Monthly Archives: November 2020

WITNESS ME

I am once again licensed to drive. You have been warned.

Outside of that, I’m an exhausted and battered feeling wreck. My emotions are on edge and raw, my brain doctor has increased my dosage by half (45 milligrams up from 30) and although I think I’ve stumbled upon a combination of innersoles that make my feet hurt less, they’re in no way fully healed yet. I managed to badly burn my left middle finger about a week and a half ago, and to add insult to injury, it’s kept me from sword. Also, the special manuka honey band aids I’ve been wearing leave an aroma on my finger and have made me worry about whether that smell is honey or rotting flesh more than once.

As for those pesky emotions, in the past two days I’ve been moved to tears twice, the first by a TV show, the second a piece of music (from a TV show). I often wonder about people who aren’t moved by music, and how hollow their lives must be. Then I remember that it’s OK, because I’m sure there’s things they’re moved by, things that I’m not. Well, I hope they have things that do that for them, it’d be a bleak and cheerless life without them.

There’s also been a lot of ‘Looks at thing, thinks thing would be perfect to a #LARP, then remembers it’s 2020.’ Also, finding a cavalier hat I like in my size isn’t easy. So, I’ve got ideas for if/when Blackpowder and Bloodlines returns and a few “Hey, I could build a character around that piece of kit.” *sigh* Yes, I know games are running, but there’s nothing I’m keen on playing, for reasons I’ve discussed in previous entries. Tabletopgames will have to keep me busy and distracted for the time being.

Now, the pieces that have ripped my heart out. The music in question is Wander My Friends, from the 2000’s era Battlestar Galactica. I could attempt to talk about it, to try to explain why it makes me feel the way it does, to try to capture it’s essence, but it’s easier for me to just play it.

Beautiful isn’t it? I don’t understand a word of the Gaelic, but I almost don’t need to. I sometimes wonder if music holds too great a spell over me, but then I remember how much fun listening to Iron Maiden is and move on with my life. Also, if Netflix do go ahead with the Conan the Barbarian TV show they’re planning, I want Bear McCreary to score it.

As for the TV show: Avatar, The Last Airbender. Season 2, Episode 15, The Tales of Ba Sing Se. If you’ve not seen it, all you know is to brace yourself. If you have seen it, you’ll understand. *Cries again*

It’s not been all tears though. Some good news has happened. Niece, Age 12, has agreed to let me GM a game for her and some friends. I’m going back into my catalogue of games, to look for something special to me and that will work (hopefully) for them. It’ll likely be their first non D&D experience, so there’s some pressure there. What game of mine would work best for this? Three words come to mind – All For One…

It’s my first swashbuckler, and the first game I ran that felt like it really worked and that both players aand GM had equal amounts of fun. It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a decade since I ran it. I’m old. In any case, I’ll be hoping to take advantage of a lot of experience since then. Other changes include:
1: Making it an even split 50/50 male and female PC’s. My games have improved since making them less of a sausage fest, in both the stories I can tell, and the stories other people tell about them.
2: Also, because female musketeers are, let’s face it, one of the least historically inaccurate things about my games.
3: Trying to make things flow better. A large chunk of the middle of the module was ‘Ride somewhere, find some information, then ride back.’ At the very least, i want to make the ride back more dramatic.

I’m a bit nervous about it, as I want it to go well. Both in terms of helping to foster the next generation, and for wanting them to have fun. You know, typical GM problems.

That’s enough for tonight. Be seeing you.

By Crom, Ymir and Set!

So Netflix, I hear you’re preparing a Conan the Barbarian TV series. In news that will surprise no-one who knows me, I have thoughts about this.

First off, I bet you’re thinking something like “Oh yeah, I know Conan. I saw the first Arnie film back in the day. Big guy, wears a furry nappy, I know all I need to know.”

Right?

WRONG.

Discard everything you think you know. from any of the previous adaptions, whether that be the Arnie films, Jason Momoa’s far from bad but still not great 2011 movie or any of the TV adaptions, both animated and live action. For the purposes of starting afresh there’s only one thing worth keeping from previous adaptions and we’ll get to that later.

First, it seems you have the rights to the stories and not just the character. This is A Good Thing. Read them. All of them, yes even The Vale of Lost Women. (It’s OK, you can leave that one till last) Now, there’s something of a warning I have to give, and some context to. To put it bluntly, to modern eyes the stories can be pretty damn racist. Howard was writing these tales in early 1930’s Texas and while he grew less racist over time, he’s still pretty damn racist. So yes, by all means, please do file off that stuff.

“KNOW, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars—Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen- eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.”

The Nemedian Chronicles


They bound around Conan’s life, from his early days as a thief in Zamora, a barbarian youth newly arrived in civilized lands, to his later years as as King of Aquilonia, the mightiest kingdom in the west. The first of the Conan tales, The Phoenix on the Sword (Itself a rewrite of an unsold Kull tale, By this Axe I Rule!“) takes place while Conan is King of Aquilonia. The first thing we seem him doing is altering a map – this already strikes him as far from the monosyballic brute the stereotype see’s him as. Use this – we can see his enemies develop, drop hints at future stories and flesh out the gaps. Just don’t give us an origin story please – he’s a guy who wanders the world seeking adventure, a penniless thief and vagabond, who embarks on many a perilous adventure in search of fortune and glory, and winds up a wise and respected king of a nation.

I’ve long dreamed of seeing The Hour of the Dragon or Rogues in the House on screen, so please don’t take that hope away from me. Hell, you could get a season or two’s worth of episodes out of Dragon alone. There’s moments that are practically made for the screen – massive swirling battles, deadly intrigue and high adventure. There’s excerpts from these stories that don’t just raise the hairs on the back of my neck, they fire the blood in my veins and remind me I’m alive.

“I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom’s realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimer’s Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.”

Queen of the Black Coast.


We’ve spent a fair bit of time talking about the stories, but what of Conan himself? There’s a lot of misconceptions about the big guy. For starters, his parents weren’t murdered in front of him. Yes, he was born on a battlefield, but that’s where it stops. To my knowledge Howard never detailed his parents, though I’m sure I read somewhere in one of his letters that Conan did venture home briefly in his later years. The earlier tales show him as a youth, unused to civilized ways (The Tower of the Elephant is a prime example of this), and he evolves somewhat over the course of the stories, but he remains at heart, the same general character – ferocious, intelligent and not to be messed with. He can be a firm friend and ally, but get between him and something he wants, be that a woman or a priceless treasure, and he’ll cut you down with barely a second thought. Of course, if it comes down ot the woman or the treasure, he’ll go for the woman every time. He’s remarkably easy come, easy go in this regard – see The Black Stranger and Jewels of Gwahlur for examples of this.

But who will play him? I’m going to assume that you’re sticking with the bouncing between time periods approach, so you’ll need an actor who can convincingly play that. Conan’s people, the Cimmerians, are based on Irish/Celtic myth, so please don’t choose another Austrian. Furthermore, while he should have muscle and a lot of it, he doesn’t have the physique of a modern body builder. Think of him as closer to a heavyweight boxer. I don’t have an actor in mind, as there’s no-one who matches the Conan I see in my head when I read the stories. I’m hoping for an unknown myself.

Now remember when we talked earlier about the one thing that deserved to be kept from previous adaptions? Well, I can sum it up in three simple words: ANVIL OF CROM. It is generally acknowledged that Basil Poledouris’s score to Conan the Barbarian is damn near perfect and about the only thing Conan fans will agree on. I mean, just listen to it – there’s the opening booming of drums, Mako’s epic narration and then, it just blows the bloody doors off. It’s the sort of music that makes me want to stand on top of a windswept mountain holding a sword aloft, the sort of image you’d find airbrushed on vans back in the 70’s. To me it is perfect and I will not hear a bad word against it.

At the same time, I know whoever is composing the score will want to put their own spin on things, and I encourage that. I’m really looking forward to hearing what they do, but be aware whoever gets the ship will have some mighty big shoes to fill.

I think my passion for the material shows. I love this stuff, it means a hell of a lot to me, so believe me when I say this: please don’t screw this up. And you know, if you need a consultant, I work cheap. 🙂

Huh.

Hello there… (“General Kenobi.”)

Life has not… been wonderful of late. OK, it’s not been too bad, all things considered, but there’s certainly been a desire for distractions of late, given the state of the news. My feet continue to ache (planar facitis is a bastard of a thing) and while I’m trying to treat them, most nights I just get home and collapse. Some days they hurt more than others. I did make a long term decision as well! I’ve been recycling cans and bottles from work and the plan is to put that cash towards a rapier. Long term goal but it’s good to have them. Then comes the tricky decision, of what sort do I buy? Most of the training ones I’ve seen are cup hilt, but the swept hilt is my preferred style. Either way, I think I know what I’ll call her – Milady.

I’ve been re-reading The Cardinals Blades series by Pierre Pevel which can be summed up as Renaissance France, but with Dragons. Outside that, I got a bunch of books on Greek myth on the weekend and have been playing Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, or as I’ve been calling it This. Is. Spaaarrrrta!

That probably works better if you imagine Geoffrey Rush’s Captain Barbossa yelling it.

Anyhow, sailing around, murdering Spartans, seducing people and chatting with Herodotus is tremendous fun. It’s reminded me of wanting to LARP in the setting, but I want to LARP in a lot of settings. I mean, I get the same feeling whenever I watch Rome, but can you blame me?

In times of stress, ask yourself, what would Titus Pullo do?

As with many of my ideas, it’s little more than a vague interest, as opposed to actual plans. We all know that’s how I roll. But what I am set on is wanting to play something that’s not set in something resembling medieval Europe. Something resembling Renaissance Europe may not seem like much of a change, but it’s a start. Baby steps. I just want something different than the regular cliches, you know? I want Orcs that aren’t barbarians, cultures that aren’t based on 19th century racism, and overall, something different. I have trouble articulating exactly what I’m after, but I think I know what I don’t want, if that makes sense.

Articles like this and this were a good start, but it’s the rewrite of The Three Musketeers I helped kickstart that really did something to me. An easy way would have been to change a few peoples genders and keep things as is otherwise. Nope. The updates have gone into why the changes have been made and opened my eyes a bit. I’m a white guy from Sydney, Australia, there’s a lot of other perspectives I miss. It’s good to see from other eyes.

I love the old cliches – fur clad barbarians, noble knights etc. I bloody love REH’s work, but I’m also the first to acknowledge that he’s problematic as fuck. I’m not advocating destroying everything and starting anew, I’m not attacking your favorite game or claiming this is the “One True Way” to run games from now on. What you do in your games is between you and your players and I hope you’re all enjoying themselves.

But it’s had me thinking about my past work and potential future work, and how I can make that more inclusive and welcoming. I’ve been trying to write my con games with a 50/50 male female split and that’s had an immediate effect, I like to think a good one. And I want to keep going with that. Sure, virtually everyone I LARP with it a white person, but the more options we include and inclusive we are, surely the better things will be?

There is, however, the potential for a swashbuckling game to happen soon and I am ALL FOR THIS. I need escapism in my games, especially now, and that style of event also plays in to my knack for choosing characters based on costume rather than anything else. I just want to dress up and look fancy, is that a crime?

#bucketlist

Getting back to the Musketeers ideas, The Cardinals Blades has had me pondering campaign/adventure ideas. So, you’ve the traditional rivalry between the Musketeers and the Cardinals Guards. Add to that the tension between France and Spain, along with the threat of the Black Claw, a secret society bent on ensuring the rule of Dragons. That group has it’s own issues though, with tension between the Spanish and French chapters. That’s a solid start for tensions and intrigue.

I mean, with that we’ve got the possibility for intercepting secret letters, discovering friends and lovers are cultists, desperate struggles against impossible odds and dark ceremonies lit only by moonlight and strange black candles, burning with a weird green flame… I mean, what good is cultists having a ceremony if players aren’t there to burst in dramatically?

As to what’s next? I don’t know. I mean, regardless of interest I’m likely to keep writing this stuff. It’s a much needed creative outlet. But if you’d like to join in the fun and potentially turn this into something?