Sunday, April 8, 2012

Customer Service


Here is an Easter Story for you.  Okay, honestly, it has nothing to do with Easter.  Sorry.  But enjoy all the same!

Ayalaya strode across the walkway with her bright blue burqua flowing behind her.  Attendants in orange and yellow dress followed behind her, trying to keep up.  There was a queue at the ticket counter, but Ayalaya shoved people aside with her blue gloved hands.

"May I help . . ." the chitinous alien with a bulbous, bright red nose said in a perfect Midwestern accent.  Its mandibles were deftly twisted into an creepy, yet serviceable smile.

"You people misplaced our boarding passes, and I demand recompense and rectification," Ayalaya slammed her fist down on the counter.

The alien agent's nose twitched.  "Of course.  If you will just move to the back of the line and wait your turn . . ."

Ayalaya's veil puffed outwards as she huffed.  "Do you not know who I am?"

The agent's nose rose an inch high, twitched, and settled back down.  "No, ma'am.  Please, there are customers. . ."

"What is with your nose?" Ayalaya pointed at it with a gloved hand.

"Ma'am, it is not a nose.  It is my reproductive organ.  If you will please go to . . ."

"What?" Ayalaya's voice echoed throughout the entire space terminal.  “I demand to speak to your manager immediately!”

A pencil thin, bright yellow, eight foot tall manager appeared from behind a door, its four arms sticking out of a neatly buttoned navy blue blazer.  The alien rubbed its hands together and created a huge elastic smile on its face.

“How may I . . . “

“This thing,” Ayala pointed at the agent, “has sexually assaulted me!”

“Oh . . .” the manager said, “I’m sure there has been some kind of mistake.  After all, the two of you are different species.”

Ayalaya gasped.  “How dare you doubt my word!  My wife is a high Imam in the Holy Order of Sapphic Islam!”  The angry woman shoved a stack of brochures off the counter onto the ground, and then stomped on them.  “My wife will have your jobs and own this rinky-dink little spaceline before the day is through!”

“Please, please,” the yellow alien said, “Please come around the corner to the VIP counter.  My superior is there and she will take care of your personally.”

Ayalaya huffed, “Fine then, but do not think your job is safe yet!”  She and her entourage headed off, disappearing around the corner.

The manager turned to the agent, whose nose was vibrating back and forth very quickly.  “I’m very unhappy with you, X’Tlaktl,” the manager hissed.

“I am very sorry, sir,” the ticket agent lowered his head, his nose still vibrating. “The human was yelling at me.”

“So?”

“It was very . . . stimulating.  It brought up my urge to . . . breed.”

The manger rolled his four eyes, “You are a complete pervert, X’Tlaktl.  Control yourself, or I shall make you wear a veil too.”

“I can’t help it, sir.”

“Think about it this way, X’Tlaktl.  What is under the blue cloth?”

“A human.”

“A human with skin.”

“Skin . . . oh,” the ticket agent’s nose deflated.  “How gross!”

“Exactly,” the manager huffed, turned, and rushed around the corner to deal with the irate customer and somehow save his job.

- Ark

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Vorpal Lapels


This is me, eagerly awaiting the publication of Dungeons and Dragons, which was a couple of months off at the time.  Okay, admittedly, I would have no idea what D&D was until about six years later, but still, I was ready to DM.  Just look at . . .

  1. Those pudgy little fingers, itching to roll d20s,
  2. Those buster browns, ready to stomp on the aspirations of all the PCs, 
  3. The vorpal lapels, sharpened to a keen edge and ready to decapitate players late for the game,
  4. The velour vest with a belt . . . um . . . dear god.  I know nothing about fashion, but even I know that such an outfit is tantamount to child abuse.  Seriously, Mother, what were you thinking?  

I just threw up in my mouth a little.  Please excuse me for a bit.

- Ark

Friday, April 6, 2012

OSR Elf Sketch

Here is a sketch of an OSR Elf I've been working on tonight.  I've been doing a lot of work on some drawing basics - with a lot of research on artsy type of stuff on subjects suggested by -C on my Red Sonja picture.  Thanks -C.  I think your advice is helping a bit. :)

- Ark

P. S. Why is she an OSR Elf?  Because hot elf chicks love the OSR.  Doncha remember? ;)

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Dungeonspiration: My RPG is Full of Stars

I've been running Stars Without Number for over half a year now, and so far, it's the best science fiction rpg that I've played.  What am I comparing it to?  Primarily the sci fi games I played in olden times; Star Frontiers, Spacemaster, GURPS: Space, Gama WorldShadowrun, FASA's Star Trek, and Traveller in its myriad of forms.  I could also throw in Star Wars Saga Edition, as I have ample experience with that game as well.

Why is it my favorite?  Well, mainly for what Stars Without Number is not.  It's not an attempt to lay down physics in game form.  It's not an attempt to weave an entire, pre-built universe.  It's not an attempt to create a rule for every conceivable situation.

Stars Without Number is, frankly, a stripped down old style D&D with a science fiction facade nailed up around it.  The game easily provides me the ability to project my view of science fiction to the players - assisted with simple game mechanics that I already enjoy.  There is nothing in the way of telling the story I want to tell.  Traveller was close, but I was really never fond of the rules.

My view of science fiction comes primarily from the stories I read as a child.  Of course, Star Trek was an influence as well, but I was already on the road to being well read in the science fiction realm before Star Wars came to smother the genre.  When I think of science fiction, my mind always drifts to stories such as these:

  • Issac Asimov - Foundation
  • Ray Bradbury - The Martian Chronicles
  • Arthur C. Clarke - 2001, Childhood's End, Rendezvous With Rama
  • Ursula K. Le Guin - The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed
  • Harry Harrison - Stainless Steel Rat, Deathworld
  • Robert Heinlein - Stranger In a Strange Land, Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
  • Frank Herbert - Dune
  • Larry Niven - Ringworld, Known Space stories,
  • Larry Niven and  Jerry Pournelle - The Mote in God's Eye, Lucifer's Hammer 
  • Fred Saberhagen - Berserker

That's the core of my science fiction, give or take some books that I've forgotten, and that's the feel I go for when running the game.  I make an effort to steer away from Star Wars and Star Trek.  They are too . . . pop-cultury for me.  It's that same attitude I get when I scream - 'Someone scrape the gosh-darn Tolkein out of D&D.  I can't take it any more!'

Interestingly, in my gaming group, I'm the greybeard.  They haven't had the same diet of science fiction that I've had.  They understand the concepts, but largely from a different source.  They understand FTL travel from Firefly.  They understand cybernetics form Deus Ex.  They understand the concept of a ringworld from Halo.  They understand uplift form Mass Effect.

It really hit me when I was helping a new player make a character.

Me: So we've got three classes.  Warriors.  That's a soldier dude, from swords to guns.  Expert.   That's someone who's good at something besides killing.  Doctors, Pilots, whatnot.  And then their is Psychics.  They have psychic powers.

New Player: (Confused look.)

Me: (Trying hard not to make a Star Wars reference.)  They do stuff with their minds.  Ummmm . .

New Player: (Still confused.)

Me: Like a Biotic in Mass Effect.

New Player: Oh!  That's kinda what I thought you meant.  Gotcha.

With great effort, I did not facepalm.  The new guard and old guard just have different words for thing sometimes.

And that brings the conversation around to Mass Effect series of games.  Rather than just being a game about killing alien invaders, it's a tour of a future chock-full of science fiction tropes from all of my favorite books.  It really carries the torch to a new audience.  Time and time again I find myself explaining concepts to the players couched in Mass Effect terms.  It's kind of a Rosetta Stone.

The ending of the Mass Effect trilogy was a let down for me.  I won't get into it much, but the issue wasn't what happened at the end, rather, how the story was told.  It was, frankly, just bad story telling, in my book.  But I highly recommend the other 99% of the franchise - especially to those old grognards who want to interact with the younguns in an old style science fiction game.

I'll leave you with some Mass Effect 3 concept art by Matt Rhodes.  Again, it's concept art, so it's not exactly what went into the game, but there are spoilers.  It's great stuff for getting in the mood for a Stars Without Numbers game.

Normandy Silent Running by Matt Rhodes

Rogue Sheppard by Matt Rhodes

Taking Back Normandy by Matt Rhodes
Red Hallway by Matt Rhodes

Illusive Office by Matt Rhodes

Presidium Hospital by Matt Rhodes

Crashed On Eden by Matt Rhodes

Enjoy, and go get all spacey.

- Ark

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Hello Weather

Still digging out from the oh so fun storms here this afternoon.  I saw softball size hail coming down.  I'm pretty sure I heard at least one tornado.  We had the longest, loudest hailstorm that I've ever been in - and that's saying something - I'm from Texas.  The garden is toast.  The trees are shaved.  It broke the barbecue grill.  My car is no longer what I'd call a 'car' anymore.  I guess I should get used to walking.  Not very fun, but at least we are all alive.



- Ark


Monday, April 2, 2012

Vayniris Anthology

Well, the three month extension of the six month deadline for submissions to the Vayniris Anthology Project has come and gone with no additional stories submitted.  The universe has spoken.  I'm closing the book, so to speak, on the project, and calling it quits.

I'd like to thank those who did submit stories from the bottom of my heart.  Some really awesome stuff there, and I'm very thrilled to have read such great work.  Alas, the number of stories submitted were just not enough to even begin to fill an anthology.  Thank you so much - and please feel free to re-purpose your wonderful stories elsewhere.

- Ark

Friday, March 30, 2012

Refrigerator Art

The boy has been busy illustrating our games, so it's time to hang some of the pictures on the virtual icebox here.

First up is from our Second Edition D&D game that Crazy-Ass Tim runs. The Boy's dwarf,  Luke Daggerbeard, is shown here fighting off a vicious ice dragon that was attacking our flying boat.  Luke landed the final blow that slew the beast:

Next up is the Star Without Numbers game that I run.  Sergeant Kevalt Laranzo, security chief of the Fat Tuesday, is below, pushing back wave after wave of the zombie-like Husks.  The Husks were headless corpses controlled by the Amazon Floral Hive Mind, who had it out for the party in a big way.  In the background sits a grav tank that the party appropriated from the deceased, zombified soldiers on the lonely jungle planet.  AR-50, the party's resident robot PC, mans the fifty cal on top of the tank:

And finally, we have some wish fulfillment.  Kevalt recently purchased a gravcycle, which one day he hope to fly out of the Fat Tuesday's loading ramp while descending onto a planet, rushing into combat like . . . like a Mechanized Valkyrie.  Hopefully, his wish will come true soon:

Enjoy!

- Ark