Under the Sea with Han-Yi

Regarding recent events in the Middle Kingdom...

Another bad poem by Han-Yi Srotāpanna

Mister Ba Lee, a southern gentleman

Rides a swift boat, us to pursue

Armed with a harquebus

We meet in a storm, screaming words

A strait shooter, clearly untrustworthy

The typhoon grows, we hurl into the deep

Lashing winds upset our vessel

I cry out to Budha

Great Budha is not wanted here 

Down we fall, into Mazu's open maw

Once Upon pontificates sailor's grit

"Take me home", says a windy voice

I hold a waking pearl

We dive beneath devouring waves

A spherical world, placid green stillness

Ghosts of the ocean, a fortress of brass

Warfare under the tossing storm

Trolls of the Rising Sun

Pirates fear only burning brands

Air in our bubble births strange combustion

A balance is upset by our coming

Twelve against five is even odds

Flames chase the fleeing five

Inquisitor's bow looses doom

Once Upon bids one return to perish

A pact with pale strangers leads to riches

Imports from the far fabled West

Once Upon makes new friends

Guns, Silks, and Gold flow to the depths

Laudanum and glass trinkets climb sunward

Above the storm howls bidding us onward

The false oxen open the doors

Synergistic stealth wins

Five pilgrims stand at Your Mom's gates

Prayers and incense, command the coming flood

The weight of the world in a grain of rice

Mister Lee fetches the toy boat

One lifts what twelve could not

Rising waters carry her home

Two pedestals, far apart, look alike

A river dragons follows ladies' pearls

The statue is larger by far

Friends crushed beneath her feat

A flat plate of brass is her throne

What Once Upon asks, his lady giveth

Another god meets with the stream-winner

Foreigners guard her temple now

Mazu's priest, now our fence

Bandits arrive to greet their king

Sunny skies and fruit, The people rejoice

What burial awaits the bandit king

His hat lies buried in the bay

Who killed the son of Pearls

Many questions yet to answer

Four treasures we need to win an empire..

Flashbacks: Ourevel: Part 4

Yet another vignette concerning the nature and life of Ourevel the Lustful:

Hope:

And in his deep introspection, Love felt an echo of divinity. A resonance. A feeling of hope, and the faintest scent of apples. The wind stirred, a breeze through apple trees, and then there was the faintest whisper, "Sister..."

Catching the familiar scent of the lustrous fruit, from recent rebirths, from an age long past, from a time yet to come, Love knew a kindred spirit. "Hope? Freedom? By what name may I know you sister? My darker-eyed brothers tell me there must be a gathering soon. Will we see you there?"

"I am the Fourth. The Creator, the Sustainer, and you, my dear Sisters and Brothers, have long held the balance. Now all three are tinged with despair. Every path leads to destruction, to the end of things. But I am Hope, the ash of Worlds. And when I am released, the world must end."

____________________________________________________________

An Old Flame:

Wind, the taste of apples, the smell of the hellfire cannons as the Les Majesté rockets across the sky. Lust smiles as she sits on the prow, thinking of the coming revelries among the high and mighty of the world, as Love looks forlornly at the fallen ships of their gnome pursuers, pondering another lost in time. Suzette. That one meant more to his last life than any other save his mother and sister. Where could she be now? Sipping wine in her manse in the arms of some fur covered rake? Running the woodlands on all fours in search of a stag? Reclining further he lets his mind wander out over the planes reaching for her...

Ourevel apeared to Suzette Malveaux in her bed-chambers much as he always had, save for the lack of physical form: a little flamboyant, a little coy, and a lot under-dressed. With a sweeping bow that sent a plume of apple blossoms scattering across the floor, Love presented himself to his lady and then took a relaxed, if weightless, seat at the foot of her bed. "M'lady, I've missed you, but I come bearing news." 

A ring of fire appears hovering over his left hand. "Of course you know by now that we have slain the false god Tzaluth. All the children of the First Betrayer will know this of course." A second ring in the form of a snake devouring it's tail appears over his right hand. "Some of my companions are a little frightened though, for we have been summoned before the great Council, supposedly to stand trial for upsetting the balance, creating a void of order and an excess of chaos in the world as it were."

A third ring appears in the air over his hands, this one composed of seven apple blossoms, intertwining with the other two. "Neither my friends nor the council have any idea of the true extent of this imbalance. I wonder...how many of the old believers, do you think, could find solace in the embrace of a new god?"

____________________________________________________________

The Distant Past:

A warm wind blew through the halls of House Ahashtyn, bearing the smells of death as it usually did these days. Despite the sound of the summoning bells, Lust did not hurry, his mother would wait for him, she always did, and the thought of the annoyance on the others' faces pleased him. Strolling through the halls, he bit deeply into one of the apples he carried. His mission had been more than successful and his mother would not miss just one of the luscious fruits. "Besides," he thought, "she only really needed the white ones..."

The sweet taste of the brilliant red fruit filled his mouth and clouded his mind for a brief moment. Images of ruby-red throne, of a bawling child of the servitor races bearing a flaming sword, and of his own broken corpse lying at the base of tree he so recently had departed filled his vision briefly. Shaking his head, Lust looked down at the apple and devoured it hungrily, seeds and all, not knowing why, before rushing on towards House Ahashtyn's audience chambers.

Striding in, the scent of apples filling all of his senses, Lust bowed low before Betrayal, his mother. "My Lady, I have here the fruit of the trees of Life and Death." Standing he looked at all those gathered, all the scions of his phratry, those privy to their plans, those souls that could not be bound in this world: his sisters, Pride, Discord, and Deceit, his brothers, Gluttony, Wrath, Greed, Sloth, and Envy. "Mother, if I may? Brothers and sisters, it is time for us to undergo the ritual that is so oft prepared for our servants. We will go to sleep in the temple of the House and awake when this trivial conflict with Targos is over. We have the Seeds of Creation and Destruction, when we awake we will unmake Arva and rule as gods!"

...

As the scions of House Ahashtyn make their way to the temple that had been prepared for them, Deceit and Discord glide up beside lust, sliding their hands about his waste. "Brother," the twins speak in unison, "you know you will forget all your grand schemes when you go into this sleep mother has prepared for you. We know you love mother, but have you not thought about this? She is not undergoing the ritual. Do you really think that we will be the ones who rule once Betrayal has destroyed the world?"

Nibbling on Discord's ear as they walk, barely paying attention, Lust finally realizes what the twins are saying. "I sometimes forget our mother's nature, sweet sisters, but I can no more trust words from the two of you. It is best that we all stick to the plan we have formed and trust in the bonds of common desire." He clutches playfully at Deceit's breast as they enter the ritual chamber and gaze at the sarcophagi waiting for them. "Still, perhaps it is best if a few of us do not go into Exile. That is what you are asking, correct? Mother will not be pleased, but the pair of you are a more sweet and subtle by far than the rest of us. You might do well to find a place with what remains of the People and wait for our awakening. We may need a reminder of our former life and cause when the ritual has been completed."

Slow Week(s) for Gaming

Okay, I think I have resigned myself to these updates being bi-weekly or monthly, I find these helpful (for myself), but have plenty of other things to write about (clearly), so this will keep coming, but infrequently.

So, last weekend was Gen Con, which, as a severe introvert, I will never attend. Seriously, how can anyone stand to be in a place with that many people in close proximity? A side-effect of this, of course, is that all of the non-agoraphobic gamers I know were in Indianapolis, and thus not here to game with. It didn't stop the rest of us from playing, of course...

Recommended Blog Reading:

There has, of course, been a lot of coverage about Gen Con and the 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons, but there is so much of it, I hardly have the time to sift through the cruft for useful posts, so I will leave that to you. One blog post, completely unrelated to either of those topics, did jump out at me recently, so I'll leave you with that.

Witches, Warlocks, and Deal-making:
M. Diaz, over on Gloomtrain, made an interesting post about deals made by warlocks, as translated into random tables. My reasons for liking this are (1) it more random tables are always useful, even if repurposed for something completely different, and (2) it reminds me of an idea I had many years ago regarding "witches" (same thing as a warlock right?) and their need to make contracts. It's an interesting concept which I feel like I should revisit at some point. Gloomtrain has a number of other useful gems hiding in his posts (especially if you play LotFP). You should check it out if its not already in your feed.


On the Evolutionary Importance of Play
Next Nature, which is among my favorite non-gaming-specific blogs, posted this interesting analysis of the importance of "fun" throughout the animal kingdom and why scientists who study play in animals are sadly never taken seriously. While the overall concept is relevant to avid gamers, one thought from this could have truly epic impact on how one designs game-world cosmologies:

"If one wants a consistently materialist explanation of the world—that is, if one does not wish to treat the mind as some supernatural entity imposed on the material world, but rather as simply a more complex organization of processes that are already going on, at every level of material reality—then it makes sense that something at least a little like intentionality, something at least a little like experience, something at least a little like freedom, would have to exist on every level of physical reality as well."

What I've Been Playing:

One Group, Much Chaos
Last time, I wrote about the many strange games that my regular Sunday group has had running in tandem. Even without Gen Con, the last month has been chaotic, as summer is wont to be, and this group has been all over the place. I missed once due to some traveling and home renovation (laying new hardwood floors in my living room). The next week I was forced to wax poetic about the death of fellow PC. The following week no one else showed up, so I went to see Guardians of the Galaxy instead (good movie, but I'm not here to write about movies, so I'll leave it at that).

This past week, we got running again, but our primary GM for the last couple of months is off on his way to Princeton Theological Seminary to pursue his MDiv, leaving yet another game dangling. So, we put it to a vote, threw out the two that I was sick of running, and spun up a new party running in my Ruins of Adventure setting (this makes party #3, one PbM, one G+, and now a face-to-face game). You should be seeing some snippets of their adventures soon.

Gen Con Losses:
My "Bitter Blades" G+ group finally finished their forays to Thorn Island this month. Since then, though, they've been mostly MIA, with half the group going to Gen Con, and the rest scattering to other conventions and events (a few will be out this weekend for OSRCon Toronto as well), so we have not played since. There have been some intermittent posts concerning recruiting a new PC, dividing up loot, and planning for their next adventure, but being down a game for three weeks has me, well, down. The further adventures of this group will be updated once we get running again.

Playing by Email:
The third (or first) Ruins of Adventure party continues to press onwards to Melvaunt. Earlier this month they laid waist to a band of raiding kobolds, since then things have slowed down and they have been experimenting with democracy (which is a horrible way for small groups to make decisions).

Hopefully everyone will be back to more standardized schedules, and thus more standardized gaming, now that the new school year has started.