Autumn in Troutbridge

I recently had the good fortune to be a part of a play by email campaign set up by HCK, who runs the Grand Commodore blog.  Everyone who participated was engaged.  I've found that generally this condition of engagement by all the participants is quite rare and is the catalyst for many of the best experiences I've had involving other people, whether those be professional, social, artistic, or something like this, a role-playing game.

The players formed an alliance of city-states - called the Concord of the Southern Sea - against the threat of invasion by a seagoing empire.  The game lasted five turns, and representatives of the city-states that formed the Concord (our characters - though we got more than one character) moved from one city to another each turn.  When the Concord was hosted in our city, each of us had to write a "Congress" - a description of what was taking place while the representatives were present (I took some liberties and did a write up of a time slightly before the representatives arrived).

The other players wrote wonderful pieces for their Congresses (in my opinion). You can find a link to those Congresses in HCK's write-up of the overall experience (which I think was on the nose).

At any rate, I had a really good time participating in it, and I think all my fellow players (and the GM) did as well.  I'm publishing the Congress I wrote below.

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From a mahogany-paneled meeting room on the top floor of the Prime Minister’s Manse, Ferran Lamarca admired his city in autumn, the massive elms and maples that formed an endless arch over the avenues, made them transepts clothed in gold and blood while the soft moss that covered the foundation stones and canal walls stayed a mysterious green. In the crossing rivers, the riffled white aprons of water behind boulders that broke the faster currents, gloves of froth waving goodbye to warmer weather, but for now, before the death, a final laugh, what the people of Troutbridge call “the second summer,” everything halcyon, golden, crisp, perfect, the air itself almost auric, all-bracing and fresh, no trace of the sometimes stagnant, somnolent riverstink, instead the sun kissing the grey walls and walkways through wind-shifting shadows cast between the leaves of trees, the refulgence somehow seeming to both bathe the boughs in liquid gold and to borrow their color as a partner to descend unhurried to earth. The Bridge at the Confluence a cross over a saltire of saltless water. The hushed susurrus of whispering leaves sliding on concrete.

This time of year makes up for all others. The muddy, murderous currents of the Confluence are so treacherous in spring and summer. But now the waters slow as the snowpack at the northern sources that feed the streams sluggishly crystallizes to ice. This peace in the river is passed to the dwellers on the banks of the Great Confluence. Lamarca sees one, a rare, late egret regretting he must leave, instead stalking through the water. Now stopping to stand motionless, in his stillness he vanishes as the light shifts and the sky becomes steely, gunmetal grey, a cold rain on the way. Then all at once he strikes, reappearing suddenly in the rushes to stab a silver fish, his muscular body unfurling in a ballet of murder sanctified and timeless, death beatified and guileless. The shadows that made his body blue and invisible against the rustling bushes fading as the sunbeams in turn stab through the once oppressive, capricious clouds and the light falls on him, staining his wings white as he raises them, promises from autumn and legends of heaven all, the sight of life electrified, somehow discorrupting and renewing.

It is such sights that inspire men to fight and die and here at the Confluence those adrift and thrashing on the crawling seas can finally remember the warmth of the earth and the currents that carry one to his very center, and which wash all shame and chaos away and leave only the silent and timeless.

These moments make the magisterial understand simplicity and the simple understand majesty. They allow one to know their own nobility, fill the body with a solemn sense of beauty that overwhelms the heart with heat and chokes tears of joy from loyal souls with quiet violence even as it cools the blood.

Of what consequence is death to such a one? Of what import war? Of what use regret? The egret is a second summer, a spasm frozen against the void eternal, beauty wrapped in beauty upon beauty, on and on forever, world without end.

Such was Ferran Lamarca’s mind the day the delegates from the Concord of the Southern Sea were set to arrive by air in Troutbridge. It was mid-morning and he was expecting Councilor Presiding Jimwick from Great Loom to arrive any minute. The thought of the war was on him today.

The election also weighed heavily upon him - a judgement of his performance so far, his leadership and a weighing of the state of Troutbridge. Had he been able to inspire them, he wondered? He hoped his people would see as he saw. The people could be as mercurial as the sun through the trees at this time of year. He knew it would be a massive blunder if Troutbridge left the Concord now, but that was what Giles Jardine, his opponent was promising to do, and he had some measure of support, enough to seriously oppose Ferran in this race. He sighed wryly and tried to thrust doubt from him like he was young and slinging a stone to skip on the surface of the Confluence. These worries would have to wait. He turned to Ovid Texidor, his Secretary of State.

“Vidi, is all in readiness for the visit?”

The little egg-shaped man with the receding hairline smiled, his teeth white, his cheeks rosy, his fabulous mustache curled and pointed perfectly. Behind him at the oak door, Lamarca’s honor guard, a pair of Troutbridge Marines in full dress uniform, white bearskin mitres, pale green hussar pelisses with white frogging and sashes, ready to shuck their short shotguns from leather holsters posthaste and oppose horror with horror should it occur. Honi soit qui mal y pense.

“This will be one of the best dinner parties we’ve ever hosted, Minister. We have chefs from Ascension and Diadem to make the lightest dishes and pastries as well as our one of our own from Troutbridge, a specialist in the glutinous. Several baristas from Starling and Shrike, and we are bringing in scents, entertainment, and florals from far Attar.”

Lamarca mentally ticked off details, “Sarah Martell? Has she been invited?”

“She is one of the guests of honor, Ferran. And of course, those athletes who placed at the Games. They are all invited as well.”

“...and Leo Agosti?”

Ovid’s nose wrinkled. “That man…” he started.

Ferran held up a hand, a vain attempt to placate his Secretary of State. “I know, Vidi, I know. You don’t think he belongs in polite company. He’s not very refined. But he’s a goddamn hero, Vidi. He single-handedly busted not only the Antinatatalists who placed the bomb at the South Wharf, he captured the Cynthian Knight who was ultimately responsible for providing their backing.”

“Well, I know when my objections have been overruled. He’s invited.” It was Ovid’s turn to sigh. “At least the Earthheart people will find him entertaining…probably.”

Ferran frowned, a return to brooding. He was quiet for a time, staring out the window. Then he turned again to Ovid with a serious expression and spoke softly, intoning each word.

“They brought the age of quarrel down on all
Consumed by pride they burnt the very air
A bitter incense made from shot and shell
An offer to their murderous idol’s glare.”

“Aodh Ó Braonáin, The Bard of Great Loom, from the opening canto of The Sorrows of Fire,” replied Ovid, “I know it.”

“Soon we will enter the true age of quarrel and the merciless star of war will hang heavy, swollen with murder in the fat and bloody darkness above us. We shall be the egret and enjoy this feast to end our second summer. We hope our noble visitors will see the bravery of a woman like Mrs. Martell, the honor of Mr. Agosti, and how our men’s love of their home ennobles all in Troutbridge,” Ferran said seriously.

“Prime Minister?” the small balding man began, his brow furrowing.

Ferran had turned again to the window, and Ovid noted with exasperation that there were several out-of-place creases in the back of his expensive jacket. How does he ruin these suits so quickly? he wondered. “Hmmmmm?” the Prime Minister was deep in thought again, far away.

“Please stow all the poems at this party, no question. It tends to give the guests bad gas and indigestion.”

Ferran froze for a moment and then looked back at his grinning Secretary of State, who raised a single immaculate eyebrow. Ferran began to chuckle, and soon both men were laughing, the sound echoing off the mahogany and out into the golden autumn day.

Images created with Dream.

Adeptus Titanicus - Legio Gryphonicus Battlegroup

I really like the rules and gameplay of Adeptus Titanicus.  No one near me really played, though, so I decided to paint up two battlegroups.  That way I could let people who were interested pick a side an we could play.  It's worked out pretty well.

Here are the Gryphonicus Titans.  I gave them lots of Reavers, both because I like Reavers and because canonically they have more Reavers than any other type of titan.

This was an accident - There are two sets of feet in the Warhound kit, and I used one of the "wrong" ones.  So I just worked with the base a bit to try to make it look semi natural.  It turned out ok.

I was initially going to stop at five titans per side.....

Then they came out with this....

And then I just couldn't help myself.

You can see a few knights here.  Here's a detail on one of them.

And finally here's a terrain piece I converted from a prescription bottle and an old Celestine I had and never bothered to put together.  Fairly happy with the way it turned out.

"I ask the guards for their names." - d100 Quick NPCs

This is a table I've used for fast, shallow NPC generation.  It doesn't give the NPCs much depth, but it's a quick way to give some random person the party is interacting with a name and a set of characteristics that spice things up a little bit, get a laugh, or make them slightly more memorable.

Quite basic, but it's been useful.  Here are the resources I used when creating it, all of which are useful in their own right.

• https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/dungeons-and-dragons.php
• https://www.wizards.com/dnd/article5.asp?x=dnd/dx20010202b
• http://www.npcgenerator.com/

Reverse Ayudhadevis - Women Incarnated as Blades

I had a bizarre dream a while ago where I was a swordsmith and I somehow took the essence of a woman and transformed it into a blade.  When it was swung, it left contrails of electric blue and vibrant violet light in its wake.  Each sword was also an angle and an answer, though that part of the dream faded almost immediately and I cannot articulate it now.

Recently I read about Ayudhapurushas - anthropomorphic incarnations of divine weapons.  And for whatever reason I recalled this dream, and decided to try to put something game-able together out of it.  As usual, please feel free to use what you like and change or throw out anything you don't!

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It is said that the Sorcerer-smith of the Effandril Archons used the essences of maidens as he made his blades.  It is known that upon occasion, one of the Archons would deliver a damsel unto the Master Smith, and she would never be seen again - in the flesh, at least.  Sometimes these women went willingly to the wizard, other times they had to be dragged into his terrible presence.  A span of time later, the master metallurgist would present a weapon of unsurpassed quality to that Archon.

It has been reported that there may be eight blades in all.  This is one of them.

28mm Warhound - Sussuri Mortem of the Legio Mortis

I love Titans. I don't know why, exactly. I think that the idea of being a god of battle is so intense and intoxicating that Princeps become addicted to their mind impulse unit has something to do with it.  The idea of the amniotic tank and all the associated biological implications such submersion requires: the princeps' heart now needing an artificially created foramen ovale -- a hole between the upper chambers of the heart, allowing the blood flowing into the right atrium to bypass the lungs - which serve no function in the tank, etc - I find the practical and emotional particulars of the subject fascinating for some reason.

The Princeps in this model is NOT in a tank.  However, I do have a few bits set aside for a conversion if I am ever insane enough to buy a 28mm Warlord.

At one point someone asked me why I didn't just glue the carapace on and save myself the work of painting the interior.  I had no idea how to respond.

A WIP picture below.  When I was putting the body together, I initially was only going to put the piece at the very bottom of this picture and the piece on the far left together.  I was using JB Weld's 5 minute stuff.  After about three minutes of trying to make it work, I realized that I was going to need to do the two pieces center right and center at the same time or it would never be right and my blood almost froze.  Luckily I wrestled it together before the stuff set.  For anyone who has worked with JB Weld, you know that once you glue something with it, it stays glued.  They repair engine blocks with this stuff.  Getting it off my hands was a week long ordeal.  But it was worth it.

A few more WIP pictures.  If I remember right, the whole thing was about a five or six month project start to finish, though large parts of that were prep of the pieces - washing, removing all the flashing and gates and sanding, drilling holes and cutting lengths of coat-hanger for pinning, measuring, dry fitting, and levelling, etc.  Another big chunk of time was spent waiting for adhesives to dry.  I mostly used the original JB Weld which takes a good 24 hours to cure, and often a build session would be nothing more than gluing a couple of key pieces together, clamping them in the right position, and then walking away.  These are from a little later on, obviously.

A detail on on of the feet and shin guards...it's kind of difficult to tell on the final model, but there are something like 12 pieces for the pistons per foot.  It allows for a great deal of pose-ability, but each one has to be cut to length.

The transfer work was a lot of fun to do, though it was time consuming.  The idea was a machine spirit so prideful and surly that every battle honor and important event it had been a part of needed to be encoded somewhere on its hull visually, or it would revolt.

Propheticum Somnium Hallucinationes - Canto the Second

CANTO II


Of the Demon HAR XELAZAL:

First, the odor of old, unopened rooms, a fetor that coats the throat,
A growing groan like the drone of cicadas, overlapping notes,
Hypnotic acoustics that overwhelm in a transfixing din,
Only then does it approach, a thing of insensate skin.
It comes swamped in rotten jonquils, browning yellow petals,
A collar of dying flowers brush against its ashen mandibles.


It casts its ghastly gaze against the fundamental,
It denies time, nullifies light like a cannibal,
Works its pallid hands to make shadow animals.
Unnatural, they arrive to vile life and bite like tangible
Lies from the lips of quisling lovers,
Leaving gruesome wounds, unspeakable flutters
Of blood as the pierced heart thumps,
An idiotic automatic contraction each time it pumps.


A made thing, mounds of dead flesh from the fallen
Stitched and quivering together, draped in rotting pollen.
Golden blooms coat its pale shoulders like saffron light.
It is the fangs of broken truth in the smiling night.
A cyber-ghoul, its face swarming with electronics,
Its giant central eye shines like a shard of onyx.


It scorns the swords of warriors,
Derides the teeth of beasts,
Mocks and laughs at magic,
sneers at prayers and priests.


It chuckles long and hard at charms,
Regards archers with sarcastic laughter.
It knows it cannot be brought to harm,
Not then, nor now, nor hereafter.


It is invincible insanity,
Irrefutable profanity,
Vanity personified
Without honor or humanity.



- from the Propheticum Somnium Hallucinationes AKA The Lasting Death, attributed to Theran Var, High Priest of the Burning Shadow, circa 147 AA (Ante Apocalypsi)

Special acknowledgements: James Thurber and Tomoyasu Hotei

The Price of Magic

There's an interesting trope in many fantasy films and many works of fiction.  Often, if there are two mages or wise men who are leading (or mentoring those who lead) competing sides of a conflict, the one we would identify as good is typically much older and more feeble looking than the one we would identify as evil, who often looks like they are in their prime.  Professor X and Magneto.  Obi Wan and Darth Vader (or Yoda and Palpatine).  Dumbledore and Snape (or Malfoy or even Voldemort).  Egg Shen and Lo Pan.  The urRu and the Skeksis.  Most martial arts movies that involve a rival dojo do this, like Mr. Miyagi and John Kreese (The Cobra Kai sensei).  I'm certain I could find other examples.

Why is that?

What if there’s a reason that all the good wizards look so aged and the bad guys look like they are in the prime of their lives for the most part? What if there was a cost to magic, aside form whatever material components are associated with a given spell? What if that cost was life force measured in time?

We all have a finite amount of time in the world – most human beings might live a century if they are very lucky. Elves on the other hand, have lifespans measured in thousands of years, at least in most systems.  What if this is why they are typically depicted as if they are naturally more powerful, facile, or skillful than human mages? They have more life force to “burn."

What about the evil mage? Why do they usually look more vital?  Is there a way to cheat the system? Is this what draws some people to evil in the first place? That they don’t want to give up their own life force so they use the life force of others?  This gives us a rationale for all those sacrificial rituals, and explains why it usually involves the sacrifice of someone young.  Perhaps this is what ritual magic is all about, harvesting the life force of the victim for use in further magical rituals.  This also seems like a natural way to divide white and black magic.

I have never really played with age in my campaigns, but it might be worth introducing.  This could also serve as a way to keep fighter classes relevant as the players enter higher levels of play - sure, the mage can whip out Incendiary Cloud but does he want to do it if it is going to cost him a decade of his life?

There are a number of items (Potions of Longevity, etc.) that become much more relevant with this system in place.  It also makes perusal of eternal life ala the Lich make a little more sense.

It's possible someone has tried something like this already - if so, I'd love to hear about it!  Here are some proposed costs for spells in D&D – each casting of such a spell ages the caster by the amount listed UNLESS they use the life force of another....

Propheticum Somnium Hallucinationes - Canto the First

CANTO I


The Shadow of famine’s wing shall fall over the fields

    And the wheat shall blacken and die
    And the rice and the corn shall blacken and die
    And the oats and all the grain shall blacken and die.
    The Gaunt Death shall walk, THUNZIEL
    who is Hunger, the Lord of Starvation and Night.


The Rebel XOTADAX will climb from his hole and cause
    The dust of the earth to reject the foot of mankind.
    At his command the very water shall awaken
    And cry out against those that drink it
    Stone shall rebel against those who would build with it
    Saying “our compact with you is at an end.”


The Unfortunate Undead from TLAKOVA will hate all.
    Revolted by their residence in rotting flesh,
    They will onerously exfoliate their own bones.
    Hopeless crows who groom to remove grisly plumage,
    Morosely unrooting meat from ossein, brides of debridement
    Obsessives compelled to unfasten the fat from all.


From ZÖURIG come the Prismatic Thinkers
    With colorful, contagious concepts that mere men cannot bear,
    Memes that burst skulls from within.
    They are black outlines lacking inside complexion
    Gray like sodden paper except where polychromatic premeditation
    Explodes the encephalon and ideas pour forth from their foreheads like liquid rainbows.


A Woman will arrive armored in bitter song
    The Demoness VORN, her face a mask floating above her shoulders
    Poetry her impenetrable palisade,
    Sour music her ruthless weapon,
    Every sound a rapier thrust, her lips shape the words
    And disembodied mouths appear, encircle her and join the refrain.


The Editors of THOILTAAN erase an existence they despise,
    Altering actuality for their cruel amusement.
    They correct the chaos of canorous laughter,
    Revise open smiles into corrosive tears -
    They prefer the order of drops of sorrow
    Following one after another single file down the face.


Yea, the Star of Murder, cruel GANAZIL will tarry in the air above
    Surrounded by the ruthless dusk it radiates ruby on all
    Dust, beast, babe, bush, water, woman, man
    It shines on the trees and they are crowned with flame
    Blackened leaves falling from their boughs like dead moths
    Its ruddy light touches birds and fish alike, annihilating the entirety.

- from the Propheticum Somnium Hallucinationes AKA The Lasting Death, attributed to Theran Var, High Priest of the Burning Shadow, circa 147 AA (Ante Apocalypsi)

Unsolved Mysteries – d12 Inexplicable Events to Rattle Players

I am probably a bit cruel as a DM, but I like to occasionally mess with players, especially in games or settings where things are supposed to be at least a little strange. Some of these things have happened quite organically. For example, the bits of shell thing below came from a session in which one of the players had to leave the table for a bit, and the others placed bits of broken shell into his character’s pockets while he was away.  Now and then over the next several gaming sessions I would describe lumps of shell dust and little iridescent pieces of something falling our of his pack or pockets, and I enlisted the aid of the other players, so they all kept quiet about it.  Shortly afterward I read Samuel Delaney's Dhalgren and this idea was born (though it could just as easily have come from watching a David Lynch movie).

It can be fun to recruit players into this scheme, but you might have to be careful with this; the aim here is not to make anyone feel “picked on” or isolated, but just to give them a riddle or mystery they can wonder about. I am fortunate enough to play with folks devoid of that kind of paranoia, but I might alter my approach a bit depending on the personalities present.  These things can be as sinister or as silly as you want them to be, but they should never be explained. I like to wonder about things, and I like things to wonder about, so I consider a riddle without an answer a gift. Of course, it may also unsettle players or characters, take them just a little out of their comfort zone, and I am absolutely all right with that.

If you’re feeling really evil, don’t acknowledge the change in any way, play it totally straight, simply describe what is happening and move on, if questioned act as if they really SHOULD know what’s happening and why.

1. The sun doesn’t rise for a day, or rises on the wrong side of the horizon.
2. Persistent cloud cover for a week breaks to reveal a different-than-expected number of moons in the night sky. For example, if the planet usually has one moon, make it two or more. If it has three moons, four or more moons are present, or half a moon, or none.
3. The sun rises bloody red and MUCH larger than normal, gets smaller as the day progresses, eventually dwindling to nothing. The day is much hotter than usual until the sun approaches close to “normal size” and cools to freezing as it vanishes to a pinprick.
4. The next time the PCs spend the night in a civilized area, everyone they have met is different in the morning. They use the same names, but they are different people. For example, if the innkeeper who checked them in is named “Rory Tavnick” and was fat and bickered with the help (his wife) in the way that only couples with the security of 25+ years of marriage can bicker, then in the morning, he is still Rory Tavnick, but he is pale, and thin, and he and his help are not only no longer married, they barely speak to one another. These people will insist that they are the same as the people the PCs met the night before, but will describe the meeting and interactions differently and as if they were the person they are now – so, in Rory’s case, if someone asks him “Don’t you remember bickering with your wife and joking with us about how she can’t keep the rooms clean?” he will say, “No, that never happened. You checked in and I showed you to your room and we both noted how clean it was. You said you were glad to have a washbasin.”
5. (Needs player buy in) One of the characters awakes and suddenly is not themselves. They have all the same skills, but they claim a different name and personality. After a day or so, allow the player to revert to normal if they wish, or they can keep going with it if they so desire!
6. (Needs player buy in) One of the characters wakes and is unable to communicate, even with gestures. They follow after the party and fight, but otherwise act as if they are basically catatonic. The actions they take are without any passion and seem somehow mechanical.  After a day or so, allow the player to revert to normal if they wish.
7. One or more of the players begins to find things he doesn’t remember picking up in his pack and pockets. These are never major items, and might just be things like sand, dust, bits of shells. But it keeps happening, sometimes on the same day even after the character shakes containers empty.
8. Convince the party that they are being followed but never let them pin down their follower. There is never any true visual confirmation - only sounds, very occasional signs, and the sense of being watched. This need not be pervasive, and may come and go over the course of many sessions.
9. Something is visiting in the night but is going unnoticed no matter who is on watch or what the precautions are. Nothing serious ever comes of this, but players note things moved around, items exchanged between packs, perhaps a footprint or other tell-tale in the middle of camp, etc.
10. This requires a bit of planning, but have the characters wake up somewhere different than where they camped. This could be a different locale in the same setting (went to sleep in a dungeon and wake in a village or in the wilderness) or it could be a completely different universe / setting. It should have at least a couple of its own adventure hooks, though you need not develop them too far. Follow this for as long as you want to (at least until they camp again or until the session breaks) and then return them to the place they were. I think this might be most effective if done between sessions and specifically when the players have NOT camped. Pluck them from whatever world and adventure they are in, place them in another, then return them to the original setting after that without acknowledging that anything weird is going on.
11. The players wake and it is apparent that a long period of time has passed. This could be anything from a week (few changes, but advance the world accordingly) to some months (they go to sleep in the spring and wake in the fall) to centuries (the world is a different place now, villages, cities, people, etc. they were familiar with are gone, others have sprung up).
12. This requires a bit of setup, potentially. Change some small and unimportant, but known detail about the world the PCs inhabit. It could be which ruler’s face is on the coins, or the name of the country they are in, or the name of one of their contacts (who otherwise stays more or less the same person).

There Are Only Good People Here: Musings on Alignment and Sin in D&D, Fiction, and Life

I know this isn’t a new thought, but as I have aged, I have begun to have a hard time with the D&D alignment system. I’ve been trying to think of alternatives. One idea was a graph where you had evil/good and law/chaos axes and you plotted out a graph to determine current and median alignments. I like this idea and the idea that PCs start unaligned – this idea was implemented wonderfully in Planescape: Torment, and I was initially thinking about something like that. But that’s a lot of work. In some ways I’m tempted to ignore alignment altogether but it’s so heavily built into the framework of D&D that it is incredibly difficult to get rid of.

One of the problems that comes up is the use of magic in “detecting” alignments. Of course, you could simply do away with such spells. But this brings me to another thought. What about the pervasive use of detect evil used by communities to keep evil people out? Detect evil is a fairly low level spell in most systems. I tend to like low-magic settings, but even in those, it isn’t impossible that a place might set up some system where they use Detect Evil to determine who is allowed in, who is not, who is exiled, etc. The question then becomes “what constitutes evil?” Are beings inherently evil? Are they born that way? If so, would “evil” babies be left in the wilderness to die ala the Spartans casting children into the chasm at the foot of Mount Taygetus?

Or is it acts that make one evil? And if so, how does the practice of leaving babies to die of exposure impact the alignment of the person that does so? Would such an action make the perpetrators evil? If so, would they be expelled to die in the wilderness as well? What about actions that are unintentional? You intended to rob someone to get just enough food to eat, but as you approached with your dagger, you were so keyed up and scared you weren’t looking where you were putting your feet. You trip over a root and plunge your dagger into someone’s heart. Congrats, you are now a murderer! I have been binge watching true crime shows, and it turns out most murders are totally idiotic. Many of them are exactly this kind of thing, where someone has so much anxiety about what they are about to do that they wind up screwing up and shooting the person they are about to mug, often running away afterwards without actually achieving their aim of taking their victim’s money! Having done such a thing, are you now evil?

How would such a society function, knowing that everyone was good? Would unlimited credit be extended because all knew that the person being extended the credit would do anything they could to pay it back? What if that person wound up stealing (perhaps from someone “evil”) to pay back their debts?

I’ve come to the conclusion that true evil in real life is pretty rare. I think one of the reasons I have always kind of liked Vonnegut's work is because none of his characters are evil. There are no “bad guys.” Even Dwane Hoover in Breakfast of Champions is simply ill, not evil. The human need for archetypes and narrative often makes us think in terms of enemies who are evil. You have but to look around you to see how that has been exploited to drive people apart (I’m in the US and it is especially apparent here right now, but it happens everywhere) so it's interesting to me to read fiction where this need for a "bad guy" is ignored. This leaves us at the mercy of the universe, which is an uncomfortable place to be, and I think it's this which drives that need in the first place.

I think what I may do the next time I run a campaign is use the idea that alignment is acquired, but instead of setting up an axis and gradually plotting alignment to create a spectrum, I’ll do it this way – true good or evil is RARE. I really like this quote (very slightly altered by yours truly from the original, but faithful to the meaning I think) from Arthur Machen’s The White People as a way to explain what I mean:

“...the essence of sin is in… the taking of Heaven by storm… an attempt to penetrate into another and higher sphere in a forbidden manner. There are few, indeed, who wish to penetrate into other spheres, higher or lower, in ways allowed or forbidden. Men, in the mass, are amply content with life as they find it. Therefore there are few saints, and sinners (in the proper sense) are fewer still, and men of genius, who partake sometimes of each character, are rare also. Yes; on the whole, it is, perhaps, harder to be a great sinner than a great saint. The saint endeavors to recover a gift which he has lost; the sinner tries to obtain something which was never his. In brief, he repeats the Fall.”

PCs start unaligned. Most creatures, in fact, have no alignment. It is possible, though rare, to acquire an evil alignment through “repeating the Fall.” This way of doing things feels right to me – something like a lich has “attempted to penetrate into another and higher sphere in a forbidden manner.” In giving himself immortality, something that belongs to the divine and which he never had a right to, he has attempted to take Heaven by force. THIS is the kind of act that could give a creature an alignment. Similarly, you can acquire a good alignment by endeavoring to recover a gift which you have lost. The gift here is not some tawdry physical thing, but rather the kind of innocence in which you are willing to sacrifice yourself for something greater. That is the gift that people lose. Thus, though I don’t think martyrdom is the only way to achieve sainthood, such a thing IS generally reserved for the martyr. I realize that this is a very Christian way to look at evil and sin, but it would be easy enough to modify for a polytheistic society - the main point is that sin is an attempt to take divinity by force.

You could make an argument that the aforementioned hypothetical in which someone goes to rob another person and winds up killing them, or even the very act of robbery, the assertion of one will over another, is taking of something by force, and if you believe that human beings have a spark of the divine, that this in some way repeats "the Fall." However, I’m reminded of another quote, this one from Terry Pratchett’s character Granny Weatherwax, on the nature of sin. From Carpe Jugulum. I love Pratchett because for all the silly humor, there’s a lot of really profound things he says through his characters.

“...Sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”

The character she is talking to begins to answer that he is sure there are worse things, and Granny answers,

“But they starts with thinking about people as things.”

This definition of sin has a lot to recommend it – I think it is one of the best I have ever heard. Certainly I think the confusion of people and things leads to a lot of unhappiness! But in the same passage, Granny (much like Kurt Vonnegut) indicates that there are no bad guys, as such. The priest she is talking to tells her that the issue of sin (and therefore evil) is not as black and white as she makes it out to be, and that there are shades of grey, to which she responds:

“There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby.”

Most of us live somewhere in this state of “grubbiness,” I think, or as Machen puts it, “Men, in the mass, are amply content with life as they find it.” And I think most beings inhabiting a D&D world would live in that state as well. This brings me back to the rarity of the true sinner or saint. “Grubbiness” can be cleaned up. Perhaps through forgiveness, perhaps through acts of atonement, but there are sins with a small s that can be washed away. What Machen is talking about is Sin with a capital S – the truly unforgiveable, which is incredibly rare, something so foul and monstrous that it transforms the being who commits it in the same way that a man is transformed into a saint through the embodiment of pure and good that is as far beyond the mundane as its evil counterpart. An affront to a god rather than a human being.

I rather think that most players who “acquire” an alignment of either the good or evil variety in this world would probably have to be retired... IF they still lived!

Central American Myths and Titans

I've always been fascinated with Central and South American myths, Aztec and Mayan gods and goddesses.  I blame AD&D 1st edition Deities and Demigods.  They are primal, brutal, weird, sometimes sexy.  Recently I've been painting an Adeptus Titanicus battlegroup that uses some of these symbols.  The color palette was inspired by colors I associate with Central America and the Southwest, and the names for the God-Machines are ripped right from the myths.  I really want to work up a fairly deep backstory on this Legio - I have not yet decided on a name, but I have figured out that they don’t make a distinction between knights and titans.

Here’s the progress so far.

Tezcatlipoca

Painal

Tlaloc

Cipactli - I lost his base somehow.  I ordered another but it too was lost en route! 
GW will replace it, but they are out of stock!
One day I will be whole!

The battlegroup so far...

The Inspiration…