From Kingdoms of Elfin
“Monks, prisoners, conscripts, have the support of rule: they live as they are ordered to. The exile has nothing but himself to depend on. If he chooses to lie on the ground and yell, he may be a nuisance but he is not an offender. If he he tries to be a model exile, he makes a rope of sand. His conformity is of no account, and is based on guesswork, anyway. Accident may tell him he has guessed wrong, experiment on experiment may lead him to guess right. But that, too, is by accident. He plays a kind of Hunt the Thimble without knowing what a thimble looks like.”
– “The Climate of Exile” by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Fields of It
Passed this on my walk this evening. Imagine if they all had been left-handed gloves.
OK, Player. You Now Have Four Live Chickens in a Sack inside Your Pack.
So last night, there was an impromptu session of the Mao Tse Tiger wing of the Kanga Rat Murder Society, mostly ‘cause one player’s leaving Korea soon and wanted to level before he goes.
The Setup
A bug priest showed up at Fort Low, hoping to find the “great heroes” who defeated the stone devil a few weeks before. Since all but one of those guys died last adventure, the priest had to make do with Thidrek the Sleestak and his new companions, an Orc named Ripper and a mystic named Attius.
The priest’s story: a few days back while digging a new foraging tunnel for the Hive, the diggers entered a cavern where the Great Tunneler had come and gone. They would have explored the cavern but were attacked by some monster. Now they want the “great heroes” to lead a hunting party below and kill whatever might be lurking in the darkness.
There was also some mention of payment in “bright stones”, but what adventurer ever thinks about getting paid?
So the adventurers agreed and went into Hive territory where they could admire the efficient construction techniques of giant insects that keep humans as slaves live in symbiosis with humans. They reached the new tunnel and met up with their hunting party: two bug tribesmen, two beetles, and their leader who was one of the guys they met in the swamps and called himself Forager, because when in doubt steal from the best.
Down they went into the darkness.
Stuff happened.
The Nuts and Bolts
I told the players they’d get the XP value for each of the hunting party they brought back alive.
They were cautious from the start, though a bit quick to attack everything they saw such as a trio of lizardmen who’d been trapped in the cavern for days hiding out from the real “monsters”. The lizards had no interest in fighting the party, but took off running the moment they showed up. The party mistook this as a “charge”…
Meanwhile the real monsters, four greater rhagodessa (see picture at top), began moving about in the darkness, setting up their own ambush. The lizardmen got away, and a lucky roll from one of the hunting beetles alerted the party to the fact that something was up.
Did I mention that Thidrek right before leaving Fort Low decided to buy four live chickens? That was one of those moments where the GM asks no questions but says, “Huh? OK, player. You now have four live chickens in a sack inside your pack.”
The party sent a chicken down the passage to determine if something nasty was down there, and sure enough there was, so the party setup their own ambush using oil, a spear wall, and whatnot.
The waiting game started. Or would have except the rhagodessa had more room to maneuver and outflank the party.
By now my map had started to look like one of those football play diagrams with little arrows and scribbly marks on it tracking movements. The party was forced down the passage where the other two waited, but the party was able to protect their backs with a wall of burning oil, so neither side had an advantage.
You know what’s funny? It’s funny when you’re explaining the game rules to someone and say, “Oh, you can do X if you want to.” And the person you’re telling this to says, “Why would you ever not want to do that?” And you just narrow your eyes and shrug, knowing that before the night is done not doing X is going to look like the best idea ever.
Melee started.
Thidrek saved his sleestak-bacon by sacrificing another live chicken. One beetle got gobbled, the other rolled for crap, one tribesman died when his arm got severed, the other survived, the party got bloodied but no one else dropped, except Forager who was saved by a spell from Attius. They succeeded in killing three of the four rhagodessa, the last scuttling away into the darkness. Ripper searched amid a pile of bones but found nothing more than pocket change, because stingy DM is stingy.
The Hive was pleased. The party got paid, and the night ended happily for everyone.
A Doctor Visit
So I have this laryngitis-cold-thing and sound like Tom Waits. It’s cool. I hope it never ends, though if it didn’t I’d probably lose my job. Can’t teach English if you sound like the Cookie Monster. I went to the doctor’s this morning. Some details: they do stuff like take your blood pressure and temperature in the waiting room. So folks are all around you waiting while a nurse takes your blood pressure and looks in your ears and whatever. Then they have you go back to sitting down, while you wait for the doctor to see you. The doc was a youngish guy and wanted to know about my mucus and stuff. His English wasn’t great, but whatever. Between Jin and me, we could figure out what he was asking. He sprayed some stuff down my throat and some more stuff up my nose, then gave me a prescription. Easy peasy. The thing is I feel fine. I just sound like death.
Price for visit and three days of meds: less than 10USD. I pay into the National Health Care program about 60USD monthly, but damn, a five buck Doctor visit? Yeah. Not complaining.
Yes.
Wanderer, your footsteps are
the road, and nothing more;
wanderer, there is no road,
the road is made by walking.
By walking one makes the road,
and upon glancing back
one sees the path
that never will be trod again.
Wanderer, there is no road–
Only wakes upon the sea.
Various Redacted Tweets and Updates From Last Week
– Time to let all the blarg dribble out.
– I don’t begrudge anyone their desire to earn a dollar even when it is my dollar (and not called a dollar) — I just don’t like it when they become so aggressive about their desire that they resemble parasites on the expat community.
– We’re not disagreeing so much as exploring the contours of our agreement.
– Hey Annoying 4th Grade Girl, you are soooooooo annoying, but have embraced being that kid no one likes with such defiance that I have to salute you. Everyone in life will hate you and try to grind you down. Don’t change. Stay annoying. (Just maybe, you know, do your homework sometimes…)
– Isn’t he one of those guys who goes to Steampunk conventions wearing a girdle on top of his JC Penny suit?
– When people favorite my tweets I assume they’ll use them later to blackmail me.
Sad Times in UR
Here’s a brief write-up of the latest expedition into Ur. Names have been removed to protect the innocent.
The party made two excursions into the ruins. Their goal was to find the “zoo” mentioned in the journal of Mad Alchemist. The first expedition went well. They stumbled upon an outpost of the Spiked Circle and held the line against them and their carnivorous ape pet.
Three characters went into the ruin, four returned (though one was carried out).
They went back to Fort Low, healed, restocked their supplies, and went back into the ruin. After some encounter avoidance they found the zoo. They also found some mutant undercity dwellers, who decided to make lunch out of the party. Two members fell to paralysis, the third fled.
Three characters went into the ruin, one returned.
Books and TV
Five people walk into a room. They’re all what may be called active readers in that they read at least a book or two a month. One of them brings up a book. None of the others have read it. One only reads award-winners and bestsellers, another is reading her way through Dickens (last year she did the same with Trollope), that guy only reads genre, as do the last two, but it’s a different genre than the first guy’s, and these two are reading at the opposite ends of it. Maybe there’s a book they have all read and can discuss. Inevitably this book will be tied in with a class somewhere at which point the conversation will drown itself in nostalgia.
Across the street, five people walk into a room. They’re all active television viewers. They follow at least one TV show a week. One brings up a show. They may not all like it, but they all talk about it. Conversation achieved.
Complaints Department
There’s nowhere to get breakfast in Pohang on the weekends. It’s crazy. Say you’re up at 8AM and decide to walk along the beach, if you’re lucky maybe, just maybe, you’ll find a coffee shop open. Even the toast places don’t open until 10:30AM. And. They. Make. TOAST!?! Doesn’t anyone in this town want to drink coffee outside of their house early on a Saturday morning?
It’s become so bad I’m starting to daydream about opening up a restaurant that would just serve two eggs, toast, and hash browns. We’d be open from 6AM to noon and that’s it. Nothing but breakfast.
I also regularly daydream about learning how to play Iron Maiden’s “Number of the Beast” on the ukelele, so yeah, pipe-dreams both of them.
Yesterweird 