Matzah and Colored Eggs

Posting will be even lighter than usual this week my friends, as the Passover holiday lands, and my girlfriend is coming in from out of town to stay with me for a few days. I'm really excited, but it means I won't be able to get to the blog very much, if at all. I will be checking messages and comments though. 

In the meantime, a very Happy Passover to my Jewish friends, and a Happy Easter to my Christian friends, and any, and all other observers. 

The unleavened bread of the Jews, often written Matzo, 

was always Matzah, or Matza in my family as my grandparents

spoke Yiddish, and that spelling is closer to their pronunciation.

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Barking Alien

Creepy, Kooky, Mysterious, and Spooky

October is here, and I'll be damned, but the weather on the East Coast of North America is giving it quite the fitting welcome.

I'm personally a fan of the cold, yet this is a chilly, wet, blustery cold that gets into your bones. It's the perfect conditions for hot cocoa, curling up with a good book and a warm brunette (ahem...sorry, personal preference), and getting ready for Halloween.

Or a warm redhead.

I ain't got nothing against redheads.

I like Halloween, though perhaps not for the same reasons many others do. After all, I'm not into watching Horror movies, I don't go to those haunted house attractions, and I haven't been to a Halloween party in so long I can't rightly recall the last time I went to one. These are the grown-up ways of celebrating Halloween though, are they not?

I like to see people in cool looking, and clever costumes, love a well-carved Jack O' Lanterns, and who doesn't enjoy candy? I think of Halloween as fun, and I enjoy the fun of Halloween. That's what it always was for me growing up.

Unfortunately, Halloween has become a night of terror, toilet papering people's homes, throwing eggs, and watching the umpteenth story-less, gore-bore fest motion picture.

Nothing could make me less enthused.

When I planned out my theme months for Autumn, I knew October would have to be focused on the scary, and spooky, but I hoped to bring a touch of weird, and whimsy back to the 'Season of the Witch'. Instead of discussing Horror in the traditional sense, what you are going to see this month is more the odd, the quirky, and yet still slightly macabre.

You dear reader are in for, well...less Paranormal Activity, and more ParaNorman. Not so much The Green Inferno, and much more Ghostbusters.

As the title says, the creepy, kooky, mysterious, and spooky.

In addition, I am hoping to add in a few bits of real fright night plights scattered here, and there. I plan on doing a follow up entry on my Alien Dread idea, some sample supernatural things that go bump in the night, and (if I can scrounge up enough time, and/or a miracle) share what I have so far on my original RPG Unfinished Business.

That's not all, but I figure that's enough to interest you in coming back to have a look around. Just don't go into the cellar, or the tool shed out back.

You've been warned.

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Barking Alien

Congratulations! Now don't blow it...

Happy Father's Day to all you Dads out there.

Never forget the honor, the responsibility and the privilege of being who you are and doing what you do. The impact of your words and actions are beyond even what they seem to be.

Don't screw up.

No pressure.

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Barking Alien

The Sky Had Fallen

In the post-game discussion following our D&D game on President's Day I told my pal 'D' how impressed I was with how he handled the opening. It was one of the best for a one shot I'd seen in a while. He told me (and I am extremely flattered by the idea) that it was actually inspired by a Sci-Fi game I ran many years ago that he was a part of. As he described the scenario, all the scenes started flooding into my mind in a series of images a la' the Intersect. It all came back to me. Well not all but certainly a good portion of it came back to me. He said it was his favorite single session of a game ever and when pressed to run something off the cuff he reached back, found that moment and it guided him forward (paraphrasing a bit).

Since I'm on a bit of a session report kick, here now is that adventure, told to you after it was told to me by my own memories and those of a good friend. 


Star Frontiers: The Sky is Falling.

On a distant frontier planet far from the core of galactic society, a mercenary company fights a losing battle with the native species who are determined to drive the alien invaders off their land. The PCs are the mercenary alien invaders, hired to track down a renegade U.I.A.* scientist who has set himself up as a medicine man and healer among the locals. He is wanted by Star Law, several Megacorporations and a number of Underworld figures for a rather unique virus he developed, the specifics of which were beyond the team's security clearance to know.

As the team of PCs fought their way through crowds of nearly fanatically devoted local followers toward the rogue doctor's hidden refuge, more and more of the natives started to attack, crawling out of nowhere it seemed. Some were hiding in the trees, some in disguised foxholes, etc. Surrounded, outnumbered and running low on ammo, power and other supplies, the PCs called in their orbital support vehicle, The Dark Sky.

The Dark Sky was a long range, Hyperwarp** capable ship about the size of a Star Trek Runabout or maybe just a tad bigger. 'D' called it in. His PC requested an immediate air lift for his team out of the combat zone. When he received no response he initially got suspicious and headed for slightly higher ground and called again. While all he received over his communicator was static, he could see the blue-black ship approaching in the cloudy, early morning sky. He immediately called to the unit commander to let him know, only to find the commander dead from several spear wounds.

'D' took command of the unit and had them all reconvene at the rendezvous point they had already agreed upon. Looking up, the group of mercenaries could see their guardian angel in midnight armor heading toward them...smoking. Smoke billowed from the rear of the craft as sparks and licks of flame jetted out from panels in the aft and port sides. The natives had given chase and we're now firing a hail of arrows at the PCs. Several of the characters were hit, one wounded badly, as 'D' focused on The Dark Sky's descent. Its flight path was a bit erratic. A stabilizer blew. No landing lights were on.






"CLEAR THE RENDEZVOUS POINT! GET AWAY! GO! GO!" 'D' screamed at his men and into his communicator. "The Sky is Falling! I repeat, The Sky is Falling!"

The PCs scrambled to safety as the ship crash landed directly where they had been standing to wait for it to land. Not everyone made it. The craft landed right on top of one poor fellow and several others were injured by flames and flying debris.






Terrified the natives ran for the valley and the forest nearby. The PCs waited for some of the flames and smoke to fade and then attempted to pry open the airlock and see if anyone had survived. 'D' and another player tried to salvage any power batteries, food, shelter or similar equipment. They lucked out with an intact suit of powered armor***(low end with limited batteries) and an astromech like robot*** in additional to a few of the essentials they needed. There were only two survivors from The Dark Sky itself. The medical officer and a technician.

From that point on it was about survival. Until they could get a communication unit powerful enough to send an interstellar signal up and running, they were trapped in the enemies backyard.

According to 'D', the way I had originally described the ship and its approach actually made him feel like they were going to be pulled out, have time to rest and think up a new plan, etc. There was, for him, an 'Oh S*#T!' moment that completely changed his attitude and set up a sense of urgency, not just for him and his team but for the poor blokes on The Dark Sky.

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Barking Alien


My Star Frontiers universe diverged somewhat from that of the game's canon background.

*United Interplanetary Alliance or U.I.A.

I am too much of a Star Trek fan to let the main government of Star Frontiers call itself the 'United Planetary Federation'.

**Hyperwarp

Borrowed from my Space Opera campaigns, the drive of my Star Frontiers universe is called Hyperwarp. Essentially a ship generates a force field bubble of subspace similar to Star Trek and this causes it shift into 'hyperspace' where it remains until reaching the coordinantes of its destination and turning off the bubble (which pops you back into real space).

***Technology

Some of the technology of my campaign differed from the standard game because I wanted a bit of an anime feel. As a result their were more and more varied robots and some really cool powered armor.

Executive Action

For the final chapter of our President's Day D&D adventure, my friend Shawn took over and immediately focused on the task at hand. He got himself organized, looked over the rulebook as a refresher, and even set it up in front of him like a screen.

Shawn is a bit more old school then the rest of us. 'D' and I teased him about it a bit, asking if he was comfortable and telling him it was going to be OK as we set him up with both a dungeon and a dragon. "Wouldn't want you to stray too far from your comfort zone", we snarked.

Shawn took it well and retorted that up until now we'd had it easy. Now a real man was in the driver's seat. We all laughed. Good times.

Anyway, for the most part Shawn delivered a pretty standard dungeon crawl with a few twists. As standard dungeon crawls go this one was damn good and that's coming from the guy who doesn't like standard dungeon crawls all that much. For one thing, getting into the dungeon required us to overcome this puzzle/riddle trap that either hurt you but good or let you in the dungeon. Shawn used some of the sinister sounding sing-song dialog of my Sod Dobbies as clues to answer the riddle and figure out how to get in. Thank goodness he and Wendy took notes. Ten minutes after delivering the dialog you couldn't pay me to remember what I'd said. I ad lib well but have to make a concentrated effort to track what I'm saying or I have trouble recalling it later.

Once inside we faced a series of traps, a group of orc like creatures and eventually more flaming zombies. The orc things were not orcs, I'm sure of that, but I'm not sure what they were. The creatures we encountered were Human sized but stooped over a bit, pale grey, hairless and afraid of bright light (like torches or a light spell). They were quite adept in the dark however. Anyone recognize this particular humanoid? They were nasty and we got hurt pretty bad. We ended up blowing our healing potions (we had two amongst the whole party) so as not to face the big baddy low on hit points.

Finally, we confronted the dragon/drake/demon creature in this room that I'm going to have difficulty describing. It was like a round peg had been slammed through the bottom of a square hole. You entered a large square shaped room and in the middle was a round pit that took up about 75-80% of the surface of the floor. The drop was about 15 ft. and was littered with treasure and bones. The dragon creature was down there performing some ritual, complete with a magic circle of sorts carved into the bottom of the pit.

The Scarlet Storm DracoDemon (sans Breath Weapon)

As the Paladin and I engaged the creature with the Ranger providing back up, the thief and the 'Holy Mage' tried to undo the circle and figure out what was going on. Unfortunately the beast was tough as nails and dished out a world of kick ass on the Pally and yours truly. At one point it even caught on to what the others were doing and nearly killed the Magic-User/Cleric (down to one hit point in a single attack!).

We discovered between bouts of getting our butts handed to us and a few lucky shots that the dragon creature was, in fact, THE BARON! He was transformed into this creature when his castle was decimated centries ago. It is the form of a demon who he made a deal with to obtain the Sceptre in the first place. He is cursed to remain in this form forever unless he can perform a magic ritual that sends the Sceptre back to the Abyss. My character actually offered to help him thinking it would get him back to normal and that dangerous magic item would be gone but the others thought it best to destroy the item. To that end, the Paladin rushes over to the Ranger and comes up with a plan. The Holy Mage will bless one of the Ranger's magic arrows, the Paladin will hold the creature or otherwise render it immobile and the Ranger will attack the Sceptre! The Thief had slipped into the shadows at this point and came up behind the creature intending to back stab it. It almost noticed her until I used an illusion spell to draw its attention toward me (really good bad move on my part I thought).

What followed was pretty sweet. The Paladin got in close and grappled Baron DracoDemon while the Thief backstabbed from behind with...a Natural 20! Super-duper double dipper damage on the backstab. Arrow away and a spell from the Holy Mage and the Sceptre was a thing of the past. It broke, releasing and then sucking back into itself a deluge of violet flame and electricity until finally exploding into a million pieces. What remained behind was the Baron's original human body, now hundreds of years old, which proceeded to crumble into dust.

In conclusion, no one died (though the Holy Mage and I can close a few times), the monster and the item were destroyed and peace one again reigned over the land.

A good time was had by all and I really hope these guys and I get a chance to run something together again sometime soon. I rather liked the round robin GMing within one game idea. It suits a one shot best but its a cool idea not matter how you slice it.

Questions and Comments Away!

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Barking Alien

Interim President

So continuing my tale from yesterday...that opening sequence by my pal 'D' was amazing. I was very impressed. I felt sorry for the sad sap who had to follow that opening act. I mean how do you top a burning ship, flaming zombies and a mystic sceptre wielding drake engulfed in an aura of lightning and fire? Yeah you'd have to be crazy to GM the group after that.

Wait...crap.

I decided the best thing to do with my part of the game was to not even try to one-up my buddy but instead go low key and focus on plot and investigation. We know what just happened. Now why did it happen?

I borrowed an idea I've used for many years but which I've had more at the forefront of my thinking since reading the game InSpectres by Memento Mori. Essentially, instead of creating a story or plot and having the PCs ask questions until they guess the 'right' answers (and having to drop clues if they don't see what I want them to see), I went with the idea of setting up certain events and ideas and letting the players questions and decisions actually establish what was happening.

So basically, now that I was DM my Gnome was an NPC. Established as a Bard of sorts (regardless of his actual class - loved that) I figured he knew a little something about the local lore. He described a legend he had heard as a youth that involved a rod of magical power similar to the one they had seen the dragon creature holding.

"The Sceptre of the Scarlet Storm was once the prized possession of a Baron who ruled these parts many generations ago. He would flaunt the power of his Sceptre, which could make lightning and fire, thunder and smoke and could carry him away on bolts from the sky. He invited nobles and merchants to witness his great and terrible magic and always noted he would never actually use such power on friends. As such he had many friends.

Finally the King of the time, wary and weary of the stories of the Baron and his Sceptre, paid the man a surprise visit. The King was accompanied by his wife the Queen and the loveliest of his daughters. So smitten was the Baron by the Princess's beauty that he showed off as never before. The storm he brew was so bright and terrible it destroyed his keep and him with it. The King and his family escaped but just barely."

That was all the Gnome knew. Soon the PCs were discussing and debating what they believed to be happening and eventually decided to interview the Merchant, the First Mate and the Merchant's assistant, the learned Young Woman. The players asked the usual questions as to what the Sceptre was doing on the boat, where had they obtained it, what were they going to do with it, etc.. They believed some answers and not others and soon painted a picture of what happened that they explained to me as the DM (kind of in reverse of what you'd normally experience in an RPG investigation).

The Merchant obtained the item in the market place of a far away nation for a fraction of what he thought it was worth. He showed it to his assistant, a young woman studying ancient art and artifacts as part of her journey to become a respected sage some day. The Merchant hoped she would evaluate the price they could get for the item but she recognized it as likely being the Sceptre of the Scarlet Storm. She recommended they buy it but bring it to the Duke or King of their land to keep it safe or dispose of it. The Merchant was none to happy with the idea but was convinced there would be a reward for bringing it in.

The Paladin's feeling was that the drake or dragon might well be a demon sent by the old Baron's restless spirit to retrieve the item. The Thief seemed to know of the ruin of a keep three days Northeast that may have been the Baron's home. When asked, my Gnome could not confirm this but said he did know there was a ruin there and that many travelers say its haunted. That was all the team needed to decide to head for the ruins in hopes of finding the beast and the stolen scepter.
 
On the way I threw in an un-random encounter (as my friend Shawn called it - "Watch out! Its one of Adam's un-random encounters. This isn't just some wandering monster. It might mean something." lol). Basically the PCs get a bit lost on the way to the ruins and discover the ground has been shifting beneath their feet. Eventually they discover SodDobbies (or Soddy Trow, as the Gnome called them), a cross between goblins and stray sod.

Another Adam signature move it seems; I sometimes create original monsters that sound like they could be from folklore but aren't exactly.

As the party battles the little bugaboos, the Ranger figures out a way to get his bearings using the road and the position of the Sun as guides. As more and more of the SodDobbies are defeated (driven off or slain), the easier it becomes to find the correct path. Eventually the creatures also drop hints and cryptic, rhyming clues as to how to get into the dungeon beneath the ruins so we'll stop beating the tar out of them. I guess it worked since we proceeded forward. We did manage to obtain a few faerie magic items and weapons to help us in our final battle however.

A battle I will describe tomorrow in the final chapter of 'The Sceptre of the Scarlet Storm'.

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Barking Alien

President's Day Celebration

A friend of mine who I haven't seen in a while was in town for the three day weekend, though I only found out today. Seems its been a while as he said he emailed me but it turned out to be an address I haven't used in ages. Since he was only back in New York for one more day he said we should get together and game. Just so happens I was free as most of my clients cancelled for the day.

We met up along with a mutual friend (who I also hadn't seen in a while but more recently as least) and popped over to my boy's cribe to hang with his posse'. Or something. I'm never sure I'm saying it right. The guys laugh when I talk street since I do it very rarely and only in the most proper, uptight, whitebread voice I can muster.

When I get there I'm introduced around to some friends and some family and I find myself wishing I could add a least one or two of these guys to my regular group. They were a cool bunch and 'D''s cousin is easy on the eyes in addition to being a good player (oops, was that my outloud blogging again? Think it don't write it, think it don't write it...). We'll see...

Immediately 'D' says, "Shit. I forgot to tell you to bring something. To bring a game." Apparently they wanted me to GM which was flattering but also surprising as he hadn't said anything about it before this. "All I got is D&D."

Heh...of course. That's my lot in life.

Lemons into Lemonade my friends.

I said, "How 'bout we all make up characters and take turns DMing. You start, I'll take over after say an hour or two and than you can finish up." The idea went over pretty well and my friend Shawn even worked out that he would take over for the finale. Three GMs. Roughly running two hours each (more or less). Crazy but cool.

The D&D my friend had was AD&D 1st with a whole mess of 2nd books. We basically played it as 1st but allowed for the possibility of players choosing spells, equipment, weapons, etc. from 2nd. That also let us GMs choose 1st or 2nd monsters though I went custom creation of course (more on that later). We didn't get crazy about race and class and the character's were made to be roughly 5th level (which incidentally can take too damn long to generate. I much prefer starting at 1st. Luckily 'D' kept everyone motivated.)

The PCs were...

A Human, Male, Paladin, Level 5 - played by my friend Damian aka 'D'.
A Human, Male, Ranger, Level 5 - played by JJ, 'D''s friend.
A Half-Elf, Male, Magic-User/Cleric, Levels 3/3 played by my friend Shawn.
A Half-Elf, Female, Thief, Level 5 played by 'D''s cousin Wendy.
A Gnome, Male, Fighter/Illusionist, Levels 3/3 played by yours truly.

Small group but still pretty cool.

'D' set up the premise...The group were all old friends who grew up together in a trading outpost town nestled between a river, a major trade route road and a forest. Half-Elves were common because the forest had a large Elven settlement. At the far western edge of the woods was a small Gnome village which is where I was from. I added that I was a travelling entertainer who sometimes went to the Elven and Human settlements to amuse the kids or brighten up a dreary work week.

Apparently, one Friday night while I was in town doing just that at the local tavern, a large boat came down the river, burning and cracking apart. As the townsfolk gathered at the pier to stare in horror or in some cases try to help, several people thought they saw a fiery beast of some kind inside the merchant ship. The ship crashed into the side of the riverbank and began to fall to pieces.

The PCs lept into action - The Paladin (being run as an NPC at this time) rushed over and tried to board the boat as did the Ranger. I organized a line of people with pails and water to try and douse the flames. The Magic-User/Cleric, or 'Holy Mage' as he called himself, prepared to receive the wounded survivors if there were any. Meanwhile the Thief played the crowd, asking for anything they could contribute to help with this emergency. "Please, we'll need blankets, coats, food, water...gold, furs...anything you can spare." She embelished her background story later and it was very cool. But first...

So finally the PCs are onboard and we manage to rescue the first mate, the merchant who owned the boat and a young woman who was described as looking like an 'artist, sage or other learned person.' Those crewmembers who burned to death rose up as these sort of Burning Zombies which was pretty cool and bad ass if you ask me. Don't know if 'D' got those from a book or made them up but they were freaking mean. Since they were undead and on fire the usual 'Fire vs. The Undead' idea was right out. We did discover that Holy Water was like Kryptonite to these things though and once we realized this we made short work of the nasty things.






Just as things were settling down we were told that our characters saw a flash of red-violet lightning and heard a growling laugh mixed into the crack of thunder that followed. Racing up and through the wreckage of the vessel we finally reached what remained of the main deck and saw a flaming, dragon-like shape about the size of a large dog or small pony climbing the mast. It was night time obviously, a bit hard to see, though lit by it own flames and crackling electricity we could tell it was carrying something. The creature raised the item in the air, some sort of sceptre, and then a bolt of lightning came out of the sky, hit the scepter and the creature disappeared in a brilliant flash.






Next Up...Part 2...My Part!...of 'The Sceptre of the Scarlet Storm'

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Barking Alien

I Have A Dream

Happy Birthday Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Barking Alien

Is it over?

Worst Xmas day in a long, long time.

Ended well but glad its over.

Please new year,

Don't stink.

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Barking Alien

Happy Food-Comes-Out-Of-The-Wall-Day!

While researching Earth cultures in an attempt to better understand us (ok, he was doing an internet search for the favorite foods of various countries so he could program the replicator to produce a greater variety of meals), Ambassador Barkley came across the United States of America festival of food known as 'Thanksgivng'.

While he initially believed it to be and I quote, "A celebration of a bird so delicious it is only killed and eaten on special occasions", I tried to explain the true significance of the holiday. See, Thanksgiving is a favorite holiday of my family and I. While we are well aware of its less than stellar origins, we appreciate a single day a year where we can share a tradition of telling each other what we're thankful for and why.

This year, like many before it, I am especially thankful for my family (small group though it is), my friends (who are like family), my dog Delilah (who, let's face it, is my kid) and the health of body and mind to enjoy the presence of these people (and yes, Delilah is included as 'people'). I'm also thankful for gaming as even with its ups and downs, it allows me to release my creativity and keep my sanity.

Barkley looked at me thoughtfully for some length of time until he finally said, "So you cook the food in the box on that wall and than eat it while watching large, male humans chase each other and through a ball on a box on that wall."

Sigh.

"Yes", I said, "that's what we do."

He nodded in understanding and took a huge bite out of a turkey leg.

"Cool. I'm thankful you let me share this ritual with you."

Ya'know. I think he gets it.

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Barking Alien

New Year Revolutions

As 2009 draws to an end (and some, including myself, would say "Thank goodness"), we look toward 2010 and consider our resolutions for the new year. I think for 2010 I'm going to try something different. Instead of resolving to do things within my grasp but rarely achieving the vast majority of it, I'm going to go for the gold star and resolve to do the unlikely if not impossible.

Resolution #1: Purchase the New Star Trek RPG

Yes, I know, there is no new Star Trek tabletop RPG. My thinking is that my resolution to buy one will make someone out there take notice and make one. There is going to be an MMO for Roddenberry's sake! C'mon!

Resolution #2: Run an ongoing Star Trek RPG campaign with my Dream Team group

This one is virtually impossible as my Dream Team consists of people whose schedules rarely coincide twice a year at best. Of all the resolutions here, this has the best chance of happening if only for a few months.

Resolution #3: Return to my High School Weight
My thinking here is that if I fail and make it only half way, I'll still be in the best shape I've been in since I was in my twenties.

Resolution #4: Meet the Perfect Woman

Seriously. I'm getting sick and tired of all the sex I'm having with imperfect women. Ha! Just wanted to make sure you were paying attention.

Resolution # 5: Be a Better Me

Perhaps the hardest of all and yet the most necessary. I've let myself get down in the dumps a bit this year to the point where its reduced the power of my forward momentum. Not stopped it mind you but I can tell I'm not going full-speed-ahead as it were. I need to shake out the cobwebs.

Ok, #4 and #5 I'm going to actually do.

2010 is looking better already.

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Barking Alien

A Very Merry Blorthog to You!

Unfamiliar with the Tamaranean Festival of Friendship? Well, perhaps you would enjoy a peaceful and solemn Kal Rekk. No? Surely you follow the happy traditions of Life Day?

Well whatever your beliefs, know that Adam and I, the one and only Ambassador Barkley, wish you and yours a time of love, peace and goodwill toward little, blue, furry things from Antares IV.

Y'know, I've even heard of some primitive species who celebrate this thing...curious.

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Barking Alien