There he lay, gasping on his belly like a half drowned rat. His face and throat and arms were a crosshatch of festering cuts, the leavings of the firesnakes. His hair and beard hung straight down like seaweed. He panted for a long time, then rolled his eyes up, vaguely in my direction. In the darkness he couldn’t see me, though I could see him. He closed his hand on the sword hilt and jiggled the sword a little, too weak to raise it off the floor.

“Unferth has come!”, he said.

I smiled. He crawled toward me, the sword noisily scraping on the cave’s rock floor. Then he gave out again. “It will be sung,” he whispered, then paused again to get wind. “It will be sung year on year and age on age that Unferth went down through the burning lake-” he paused to pant “-and gave his life in battle with the world-rim monster.” He let his cheek fall to the floor and lay panting for a long time, saying nothing. It dawned on me that he was waiting for me to kill him. I did nothing. I sat down and put my elbows on my knees and my chin on my fists and merely watched. He lay with his eyes closed and began to get his breath back. He whispered: “It’s all very well to make a fool of me before my fellow thanes. All very well to talk about dignity and noble language and all the rest, as if heroism were a golden trinket, mere outward show, and hollow. But such is not the case, monster. That is to say-” He paused, seemd to grope; he’d lost his train of thought.

I said nothing, merely waited. “Even now you mock me,” Unferth whispered. I had an uneasy feeling he was close to tears. If he wept, I was not sure I could control myself. His pretensions to uncommon glory were one thing. If for even an instant he pretended to misery like mine…

“You think me a witless fool”, he whispered. “Oh, I heard what you said. I caught your nasty insinuations. ‘I thought heroes were only in poetry,’ you said. Implying that what I’ve made of myself is mere fairytale stuff.” He raised his head, trying to glare at me, but his blind stare was in the wrong direction. “Well, it’s not, let me tell you. His lips trembled and I was certain he would cry, I would have to destroy him from pure disgust, but he held it. He let his head fall again and sucked for air. A little of his voice came back, so that he no longer had to whisper but could bring out his words in a slightly reedy whine. “Poetry’s trash, mere clouds of words, comfort to the hopeless. But this is no cloud, no syllabled pantom that stands here shaking its sword at you.”

I let the slight exaggeration pass.

But Unferth didn’t. “Or lies here,” he said. “A hero is not afraid to face cruel truth.” That reminded him, apparently, of what he’d meant to say before. “You talk of heroism as a noble language, dignity. It’s more than that, as my coming here has proved. No man above us will ever know that Unferth died here or fled to the hills like a coward. Only you and I and God will know the truth. That’s inner heroism.”

“Hmm,” I said. It was not unusual, of course, to hear them contradict themselves, but I would have liked it if he’d stuck to one single version, either that they would know and sing his tragedy or that they wouldn’t. So it would have been a poem, surely, if Unferth were a character, good or evil, heroic or not. But reality, alas, is essentially shoddy. I let out a sigh.

He jerked his head up, shocked. “Does nothing have value in your horrible ruin of a brain?”

I waited. The whole shit-ass scene was his idea, not mine.

I saw the light dawning in his eyes. “I understand,” he said. I thought he would laugh at the bottomless stupidity of my cynicism, but while the laugh was still starting at the corners of his eyes, another look came, close to fright. “You think me deluded. Tricked by my own walking fairytale. You think I came without hope of winning – came to escape indignity by suicide!” He did laugh now, not amused: sorrowful and angry. The laugh died quickly. “I didn’t know how deep the pool was,” he said. “I had a chance. I knew I had no more than that. It’s all a hero asks for.”

I sighed. The word “hero” was beginning to grate. He was an idiot. I could crush him like a fly, but I held back.

“Go ahead, scoff,” he said, petulant. “Excpet in the life of a hero, the whole world’s meaningless. The hero sees values beyond what’s possible. That’s the nature of a hero. It kills him, of course, ultimately. But it makes the whole struggle of humanity worthwhile.”

I nodded in the darkness. “And breaks up the boredom,” I said.

He raised up on his elbows, and the effort of it made his shoulders shake. “One of us is going to die tonight. Does that break up your boredom?”

“It’s not true,” I said. “A few minutes from now I’m going to carry you back to Hrothgar, safe and sound. So much for poetry.”

“I’ll kill myself,” he whispered. He shook violently now.

“Up to you,” I answered reasonably, “but you’ll admit it may seem at least a trifle cowardly to some.”

His fists closed and his teeth clenched; then he relaxed and lay flat.

I waited for him to find an answer. Minutes passed. It came to me that he had quit. He had glimpsed a glorious ideal, struggled toward it and seized it and come to understand it and was disappointed. One could sympathize.

He was asleep.

I picked him up gently and carried him home. I laid him at the door of Hrothgar’s meadhall, still asleep, killed the two guards so I wouldn’t be misunderstood, and left.

He lives on, bitter, feebly challenging my midnight raids from time to time (three times this summer), crazy with shame that he alone is always spared, and furiously jealous of the dead. I laugh when I see him. He throws himself at me, or he cunningly sneaks up behind, sometimes in disguise – a goat, a dog, a sickly old woman – and I roll on the floor with laughter. So much for heroism. So much for the harvest-virgin. So much, also, for the alternative visions of blind old poets and dragons.

and speaking of Star Trek…

now let’s start thinking outsde the box…

those were pretty tame. How about these:

Now THAT’S more like it!

Most of these are old school TOS. We will start with the most common one on the internet:

then there are some that resonate with anyone who’s seen the show:

and some that resonate with everyone:

and then there is the ‘other’ category:

“Jim! His brain. It’s GONE!” Bwahahahahaha! Gods I loved that episode!

Here are a few from more recent series:

Robert Picardo played the fuck out of that part. He was the best thing about Voyager. If you ever get the chance check out the Voyager episode “Latent Image” (Season 5 ep11 I think.) Best episode ever.

And lastly here is one from the new flick:

Starting with my favorite ‘Hot Topic is Not Punk Rock’:

Here’s an example of his live show at MarsCon this past March:

And one more of his better songs:

And since I can’t resist here are a few more of my favorite Nerdcore artists and songs now on Youtube:

MC Frontalot – It Is Pitch Dark

MC Chris – Evergreen

Futuristic Sex robotz – F**K the MPAA

Schaffer the Darklord – Night of the Living Christ

Optimus Rhyme – Obey the Moderator

Captain Dan & the Scurvey Crew – Shore Leave

YTCracker – Warez Loader

Sinister Six – The Herald (feat. The Ranger) Note: the actual song doesn’t start until about 44 seconds into the video.

Last Sunday was my birthday and amongst my b-day loot was the Dunwich Horror Expansion to the Arkham Horror game. The day before yesterday we got together and tried it out and I have to say I really like it. Not only did it refresh the basic aspects of the game but it added whole new dimensions.

What’s New?

First off there is a lot more of everything. Officially there are:

8 Investigators (Always fun to have new characters. I like the look of Leo Anderson.)

4 Ancient Ones (Scarier than the originals! Fear Tsathoggua!)

15 Item cards (Flamethrowers! Yay!)

25 Unique Item cards (Lightning Gun. Boom!)

21 Spell cards (Can’t decide between Vision Quest and Alchemical Process.)

11 Skill cards (Mythos Lore.)

5 Ally cards (Zebulon Whateley. Silly name, but an excellent Ally.)

4 Condition cards, 28 Monster tokens, 36 Mythos cards, 32 Gate cards

7 new location cards for each Arkham location

And the Dunwich board with its 9 new locations and 2 new outer worlds to the game.

But it’s not just filling out the old stuff; they added new mechanics as well. You can now keep your stuff when you bottom out your Stamina or Sanity. All it takes is the willingness to subject yourself to a Wound or Madness for the rest of the game. I was Paranoid by the end of the game we played. Losing Sanity when around other characters is pretty harsh for a guy with only 3 to start with. The new Ancient Ones have some scary abilities. Unlike their basic counterparts they don’t have a skill check to avoid the cost when you end up fighting them so it is more important than ever to keep them from waking up. Combining that with their brutally scary powers that they have while sleeping makes the chances of success even worse. The Dunwich Horror didn’t really come into play for us. We were ready to send people up there to stop the monsters from waking the Horror but it never got even close to happening. The gates we were closing kept cleaning the monsters out of Dunwich. Speaking of gates, some of the new Mythos cards have what is called a Gate Burst effect. If the card calls for a gate to open where the location has been sealed by an Elder Sign, the gate opens anyway the Elder Sign is removed. We only had one show up in our game but it was painful nonetheless. There are plenty of new monsters some with the new Stalker ability signaled by there snazzy purple border. (About time we got some purple into this game.) Stalkers will chase adjacent investigators in spite of which way the arrows tell them to go. There are other scary monsters, like the Colour Out Of Space, which has the Sanity equivalent of the Cthonian ability (and is very scary in spite of reminding me of a Hyper Intelligent Shade of Blue.) We didn’t get to interact with the Dunwich locations as Tsathoggua’s special ability denied us the ability to use the locations so there wasn’t much reason to go there. We did go to the new outer planes but didn’t get any new encounters for them so I can’t say how scary or not they are. Another game play effects I noticed is that with all the new cards added to the Unique Item deck it is harder than ever to find an Elder Sign to buy. That is one of our major strategies. If you have $5 you go to the Curiosity shop and buy something. We’ve used as many as 3 of the 4 Elder Signs in one game. I also think that some of the new Investigator abilities may need some experience to make full use of. It was practically the end of the game when I realized that my investigator’s (Mark Harrigan) special ability of ‘cannot be delayed’ applied to when he goes to the Asylum or Hospital. Another new thing we missed out on was the Tasks and Missions. These are things you aquire from the General Store or Curiosity shop which give you a list of places and something to sacrifice at each place after which you get a reward of some kind. The one they show in the rulebook is ‘Joining the Winning Team’ where an investigator can sacrifice a bunch of Allies to win the game with the Ancient One instead of the other investigators. It makes me wonder of there were people complaining that the game didn’t have the traitor component that Shadows over Camelot had. Another thing I noticed about the new cards is that they seemed to raise the terror level more than the basic ones. A lot of games we would never get to any of the stores closing but with the expansion we were up to a level 3 terror level not long into the game. Also none of that was from Monsters overflowing the outskirts. It was from location and/or Mythos cards.

My reaction:

Emotionally I like this game. The fact that they use some of the wording from Call of Cthulhu endears this expansion to me. I so want the Spot Hidden skill. I don’t care what it does. I also found it refreshing to be on the bleeding edge of failure before winning. It was getting to the point with the basic game that I was always hoping the game would be a little tougher. That is unless we were playing with the Herald of the King in Yellow. That still kicked our butts. This last game we were one gate opening away from Tsathoggua waking up and we would have stood no chance in a fight. We just didn’t have the firepower. It felt good to hope to get lucky for a change. I imagine the game is going to keep getting harder the more supplements I get. Still I think I’ll keep playing this one for a bit before grabbing another. I like the feel of Dunwich and am looking forward to exploring it in the future. Compared to the other supplement I have The King in Yellow, I have to say I like this one a lot more. It adds much more to the game. I would say that it is definitely worth the extra $20. But then I did get it as a gift so maybe the price difference doesn’t affect me as much. Still, I do hardily recommend it.

actually that sounds a little more Chaotic Good to me but most people agree that Deadpool is definately CN.

and just in case you are wondering where that meatloaf line comes from:

This past year I’ve been majorly distracted by 4E. Between learning the rules, making characters, following the release of supplements, listening to actual play sessions, and arguing whether it’s worth it or not I’ve spent almost no time looking into alternative Role Playing systems. I still would love to play some Spirit of the Century and I love the look of Alpha Omega and would love to try it but aside from those things hanging out in the back of my mind I’ve not really followed any new developments. It wasn’t until I read Smite’s article two weeks ago about his search for an alternative dice system that I realized how much I have been ignoring all the alternative games. Well no more. If you want a completely new way to do things read on because this game gets about as different as you can from traditional RPGs. Let me tell you about a little game called:

Dust Devils

Created by Matt Snyder in 2002, Dust Devils, is a Wild West RPG with a brilliant and unique rules system. It takes the traditional concepts of plotting and narration and turns them on their head. Even the mechanics are different with Poker Chips and Playing Cards taking the place of dice. The genre is taken from the Clint Eastwood style of western ala Unforgiven and the Outlaw Josey Wales. It’s a game for people who want to play complex characters, ones that have history, secrets, and personal demons haunting them. If fact one of the central components of a Dust Devils character is their Devil. It is that dark side of the character and it will be a major component of their story. Dust Devils is also perfect for those players who like the spotlight. Since all the action is driven by the characters they are almost constantly on. Furthermore when they win narration they get a chance to show off.

Which brings me to the mechanics. The Mechanics of Dust Devils are what really caught my eye, or ear as the case may be as I heard about it through podcasts. First off the way the game progresses is based on the players. The GM, called the Dealer, is much more reactive than in a traditional role. It is no longer his duty to provide the story for the players to follow. It’s up to the players to drive the story forward with the Dealer wrangling NPCs, introducing conflicts, provoking characters, and other things to keep things exciting. Conflict resolution, which is where this gets really cool, happens the same way for all types of conflict. It doesn’t matter what is being contested, physical, social, or mental, it all follows the same system. The way conflicts are handled in Dust Devils summed up as 1) Players declare their goal in the conflict, 2) Each player is dealt a hand of cards based on their character’s appropriate stats, 3) High Hand achieves their goal, and 4) Highest Card narrates how it happens. That last step is the coolest thing about this system. It is up to the player (or the Dealer) with highest single card in the conflict to describe how the conflict resolves. It took me a while to wrap my head around this but then I found a great example. In the final fight between Mal and the Operative in Serenity (for some reason Dust Devils reminds me Firefly a lot) I expected Mal to throw the Operative down into that spinning engine thing. I didn’t know that Joss didn’t have the budget for that kind of thing; I just knew that if two guys are fighting over something spinning, then one of them is going into it. It’s like a movie law or something. Well, in a Dust Devils conflict it, if Mal’s player had won narration he could have just chucked the Operative off the platform, but the Operative’s player (probably but not necessarily the Dealer) won the narration. He wants his guy to taken out in a cooler and ultimately more personal way. His Devil is probably “will do anything for his belief” so as narrator he decides that he will not just lose the physical fight but he will take the blow to his characters core belief, which of course makes for a much cooler ending.

The narrator gets to describe how the conflict resolves. What happens to who and exactly how the winning hand achieves their stated goal. Also the strength of the winning hand determines how routine (in the case of low hands) or extraordinary (in the case of high hands) the action should be. The narrator can even make it so that the losing hands still succeed to some extent. It is an incredibly powerful if short lived position. And that is why this is so remarkable. Taking that traditionally centralized power of the GM to tell how things happen and distributing it basically at random to a player. It requires a whole different view of GM and player roles as well as a great deal of trust between all players. I don’t know about you but that sounds pretty revolutionary to me.