1
RPG Ghetto / I wrote a thing for a British game based on an older British game.
« on: September 13, 2019, 05:59:03 pm »
Dunno why I even bothered
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2
RPG Ghetto / I'm so avant gardty I'm writting an rpg using candy land
« on: July 06, 2019, 11:45:03 pm »
I accidentally wrote enough an rule set that someone could use the Candy Land board as the basis of at least session of play, probably more.
https://axesorcs.itch.io/candydream-a-sword-dream-rpg-of-exploring-a-confectionery-kingdom-and-neighbors
I'm also writing "Advanced" rules & a hyperspace module using the game board for Troika!
https://axesorcs.itch.io/candydream-a-sword-dream-rpg-of-exploring-a-confectionery-kingdom-and-neighbors
I'm also writing "Advanced" rules & a hyperspace module using the game board for Troika!
3
RPG Ghetto / So there is this game jam ending tonight on Itchio
« on: April 07, 2019, 08:24:42 pm »
I figure some of yall *cough* Cram *cough* might interested because there are so far 3 entries for Dungeon World, which I believe is Cram's new love.
https://itch.io/jam/mini-monster-jam
https://itch.io/jam/mini-monster-jam
4
RPG Ghetto / I made some nerd game shit
« on: February 21, 2019, 11:42:30 pm »
Oy fuckos
I made a stupid fucking storygame about feelings and war. Also maybe mecha.
https://axesorcs.itch.io/thank-you-for-your-service
I also published some dumb fucking classes for old people d&d. You should check it out, if you aren't scared.
https://axesorcs.itch.io/compendium-volume-one
http://www.lulu.com/shop/ian-woolley/axes-orcs-compendium-volume-one-non-human-and-monster-classes/paperback/product-23994668.html
Or don't.
I made a stupid fucking storygame about feelings and war. Also maybe mecha.
https://axesorcs.itch.io/thank-you-for-your-service
I also published some dumb fucking classes for old people d&d. You should check it out, if you aren't scared.
https://axesorcs.itch.io/compendium-volume-one
http://www.lulu.com/shop/ian-woolley/axes-orcs-compendium-volume-one-non-human-and-monster-classes/paperback/product-23994668.html
Or don't.
5
Apple Talk / ATTN: The Criminal Scum None As Doctor Cramulus
« on: January 09, 2019, 08:01:36 pm »
YOU COME INTO MY TIMELINE WITH THAT FILTH :: 
6
RPG Ghetto / FUCKING STUPID MONSTERHEARTS
« on: March 08, 2018, 05:59:40 am »
I just want everyone to know the hatred that flowing through my veins caused by this garbage assbutts game I felt compelled to read: Monsterhearts.
SWEET FUCK. I thought the stories of it being about playing supernatural teenagers fucking we the same of stories as the "let's harass the only woman at our D&D group for being a woman and not a real gamer" or "dare you enter my magical piss forest realm." Nope, the game is literally about playing horny teenagers who are also supernatural creatures. The rules about fucking and turning on other pcs.
While I am a "you do you" about games, still, why the fuck do folks in their 30s-40s play a game about....oh wait nevermind.
Let's take a perfectly good concept "supernatural spooky high school" and make it about fucking sex and nothing but sex and/or "dark impulses." Get over the fact that you couldn't get laid in high school and were treated like shit. High school fucking sucked. We know. We all had shitty high schools. We all wanted to fuck Buffy Summers when we 15 and be kick ass sexy monsters of the night.
SWEET FUCK. I thought the stories of it being about playing supernatural teenagers fucking we the same of stories as the "let's harass the only woman at our D&D group for being a woman and not a real gamer" or "dare you enter my magical piss forest realm." Nope, the game is literally about playing horny teenagers who are also supernatural creatures. The rules about fucking and turning on other pcs.
While I am a "you do you" about games, still, why the fuck do folks in their 30s-40s play a game about....oh wait nevermind.
Let's take a perfectly good concept "supernatural spooky high school" and make it about fucking sex and nothing but sex and/or "dark impulses." Get over the fact that you couldn't get laid in high school and were treated like shit. High school fucking sucked. We know. We all had shitty high schools. We all wanted to fuck Buffy Summers when we 15 and be kick ass sexy monsters of the night.
7
RPG Ghetto / Why I don't run Pathfinder anymore, and some salt about a Defective GM
« on: October 15, 2015, 04:29:02 am »
As some of you may know, my first exposure to RPGs was in the 90s with a combination of the Holmes bluebook and the AD&D DMG. My brother and I didn’t play a whole lot of it, but we played some. I played some with a friend in middle school.
We also didn’t the same access to console games, unlike other children of the 90s.
The two of us, my brother and I, did play a possibly excessive amount of Risk, and when Magic: the Gathering came out, 1993, we weren’t playing it yet. We started playing it around the time Ice Age came out, 1995, but for our household it wasn’t until 1996 when Mirage came out, that we started playing in more heavily, when the Tempest block came out, 1997, we dove into it.
As brothers, we were extremely competitive towards each other, which is great when playing a competitive game. For a fair amount of time my brother was better than me, but over all we were evenly matched.
By this time, we had both had more exposure to console games, we even had a play station, and were playing the final fantasy series.
I started playing D&D more heavily when 3rd edition came out. I was in high school. I played it at school. Like a nerd. Back then I never ran into the weird problems I have run into running and playing Pathfinder. I still didn’t run into these problems when 3.5 came out and I ran a brief campaign during college.
I had started playing MTG again with the Mirrodin block, 2001, with my friends, different friends from my school based D&D ones. I didn’t play at school because the school MTG culture was one of “oh noes I’m drawing the cards I want I must look through my deck” and other gross disregards for the rules of the game. Games have rules. I like to follow the rules of the game, that way when I change them I can explain why. In any case, I never found it satisfying to play MTG with people who don’t know, understand, or flat-out ignore the rules.
While this makes me sound like an insufferable rules-lawyering prick, I actually wasn’t. I simply chose not to play with people who didn’t play the way I wanted to. This carried over into playing with my friends. I had over the course of that period of time, made several decks that used once or twice and then never again, because my friends didn’t enjoy playing against them. I find fun to push the game, and figure out why certain design choices were made, which is one of the reasons I still to this day have a huge amount of scorn for the “stop the game I’m mana hosed let me dig through my deck some land,” and the “nuh uh, all lands gives you mana” type of players. The game did, and does, have cards that do that, on top of the fact that part of the game is luck and chance, and that those kinds of players strike me as poor losers, and probably winners.
So, how does this relate to Pathfinder?
I am not a charoper, one of those people who do theorycrafting and other such things to optimize their characters for Pathfinder, or other table-top games. I used to be fairly into the theorycrating of paladin tanking and hunter dps in World of Warcraft. Not because I really wanted to, but because in order to do the stuff that was fun, raiding for me, you sort of needed to do some minimal research and experimentation. Even then, I did it to the point that I gained enough of an understanding that allowed m e do things that weren’t 100% optimal, in the eyes of the poorly informed or just plain stupid. Things like tanking heroic instances in DPS gear. Because ultimate, games are about fun. This is why I would lambaste assholes with illusions of eliteness, especially when they were wrong.
I don’t play table-top rpgs to scratch that itch. I could play WoW, or MTG, or find some other game. When I sit down to play an rpg, I want to things other than exclusively or heavily combat.
But with that being said, when playing, or running, a game like Pathfinder, which has an emphasis on combat, it really pisses me off when tactical, strategic, or logistical thinking is not rewarded or outright shunned. This is something that seems to plague portions of the Pathfinder community. They expect a “balanced” and “level appropriate” encounter, which means, they want to win, and even if they win if they didn’t win with the kind of ease they wanted, they complain. Those are actual complaints I have had from players when I was running.
Naturally, this is a problem with the people, not the game; I’ve had this same problem running ACKS and B/X. However, Pathfinder requires a lot investment of everyone involved to get it to work. Retuning encounters, rebalancing loot, repopulating dungeons, all of that demands more time.
The point of this rambling is more of a reminder to myself why I don’t run it. If I don’t this, I’ll try to run it again. I enjoyed running PF when I first picked it, and I was enjoying running PF until have to scuttle my participation in that group, even with the one major problem player who was the root of all the complaints. I enjoy playing it, my wife is an excellent PF GM. I really enjoy making monsters and NPCs for it, just browse through the Pathfinder tag.
But, it’s a game built on certain assumptions: you will have X plusses worth of bonuses to certain rolls at certain levels, a balanced encounter is one that won’t generally kill a player, and your character is a special hero. As such, without magical items, saving throw based attacks favor the caster, not the target, which is the opposite of everything prior to 3e. I did some math, and baring a huge disparity in caster stat to saving throw, at equal levels as levels go higher, casters will dominate because of save or suck.
While I could houserule, or use some of the other variants, either published by Paizo or on the internet, the amount of work it requires me to alter PF counter these inbuilt assumptions is not worth it because I can take other games and add to them the parts I like about PF.
We also didn’t the same access to console games, unlike other children of the 90s.
The two of us, my brother and I, did play a possibly excessive amount of Risk, and when Magic: the Gathering came out, 1993, we weren’t playing it yet. We started playing it around the time Ice Age came out, 1995, but for our household it wasn’t until 1996 when Mirage came out, that we started playing in more heavily, when the Tempest block came out, 1997, we dove into it.
As brothers, we were extremely competitive towards each other, which is great when playing a competitive game. For a fair amount of time my brother was better than me, but over all we were evenly matched.
By this time, we had both had more exposure to console games, we even had a play station, and were playing the final fantasy series.
I started playing D&D more heavily when 3rd edition came out. I was in high school. I played it at school. Like a nerd. Back then I never ran into the weird problems I have run into running and playing Pathfinder. I still didn’t run into these problems when 3.5 came out and I ran a brief campaign during college.
I had started playing MTG again with the Mirrodin block, 2001, with my friends, different friends from my school based D&D ones. I didn’t play at school because the school MTG culture was one of “oh noes I’m drawing the cards I want I must look through my deck” and other gross disregards for the rules of the game. Games have rules. I like to follow the rules of the game, that way when I change them I can explain why. In any case, I never found it satisfying to play MTG with people who don’t know, understand, or flat-out ignore the rules.
While this makes me sound like an insufferable rules-lawyering prick, I actually wasn’t. I simply chose not to play with people who didn’t play the way I wanted to. This carried over into playing with my friends. I had over the course of that period of time, made several decks that used once or twice and then never again, because my friends didn’t enjoy playing against them. I find fun to push the game, and figure out why certain design choices were made, which is one of the reasons I still to this day have a huge amount of scorn for the “stop the game I’m mana hosed let me dig through my deck some land,” and the “nuh uh, all lands gives you mana” type of players. The game did, and does, have cards that do that, on top of the fact that part of the game is luck and chance, and that those kinds of players strike me as poor losers, and probably winners.
So, how does this relate to Pathfinder?
I am not a charoper, one of those people who do theorycrafting and other such things to optimize their characters for Pathfinder, or other table-top games. I used to be fairly into the theorycrating of paladin tanking and hunter dps in World of Warcraft. Not because I really wanted to, but because in order to do the stuff that was fun, raiding for me, you sort of needed to do some minimal research and experimentation. Even then, I did it to the point that I gained enough of an understanding that allowed m e do things that weren’t 100% optimal, in the eyes of the poorly informed or just plain stupid. Things like tanking heroic instances in DPS gear. Because ultimate, games are about fun. This is why I would lambaste assholes with illusions of eliteness, especially when they were wrong.
I don’t play table-top rpgs to scratch that itch. I could play WoW, or MTG, or find some other game. When I sit down to play an rpg, I want to things other than exclusively or heavily combat.
But with that being said, when playing, or running, a game like Pathfinder, which has an emphasis on combat, it really pisses me off when tactical, strategic, or logistical thinking is not rewarded or outright shunned. This is something that seems to plague portions of the Pathfinder community. They expect a “balanced” and “level appropriate” encounter, which means, they want to win, and even if they win if they didn’t win with the kind of ease they wanted, they complain. Those are actual complaints I have had from players when I was running.
Naturally, this is a problem with the people, not the game; I’ve had this same problem running ACKS and B/X. However, Pathfinder requires a lot investment of everyone involved to get it to work. Retuning encounters, rebalancing loot, repopulating dungeons, all of that demands more time.
The point of this rambling is more of a reminder to myself why I don’t run it. If I don’t this, I’ll try to run it again. I enjoyed running PF when I first picked it, and I was enjoying running PF until have to scuttle my participation in that group, even with the one major problem player who was the root of all the complaints. I enjoy playing it, my wife is an excellent PF GM. I really enjoy making monsters and NPCs for it, just browse through the Pathfinder tag.
But, it’s a game built on certain assumptions: you will have X plusses worth of bonuses to certain rolls at certain levels, a balanced encounter is one that won’t generally kill a player, and your character is a special hero. As such, without magical items, saving throw based attacks favor the caster, not the target, which is the opposite of everything prior to 3e. I did some math, and baring a huge disparity in caster stat to saving throw, at equal levels as levels go higher, casters will dominate because of save or suck.
While I could houserule, or use some of the other variants, either published by Paizo or on the internet, the amount of work it requires me to alter PF counter these inbuilt assumptions is not worth it because I can take other games and add to them the parts I like about PF.
8
RPG Ghetto / How to tell your GM is Defective
« on: October 11, 2015, 02:30:42 pm »
They use a supplement, but claim they hate it because they changed the core assumptions that make it work, so now it doesn't work very well (Mythic Adventures)
They think DR should always, and easily, be overcome (On two separate characters I had items that made material based DR irrelevent)
When they play in your game, after saying you MUST run PF, they complain about the amount and quality of treasure in a published by Paizo module (It gets better)
They cry about CR appropriate encounters that don't kill them, could have easily but didn't because suffering. (NIGHTMARE CREATURES)
They complain about ALMOST dying from a CR appropriate encounter, that didn't have to fight, because they just charged in (Necrocraft are sweet)
They constantly mix-up rules from 3, 3.5, and 4 with PF.
They think DR should always, and easily, be overcome (On two separate characters I had items that made material based DR irrelevent)
When they play in your game, after saying you MUST run PF, they complain about the amount and quality of treasure in a published by Paizo module (It gets better)
They cry about CR appropriate encounters that don't kill them, could have easily but didn't because suffering. (NIGHTMARE CREATURES)
They complain about ALMOST dying from a CR appropriate encounter, that didn't have to fight, because they just charged in (Necrocraft are sweet)
They constantly mix-up rules from 3, 3.5, and 4 with PF.
10
Literate Chaotic / Artificial Entertainment
« on: October 09, 2015, 10:13:17 pm »
This game is artificially difficult
Spoken without awareness?
Spoken from a place of irony?
Artificially?
This game is a construct
An edifice of artifice
All games are constructs
All edifices of artifice
Don’t cry
Difficulty isn’t
You not having countless powers
Artificial Difficulty
Would be
Perfectly balanced
Encounters
That wreck
Your shit
Or
Would be
Perfectly balanced
Encounters
That have
No chance of failure
Artificially
How
Difficult
Compared to?
Just as logical to
Claim
Your game is
Artificially Easy
Spoken without awareness?
Spoken from a place of irony?
Artificially?
This game is a construct
An edifice of artifice
All games are constructs
All edifices of artifice
Don’t cry
Difficulty isn’t
You not having countless powers
Artificial Difficulty
Would be
Perfectly balanced
Encounters
That wreck
Your shit
Or
Would be
Perfectly balanced
Encounters
That have
No chance of failure
Artificially
How
Difficult
Compared to?
Just as logical to
Claim
Your game is
Artificially Easy
11
Or Kill Me / So you fucking think fry cooks don't deserve a higher minimum wage?
« on: June 16, 2015, 05:52:22 pm »
Thinking about post this on a friend's wall in response to her shitty reposting of the "poor EMT doesn't get paid enough so fuck the entitled burger flippers" meme.
Well a minimum wage job is supposed to keep people above the poverty line, but that when bye bye a while ago. Unless you're also saying that burger flippers deserve to live in poverty because they choose to flip burgers because there are so many well paying jobs available.
I mean sure that makes complete and total sense. I remember all of the job offers I got living in Ridgecrest when I was looking for work. Oh wait that's right, I couldn't even get a job flipping burgers in Ridgecrest, and to be honest I couldn't afford to move. I had help leaving R/C to Ventura, where I did get a min wage (temp) job and then a job making 10.50, which wouldn't have been able to pay for rent and college at the same time.
So the burger flippers want a min wage that they can live on, which is the original point behind the min wage, but you think that because it's generally unskilled labor and an entry level job they don't deserve to live above the poverty line and also deserve to pay for the barest minimum of health care.
Let's compare burger flipping to my favorite entry level unskilled job, the Private 2nd Class E-2. An E-2's montly pay is $1,734. Break that down into 40-hour weeks, because you don't get overtime pay in the military, and that is only a paltry $10.83 an hour. That's crazy you must be thinking. Outrageous even. However, the E-2 gets free health care, which includes dental and eye and covers all manner of expensive shit, worth at least $50 a month because that's what I pay as a reservist; free housing, looking the prices in Lakewood, WA that's worth between $500 and $1,500 a month, call it $800; three free meals a day, and not fast food garbage, actual food, which is currently valued at $367.92 a month. Everything other than the base pay is a benefit, and even if this private is drawing the monetary equivalent of those benefits, housing and food, those are not considered income and not taxed.
Monthly gross income would be approximately $3000, hourly wage of $18.75.
I'm also not factoring in the annual tuition cap of $4,500 or the annual clothing stipend which is between $306.00 and $464.40.
But then there is the justification that this private is signing their life away to possibly die, we lose more soldiers to mental health problems or auto accidents than in combat.
But that is also neither here nor there because not everyone CAN join the military even if they wanted to, in some cases for minor things that don't impact normal life, like being too near-sighted, or just not quite "smart" enough to pass the ASVAB.
Well a minimum wage job is supposed to keep people above the poverty line, but that when bye bye a while ago. Unless you're also saying that burger flippers deserve to live in poverty because they choose to flip burgers because there are so many well paying jobs available.
I mean sure that makes complete and total sense. I remember all of the job offers I got living in Ridgecrest when I was looking for work. Oh wait that's right, I couldn't even get a job flipping burgers in Ridgecrest, and to be honest I couldn't afford to move. I had help leaving R/C to Ventura, where I did get a min wage (temp) job and then a job making 10.50, which wouldn't have been able to pay for rent and college at the same time.
So the burger flippers want a min wage that they can live on, which is the original point behind the min wage, but you think that because it's generally unskilled labor and an entry level job they don't deserve to live above the poverty line and also deserve to pay for the barest minimum of health care.
Let's compare burger flipping to my favorite entry level unskilled job, the Private 2nd Class E-2. An E-2's montly pay is $1,734. Break that down into 40-hour weeks, because you don't get overtime pay in the military, and that is only a paltry $10.83 an hour. That's crazy you must be thinking. Outrageous even. However, the E-2 gets free health care, which includes dental and eye and covers all manner of expensive shit, worth at least $50 a month because that's what I pay as a reservist; free housing, looking the prices in Lakewood, WA that's worth between $500 and $1,500 a month, call it $800; three free meals a day, and not fast food garbage, actual food, which is currently valued at $367.92 a month. Everything other than the base pay is a benefit, and even if this private is drawing the monetary equivalent of those benefits, housing and food, those are not considered income and not taxed.
Monthly gross income would be approximately $3000, hourly wage of $18.75.
I'm also not factoring in the annual tuition cap of $4,500 or the annual clothing stipend which is between $306.00 and $464.40.
But then there is the justification that this private is signing their life away to possibly die, we lose more soldiers to mental health problems or auto accidents than in combat.
But that is also neither here nor there because not everyone CAN join the military even if they wanted to, in some cases for minor things that don't impact normal life, like being too near-sighted, or just not quite "smart" enough to pass the ASVAB.
12
Literate Chaotic / Army Time
« on: May 21, 2015, 03:35:52 pm »
Army Time
Army Time is Sideways Time
It is time bent folded compressed
Stored slammed shoved into
Green canvas bags
Army time is hook and loop
Frayed, barely serving its functions
Abused, over-used long past its prime
Army time is tan briefs
No one wants them
Everyone gets them
They fall apart before their time
Caked with sweat and piss and shit
Stained with semen and blood
Army time is Sideways time
Compressed until it cracks and oozes
Spreading everywhere uselessly
Compressed until one hour is one day
One becomes two
Two become more
Units become meaningless
Army time builds up
Trapped in your guts
Compacted, impacted
Army time wants to be your time
It wants you to want it
Army time hitches a ride home
Coiled in your bowels
Like a dragon in an epic
Army time makes you suffer
Sometimes silently
Sometimes with sound and fury
Signifying nothing but also something
Army time
It stinks
Army Time is Sideways Time
It is time bent folded compressed
Stored slammed shoved into
Green canvas bags
Army time is hook and loop
Frayed, barely serving its functions
Abused, over-used long past its prime
Army time is tan briefs
No one wants them
Everyone gets them
They fall apart before their time
Caked with sweat and piss and shit
Stained with semen and blood
Army time is Sideways time
Compressed until it cracks and oozes
Spreading everywhere uselessly
Compressed until one hour is one day
One becomes two
Two become more
Units become meaningless
Army time builds up
Trapped in your guts
Compacted, impacted
Army time wants to be your time
It wants you to want it
Army time hitches a ride home
Coiled in your bowels
Like a dragon in an epic
Army time makes you suffer
Sometimes silently
Sometimes with sound and fury
Signifying nothing but also something
Army time
It stinks
13
Literate Chaotic / Cyborg’s Quandary?
« on: March 19, 2015, 07:13:08 pm »
Your meat is you
You’re your meat
The meat is you
You equal meat
Without the meat
There is no you
Without you
Your meat is just
Meat
You equal meat
But
You plus meat also
Equals you
There is no
Dichotomy
Between
Mind
And
Body
But
How
Much
Meat does there need to be?
A soldier without a leg
Is still a soldier
A person blinded by an accident
Is still a person
A heart can be replaced
But not a brain
Is that all the meat
You need
To be
You?
Stripped of organs
And flesh
Brain encased
In shining steel
Does that you still
Remain you?
Even with eyes that see
Beyond human sight?
Even with limbs with strength
Beyond human might?
What if immortality meant giving up
Scents
And
Flavors
And
Hunger?
What does it mean to be
Human then?
You’re meat
Your meat
It is yours to do with
And
You can do with you
As you wish
How will your brain react
Without the cavalcade
Of self-administered
Drugs
And
Hormones?
You’re your meat
The meat is you
You equal meat
Without the meat
There is no you
Without you
Your meat is just
Meat
You equal meat
But
You plus meat also
Equals you
There is no
Dichotomy
Between
Mind
And
Body
But
How
Much
Meat does there need to be?
A soldier without a leg
Is still a soldier
A person blinded by an accident
Is still a person
A heart can be replaced
But not a brain
Is that all the meat
You need
To be
You?
Stripped of organs
And flesh
Brain encased
In shining steel
Does that you still
Remain you?
Even with eyes that see
Beyond human sight?
Even with limbs with strength
Beyond human might?
What if immortality meant giving up
Scents
And
Flavors
And
Hunger?
What does it mean to be
Human then?
You’re meat
Your meat
It is yours to do with
And
You can do with you
As you wish
How will your brain react
Without the cavalcade
Of self-administered
Drugs
And
Hormones?
14
Literate Chaotic / To slay a jabberwocky
« on: January 06, 2015, 12:00:13 am »Before the sun rises, my retainers ready me for battle.
My panoply in its full array, or cap-a-pie as they say in days long gone by,
Is in a form so archaic as to seem antique,
Yet in construction anything but.
From my cap to my shoes, to include doublet and hose too,
Of spider’s silk, of maidens’ hair, of ancient’s kevlar, and of silver spun,
And with magics woven within to be proof against beam and blow both.
All to stanch the hurts I shall certainly receive,
To blunt the blows of my beastly foes,
And to save my flesh from searing blasts
Of both beams of light and breaths of dragons.
My armor is as black as the shattered ship from beyond the heavens
Its ore wrestled from walls of metal harder than iron.
With gold and iron it is inlaid,
Glyphs, runes, and symbols in formulae and equations
Describing geometries possible and impossible,
Inscribing names of demons, elementals, and angels,
Reminding all named of pledges and allegiances hard won
By generations beyond number with blade and with book,
Blessings of war, of strength, of luck, and even against rust.
Strapped to my arm and suspended from my neck, my shield.
Stories told by elders long past
From the door of an ancient’s war machine it was cut.
An inch of ancient’s steel, solid and massy,
A bulwark of my body as I am shield to my people.
A field of green, a tower crossed by lance and sword,
The blazon of my clan is painted thereupon.
A squire lays in my hand my long lance,
Thrice three feet of ash.
Once white wood now long stained scarlet,
Once more ready to drink deeply of dragon’s heartblood.
Girt at my waist, a sword and a dagger,
A pair matched they are not.
The dagger, short and stout,
Ancient bronze, nicked and notched,
Only one sapphire remains of the rumored thirteen,
Twelve lonely cavities like empty eye sockets leering along the blade as adornment
Opposite rests her adopted sister.
A weapon I won in a card game as a wager.
The mysterious masked loser of it remarked,
“Moth wings, moon beams, and rathe that were mome
Forged and folded until the form of a blade they were fixed,
Or at least that were what the man what sold me it said.”
To my eyes like plain steel it seems,
But upon advisement of a sage, into battle
I shall wear it. For
Tis grand
To against a dragon fight
In defense of people and of land.
Prepared to strive day and night,
I stride out of the gate with lance in hand.
Beaming brightly the sun beats down as I stride to meet the beast.
Five fathoms, or more, or less, its form hard to see,
It stands shrouded in silvery shadows stinking of smoke and sulfur.
Rearing to deliver its challenging roar,
From its gullet a thousand gears rattle, if not more.
Upon shield with spear, I bang out a reply so thunderous as to sunder windows.
(This monster for a month has people and stock massacred.)
Lifting its head and lithe body sucking in air
I brace myself behind my bulwark to receive
The blast the beast is about to breathe.
A sickly-sweet smelling smoke
Of thick shadows spew from shaded maw
Hammering my ecranche as it holds fast guarding my flesh from harm.
My feet dig into the cracked and dried earth, pounded dense by decades of traffic,
Tenebrous tendrils twine around my targe
Trying to entangle my arms and feet.
I discover to my grim amusement, this dragon’s breath can feel pain,
As an engraved invocation to an illuminating angel blazes into solar incandescent
Beating it back with the a sacred heat greater than any brand,
Screaming and sizzling the shadows and smoke retreat.
I speak my thanks as I speed to the great serpent’s side.
Blinded by the bright blast of light, the beast should be easy enough prey.
I cast my spear like the gambler tosses dice, with the hope that luck is at my side.
Crimson spar flies from my fingers.
Whether due to lady luck’s love or long lance’s blood-lust
Deeply into its side my long dart digs
Stabbing between the serpent’s shinning segmented scales.
Yet now is not the time to call “Callooh” or “Callay.”
It is not dead!
Sans lance the beast I must slay?
From ground on to spear on to head
I leap like a game I must play.
And hope after this blow the dragon is dead.
Stout spear unsprings to fling me upwards.
Like a bolt from a crossbow, I fly to bring my quarrel
To the rattling ravager’s high head to finish the deed my lance began.
Wraithly ropes of shadow-stuff, thick as a wrist, in the air writhe.
Sprouting from the serpent’s scales like hair,
And entwining together to impede my serpent slaying endeavor
They weave a net, trying to wreathe me in the wind.
With gleaming glaive cleaving gashes through gellid shade
I force my way through the wraith-rope forest
Hurtling ever down to the fiend’s head.
Frigid foliage can barely check my flight.
How far away the sun’s hammer heavy heat grows.
Gladly battered by the sun’s bold light would I be
Than feeling the clammy caress of this creepy hair
The sun soon left in the distance, as shadows screen out the light.
Not prepared for the this flight
Nor expecting the loathsome serpent to violate
Nature’s laws as much as man’s.
Distance and time distorted by this damned thing’s presence.
Had I expected this, from ground to lance to head I would not have lept.
Much more pleasant it would have been to keep pugilistic heroics grounded,
Than cut through this nightmarish net of nasty congealed shadow-stuff
Yet at the time I thought it
Would be fun,
And even if I should die
A grand poem might be spun.
Even if my folk think this a lie
I’ll tell this tale when all is done.
I marveled in the dark, at how sharp moon’s light looks.
In songs and stories how soft they say moonlight is.
Here, now, smothered by serpent’s smoke and shadow
What seemed simple steel, now like hard edged moonbeam slices the shadow.
Softly, slowly, a sound beyond sound grows.
First one, then two, then more, much more
Soft moth wings? No, hard moth wings.
As if against a billion windowpanes batter a billion moths.
It surrounds me. Slams into my skull.
Make it stop. Make it stop.
Sword slams into serpent scales
Sibilantly shearing slices free.
Shards of armor, cogs, gears, cable, conduit
Flying freely far into the fetid dark.
Deeper I hack. Harder I slash.
Mothwing’s maddening melody grows louder.
I have begun monologuing.
I am outside myself.
I report about myself.
My body has found its own rhythm.
Hack and slash, cut and chop
Madness melody moves my body metronomically.
One and two. One and two. ONE and TWO.
A ragged rent through the ravager’s hide
Has my moonbeam blade battered beneath its head.
Wiping sweat from my brow seeing for the first time
The swarm of moths within steel
Trapped beneath the sword’s surface, the source of the maddening song.
Now I understand what the ragged gambler said of this sword won as a wager.
Scores of moths flittering furiously added fervor to my blows against the fiend.
And my face is bathed in moonlight scattered by moth wingbeats.
Crisp illumination shines in the wreckage of my path.
Pooling around my ankles are the putrid petrochemical laced
Fluids seeping and flowing from ruptured veins, conduits, and pipes.
Caused by the sizable hole I cleaved through the ceiling?
Dozens of these damned monsters I have destroyed,
Yet this serpent is significantly more strange than any I have ever slain.
Above, the gaping hole knits back together; gobs of shadowstuff binding scales.
Scintillating moonlight shed by my sword shows my only options,
Each way looks just as likely to lead to somewhere.
Curiously curved and pulsing walls of metallically colored chitin enclosing me,
I carry on down, deeper into the bowels
Of the beast.
With pulsing metal sheened walls
Picking my way through its last feast
Wondering at how the beast is so unsmall
And how much further to go, at the least.
Long did I walk downward, deeper within the dragon’s body,
With my mute companions: sword, dagger, and shield,
Lance left lodged in the lithe dragon’s side.
Were it not for the blade of moonlight and mothwings,
As bright as full moon’s night,
A dark and treacherous walk it would be.
The weird winding passage is much larger than the witch-thing seemed from without,
Filled with the foul fumes of its seeping phlogistons,
And the over-ripe remnants of cattle,
As well as rubble from houses and keeps.
(This beast, is as fond of houses as horses and humans.)
Clearly seen are these chunks of men, beasts, and buildings,
Yet hard-edged shadows, provide for superior places to slink.
Their sneaking muffled by the burbling of the beast, they had me surprised.
A chitinous collection of their clawed tentacles gave only a chatter of warning
Before I heard a whine long unheard by me,
Hot beams of light ionized the air as they lanced out from all around me,
How this beast became host to drones with lasers I did not stop to wonder.
Fortunate it was this morn against such arms I girt myself,
Despite no reports regarding the ravening beast possessing such dangers,
A sage named Prudence advised, “Protection from laser would be prudent.”
Time for thought I did not have,
But monsters demanding to be slain in abundance I did.
Scarlet, crimson, and other shades of red beyond counting lit up the long hall.
Shield discarded, a crawler crushed beneath,
Armor scored with searing bolts.
Turns out a blade made of moonbeams can bat those back.
And a dagger cast of ancient’s bronze deeply digs into metal-woven chitin.
A dozen split open from dagger, spraying shadow-stuff-blood
A dozen more blinded by reflected bolts,
(Why anything would shoot lasers from its eyes, I’ll never know)
A great battle on any other day it would be,
But today it was an annoyance,
For soaked through were my boots with ichors.
And close to the hellish beast’s heart I hoped I was getting,
Or doomed to walk within winding ways I feared.
But now alert for more chittering, my advance slows.
Dragon slaying is not supposed to be
This hard
Not this trudging within the beast.
Although I am the peoples’ ward,
I’d rather be enjoying a feast,
At least I am not bored.
Its heart, my sword’s anvil to hammer upon.
Gore like flint-fire sparks and flies from my blows.
Each hewing strike echoes down quaking corridors.
Thin rivulets flow, grow into rivers.
Raging torrents of quicksilver and oils
Rushing from fissures riven by my reaping blade.
To the bone I am chilled, bathed in the blood of my foe, by combat rebaptised.
Are my sins washed away by the expungment of the monster?
Or merely compounded with its crimes of reaving my lands?
The beast’s body around me rumbles
As the chitinous walls of its corridors begin collapsing.
Now ‘tis foolish to do anything but flee
As the crumbling walls seem to be caused by the recompression of the creature,
Else I am expanding from a size I did not know I attained,
For the walls are closing in, much more so than they are crumbling.
Reverie interrupted, once clear upon this I will contemplate.
And so,
Through waist deep blood I wade
To hew upon the nearest walls
With my gleaming moon-blade.
Under which the chitin falls.
Epilogue
Before the sun rises, I ready my child and heir for battle, and reflect
Back on the strangest of serpents I had to ever slay.
Although I have aged long past anything considered prime
My decrepit condition is more caused by the cancers
Flooding my body from my ill-fortuned bath in filthy phlogistons.
Whether ‘tis right to right wrongs with weapons,
Despite decades of slow death,
A dragon had to be dashed till it lay destroyed
Such as my doom is to die in defense of land and people.
Even as it is that of my doughty daughter.
Whether the beast was evil or was a mere beast,
The woe it wrought, wrathful or not, had needed stopping.
In the end it matters not,
Although its ruin repaired it still had its revenge upon me.
But now
My tale may be ending
But hers is just starting.
And so with grace and little pain
I yield the stage, content to not be main.
15
Apple Talk / I am apologize to Nigel and Roger for being a giant piss baby.
« on: December 10, 2014, 12:50:35 pm »
I've decided to delurk and apologize for my immensely shitty behavior directed at Nigel and Roger.