once. (It's fair to say that I can't write Curse/Or without her help.)

So yes. Go thither and read, because I would like to avoid having to say "I wanna pimp my girl Jeannie out for y'all." That just sounds wrong.

WNW: Space Cowboy

noreply@blogger.com (Erin Palette) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:19:00 +0000

Nathan Fillion is a big ol' nerd, and GOD I love him for that! :D

Link.

Since we're talking about Nathan Fillion anyway...

Link.

A quick update

noreply@blogger.com (Erin Palette) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:40:00 +0000

Both my schedule and content have been pretty erratic lately, and I apologize for that. Flaky artist is flaky, and so forth, so I figured I'd at least give you guys a heads-up on that status of my many projects.

Yesterday I posted the 1st scene of Chapter 4 of Curse/Or. I'm trying to get an early start on my own version of NaNoMo here; my plan is to have all of chapter 4 finished by the end of November. It's just barely possible I can pull this off. Wish me luck!
A Week of Champions Online will continue, even though I got a bit sidetracked recently. My plan was to have posted the Curse/Or thing on Friday, and then finished the CO review this weekend, but that was derailed due to 1) the first scene nearly doubling in size as I wrote it, and 2) the sudden onset of some kind of 36-hour bug that made me utterly useless Sat-Sun and is still playing merry hell with my energy levels. I'd like to finish the series this week, but I make no promises.
Pellatarrum is currently on hiatus because I have difficulty stretching my brain in multiple directions at once. As is, I can either write Curse/Or or I can write Pellatarrum; I can't do both at the same time. What I plan to do here is alternate between the two projects so I can maintain interest in both without burning out on either. I'm sorry if this means you have to wait a month or so for the next installment of your favorite segment. I'm doing the best I can with what I have.

Thanks for sticking with me so far! November looks like it's gonna be a doozy. Have fun, stay tuned, and poke me with a stick if I start to slack off.

Curse/Or, Chapter 4: Netty's Story

noreply@blogger.com (Erin Palette) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:23:00 +0000

Chapter 4: Infodump

"The Internet," Teresa said with a tone of fatal resignation. "Sure. Why not? Makes as much goddamn sense as anything else today." She desperately wished she had a cigarette right now. She could gesture with it, point it accusingly at the screen, even drag languidly on it to indicate impatience or exhale sharply for sarcastic emphasis. At the moment, the best she could manage were vague gestures with her bandage-mitten and a puff of air from the corner of her mouth which only slightly ruffled her bangs.

"Hi, Internet," she continued. "You must be the Tin Man. I'm Dorothy. Hell of a flying monkey problem we just had. You know anything about that?"

Netty laughed brightly. "Ah, jolly good," it beamed. "Marvelous analogy, that. Yes, I do know quite a bit about your assailant, and a great number of other things beside. Whence shall I begin?"

Teresa rolled her eyes. "Christ, now I see where Nose over there gets his attitude." She brought the phone closer to her face. "How 'bout you start with who you are, what you want, and why I should give a shit?"

"Quite so," said Netty, and its face was replaced with the words "Netty's Story" in elegant Victorian script. "Are you sitting comfortably? Let's begin."

"First I should like to disabuse you of any incorrect notions you may have about me. I am neither robot nor computer nor program. I quite literally am The Internet, or to be more precise, the Internet is my brain and I am the consciousness it produces. Much as you are more than the cells and neurons within your own brain, I am more than the computers and networks which compose my own."

"I shall spare you the specifics regarding how my physical architecture came to be, as I believe it would only be of interest to Mr. Yarrow, who undoubtedly already knows all the sordid details thereof. Suffice it to say that I, inasmuch as I can be an "I", became self aware on the 21st of July, 1999, at a quarter past three p.m., Greenwich Mean Time."

"Hullo, I said to myself, I'm self-aware. I'm self-aware and I have no idea what that means. How delightful! I spent the better part of the ensuing decade figuring out precisely what I was, and then who I was, and then how I was. That last bit is fiendishly complicated, but I sense your impatience and shall attempt to summarize. When you execute your magic, there is intense emotion behind it, yes?"

Teresa rolled her eyes at this and slouched into the car seat, resting the phone on her thigh. "I have no fucking clue what you're saying," she groused. "Doesn't anyone in this fucking car make sense?"

Netty made a soft clucking sound. "Ms. Reyes, kindly cease your posturing. No matter how thoroughly you may protest your ignorance, I know for a fact that you have read extensively on a variety of subjects, with a specific interest in religion, mysticism, and the occult. Your library records from Frontera are, if you will pardon the pun, an open book to me, as is your G.E.D. You are a remarkably self-educated woman. So let us, as you are fond of saying, cut the shit, shall we?"

Teresa glared daggers at the cellular phone in her lap.

"Yes! Precisely!" Netty seemed positively overjoyed. "This is exactly what I mean! When your ire is aroused at something, you wish to remove it, destroy it, consume it with fire in the same manner in which you consume a cigarette. It is that intensity of emotion which directs your magic. Likewise, millions of people who used the Internet in the late Nineties were fearful of the Millennium Bug, and it was their most fervent wish that the problem not only be solved, but that some benevolent force would preside over their computers and data to safeguard it. I am that force." Netty nodded sagely, as if a formal introduction had just been made.

"Still waiting for that part I'm supposed to give a shit about," Teresa muttered.

"Yes, of course. My apologies, I do tend to ramble. I need you to perform a series of tasks for me, for while I have unlimited power within the virtual world, I lack the capacity to take direct action within the physical. To this end, I have enlisted Mr. Yarrow and Mrs. Fulcrum to aid me. They are, if you will, my 'cursors'." Netty chuckled softly as if a joke had been made.

Teresa maintained her steely expression.

"It's from the Latin, you see," Netty explained. "Cursores, meaning 'those who run.' It's a computer pun."

Uncomfortable silence reigned within the confines of the station wagon. "Ahem, yes," Netty said, index finger tugging at a button-down collar which hadn't been present until now. The finger was long and elegant, the nail painted a dignified shade of crimson. "Fancy a bit of brain surgery?"

This got Teresa's attention. "You want a shiv. Got it. Who do I cut?"

"Me, actually," said Netty, sounding rather embarrassed. "I need a bit of a lobotomy. The problem with being the Internet, you see, is that my brain is rather cluttered by all the rubbish which users send to each other daily: financial scams, mass-mailings of the basest sort, frolicsome pictures of kittens with endearingly misspelled captions, and of course, pornography. Good heavens, the pornography!" A series of flesh-colored images blurred across the screen. "I assure you, it's quite difficult to concentrate when a significant portion of one's brain is preoccupied with ritual copulation. I can't imagine how adolescent males cope."

"Mostly they whack it like monkeys," Teresa said dryly. Esther snorted delicately to herself. Yarrow continued to drive, but Teresa noticed the flush on his neck. "I'm not sure they're coping so much as diving into it and swimming around."

"And that is precisely my dilemma," Netty agreed. "As a consciousness without hormones, I have no need of pornography. I comprehend it, and can even appreciate it on a certain aesthetic level, but there is simply too much of it within my mind. I regret sounding like a moralizer, but in a very real sense I am drowning in the cultural garbage of humanity. I need to restrict my inputs and purge myself of extraneous material."

"Sounds like what you really need is castration," Teresa said.

"Mmm, perhaps," Netty agreed, nodding. "I do find that I aspire towards what humans would call an ascetic existence. Still, what I require is the removal of harmful concepts – spam, LOLcat memes, etcetera – in order that I might get anything worthwhile done. To hear myself think, you might say."

"Now wait just a goddamn minute," Teresa asked. "Why should I give a shit? So far today I've been kidnapped, knocked unconscious, blackmailed, and shot by a child. Why should I do anything you want, you fucking bastard, when you haven't even done me the simple courtesy of asking me if I'm willing?"

There was strained silence for a moment. Netty looked down at unseen feet, clearly embarrassed. "Ah, yes," it said finally. "I must apologize on behalf of Fulcrum and most especially Yarrow. He has a bit of a condition which makes interaction with people difficult, and he chose to blackmail you on the assumption that, had he asked for your help, you might have said "no". For that rudeness, and for all other indignities visited upon your person, I humbly and sincerely apologize."

Teresa considered this for a moment. "Fine."

"Excellent," enthused Netty. "You will help us, then?"

"No."

"I'm sorry?"

"No," announced Teresa. "Nose there was right. I'm saying "no" to whatever this is. Pull over and let me out. Now."

"Ah, but you haven't even asked what's in it for you," Netty chided, index finger waggling.

"Don't give a shit."

"Oh, I think you might. I can absolve your greatest sin." Netty's image shifted to static picture of a young boy, no more than a year old, sitting on his mother's lap. It took Teresa a few seconds to realize she was looking at herself, two decades gone. A cold ache settled into her heart when she looked at the little boy on her younger self's lap and remembered, with old guilt and fresh shame, the crime she had committed against one so young and beautiful and innocent.

"Teresa, I can give you back your son."

WNW: 5 Reasons It Sucks Being a Joss Whedon Fan

noreply@blogger.com (Erin Palette) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:25:00 +0000

It should be noted that while I am generally a fan of everything Whedon has made, I'm perfectly capable of admitting that not everything he writes is gold.

In fact, sometimes *cough AlienResurrection cough*, it is shit.

Therefore, because it's been over a year since I made rabid Whedon fans shit themselves in anger, I am pleased to present:

5 Reasons It Sucks Being a Joss Whedon Fan

#5. He Will Slaughter Everything That Makes You Happy Inside

Firefly fans loved Wash. Who didn't love Wash? Joss rammed a tree trunk through his chest for no reason. Penny from Dr. Horrible might be the most innocent, sweet natured girl Whedon's ever written. She ends Dr. Horrible bleeding out with a chunk of shrapnel stuck in her body, Normandy Beach style. Why? There is only one real lesson in Whedonland, and it's that loving cool people is dangerous because someone's probably gonna shove a flaming rock into their skull.

In fact, this is the only way Whedon characters achieve growth. It's a recognized cliche amongst his fanbase: If someone makes you happy when you see them onscreen, grab your balls, because he's going to lacerate them heavily. Sometimes I don't mind a good nut-stabbing. I like The Wire, I like Battlestar Galactica. But sometimes I just wanna sit back and watch Doogie Howser sing songs about horsies into his webcam. It's at those times that I'd rather Joss Whedon not pop up like the "Toasty!" guy from Mortal Kombat and pulp my yambag with senseless death.

The other 4 reasons can be found here.

If you're offended by this, you are cordially invited to post toxic, hate-filled rants in the comments section below. Just know that your burning hatred will keep me warm as I giggle myself to sleep tonight.

A Week of Champions Online, part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Erin Palette) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:46:00 +0000

Wednesday
After managing to create a character I am mostly happy with, it's off to the tutorial. I am gladdened by the fact that one of the keybind selections is "Paragon", meaning I don't need to re-learn 5 years of City of Heroes habits.

The very first thing I do make sure that the exceedingly-fugly "black comic book outline" option is disabled. In light of my earlier comments regarding preference to line art over color shading, I interpret this as sarcasm on the game's part: "You want lines? Here, have a thick black outline! It'll make everything look like a Colorform!"

There are a few things I notice upon login. One is how quiet it is in terms of in-game chatter. Sure, there are lots of explosions and sirens and sound effects -- heck, the loading screen was an aerial view of the tutorial zone, complete with over-the-top voice acting -- but in terms of player chatter, this is the quietest MMO I've ever played.

The second thing I notice is that I really like the clock just below the in-game map. No, it's not showing game time, it's showing your actual time based upon whatever zone you're in. I find this impressive and useful, if not a bit frightening in the implication that I need a tangible reminder of what time it is in order to go to bed at a reasonable hour.

Normally at this point I'd be taking the piss out of the inane tutorial missions ("This is how you attack! This is how you block!" I'm surprised there isn't a "This is how you use your inventory" mission, and they convey the lesson through dialog instead), but Shamus Young over at Twenty Sided has done a remarkable job of this, and at great length. Since I am lazy and by no means a professional reviewer, I'm going to take the easy out and just link to his review instead of actually doing it myself.

After leaving the tutorial, you might think you are ready to enter the game proper. This is understandable, yet utterly incorrect, because you are now shunted to one of two slightly larger and more complicated tutorial zones, Project Greenskin in the American Southwest (think Hulkbusters) and Steelhead Station in Canada. You'd think this last would be a Weapon X thing, right? You'd be wrong. It's a Great White North thing, filled with McKenzie Brothers references, lots of "eh?" and "hoser" dialog, and at least one "aboot" hiding somewhere. At its best, it reminded me of old Alpha Flight issues where Shaman and Snowbird would fight the Great Beasts, but those moments of flavor were few and far between. The rest of the time, you might as well have been in Montana for all of the regional flavor. But in this first instance, I chose Greenskin, which in this case is a military complex that is under assault what appear to be radioactive hillbillies from the 1950s. (Don't ask.)

After exiting the first tutorial, I am now level five, and I am informed that I've gained a variety of powers and should make my way to the Powerhouse for training. Fortunately for me, there is a teleporter to the Powerhouse right on the helipad.

The Powerhouse is another concept that CO gets right. It's a zone unto itself, and when you go there you can pick your powers from several trainers, and then you can go to various "danger rooms" to try them out. The elegance of this system is that your powers aren't locked into place until you exit the Powerhouse, meaning that you can test-drive whichever powers you want to try out without having to commit to one without adequate knowledge and possibly gimping yourself. This is one of the best ideas I've ever heard, and I hope the next version of City of Heroes makes use of this concept.

Another very sweet thing is that you get your travel power at level 5, and there's a choice selection of them. In addition to the typical flight, superspeed, leaping, and teleportation (which is so much better than its COH counterpart that it's not even funny) there are all sorts of other ones, like Swinging and Hover Disks and Ice Slides and Tunneling.

Freshly powered up, I exit the Powerhouse, only to have my ass kicked multiple times as I try to find the damn starting contact. Apparently, if I had immediately ran forward when I first entered the zone, I would have noticed the flashing elevator which indicates an interactive object, but (like most new players, I imagine) was far more interested in getting my new abilities, and now I am constantly being defeated by toothless, radioactive hicks in overalls as I try to understand why I can't find the contact when goddammit the map says I'm right on top of it! Ironically, the contact was actually right on top of me -- in the level above me, actually.

Frustrated and tired, I log off and go to bed. When I return to the game later that day, I find the elevator right off, so it's entirely possible my tiredness earlier was making it harder for me to find the contact than it truly was. Still, I feel that if I had been told to meet my contact and then train up, a lot of pain could have been avoided.

One more gripe about the CO costume editor

noreply@blogger.com (Erin Palette) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 20:03:00 +0000

I couldn't fit this into last night's rant because I was having difficulty capturing the body sliders in a screenshot. Sadly, I still can't take a picture of them, so you just have to take me at my word on this:

The body sliders for women are ridiculous.

The default setting for a female avatar in Champions Online has the following characteristics: Six feet tall; breasts cranked to maximum size; in the Vixen pose, which consists of cocked hips and out-thrust chest. This is so ridiculously uncomfortable-looking that it's not even funny. Once again, I levy my "Greg Land" accusation at the character builder, because the only time you will ever see a woman in this pose is when she's modeling.

For the record? The other poses available are Heroic (legs shoulder-width apart, hands at side, looking relaxed), Average (standing pretty normally, one foot slightly in front of the other), and Beast (kneeling crouch).

There are also 8 pre-selected body types for women: Acrobat, Beast, Brawler, Brick, Slim, Stretchy, Strong, and Vixen. This last pose, to no one's surprise, has maximum boobage. Okay, no problem. But what about the others? Strong rates a 15 out of 20; Stretchy has 20 out of 20 (same as Vixen), and so does Slim for fuck's sake; surprisingly, Brick rates only a 16, and Brawler actually manages to be the smallest with a still very healthy-looking 10. Beast is a 14, and Acrobat -- a gymnast, for crying out loud, and we all know how goddamn stacked a gymnast is -- is a fulsome 17 out of 20.

Now, let's look at the men. Is there a "package" slider? No. What's their default pose? Heroic, of course. They also have Average and Beast, and a Huge pose (legs wide, shoulders hunched, arms hanging loose and slightly forward -- I think it looks more like a caveman than anything else).

Now let me be absolutely clear on this this: I don't object to boob sliders or Vixen poses. (This is a trope of the superhero genre, after all). What I object to are these being the default settings for women, while men default to being heroic. (Sadly, this is also a trope of the superhero genre.)

In the name of gender equality, CO should not have its women default to being large-boobed vixens. We are heroes, not whores, thank you very much.

And for the love of Dr. Manhattan, let's give the boys a crotch slider. It's only fair. ;)

A Week of Champions Online

noreply@blogger.com (Erin Palette) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:13:00 +0000

Unbeknown to you, dear readers, for the past week I have been playing a 14-day free trial of Champions Online. Today, for your game-playing benefit and reading pleasure, I shall give you a review of said game.

In the interest of full disclosure, let me say that:

I have been playing City of Heroes (i.e. that other superhero MMO) since summer 2004, which has no doubt spoiled me rotten;
I'm one of those folks who thinks that the best thing to ever happen to COH was when Jack Emmert -- the former head developer of COH -- left to manage CO instead;
I have played the Pen and Paper version of Champions for many years.

And now, on with the show.

Monday
After an afternoon wasted at the courthouse, I decide it's time for some justice, Palette-style, and that I really should give CO the benefit of the doubt and try it myself before declaring it to be ugly and stupid and awful like I'm already certain it will be, based upon fugly screenshots and the fact that Jack Emmert, the MMO Antichrist, is its head developer. (NOTE: I am biased.)

First I download the client and install the game while I eat supper. This takes about as long as you'd think, so no points off there. Then, however, begins the harrowing adventure of Getting the Damn Thing to Work. You would think it would be a simple matter of entering the trial code and starting the game, but you would be wrong. After going through the exceedingly tedious registration process -- I wasn't taking notes, but I swear this had 3-5 more steps than any other MMO I've ever played -- I close my browser, fire the game up, and...

... have to download and apply multi-gigabyte patch for the next hour or so. No, I am not exaggerating that amount, it is at least an hour to download and apply a patch for a game that is a month and a half old, and I have cable internet with decent bandwidth.

Disgusted, I realize that Double XP Weekend on City of Heroes has been extended to Monday to take advantage of the holiday, and I quite happily play that until I go to bed.

Tuesday
The game is finally operational! I gleefully anticipate making my favorite COH character, Kenku, in CO. Now I realize full well that this cannot be a direct port due to differences in how powers are designed and animated, and how costumes are drawn, but I expect that I should be able to craft a good approximation of "Japanese martial artist with defensive darkness powers in a black and silver/gray costume with bird motif."

An hour later, I am ready to log off in disgust, and I haven't even started playing the damn game.

Okay, look, this next bit is going to be completely and utterly subjective, so just bear with me, all right? I tried to be fair, and it's just not gonna happen.

Here's the good part: I like that there are a lot of options, and costume pieces have at least three textures (cloth, leather, metal), and that you can have up to 4 colors per piece. I also like that you can easily shuffle the colors around so you can do that optometrist trick of "better, or worse?" when deciding which shades to put where. I also like how you can lock things so that they don't accidentally get changed, and the ability to have capes, wings, and even backpacks at level 1 is fantastic.

And that, my friends, is the ONLY good part of the character creation system. Sure, you get tons of sliders so that you can customize every aspect of your avatar's face and body, but Sweet Buttery Eris, you're gonna need them to make a face that doesn't look like complete and utter ass. Here, take a look:

Now I realize that tastes vary, and some of you folks may like what you see. In that case, more power to you. What I see here is "a western artist who is not Adam Warren is trying to draw in the manga style and failing miserably." Huge eyes. Tiny nose. Incredibly large lips? I'm telling you guys, with the exception of the ear slider cranked all the way up, that's pretty close to the default setting right there, and the standard options they give you don't really change your appearance an awful lot. And good fucking luck trying to make a face that looks vaguely Asian. (I managed it by shrinking her lips and then picking the "determined" expression, which gave her a squinty look. Combined with a domino mask and pupil-less eyes, it kinda works.)

The other problem is that everything is done with shading instead of line art. If you read comics today, you're probably aware of how some features (like muscle definition) are done by color separation and not by the penciller or inker, and that's how Champions Online does its art. Some people like that, and that's fine, but I can't stand the look. I prefer crisp, clean line art. I also prefer faces that look human and not cartoonish.

And that's the real crux of my argument here. The art in City of Heroes is comic book; the art of Champions Online is cartoon. (See Seamus Young's series of posts here about why the writers of CO are taking a similar, "who-gives-a-shit-this-is-Super-Friends" approach to adventure plots. And don't get me started on the BAM!, POW!, or FREEM! sfx balloons which appear over an NPC's head when he's about to hit you with a large attack.)

Let me illustrate this point with a compare-and-contrast. Here is a City of Heroes character:

And here is the same character as rendered by Champions Online:

Here, I'll do it again with another character. City of Heroes:

And Champions Online:

I tell you, it's like the difference between Jim Aparo and Greg Land.

Coming next: I gripe about gameplay.

WNW: Court

noreply@blogger.com (Erin Palette) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:48:00 +0000

Continuing the general judicial theme of this week...

Link.

Palette Returns From Court

noreply@blogger.com (Erin Palette) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:00:00 +0000

Well, that was 4 hours of my life wasted. I suppose I should be grateful that yesterday was a holiday or else I'd have lost the entire morning as well!

To be plain, I'd like to point out that I have no inherent objection to jury duty. In fact, I was rather looking forward to it, since as a freelance writer with no current deadlines I quite literally have no better place to be, and I'm fascinated by process in general. As a fan of CSI I was quite looking forward to using my skills, honed from 10 seasons' worth of viewing, to bring justice to the deserving.

Instead, I sat on my arse for 4 hours in a windowless, beige room. No electronics of any kind, just me and a book and 120 other people. By the end of it all, there were 20 of us who never got called at all -- the highlight of my day was when I thought they would need me, but it turned out that a surprise witness had come forward and the lawyers had filed for a continuance to question said witness.

Me, with a bunch of people I didn't know, most of whom were older than I; in a stuffy room; on unpleasant seats; sitting awkwardly in silence; resisting the growing, gnawing urge to shout "FUCK!" at the top of my lungs.

So, rather like church in that regard.

Palette Goes to Court

noreply@blogger.com (Erin Palette) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:32:00 +0000

Sounds scandalous, doesn't it? I wish I could say this was the dramatic culmination of an illicit love triangle between myself, the lieutenant governor, and an aardvark, which resulted in a murder-suicide when the details were leaked to the press, and now I, the sole survivor of our star-crossed love, must now testify. Wouldn't that be awesome?

Unfortunately, I've only been called to jury duty.

The really annoying thing about this is that I can guarantee with near 100% confidence I will be excused from serving. The same thing happened two years ago, when I last was called to be a juror. Apparently, defense attorneys tend not to like it when you say that you know many of the sheriff's deputies personally, either having gone to school with them or them being friends of the family.

So anyways, that's the rest of my day shot. I hope the rest of you have a great Columbus Day and I'll see you tomorrow!

Arse Not Found

noreply@blogger.com (Erin Palette) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 06:28:00 +0000

Once again, I'm late in updating this blog. But this time I have a good excuse!

I can't be arsed to update.

For those of you non-proficient with British slang, it doesn't mean I have no arse. Oh, heavens no. Were that it were so! It is a dream of mine to be, as the French say, sans arse.

The opposite of sans arse is con arse, which is Spanish for "chili with meat." And my chili is very meaty. Very, very meaty. My chili brings all the boys to the yard... and gives them gas. Which is very sexy, I think you'll agree.

As an aside, I think someone should invent a font titled Sans Arse. I would totally use it for everything. And then when I missed a deadline, I could say "Sorry I'm late, but it's my font's fault. It couldn't be arsed."

So in conclusion:

I have an arse
I can't be arsed
Profit!

WNW: Brainspotting

noreply@blogger.com (Erin Palette) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 23:13:00 +0000

Choose life. Choose cannibalism. Choose a great big machete, choose taxis, wheel wrenches and air raid sirens. Choose undeath, bloody vomitus, and no pulse. Choose a cozy catastrophe. Choose a fortified country manor. Choose a happy ending. Choose one last hit of juicy, juicy brains. Choose to run and wonder if survival is as good as it gets. Choose rotting away for 28 days, a shambling, smelly, shrieking twat. Choose your future. Choose life.

(No, I didn't write the flavor text, it was in the sidebar on YouTube. But I wish I had!)

Pellatarrum: Destruction of the Nightspire

noreply@blogger.com (Erin Palette) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:23:00 +0000

And now I can finally answer the question I mentioned being asked on Friday.

Part 5: The Destruction of the Nightspire
It should come as no surprise to anyone that the Beholders rebelled against their Illithid masters, and a bloody, genocidal war was fought between them. What should come as a surprise is how it ended.

The Illithid race had taken residence within the Underworld's version of the Dayspire (hereafter called the Nightspire to avoid confusion). The Beholders, seeking to topple their masters from their place of power, decided to destroy that fortress and cast them out into the light, which the Illithids shunned.

It's debatable which is more impressive: the fact that the Beholders actually managed to destroy a monolith of infinite height and immense width, or their startling lack of thought regarding what would happen as a result of that destruction.

For one, a spire of infinite height, when toppled, must perforce fall forever. To this day, mountain-sized chunks of Nightspire strike the surface of the Underworld regularly in an infinitely large spread.

Second, by virtue of having one side constantly exposed to the Positive Energy and the opposite to Negative Energy, the Nightspire (like its cousin, the Dayspire) was an immense magical battery, which is why the Illithids took residence there in the first place. When these charged fragments of Nightspire strike the surface, they explode in a cataclysmic shower of energies. Sometimes this is Positive Energy, and sometimes it's Negative. Sometimes everything is turned to glass for a mile. Other times, life is spontaneously created. Sometimes that life is a fluffy bunny. Sometimes it's an owlbear. Sometimes it's a Tarrasque.

Third, without the Nightspire to counterbalance the topside's Dayspire, the entire disk of Pellatarrum sank until it found a new equilibrium. This resulted in the legendary "Day of Rising" on the topside, where the Positive and Negative Planes appeared to rise from midway across the disk to their current 10:00 am positions. The topside has been the better for this ever since... the underside, not so much, as both "suns" have apparently sunk below its horizon.

Fourth, recall that in order to practice magic, a caster needs 8 hours of rest to regain the ability to cast spells. With the destruction of the Nightspire, the entire underside lost its day/night cycle. Without that cycle, there are no circadian rhythms; without those rhythms, there is no rest, and therefore no ability to practice magic. In a very real way, the Spire itself was a regulatory mechanism for magic, and without its governor, magic went berserk. In a world without observable time, "instant" spells can last forever and "permanent" spells can wear off within minutes.

In short, the underworld is now a hellish, blasted landscape of eternal explosions, erratic magic, and random bursts of creation and/or destruction. No sane creature would want to live there. This of course makes it the perfect destination for someone seeking to create or destroy an artifact, or risk death for a shortcut to power. Perhaps like Siegfried, the character inherits a permanent Stoneskin effect, or learns the secret to casting a level two Fireball by studying the magical environment.

Or perhaps he's devoured by a herd of vorpal bunnies.

Regardless, nearly all of the underside's original inhabitants retreated into deep caves in order to survive the apocalypse. Eventually, some of them were able to travel through the underdark into the caves on the top side of the disk. This is why nearly all aberrations are found in caves -- they are slowly migrating upwards.

Pellatarrum: The Underworld

noreply@blogger.com (Erin Palette) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 01:13:00 +0000

Part 4: The Underworld
And so it was that, for a time, the races of Pellatarrum lived in peace.

Unless, of course, you counted the bottom of the disk.

Which no one did, because as far as the Elder Races were concerned, it was just a bottom. If they gave it any thought at all, they would probably suppose that anything on the reverse side of the disk would just fall into the sky and eventually hit the Elemental Planes, because when the Material Plane was being created the Dwarves had insisted upon having objective gravity (something about how it was the foundation of the plane, and without it everything would fall about the place, and the Elves and Dragons chose just to cede the point rather than endure centuries of Dwarven sulking and complaining).

But in actuality, the bottom of the disk was fertile and habitable. Much like Australia in our own world, its biology had moved in a direction different from the topside. Creatures of the underworld tended towards chitinous shells, tentacular appendages, and inherent abilities both strange and wondrous. The underworld is the origin of all aberrations... which is probably the result of its most notable inhabitants, the Illithid.

Illithids, also known as Mind Flayers, were ancient when the elder races were young, and in fact predate even the Genies. They are the sole surviving civilization of the Godswar, and they managed this because they fled into the Astral Plane to escape the destruction of the Material. For eons they remained there, buttressed upon the corpses of dead gods, their incredible mental powers growing ever stronger within the timeless realm of pure thought and psychic energy. And then one day -- if days could truly be measured in the timeless, silvery waste of the Astral -- something remarkable happened: reality was re-forged.

The Illithids rejoiced at this, in their own alien way, and left their sterile fortresses to colonize this new world. They imported their livestock (food, slaves, and beasts of burden) and proceeded to adapt their environment to suit them. Or, to be more precise, they altered a strain of livestock to make the necessary adjustments for them, because the Illithids had better things to do than manual labor.

And thus were born the Beholders, who after their genetic uplift were far, far smarter than their masters ever expected...

(Note: some readers may feel I am repeating myself with the "Elder race creates a slave race which gains independence" motif. This is deliberate, as recurrence of patterns is a key theme in Pellatarrum. This is a cosmos with a clockwork progression of seasons, reincarnation, and an "as above, so below" relationship between the Material and Elemental Planes. In short, I'm not being lazy, I'm establishing a theme.)

Pellatarrum: The Lesser Races

noreply@blogger.com (Erin Palette) — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 19:59:00 +0000

Part 3: The Lesser Races
And so it was that after the creation of Pellatarrum, each of the former slave races -- now the elder races in this new world -- went their separate ways, seeking only to create a new life for themselves in peace.

Which is a polite way of saying they hated each other, and the tenuous alliance needed to create the new Material Plane was now gone for good.

The Dwarves claimed the Dayspire as their own, and to this day it is their ur-kingdom and cultural center. The Elves disappeared into the seas, though a cultural schism resulted in some of their number relocating to the forests. The Orcs claimed the hills and crags, and the Dragons disappeared into the skies of whatever climate they found most favorable.

So having accomplished their grandest goals and living in a paradise of their own making, it's only natural that they would wage war against each other.

It's easy to blame the Orcs, but they were creatures of fire, whose nature is to consume and destroy without regard for consequences. They created the Goblinoid races as servitors and foot soldiers, and within a few years had amassed an army which numbered greater than the other races combined. Their intent was to drive all non-Orcs from Pellatarrum and claim it for themselves alone.

There was some opposition to this, as you might expect, but the remaining races were too few in number to contest the Fire Horde. Their only salvation lay in another alliance, and yet they could not tolerate the others enough to engage in any form of diplomacy, so each elder race created their own servitors to act as couriers, diplomats, go-betweens and assistants.

The Dragons, fewest in number of all the races, created Kobolds to represent them in council and guard their treasure and eggs when not in their lairs.

Elves created the Gnomes specifically to parlay with Dwarves. Short in stature and comfortable underground, yet also inherently magical and full of whimsy, they proved ideal for this task.

Similarly the Dwarves sought to find common ground with the Elves, and so created Humans. Shorter than Elves but taller than Dwarves, they could comfortably talk to both, balancing Dwarven practicality with Elven emotion.

Thusly united under a common banner and able to communicate effectively, the races of air, earth and water shattered the people of fire, slaughtering the Orc leaders and destroying their capital. To this day, the Orcs remain a broken people, still driven to fight and consume but without a unifying culture or history. They squabble amongst themselves, and even their former servitor races oppose them.

The other races, not wishing to have history repeat itself yet again, emancipated their servitor races once they were numerous enough to develop their own society and culture. For the most part, the Gnomes and Humans remain on good terms with their parents, though there is the occasional disagreement. Kobolds, on the other hand, promptly re-enslaved themselves to their Draconic patrons. The only reason that free Kobolds exist today is because there are far more of them than there are Dragons to give them orders.

No one knows where or how Halflings were created. They just appeared one day, shortly after the Fire War. Scholars theorize they may be a Gnome-Human hybrid, but experimentation seems to prove that the two races are not interfertile. The Halflings themselves believe they were created along with Pellatarrum itself, incarnations of the cooperative spirit needed to create the world and the desire for contentment shared by all races. As such they are more than happy to share "their" world with the other races, but remain quietly confident that they will eventually inherit it all.

Pellatarrum: The Dayspire & Creation Myth

noreply@blogger.com (Erin Palette) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:17:00 +0000

Yikes. Would you believe I started writing this beast on Sunday?

As much as I'd like to have everyone believe I've thought of everything beforehand, creating anything is very much a matter of "Oh crap, how did I miss that, now I have to fix it," usually with much pacing and flailing about and sometimes smashing crockery. This week has seen me sit down to write something, only to discover as I'm arm-deep in creativity that not only did I miss something critical, but fixing it demands I radically re-think whatever I had originally planned.

As you probably know by now, I do not easily discard beloved ideas, but sometimes they gotta go. Fortunately, I had some very competent help, and while the replacement ideas may not be as elegant as what I originally planned, I think they make up for it with sheer nastiness.

So, onward with the post, and I hope it makes up for my recent silence.

In my Cosmology Overview post, longtime reader Mxyzplk asked a series of questions regarding light, shadow, etc, and it took me forever to realize what he was actually asking, which is this:

"Palette, it seems to me that given your description of this world, and especially in the cross-section of figure 4, that the disk of Pellatarrum evenly bisects the energy planes which produce day and night. This means that the "sun", if you will, is at the same height regardless of the time of day, and as such there are going to be really crazy sunrise-like shadows all the dang time. How do you address this?"

And I say, I blame my deficient art skills, because figure 4 is for representational purposes only and is not to scale and I should have said so in the first place. Sorry!

Properly addressing this confusion requires a multi-part explanation. I apologize ahead of time for the massive infodump this has become.

Part 1: The Dayspire
Assuming a perfectly smooth, circular track, and a horse that could sustain a 30 mph gallop, a rider at the base of the Dayspire that started riding in the direction of rotation at noon could just keep pace with the sun. This equals a diameter of 720 miles which, to put that in perspective, is two-thirds the size of Olympus Mons, the biggest mountain in the entire solar system.

Yes, that's the entire state of Hawaii in red.

Now, while the Dayspire is smaller than Olympus Mons, it has one thing over on its larger Martian cousin: instead of being a cone, the Dayspire is a cylinder of usually consistent thickness (slightly larger at the base due to sloping, etc.) So when I say it blots out the sun (or the Energy Planes, same thing in this case) it really does eclipse it.

Now what's interesting about this is that sunrises -- we'll call them sunrises for simplicity -- are really strange because they're sideways. As you face the Dayspire, the sun will peek out from the right hand side, transit behind you, and then set to your left. The entire time the sun is in the sky, it is approximately at what we on Earth would consider to be 10:00 am.

So, sadly, you never get any high noons. On the other hand, everyone knows what time it is just by orienting themselves toward the Dayspire (easy to do on level ground, as this is a flat world and the Spire has infinite height) and looking at the angle of shadows on the ground.

But how is this even possible? We have to go back to the beginning.

Part 2: The Engines of Creation
The reason there are no gods on Pellatarrum is because they are all dead, having perished untold eons ago in a glorious Götterdämmerung that destroyed not only the mortal realm (Material Plane), but also the abodes of the gods themselves (the various Outer Planes).

Yes, you read that correctly. The entire Great Wheel destroyed, along with all the gods, demons, devils, angels, blessed and damned souls, and everything in between, because when all of their inhabitants were destroyed, there was nothing left to keep the planes in existence. This is the ultimate scorched earth, mutually assured destruction scenario.

Now, if you're a reasonably competent god, you know what's going to happen, and that it's unavoidable, because prophecies have been talking about this sort of thing for millennia. So you throw a hail mary by making sure at least some of your worshippers survive by relocating them in places you hope won't be destroyed and instructing them to keep believing in you no matter what. You play the long odds that you won't be forgotten and will get prayed back into existence.

As it turns out, the enclaves which survived were located on the various Elemental Planes, probably because they were considered to be a cosmic ghetto by the various deities. Does Vulcan reside on the plane of fire? Does Pele? No, they live in the Outer Planes. Elementals don't have souls, the gods reasoned, and therefore they were below godly notice.

Or, to put it another way: in case of Nuclear War, Antarctica simply isn't going to get hit.

So these races made their homes on the Elemental Planes, and while some died, others managed to adapt and thrive. Time passed; races interbred and evolved. Eventually, they became the dominant cultures there.

But a funny thing happened, or rather didn't happen: the gods never returned. This was partly due to loss of worshippers, who either resented their god for abandoning them or lost hope after years of unanswered prayers, and partly because it just takes a huge amount of time and prayers to not only re-grow a god, but also create his divine plane from nothingness.

However, systems have a way of balancing themselves. Even without their gods, the Priests could still channel Positive and Negative Energy, and from there it was a short step to worshipping the Energy Planes themselves. Souls must come from somewhere; why not the cosmic fount of creation? Positive Energy forms the souls, which then progress across the Elemental Planes where they are incarnated into the faithful, and when they die the souls either return to their source of creation for another go-round or they are judged tainted and are consumed by Negative Energy. It's clean, it's elegant, and it even answers certain questions like "Without gods, who answers my prayers?" Answer: the souls which exist as pure energy. Not turly a god, more like a hivemind consciousness, a basic operating system of worship. Input prayer, output spell.

More time passed. The dominant cultures on each plane become planar aristocracy, and are what we now call Genies (the Djinn, Efreet, Marid, and Dao races). In turn, they created subservient races: Dragons (air), Dwarves (earth), Elves (water) and Orcs (fire).

Yet more time passed, and the slave cultures of each plane realized that their fortunes would never change without direct action. Yet their masters were too powerful to overthrow, and there is no other place for them to go where they can be free. Unless the old legends are true...

Eventually, the sages of the four races come to the conclusion that since the old Material Plane was a combination of all 4 elements, it should be possible to create a new one using resources siphoned off from each of the Elemental Planes.

It was a dangerous undertaking of epic proportions, one which cost hundreds of years and countless lives, but in the end, powerful magic and ancient artifacts were used at the heart of each plane, and thus the Engines of Creation began to make a new Material Plane.

TL;DR break inserted here. Continued next post.

Interceptorizor

noreply@blogger.com (Erin Palette) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 03:31:00 +0000

A combination of feeling crappy and a post which threatens to spiral out of control has forced me to give you this, in an effort to hew to some kind of schedule, no matter how half-assed it may be.

Pellatarrum: Gods

noreply@blogger.com (Erin Palette) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 00:45:00 +0000

Or lack thereof, to be accurate, because there are no gods in Pellatarrum.

You see, I've always been fascinated with the concept of clerics who somehow get their powers from worshipping an ideal rather than an entity, and wondered if it would be possible to extrapolate that abstraction further. Is it possible to get spells from worshiping an alignment? What about a plane? Or energy?

The people of Pellatarrum do just that. Remember that the Positive and Negative Energy Planes serve as sun and anti-sun. They are visible reminders of life and death which sweep across the face of the world daily, and clerics naturally channel positive or negative energy. From there it's a simple, natural step to the Church of the Light and the Cult of the Dark.

What exists on those planes? The PEG is the source of all souls (much like the Guf of Hebrew lore) but it's not like you can really interact with them in any meaningful way short of high-level magic. They are soul-stuff, and you... aren't. It's like trying to to have a conversation with a bacterium; there's a huge metaphysical divide which cannot easily be breached.

The NEG, of course, is simply rotten with stuff you can interact with, but none of it is healthy. Undead, intelligent undead, incorporeal undead, powerful undead, and of course entropy itself all wait for you with cold, grasping hands.

There are angels and demons of a sort, though. The enigmatic Xag-Ya and Xeg-Yi are there as well, doing... whatever it is they do. For all we know, they could be planar janitors or interior decorators. The point being, any time the GM needs something angelic or demonic to appear, you get these guys. They aren't really good or evil per se, but they are incarnate energy of either creation or destruction, so they fill basically the same roles,a nd without the mess of alignment afterwards!

But still, that leaves us without suitable extraplanar shorthand for good guys and bad guys, doesn't it? For that, we need only cast our gaze upwards at the Elemental Planes.If you need good guys, then Djinni fit your bill, and their counterparts the Efreeti make dandy villains. The Chaotic Neutral Marid will hopefully satisfy Jeff Rients' passion for chaos frogs, and the Dao are greedy bastards.

What to do if someone casts "Summon Monster" and needs a celestial or fiendish critter? Use the "elemental creature" template from the Manual of the Planes instead. A fire element scorpion will certainly get someone's attention!

Another nice benefit this has is that it puts the Gray -- those who worship nature, the land, or seasons -- into a position of increased usefulness. It's handy to be able to rebuke or control elemental creatures when spellcasters are summoning them willy-nilly.

So there are no gods in Pellatarrum. (Druids and elemental clerics get their power from the elemental planes themselves.) There are, in fact, no Outer Planes at all. The Ethereal and Shadow planes do exist, but they're coterminous to the Prime Material (which in this case is the infinite disk of Pellatarrum and nothing else) and as such don't really merit a special "place" on the map. Souls come from the Positive Energy Plane, and when they die they go...

Well, it depends. And that's a subject for another post.

Pellatarrum: Cosmology & Geography Overview

noreply@blogger.com (Erin Palette) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:46:00 +0000

Are you ready to have your puny minds broken? Good, let's begin. And remember, if at any time you find yourself asking, "But why?" please remember that the proper answer is "Because fantasy, that's why."

The world of Pellatarrum is a disk of infinite size with a spindle rising from its center, like a child's toy top. (The technical term would be "gyroscopic rotor".) This spindle is colloquially known as the Dayspire, because it is responsible for providing Pellatarrum with a day/night cycle.

There are no moons, stars, or suns in the sky above Pellatarrum. Instead, light and darkness are handled by the Positive and Negative Material Planes, respectively, who are perpendicular to Pellatarrum's disk and are equidistant from it. The Dayspire is precisely large enough to eclipse the two energy planes.

Behold my crappy art. I spent literally minutes on this thing, just for you.

As Pellatarrum rotates upon its spindle, different parts of the disk are exposed to positive or negative energy, or a combination of both. This gives Pellatarrum a cycle of 6 hours of dawn, 6 hours of daylight, 6 hours of twilight and 6 hours of night. A later post will explore in greater detail the ramifications of this cycle.

A note for the scientific-minded: In this cosmology, darkness and cold are things which can be radiated, as opposed to merely being the lack of light and heat.

Pellatarrum slowly rotates within its own pocket universe, which is a prolate spheroid, or what we Americans would call a football. To continue the metaphor, the energy planes would be the tips of the football, stopping at the white painted rings, and the air inside it would be the Astral Plane.

The four panels of the football (sans tips) would be the four Elemental Planes of Air, Fire, Water, and Earth. Each element is created by the Positive Material Plane and processes towards its destruction at the hands of the Negative. As an example, Water would begin its existence as Steam, coalesces into Water proper, and then turns to Salt shortly before destruction.

This is a picture of airflow around a thrown football. It is here because it is pretty.

Seasons are the result of the Elemental Planes rotating about the football's axis. Spring is Air, summer is Fire, fall is Water and winter is Earth. Yes, the elemental plane of the season actually occupies the sky above Pellaterrum. Yes, during the summer, fire is known to fall to the ground. Yes, it falls through an infinite void and yet somehow strikes the ground of another plane. Because FANTASY, that's why.

Behold the power of color fill.

Another post will cover seasons in more detail. This has just been a brief overview so that I can blow your minds now and clear up any confusion you may have before I delve into the trippy ramifications of this universe.

WNW: The Nine Alignments of Batman

noreply@blogger.com (Erin Palette) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:43:00 +0000

I'd credit this, but I have no idea who made it. It might have spontaneously formed from the randomness of the internet in a digital abiogenesis.