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Table Top Tuesday: Party Assembled!

19 Wednesday Oct 2016

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Starting a new weekly feature on this blog: Tabletop Tuesday! Wherein, I will geek out heavily on all things related to tabletop roleplaying games. It was such a strong part of my storytelling development, and continues to be the best way to creatively defragment my brain between professional writing gigs. Maybe we’ll sneak in storytelling lessons in there too.

If this isn’t in your wheel house of interests, feel free to skip to our other irregularly scheduled posts. If it isn’t, but your curious, dive right in and ask any of the thousand questions that might occur.

Here we go!

The Forge of Heroes

We live in a miraculous world where you can imagine your RP character…and then manifest them! The Hero Forge website allows you to design characters (much as you would in some video games) and then have them 3D printed.

Even if you don’t shell out the money to bring every character to plastic life, you can still take screenshots or even share links to the 3D model with friends and fellow players (for free).

I recently started playing in a wacky Dungeons & Dragons game. Fun group of players and a very zany crew of characters. I decided to design them and splurge and surprise the whole table. Oh the surprise! Suddenly everyone was holding their imaginary character in their hands!

Here is our motley cast…

The World

We are playing D&D 5 Edition. The setting is home-brewed by our Dungeon Master. Basic D&D setting, a little more Renaissance era flavor. Merchant families hold a lot of power. The lands have become very civilized in parts. Certain bestial races (like gnolls and minotaurs) have become domesticated and civil. Elves and Half-Orcs have drifted to the wilds. Dragons are long extinct. The Dragonborn have grown fat and lazy, thinking themselves better than everyone else (being the most dragon-ish thing out there), and ruling many of the monarchies and merchant dynasties.

Right. The party!

Baltazar Scalelord III

baltazar

Race: Dragonborn (Subrace: Gold)
Class: Sorcerer (Subclass: Draconic Bloodline)
Background: Noble
3D Model

The leader of the party. At least, Baltazar thinks so. He is the son of the wealthy and powerful Lady Scalelord, so he’s better than you. He’s a Dragonborn, so he’s better than most. He’s of gold dragon blood, so he’s even better than his kin. Baltazar detests strenuous work. Luckily he’s a sorcerer, and magic is in his blood, so he doesn’t have to do all that tedious study (proving that he’s even more better than you). He knows the spell Tenser’s Floating Disk just so he doesn’t have to carry things.

His latest scheme involves becoming the manager of an up and coming wrestler and pit fighter. They will tour the countryside…make profit (Baltazar doesn’t understand how that works, but he knows he’s smart, so obviously it’ll work). This way, he won’t have to borrow money from mother dearest anymore.

Think Zapp Brannigan mixed with every clueless son of a noble.

Tripod

tripod

Race: Warforged
Class: Bard (Subclass: College of Valor)
Background: Criminal
3D Model

Tripod was built and animated as a very expensively commissioned pleasure bot for Lady Scalelord. Tripod resents this. He drinks to forget the things he’s seen! After her son nearly walked in on the proceedings, Lady Scalelord gave Tripod to Baltazar as his butler and entertainer. Baltazar still doesn’t understand what purpose Tripod had for his mother (whether out of sheer cluelessness or willful memory blocking is anyone’s guess). One might look at this chronicle as the story of a boy and his mother’s self-aware sex toy.

Tripod undercuts his master with withering comments at every turn, though Baltazar does not understand sarcasm (“Oh, my dear Tripod, you’re doing your funny talk again.”). Luckily, Tripod is pretty good at most things, as he has to do his master’s thinking often. Tripod has recently taken up a career in petty crime on the side, and builds his underworld contacts, as a way to subvert his servitude and serve his eternal quest of passive aggression towards the entire Scalelord family.

Tripod was built short, halfling sized, and he resents this most of all. More than anything, he wants to find a wizard or engineer who can make him tall. He wants people to call him Dirk Longstrider…but no one does.

Think Futurama’s Kif + Bender, with a dash of Adventure Time’s Peppermint Butler.

Mog “the Hog” Ma’Grogg

mog

Race: Minotaur
Class: Fighter (Subclass: Champion)
Background: Performer
3D Model

The heart and soul of the party. At least, Mog thinks so. Where Baltazar’s ego is lazy, Mog’s is active. His personality is bigger than his already huge frame. This godlike presence is what separates him from the common pit fighter. It’s why he’s going to have songs sung about him. It’s why people are going to buy his new line of hot sauce.

Mog has recently taken on Baltazar Scalelord as his manager. They are to tour the countryside, perform spectacles and wrestling matches, sell hot sauce, and perhaps do an epic deed or two.

For all his showboating, Mog can dish out. He’s already wrestled a werewolf (impervious to the party’s mundane weapons) into submission.

Think a kinder (if even more self-involved) Gaston + Beowulf, as a self-proclaimed folk hero and merchandizer.

Fenris the Reborn

fenris

Race: Gnoll
Class: Cleric (Subclass: Life Domain)
Background: Soldier
3D Model

Fenris was once a soldier, once fought side by side with her friend, Mog. Back then, she worshipped a war god. But she’s had a spiritual rebirth. Now she worships as a priest of Rao (god of peace, reason, and serenity). She is a healer and a pacifist these days. She is the party’s moral center. She is driven by faith…and her always growling stomach.

She’s been reunited with her old warrior friend. She travels with him so that her pacifism might rub off on him a bit. At least his entertainment fighting doesn’t involve death (usually).

Fenris was recently tested by facing the anathema to her life magic, the undead. She discovered that she could put the carrion stomach of her race to Rao’s purpose. Zombies cannot rise again and again, as unholy blights, if they are eaten.

Think Leslie Knope, as a carrion-eating holy person who’s pretty good with a quarterstaff.

Shrike

shrike

Race: Halfling (Subrace: Stout)
Class: Barbarian (Subclass: Totem Warrior)
Background: Street Urchin
3D Model

My character!

Shrike was born wrong — albino of skin and red of eye, ears too long and a mouth with too many teeth. His very proper halfling parents quietly cast him into the sewer. How did the babe survive? No one knows. He became just fast, strong, and vicious enough to thrive in the undercity. He went a bit mad in the process.

As a boy, Shrike crept into the basement of a theatre. Watching play after play is how he learned language. The little ghost of the theatre — the performers never saw him, but they were his family. He also has a now disgusting stuffed animal named Penethorn (the only thing he has from his parents, he does not realize the name stitched into the toy is his own) — his pet mouse lives in its buttonless eye socket.

Shrike is an urban barbarian. The city is his jungle. He’s the party’s most able killer. He was recently taken in by the cleric Fenris. She’s trying to teach him pacifism. He may scoff at her for that…but if anyone else talks bad about Fenris, he’ll rip their goddamn spleen out.

Think Conan + Tim Burton’s Penguin, with a dash of Disney’s Stitch, run through the filter of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere.

Lady Scalelord

ladyscalelord

Not a player character, but I needed to get our Dungeon Master a figure too. So here she is, the mother of Baltazar, the terror of Tripod (ugh!). Gaze upon her magnificent immenseness! Even her pet pseudodragon knows he’s better than you.

The Figures

I got the figures 3D printed (in Hero Forge’s gray plastic). They turned out quite well. Certain tiny facial details get a little lost (that’s to be expected in such small figures), but otherwise there’s some fine detail on these figures. Below is a picture of three of them (one without flash and one with…forgive the focus). I definitely recommend Hero Forge, to make your character or give a fun gift to fellow gamers.

That’s all for now. Till next Tuesday, fellow gamers.

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Lore of the Clans and True Detective

07 Thursday Jan 2016

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Once upon a time, when I was 16 or 17, I went into a bookstore and opened Vampire the Masquerade (2nd ed.). I’ve never been the same. I’ve done some writing since then. Fast forward. There is a new book available that I’ve contributed to: Lore of the Clans. You can listen to Eddy Webb talk about the development of my two chapters at the following links (the Followers of Set and the Tzimisce respectively).

I’ve done the math. I’ve been reading White Wolf books for longer than I have not been (yikes!). Since the beginning, if you crack open one of those books, you’ll find, in the opening credits, a little Special Thanks section. Contributors and other people involved are given thanks via little nick names. Even if I didn’t know the context of these inside jokes, the section always added a little warmth. So now, all these years later, of all the things I’ve done in this fictional world I’ve played in, I find this little bit tickles my inner teenage fan the most… Getting my own nickname.

Screenshot 2016-01-07 22.27.32

You can read the intro fiction to my Tzimisce chapter HERE.

Below, is the opening fiction to the Follower’s of Set chapter. Have you heard the legend of Haint Blue?

The Poison Tree

I’m rolling down the outer-roads, somewhere near the Okefenokee Swamp, edging on the static of “Black Snake Moan,” when the phantom signal comes in.

The car radio croons, “Mmm-mmm! Black snake crawlin’ in my room.” Then it says, “Zzzzzzzshhhhhhhhhh!” Then the music. Deep. Bottomless. Filled with the primordial blues of reptile sex. Music that taught people new ways to revel and kill. The music of Haint Blue.

The fuel needle does a heroin shiver over E. Sold my homicide badge to some kids for gas money three truck stops back. It was just the relic of a dead religion. My lost history. The cult killings—the gaudy headlines—crime scene photos—the screaming eyes of cadavers—the dead eyes of interviewees—the tendrils of conspiracy—the warnings from above—my lost vocation—lost marriage—lost. Empty context. An amphetamine stew of memories.

How long had I been chasing Haint Blue?

Static. Lost the music. My knuckles form a row of white tombstones on the wheel. I jerk left. Right. The music crackles back, filling my brainpan with sizzling eel afterbirth. His music.

Haint Blue. The Conjure Man. The walking mythos. Everyone knows somebody who knows somebody who heard his music live. Did a deal with the Devil at a crossroads, they say. His music shows you things, they say. His coffin-shaped guitar case holds secrets. For a trade, he’ll show you wonders. When the six-string priest plays, the dead dance.

In all of the twisted paths of the investigation—from prostitutes to deacons to drug dealers to government officials—the one constant was Haint Blue. Georgia truckers will vomit apocrypha about the rogue radio signal that comes in the late hours, Mesozoic lyrics you can’t quite make out. The sound virus.

No leads. Nothing left. All I had was the music. I don’t know how I know, but I know where to go. All roads lead to Haint Blue.

Just like that, he appears in the cyclopic glare of my last headlight. A dapper holocaust with his coffin guitar case. I’m out of the car, gun drawn. I aim for his heart. Gators bellow and eyes gleam in the dark off the road. Under the brim of his hat, Haint Blue smiles at me the way mushroom clouds smile at the sun. I drop the gun. Bullets are just an unnecessary rudeness.

All the terrible things I saw to find him, the things I did, just rungs down the ladder. Every clue teasing the ultimate secrets of the cosmos, like humming a song you can’t quite remember.

“More,” I say through the tears, “please show me more.”

He nods. His pale blue tie glows in the black, like a river of souls dribbling down his chin to his belt. He offers me a straight razor. I cut along, not across.

Frogs croak prayers to the void. The smell of rotting peat. The feverish crossroad pavement.

When did I lay down? That’s when I notice the bottle trees—small, dead trees with blue bottles stuck on the ends of the bare branches. Used to see them in yards, when I was a kid. Mama’d say some hoodoo about the bottles trapping roaming night spirits until the morning light destroyed them. The wind blows piping music through the stained glass branches.

A cold palm presses my mouth. Baptism tastes like unlucky pennies. “See you on the other side of Duat,” Haint whispers like a kindly psychopomp. Then he strangles his six strings down to revenant whale groans. He sings, but I can’t catch all the words.

“…I was angry with my foe—I told it not, my wrath did grow—and I watered it in fears—night and morning with my tears—and I sunned it with smiles—and with soft deceitful wiles—and it grew both day and night—till it bore an apple bright…”

The gators become crocodiles. The sky opens wide, showing the convoluted pantheon that is its teeth. The godmonster menagerie—all perched in the branches of the Poison Tree of Souls. Before the river of death carries me away, I hear the breaking of blue glass. Haint cackles, “Come out! Come out! Meet your new sibling.” Funny thing, as the bottles break, the mad piping does not quiet. It grows louder.