This was my 2nd attempt

The Last Leg
© 2008 CW Kelson III (Tad)


Thirty five hundred feet of steel, copper, plastic, canvas and majesty pulled into the busy and hectic harbor on the morning tide. The pilot had gone out, in the slight chop, to embark and lead the lady to rest at her accustomed berth. The deck crew had done their accustomed tasks, mostly hidden below decks working the mechanical winches, hoists, pulleys, and capstans to send forth the mooring lines, making fast the mighty anchor not needed once again. With it made fast they could start the daily tasks of cleaning the spaces, checking the chain links for microscopic imperfections, which could impair the efficiency and safety rating of them come any surprise inspections conducted by the United States Coast Guard.

The old terms and ratings were pretty much a thing of the past. The boiler tenders, coal shovelers, line handlers, pursers, able seamen, officers, cleaning staff, kitchen help, and the other myriad of professional and untrained staff that made the older ships the darling creations that they were have given way to computer controls, RFIDs, bar code scanners, PLCs, and programmers for many of the more ordinary of tasks. There are still many ships crew on every vessel. Someone to cook, to fold towels, to run the laundries, serve the alcoholic beverages, sing in the many lounges and clean up after the vacationing and spoiled that dot and populate the average attendee to a cruise.

There are the long-term residents. Those that have figured out that a life on a large vessel is actually less of a burden than living on their own, maintaining houses, paying rents, and the many other minutia details of the modern consumerism life. 
These are the eternal wanderers, those that rarely leave the ship. Instead finding solace in constant magnificence of the sunrises and sunsets of the wide open ocean or the far corner of the seven seas. These are the true denizens, change much less often than the contract employees the line employed to reduce the cost of paying benefits, a constant training and turnover, always a headhunter looking for someone coming off a cruise to sign on from another line, all the better if they are a careerist that paid their own medical costs while ashore and with only minor discomforts while on the job.

This is the merest snippet of the life on the oceans. Long nights cleaning and preparing for the next day of schedule fun and activities for the paying customers. Each and everyone of the constant influx and outflow of spray tanned wannabes and over wrought wage slaves deluding themselves that a week, or even a three night four day . The beauty staff all worked full days, a constant movement of worn out and tired people getting the most professional care possible in attempting to undo the damage of years of life in the fast lane, deluding themselves into thinking it would be enough. Tired mothers away from their homes, kinds, work, schedules and commitments. Executives and ladder climbers, hoping the latest peel and skin treatment will take away the specter of melanoma that lurks on every golf course across the globe.

Down in the bowels of the vessel, a different sort of celebration was taking place. This ship was so large, so old, so updated and yet so archaic as to have a multitude of secret and hidden locations. Once used passages had somehow been obscured, covered over, re-purposed into storage or just plain forgotten. The plans had been altered so many times, there could not be a single set of drawings that would correspond to any semblance of the reality of the ship. This makes it an anachronism among her kind. Most are all mathematically precise and drawn down to the closest inch possible, all CADD and straight lines as well as the most economical in practice for construction.

Now there are hide away places, caches, secret locations, as well as unused pipes, sealed away voids and forgotten closets that have begun to form an interconnected series of paths and walking locations. Prime locations for stowaways, for lost children to wander into and to emerge into a world all of its self.
 
There are spots that seem to have come from another time, a different age, it is almost a separate frame of mind in a literal and figurative sense. This is the way it has evolved on this ancient queen of the high seas. An amalgam of styles and substances carried across salt water. Always aging in a most graceful fashion and manner.

The stokers that used to live down here, are nothing but memories and ghosts now. Haunting the places they rarely got to see, due to their station in life and the work they did. Shoveling coal for many hours a day, back breaking work for little more than a place to sleep and food and thin beer to drink in recompense. Backbreaking work in some cases, more than one of them dying for the work, breaking spirits that carried over into the thin afterlife trapped on the ship that killed them, even after many overhauls that removed the coal fueled boilers and replaced them. Replaced them with sleek and gleaming gas turbine engines, driving the massive ship faster than her creators and architects ever dreamt was possible for any land bound vessel, never the mind one that sails the deep blue.



 

Tags: Fiction Writing Nanowrimo Tribes

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I crashed and burned hard on NaNoWriMo 08 this year

Started 2 different ones

Here is the first in its entirety.

Mind Mapped
© 2008 CW Kelson III (Tad)
NaNoWriMo 2008



HVee took his time walking along the corridors that linked the various elements of DeepHell19. His thick armored boots matching the coat and sidearm. Heavy black synthetics had not been the rage for well over a hundred turns of the ancient homeworld. Still it suited his sense of self well enough, additionally protection and comfort, worn in and warm or cool as desired, were selling features for the man.

Dark craggy features, almost classical human in tone, light complexion barely touched by the light of different suns.


A small, smaller than average man, stood at the ancient and monolithic terminal. He stared at it in slight befuddlement. The knobs, gears, switches, and connections are all foreign to those versed in the latest in visual interfaces. The man stares, pulls some flimsy documentation from an inner fold of his ancient clothing, discards that predate his birth it might appear, before bending to the task he has in front of him.

HVee wandered the station in a rather mindless fashion. Head poking in various shops and stores. Looking for something, or someone, that he cannot seem to find at all.

The slender young man was finally done with his searches and queries. Neither really worried nor concerned to how it appeared, reams of printouts littering the floor while his search continued, eventually he seemed satisfied and gathered up the documents he seemed to have generated.

The rust stained walls dripping with condensation and mold outgrowth lending to the overall sense of  decay to the structure he has found himself in. Still from the look on his face it was a fruitful venture coming to this place. Judging from the stack of docs it might turn a profit, or lead to something somewhere.

His outfit flowed around, moving in some ZPE wind that was not felt, making it move and ripple in a fashion reminiscent of winds on the surface of a planet. Thick black boots made of vulcanized metals, hefty long jacket adorned with dull brass rounded studded buttons up and down along the entire synthetic based adornment. A shirt with no sleeves nor collar in a shade of color a dark brown, like the favored drink of deep spacers made of the descendents of the noble café bean from the old lands.

No obvious weapon was riding on his hip. No one can be totally certain. Thin lips, thin ears and lobes, wide set eyes nearly the same shade as his shirt, a complexion that had never been on the surface of a planet and a look that was younger than you would think he might be.

An overall effect of youth coupled with a sense of travel and the deeper portions of space instead of the nearer and inner worlds, that most travelers show evidence of.
He moved through the empty halls and corridors, slowly making towards the inner sections of the habitat. It is large enough, DeepHell19, to have a steady gravity feel due to rotation except in the most innermost sections


There are tons of different species here on DeepHell19. From dark skinned humanoids, distant star human variants, to truly alien species, ones not of the Mankind Stock, as well as non-living entities as well. Robots, A.I.s, sentient and ambulatory rock things, among so many others.
 


 

Tags: Fiction Sf Writing Nanowrimo Tribe

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Tags: Weredragon Magazine Writing Rant Ezine D20 Ogl

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The first night passes

“Lay down some fire over there to the left, hose it good, before we charge the house!”
“Lay down some fire over there to the left, hose it good, before we charge the house!”
“Lay down some fire over there to the left, hose it good, before we charge the house!”
“Lay down some fire over there to the left, hose it good, before we charge the house!”
“Lay down some fire over there to the left, hose it good, before we charge the house!”

Over and over in my dream I hear myself screaming that out, and staring around at the men all about me standing dumbfounded in shock at the changes in the London landscape. Everywhere in my dream, a nightmare in particular, everywhere there are corpses of people, animals, as well as other things strange and not within my understanding of biology at all.


I wake with a start, sweat running off my body, a terrible thirst consuming my throat, thick and dry as the heart of summer can get across the channel over in Northern Africa.
This is not one of the best rests I have had in the course of my entire life. Even at the height of the shelling in the great conflict, I slept better; mud, pain, wounds, dying friends, and the horror of sleeping in my mask; with all that I slept better than I just was.

“Men we should be home with our families and loved ones.”
The grunts and groans around me confirms what I suspected, no one was resting this night.

Time to walk about a little bit, check on the sentries, see what the night has held for the city, and if there is any news to be garnered in any fashion.

Rifle, revolver, helmet, mask with me, the rest of my kit can lie there for all the need I have for it with this task at hand. Outside the sky above was clouded, neither stars nor the moon is to be seen in the sky at all. I am not sure of what the phase of the moon should even be; it could be the dark period for all I know. Still there is a slight red glow, as from large fires, over towards the centre of the city. That is the direction we shall be heading in come the rise of the sun. So we should be able to get some information about what is causing it, likely to our detriment as well.

I walk around the short perimeter we have established. Ascertain that there were no breaches, no intrusions, nothing that would have warranted the sentries to disturb anyone’s rest. I think I shall stay up for a while, to see how slow it truly is here outside on the street.  I instruct the men that I shall be wandering around for a while, to make sure they are certain of their target before opening fire, I would truly not wish to be a casualty due to a comrade’s skilful aim. They assure me that it shall not occur and I move out a ways from the building we are in.

I intend to survey a few streets, see if we did make the best choice, see if there is anything moving at night as I fear there is, or not at all. I feel in my heart and my gut that it will be safe enough; we had only the single real encounter, all the rest were Londoners. I am amazed that there is such little opposition. Perhaps the others in our force have drawn all the attention away, leaving my small band of irregulars comparatively safe. This I both hope is true and I dread that it is, I would not wish a death to any of my fellow countrymen.

The stars just are not making it past the clouds, and there is an acrid taste to the air, like the burning of gasoline and rubber tyres in a pyre, about bringing up my reflex to empty my poor stomach. After I don my mask, with hearing and sight obscured, the odour abates a great deal; the filters are working at the least to aid in this. But a new undertone of freshly spaded dirt, mixed with the reek of the compost pile is drawing me to a side street that it is emanating from.

The closer I get to the entrance, the more there is the smell of the slaughter that begins to override the other smells. It is a smell I am acquainted with, indeed the entire company; it is like the insides of a man or a pig. Both of which are disturbingly similar after death has claimed them both, and leading me to wonder if this is an invasion or a harvesting. Either way, we will do as we always have done, stand fast, hold the line, and endure with our dying breath. This is the heritage our history has shown to be the proper way for gentlemen.

As I inch my way into the alley or cross street I can feel the stones are disturbed, torn up from the street by some upheaval. Making for a most treacherous footing it is. Time is not now to fall flat on my face; I suspect it would make a widow of my distant wife. The rifle is ready, heavy and growing slick with moisture the farther towards the growing hideous stench ahead of me. With no light it is almost impossible to move much closer. I will not find out what lies at the heart of this mystery till morning breaks and I lead the men over here to scout this proper.

With regret I halt and move gently, slowly, backwards, never finding what I was searching for. An omen if I were a superstitious man, best not to tell some of the lads what I am feeling, they are a little queer about such thoughts and it could easily soften their resolve. But the farther back I move, the less the smell is there, decreasing faster than it had increased, and not a breeze to be felt on the small hairs of my neck in the slightest.

Back out of there I still keep an eye as I head down a few more streets before I will loops back about to the shelter, nothing to be heard, no signs of distant struggles and no distant echoes of the guns back at the line around the city. I just think we are too far in to hear the reports, and being separated from any other unit we are alone in sight, hearing, and mind.


 

Tags: Fiction Horror

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Several Hours Later

“Lay down some fire over there to the left, hose it good, before we charge the house.”

We are a good Imperial Mile to two Miles into the city ruins, well past the front lines. No armour is left with us, the tanks made it as far as they could without getting stuck in the damage. They did say if we get close enough to the Thames and the waterfronts that the Royal Navy might be able to lend a hand. Not sure how to tell them where to lend that hand at. All around there are lots of lines ripped up; we have seen where fire swept entire streets into inferno. The damage will take years to recover from.

There are curst few survivors so far, some half starved wretches, a few children, not too many corpses though. That was pretty worrying at the start. Not a lot of incoming fire either, the bombardment must have driven them off well enough. Not too many casualties, which is even better.

The father into the city the odder it all is becoming.

“Smith, take three with you, scout that building to the right, part way down, rest take sight, cover the street.”

The Sergeant was one of the first causalities, by enemy fire even. Something all white like a mushroom suddenly found under a rotted log exposed to light for the first time, all pallid white and bloated in shape snaked out from around a corner. It moved too fast to be avoided, taking the poor man straight in the throat. Not a sound came out of him and then it just pulled back sharply, like setting a hook in a fish’s mouth, jerked him clean off is feet and kicking and scrabbling around the brick building corner. We that saw it dashed up to help him once our wits were regained, a few moments at the most.

We pelted around that corner and one of the enemy was there. That is the only thing you could call it, the enemy. It was all the same colour as the tentacle like thing that came out of a long thick pipe, which was the colour of a piece of bronze left too long out in the rain, all a shade of festering green with black shot through it. The thing holding the pipe, reeling in the poor Sergeant, stood a good half again as the tallest man I had ever seen, the mushroom shade, thick slabs of arms and legs naked on this battlefield. The chest was hideous with scars and open running sores and wounds, while the head was the worst thing of all. My eyes took it all in, and I froze, as God and Queen as my witnesses, it was the most horrid thing I had seen. Not even the horrors of the last war matched this thing. My eyes were locked while the bile rose and forced its way out of my mouth and still my eyes were locked. I heard the others retching as well and the noise covered the death of the poor Sergeant.

We stood there for long moments until a shell fortuitously impacted on the building across the rubble strewn way, behind the monstrosity, and that shook us out of the Mesmer we had fallen into. Our weapons came up and we all opened fire almost simultaneously, every round impacting in the bulk of the thing that had killed our compatriot.

It was near to explode from the force of weapons fire poured into it, as several grenades were also launched with skill from several arms at the same time, as we stumbled back from the handiwork and barely made it the few feet around the corner into effective cover before the other detonations occurred.

When the dust settled we went back around, rifles and revolvers at the ready, to take stock. Both were dead over there, but the blood from the enemy was not the right shade. It was too pale, too close to infection leading to gangrene in consistency, too pale as if it was not really blood.

“Well the next one becomes the prisoner right lads?” I half joke, but only half.

“Sure, you are in charge, orders Sir?” Little Thomas pipes up.

“Reloads, top off, swig of water for me to rinse this taste out, then onward looking for survivor. Not that I hold much hope for any.”

I muster as bravely as I can, with most of my courage since it lies at home with my wife and children, where it belongs. But now I must find more, to bring as many men back to our lines as possible as well.

“You, take point, keep your eyes peeled, might as well stay closer to the centre of the way, and avoid the corners. Form up, move out.”

As we move out on the mission, I cannot recall exactly what the head looked like, save that it was horrid and the very sight of it stole away a part of my life and memory in a scalding and painful fashion. My head ached with a dull throbbing from the imprint of that thing we killed. I hope we do not meet many more, that it is a singular thing, and not the equivalent of an infantry man in their forcers. So help us, if that be the case we will need quite a few more men and a whole lot more grenades than we can carry.


So the father into the city the odder it all is becoming.

“Smith, take three with you, scout that building to the right, part way down, rest take sight, cover the street.”

We move up in formation, taking a few moments at each doorway to check inside real quick for survivors. Always alert for more attacks like the last one. The ground is getting worse; there are already vines and climbers starting to cover the buildings, much faster than I would have dreamt possible. Maybe some learned man can decipher it all later on. Right now we move onward. The sky is darkening as we move inward towards the government buildings and their like.

Not a lot of opposition so far. This is worrying, beside that thing we killed, not a lot to shoot at. I fear that something more will happen all too soon. Especially with the fall of night coming and I am not so sure we could regain the lines before it comes fully on. Looks like it will be a night spent in enemy territory once more. Never felt good about that, not then, not now, even if the signs are in the language of my countrymen.

Come to think of it, not a lot of shelling has been going on. I knew they would hold off, but nothing now at all. Did they have so few that we broke their back, are they cowards before a foe that fights back? Or is there nothing to be shot at, or worse, did they overrun our lines as happened to my company during the war, when all we could do was run and run towards where we thought our other lines were at. That was a nightmare of shells, mustard gas, flares, and bullets from both in front and behind us as we ran till our lungs burnt with the effort. But that was years ago, and this place is evoking the same terror in me as the sun slowly starts to sink there behind us, telling me we are still moving deeper into the city.

“Men, we are not going to wait, time to hole up for the night, let scout a good spot, defensible, and make our camp for the night.” They all look at me like I have lost my mind. I just point towards the west, “The sun is setting, even if there is nothing close right now, I don’t trust the dark in London tonight. Besides we cannot make it all the way back, and I for one do not want to stumble around in the dark.” It makes sense, they all nod and start fanning out on the street, cannot tell the name, that we are on.

I watch them fan out, keeping an eye out on what rooftops and open windows remain. Were this a more normal situation I would worry about snipers and their ilk. Here I am worried about ambushes, the lack of opposition, and the possibility that we have yet to see the worse. The city is too silent here, it seems our fair lady here has taken a grievous wound, one which we all shall need to strive together to staunch the bleeding and give succour till she recovers.

One of the newer people back home, forget his given name, just recall his surname right now, motions me over to a partially derelict building.

“Yes?” Once over there
“Looks like a spot to hold up the night in Sir?” His face is too young to be here, scant older than my own children, and here beside me with rifle in hand and blooded in the eyes of God this day.

“Good Work, pull a few others over here, then we enter in force to survey the lay of the land and check the integrity of what remains.” I send him off while I peer inside the structure, and keep checking the street as well. Takes a few minutes, but he rounds up a couple of pairs of our lads and we all enter.

Inside it looks good, fairly clean, no stains, the dry good are hale so I instruct them to get the others; we all are holing up here. We will note the location, address, record what we eat of the owner’s goods to make fair recompense, and this will be the bivouac for the night.
 

Tags: Fiction Story Horror

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The Siege Begins
© 2008 CW Kelson III (Tad) All Rights Reserved

The 31st of December on into the 1st of January 19XX

It was less than a minute past the stroke of midnight when all the clocks in the world, I hear tell, stopped all at once.
Then out of the shadows in the night stepped the monsters, things from our dread fears and imaginations come taken on life and form to bedevil and torment the likes of good folk such as you and I.

We were up celebrating the start of a new year, the clapping and well wishing still ringing in our ears when the horrendous noises began. We thought it was the end of the world come, judgment made and the world about to be torn asunder into parts scattered across all of creation.

Instead it was almost as bad; invaders had struck our shores in the dead of night. At least the initial reports had it that way. Some new warfare device from over on the continent perhaps, developed in secret despite the best works of the British Mind.

Well you would have thought the Admiralty would have seen something, I told my fellow men in arms a few days later, you would have thought they would have seen something if indeed these things had come across the Channel and landed on all our shores simultaneously. You would think, I kept asking trying to get an answer that made senses.

No answers, no sense, so we able bodied men went and mustered that next morning as the constables came around telling us the Queen needed all our help. The memories of the Great War still echo in our hearts and minds and knowing the horrors of war, we wished to keep it at bay from our loved ones. I kissed my darling wife and all the children, small and not so small anymore. I might not return, she knew that, but I had to go. Duty, and more importantly, keeping our home and children safe from harm, this is what a Husband and Father does, protects his family with each breath of his lungs and each beat of his heart.

We mustered, donning old musty uniforms turned out for us irregulars, issued our Garands, twenty rounds of ammunition,  and a small kit. Fortunately in our neighbourhood we had better and had brought our own for the most part. Shared out where we could from the new platoon we organized ourselves into. So was born the 9th Irregulars out of Bromsgrove.

Without much ado we all boarded the trains that were passing though heading towards London, where the fighting the Regular Army types said was already thick and bloody. The enemy had made a surprise landing and struck out at the Queen first, seeking to take the wind from our sails, he said. But she had made it to safety, led out by the sacrifice of the Guard and had left the city via rail while the city was being razed, he said he had heard.

Seems a bit much to think they would raze London, but we kept our mouth’s shut till we got a bit more recent news. Even if it was only a few days since our clocks had stopped working, and no matter what winding we did, none would turn. The sun and moon never stopped moving so at least the passage of our world in the heavens has not ceased.

The rocking of the train heading eastward lulls me into sleep.

The First Foray into London, the 10th of February

“Up and ready men, we are moving out with the rising of the sun. Come on out of your rolls your sluggards. Stow the gear, pack a short field kit and be ready to move out when you are done with biscuits and something warm to drink.”

The Sergeant passes through our bunk and mess area, pulling us all from our sodden dreams here on the outskirts of London. Today marks the first day we are pushing back at the ruddy buggers. Show them a taste of good English Steel as well as a few volleys from the large guns brought down to cover the advance.

Parliament wants us to reconnoitre, recover all the survivors possible as well as hopefully make a few kills and bring back some captives if at all possible. For this one they picked one in five units to move in, our luck the 9th Bromsgrove was one of those one in five. Still should be fine, moving in force, and the support from our side and if they fall back then an advance in full is planned just in case. I got one of the new sniper style rifles, big brute even with some extra padding it bruises the shoulder with every round sent down range. Still I have seen what it can do to the smaller enemy units, and with a few good hits the larger ones take pause and tend to back away, so that bolsters the squads courage knowing I am there to support them. I also snagged a Webley for a backup in case it gets down to the personal.

We all form up in the dank air; the weather has warmed unseasonable since the enemies landing on our shores. Seems even the land a rebel against the invaders and when it is pointed out rousts some spirits that were flagging here and there.

We are formed up into our platoons, the entire unit ready to head out to the front line along with the other designated lads. I get to pull up the rear along with the two support machine gunners, with the riflemen taking up the main duty of the lead. Our Sergeant leads, there being no officer in our small company, we all were enlisted and that is  how we remain in this struggle.

The ground gets a bit rougher the closer to the line we get. It reminds us lot about how it was over on the continent in the big war. This time however there is no mud to live in and the destruction is all happening to places we revere and hold dear in our hearts. This bolsters us all into the drive to remove them from our shores.

We can hear the guns in the background with their ceaseless shelling of the enemy positions. The noise has not abated for days and it seems our time has come at last. There is a strange rumble to the ground, I believe it means the tanks will come in with us as support. I am not certain how well they will fare, there must be large swaths of the city turned into nothing but rubble by this time, I am not sure how their treads will hold up. But they should be nice targets for the enemy.

“Look up, over there to the left!”
I hear it, a flight of reconnaissance planes, coming to make some fast passes over our entry point I imagine. They have not fared too well to date. Not near fast enough to avoid the enemy. The balloons far back from the front seem to do better. At least we have not lost too many of those, brave lads to pilot those things, even when they are tethered, still that high up in the air, like an angel flying.

Some of the planes look a bit larger than the others, some bombs I hope to shake them up, in addition to the constant shelling. Anything can only help I figure, being one of those sent in on foot, so the more of them that are dead or missing the better for us all.
Well about here, I hear the tanks, should be there in a few minutes. Then hopefully the final word and we begin to retake our city and our land from these cowards.

Tags: Story Horror

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So what do you use for gaming music.

A friend of mine a few years ago started making his own.

Mostly for liek Feng Shui and Cyberpunk sorts of games.

Well his efforts have inspired me to do much the same

So here is a link, yes blantant plug I know, to my songs and to Tim's as well

Comments please

Mine

[link="http://www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?songs=649060&T=7520"]My Music[/link

Tim

[link="http://www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?songs=557979&T=2916"]

Tim's Music[/link 

Tags: Gaming Music

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Just finished an awesome book today

"Mainspring" by Jay Lake

Excellent Clockpunk story

Authors Site

http://www.jlake.com/ 

Tags: Book Clockpunk

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GMing Tips
Copyright ©2003 All Rights Reserved CW Kelson (Tad)
For the January 2003  LRPG Meeting
 

Background:
Gaming since 10th grade (Christmas 1978)
The following systems mostly
-    DnD (all varieties)
-    Traveller
-    Dark Conspiracy
-    Call of Cthulhu
-    Hero System
-    GURPS
-    Morrow Project
-    Gamma World 1st Edition
Familiar with
-    SLA Industries
-    Kult
-    Villians and Vigilantes
-    Palladium
-    Rolemaster
-    Others I forget even

General
-    Stock NPCs
-    Pre-made locations (ala Sprawls)
-    Notecards with NPCs and adventure hooks, instead of reading right out of a module
-    Atmospheric music. Set the tone, the theme the mood. Esp. for horror genre
-    Network. Find other gamers / GMs with strengths to complement your own.
-    Find your genre of choice and play / run in it
-    Read up about the basis for that genre and use it
-    Feel free to borrow from all sources such as books, magazine, radio, television, movies, comics, other games, etc.
-    I like to draw from Personality tests to flesh out characters and also NPCs
-    Find fonts on the Internet to spice up your player handouts like maps, scrolls, notes, job offers, etc.


Superheros
-    Newsletters
-    Pull form life, headlines
-    Did TV news broadcasts as plot hooks

Modern
-    Research current trends using magazine
Examples include:
-    Popular Science
-    Popular Mechanics
-    Gun Magazines
-    Soldier of Fortune
-    Use maps / street maps, play in the city you live in or used to live in to add in realism
-    Internet resources

Websites
-    www.roleplayingtips.com
-    www.gamegrene.com
-    www.pbem.com
-     http://www.montecook.com/dmonly.html

Tags: GamingGM Tips Ideas

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Transformations and your Characters

Copyright © 1996 CW Kelson III

Transformative Characters!!!

Whatever can that mean. It means that we can turn our characters into living, breathing creations instead of statistics and lists of gear and equipment carried. This means they can grow and develop just like real people instead of simply changing their clothes and calling that development.

How to do this and why. The why is the easy part. In life things and people change. Both in large and small ways. But they do change. That is part of what separates Human Beings from all of the rest of the creatures on this planet. We can change for the better or worse. But when it comes to player and their characters there is little to no change involved in the playing. Often times though our characters only change in what it is that they kill other things with. This seems such a shame. A large part of the people's lives that play the games is missing from their recreation. This short article is to point out a few ways and ideas on introducing or inducing change in the Role Playing Environment.

Change and the Character.

Change can take many forms. The evolution of the character through Role playing rather then Roll playing. Outside events in the campaign or perhaps in real life. Perhaps something monumental happens that changes the character forever. Or a reoccurring villain undergoes a drastic change or refocus. This is a concept often seen in the Superhero genre. Frequently also in the Martial Arts genre and games.

Perhaps just a change in the relationship of the character to some non player characters that results if loss or difficulty.

Example:

Between encounters a significant NPC undergoes a transformation. In some way their abilities or skills take a drastic or dramatic shift. Either into a new direction or a very noticeable increase in a current direction. These changes can be actual or cosmetic. Sometimes this can result in a nearly new NPC.

Another Example:

Again during a battle of some kind a significant non player is wounded. With this injury comes bitterness and subsequent use of illegal measures to gain the capacity for revenge. But these capacities now makes them a threat to everyone. How to handle the shifting loyalties and what to do to alleviate the situation.

Other possible examples include; broken down by gaming genre;

	Fantasy:		A Magic using character into a Massive Undead creature
	Cyberpunk:		From UnEnhanced to Enhanced with Cybernetics
	Shadowrun:		A foe becomes Awakened or  Goblinizes
	World of Darkness:	Become a Vampire, realize Garou descent, Awaken into a 
                                 Orphan Mage
	Superheroic:		A device oriented Hero redesigns their equipment

A common technique in Cyberpunk literature is for cosmetic surgery to alter a character's appearance. 2 immediate examples include Sarah in Walter Jon William's book Hardwired and Mona in William Gibson's book Mona Lisa Overdrive.

In both cases the character was altered to look like someone or something else. Sarah to be more attractive to a target and Mona to look like a famous person.

Another transformation using cyberware and other changes comes from the book Krocodile Tears by Jack Yeovil. An excellent source of Dark Ideas and how cyberware can dehumanize a person.

Keep in mind that conceivably anything can change or transform a Character either Player or Non. Perhaps an illness strikes reducing one or two physical characteristics. Let us say that on the last mission or adventure a Player Character becomes wounded. They then need to flee through the rain or by means of a sewer system. In reality infection and disease would occur in many cases. So strike them down with the flu. Nausea and vomiting will do wonders for all the skills. A bed-ridden character cannot meet with contacts. This could annoy those in power, "We don't care if your runner is sick Mr. Johnson." And down the tubes go the precious reputation. Add in medical costs and ergo instant conflict with no guns involved. If nothing else does the cyberware ever get wet? Does it rust, say in the Steampunk genre?

Anything to shake them from their accustomed habits or to loosen up the view they have on what is supposed to happen where or when.

Yet another Example:

Often in the Horror Genre there will be a monster that will mate or fuse with a human. This will result in something less then pleasant. Such things as the Aliens form the movies or numerous HP Lovecraft monsters mating with humans and the resulting Whaterlies. Or what about the Genestealers of the Warhammer 40K setting. They too mate with humans and produce monstrous hybrids the parents are hypnotically compelled to defend and protect at the costs of their lives.

Some potential Transformative devices and Plot items:

1. Skills
2. Cyberware
3. Spells
4. Psionics
5. innate abilities undiscovered before now
6. Magic
7. Ancient artifacts
8. devices
9. DNPCs
10. A Nemesis
11. Diseases
12. Financial or other Windfalls
13. crippling injuries
14. Allies

My suggestion is to think in terms of three (3) dimensions.

1. Increase/Improve
2. Decrease/Worsen
3. New/Changed directions

The following are some examples of things I have done in past campaigns to foster or drive changes.

Both instances occurred in my Shadowrun Campaign.

The campaign included the main Player being hired as the head of security for a mini-corp just starting up in the Seattle area. During the course of the game he had some run ins with several of my own gangs, The Towering Dooms and some others along with the Ancients of the setting. So the gentleman was good and paranoid from previous betrayals, random violence, corporate strike teams posing as bike gangs and other ongoing plotlines.

At this point I gave him just what he wanted. A huge monstrous hand cannon. Just a little bigger than an Ares Predator using Firepower ammo, 1st edition rules here. Along with the gun I gave him a special holster. This character already was under 1 for essence from cyberware, trigger happy and in charge of security. So borrowing an idea from Harry Harrison's Deathworld Trilogy I gave him the "Ultimate" in fast draw holsters. In the trilogy the holsters have the pistols attached by a cable. The holster actually rests on the forearm. This way the gun comes up and lands in the owner's hand ready to fire. Since the gun does not have a trigger guard if the finger is held correctly the weapon will fire immediately. So as fast as your reflexes are is how fast you can shoot. I game terms I boosted the speed of the holster. Gave the gun happy Samurai a + 4 to reaction for first fire only. This was applied to the draw. It was also smart linked and I did not impose any penalty for drawing and firing as one (1) action. There was nothing that could beat him to the shot. He, the player, loved the gun. It was almost obscene. Finally the character felt up to the tasks at hand. Now he was a whole lot faster than anything out there. I let him know that both in and out of game.

What I never told the player was that the holster was invading his nervous system and slowly taking him over, ALA a cursed sword, driving him towards greater violence. So that as time went by he was becoming a slave to the gun and it's holster. The premise was that the weapon was rewriting his personality via the now invasive hardware, the holster was growing into his arm, of the system. I kept discouraging him from taking it off with reminders of how dangerous life had become for the character lately. This was also a well established, long played character adding to the sense of worth and "self-preservation" with in the game context.

So to drive up his violence level I had him make Willpower rolls to not shoot when he was startled. This was because in the design if the wearer held his hand as if to shoot the holster read the muscle patterns and put the gun, triggerless remember, straight into the hand. So if I thought he would have been startled and perhaps would react offensively He needed to roll. Over the course of five (5) or so game sessions the rolls got tougher and it gave me more time to work and reinforce outside of the game what the 'Holster' wanted him to do.

Eventually the player wanted it off his arm. He had almost blown away his boss and his girlfriend at the beginning of the latest game session. This is when he found out it was growing and grafting into his flesh. This freaked him out. Lots of out of the game ranting and raving at me. It was wonderful. Then it was off to the street doc to get it removed. Of course the streets of Seattle are dangerous so it was interesting and exciting for him to not go postal on everyone that he encountered on the way to find a Street Doc.

I let him succeed in finding one. He paid an exorbitant fee and locked the gun up afterwards. Overall it helped to focus on how violent the player was with this character and emphasized his diplomatic skills.

Another incident with the same Street Doc, by the name of Mixmatch. This particular Street Doc specializes in Neuro rerouting/rewriting. In this instance he seduced the sister of the above Player Characters Girlfriend. During this procedure he put her under the knife. The game equivalent was to the CP2020 Tactile Boost with extra care taken with tweaking up the libido. The cosmetic effect was a silvery tracery tattooing along the major nerveways.

The end result was an uncontrollable bedroom fiend who attacked her sister's boyfriend, the main character, whenever she could. Lots of humorous scenes as the character tried to keep his cool and not antagonize either the girlfriend or the sister. When he went to confront Mixmatch the culprit was gone, vanished into the shadows.

These are simply two (2) examples from my own gaming. Feel free to elaborate or use these in your own campaigns.

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Tags: PbP PBEM Trad Hero

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I am participating in an annual game design contest titled Game Chef

The site about it is here at 

This is the Elevator Pitch, the 30 seconds, talking about my game design this year

Title: Land of Broken Hearts

Elevator Pitch

Not everyone is unhappy. Some people are glad, filled with life, love and joy. Others are a little down once in a while.

Then there are those people who are Broken inside, some thing fundamental is gone, missing, ripped out by the roots and left to rot by the side of the road.

You are one of those who are broken inside. Love is gone, dignity is non-existent. This loss has enabled you to see another world that overlays our own.

This is the Land of Broken Hearts and yours is surely one of them.

Tags: Gaming Design

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