#and every single star wars rpg book in one form or another

[darkladylumiya]

One of these days I'm gonna take all of the ramblings I've done about Star Wars in various Discord servers and put them on here for five people to read, and when that day comes you're all fucked.

[artemis-entreri]

[[ Source | Artist’s Patreon

The Forgotten Realms – the default setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game – form one of the largest, most detailed and most popular fantasy worlds ever created. It is the brainchild of Canadian writer Ed Greenwood who started developing it as a setting for fantasy stories when he was just eight years old. Ten years later he began running D&D campaigns set in the same world, and also began writing articles for Dragon Magazine. The first mention of the Realms in-print came in 1978. Over the next eight years Greenwood became a popular writer of articles for the magazine and he included plenty of hints about his own campaign world in the process. 

In 1986 TSR, Inc., the publishers of D&D, were looking for a new setting. The Dragonlance setting had been an enormous success, but the feeling was that the continent of Ansalon was too small to serve as a setting for lots of stories. D&D creator Gary Gygax was also in the middle of his painful departure from TSR, which made the future use of his World of Greyhawk setting questionable. D&D needed a new “base” world.

TSR editor Jeff Grubb contacted Greenwood and asked exactly how much of the Realms had he actually created? Greenwood’s reply was, “lots.” Soon boxes were arriving at TSR HQ in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin by the score. Each box was packed full of notes, handwritten and typed, featuring information on hundreds of characters and cities, dozens of countries and countless new monsters, factions and magical items. Greenwood’s map of the main continent was divided across dozens of A4 sheets of paper which were painstakingly reassembled in the main TSR office, taking up almost every inch of free floor space. Greenwood’s map of the setting’s signature city, Waterdeep, was even larger and detailed and named almost every building. This was the Tolkien school of in-depth worldbuilding taken and expanded and applied to a continent several times the size of Middle-earth.

The slightly awed TSR bought the rights to the setting and began released it to the public in 1987. The first release was a novel, Darkwalker on Moonshae by Douglas Niles, followed by the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, or the “Big Grey Box” as it became infamously known. The Grey Box sold over 100,000 copies in short order, a staggering number for an RPG supplement. Ed Greenwood provided his own novel, Spellfire, and a few months later another book was published by a first-time novelist named R.A. “Bob” Salvatore. The Crystal Shard introduced the character Drizzt Do’Urden, a dark elven ranger seeking to atone for the sins of his entire race, and a fantasy publishing legend was born. To date, more than 30 million Drizzt novels have been sold by themselves.

The Realms grew and expanded. The continent of Kara-Tur, previously developed in 1985 for the Oriental Adventures sourcebook, was bolted to the eastern side of the Realms (with Greenwood’s blessing). The western continent of Maztica and the southern continent of Zakhara were explored in further boxed sets. Dozens of adventures and supplements explored the gods, power groups and races of the Realms in remarkable detail. In 1989 the Realms made the transition to D&D 2nd Edition through an epic campaign known as the Time of Troubles, or Avatar Wars, the first of many “Realms-shaking events” that unified a setting noted for its expanse and scope.

The setting expanded to a successful comics run and also a line of well-received video games, such as Curse of the Azure Bonds. However, it was the epic dungeon-crawler Eye of the Beholder (1991) that became a major crossover hit with general gamers and expanded the audience even further.

D&D and the Realms ran into a major problem with the collapse of TSR in 1997, during which time it was briefly possible that both would disappear altogether. However, Wizards of the Coast stepped in and bought both the game and the setting. This led to a creative renaissance for the setting, spearheaded by the hugely popular video game Baldur’s Gate (1998), the first RPG to be released by BioWare. D&D 3rd Edition arrived in 2000 and was followed by the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book in 2001, one of the most handsome RPG books ever published. Over the next seven years the Realms continued to peak in popularity, with more video games such as Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights contributing to its success.

In 2008 D&D launched its 4th edition, but the surprising decision was made to effectively destroy the Realms, turning it into a kind of post-apocalyptic, high-concept setting. The decision was vehemently rejected by the overwhelming majority of Realms fans; sales of the 4th Edition D&D and Forgotten Realms material were disappointing and the setting spent several years in the doldrums until 2014, when Wizards of the Coast launched D&D 5th Edition. A streamlined, back-to-basics version of the game, it proved an immediate, huge hit. Even more notable was that, for the very first time, the Forgotten Realms was now the default setting for the D&D game. The new setting rolled back most of the disastrous changes from 4th Edition and restored some faith and popularity in the setting.

There are still some worlds left unconquered. A Forgotten Realms movie is in development for release in 2021 or 2022, and Larian Studios are working to relaunch the video game line with the eagerly-awaited Baldur’s Gate III. After a short hiatus, the novel line has been relaunched by R.A. Salvatore with a new run of Drizzt books, although there seem to be no plans for more material at the moment. And, watching over it all, remains Ed Greenwood, who still insists he has far more unpublished notes and setting material than has ever been seen formal print. On that basis, the Realms will be around for a long time to come.

Mapping the Realms

Greenwood’s original map of the Realms focused on the continent of Faerûn, extending west to the island of Evermeet; south to the jungles of Chult and the island of Nimbral beyond; east to Semphar and the Horse Plains; and north to the towering Spine of the World mountain range and the Endless Ice Sea beyond. He had little notion of what lay elsewhere in the world, except for a huge island chain to the north-west called Anchôromé.

Other writers and editors soon expanded the setting. The 1985 Oriental Adventures book by Dave “Zeb” Cook had detailed an Asia-like land called Kara-Tur. This was retconned (and shrunk in the process) into the eastern half of the continent in the Kara-Tur: The Eastern Realms boxed set (1988). In 1990 the Horde boxed set explored the Tuigan plains which linked the two subcontinents. In 1991, the Maztica Campaign Set added a new continent far to the west of Faerûn. In 1992 the Al-Qadim sub-setting was launched, detailing the lands of Zakhara to the south of Faerûn.

Through all of these boxed sets, adventures and campaign guides, maps were a constant feature. Not just maps of the continents and landmasses, but maps of individual countries, cities, streets and even individual buildings. The City System (1988) set contains a colossal map of Waterdeep which is too big to fit inside most average-sized homes, and names virtually every building in the city. The Forgotten Realms is almost certainly the most heavily-mapped fantasy world in existence, with literally thousands of maps existing of its various locations.

Despite that, a full, canonical world map of the entire planet of Abeir-toril had to wait until the release of the Forgotten Realms Interactive Atlas (1999) on CD-ROM. The atlas featured almost every single map from every single Realms product ever released plus lots of new ones, and also a complete world map which added multiple new continents to the planet. Ed Greenwood would later reveal some new information on these continents, but, twenty years later, they have still received scant development compared to the originals.

The first-ever canonical world map of Toril, from the long out-of-print Forgotten Realms Interactive Atlas (1999) by ProFantasy.

A New Map of Toril

My new map of Toril depicts the planet as it stood between the 2nd and 3rd Editions of the setting. When 3rd Edition setting was released in 2001, the map-makers chose to shrink the main continent of Faerûn to remove empty space in the south; given that Faerûn was never the biggest fantasy continent in the first place, sometimes straining credulity given how packed it was, this was unnecessary and was eventually reversed in 5th Edition.

4th Edition, much more controversially, blew up the continent in a magical catastrophe known as the Spellplague and completely reshaped it. Fortunately, most of these changes were promptly abandoned in 5th Edition, which restored the continent to its former glory.

To create this map, I used a base model from my twenty-year-old copy of the Forgotten Realms Interactive Atlas (this also inspired some colour choices, particularly for the mountains) and information from canon sources and from some of the better fan maps out there. A more detailed map of Faerûn will – hopefully! – follow, although it will be considerable work.

The World of Abeir-toril

The world of the Forgotten Realms is an Earth-sized planet called Abeir-toril, “Cradle of Life” in Auld Wyrmish. Toril is the third of eight planets in its star system, and it possesses one large satellite, Selûne, and dozens of smaller satellites, asteroid-sized bodies called the Tears of Selûne.

Toril is divided between one very large continental landmass, almost big enough to qualify as a supercontinent, and three other continent-sized bodies. Five large island-continents and thousands of smaller continents are also known to exist.

The main continental landmass is divided into three lesser continents or subcontinents:

Faerûn is located in the west of this landmass, running from the Endless Ice Sea to the Great Sea and from the Trackless Sea to the Tuigan Plains (or Hordelands) in the east. Faerûn is the original and principle setting for the Forgotten Realms campaign and by far the area of the planet with the most development. Faerûn vaguely resembles Europe and the Near and Middle-East in the medieval period, with the landlocked Sea of Fallen Stars serving as a Mediterranean analogue.

Kara-Tur is located to the east of Faerûn and is the home of the mostly-defunct Oriental Adventures and Living Jungle sub-settings. It is an Asian-inspired land of vast empires, huge cities and adventure. Kara-Tur is the home of the largest nation on Toril, the Shou Lung Empire, and the tallest mountain range, the Yehimal, which is even taller than the Himalayas.

Zakhara, the Land of Fate, lies south of Faerûn and south-west of Kara-Tur. The home of the Al-Qadim sub-setting, it is a land of vast, boiling deserts and cities clustered around oases and bays. Zakhara is inspired by the mythology of Arabia. The largest single city on the planet, Golden Huzuz, can be found in Zakhara.

In addition, several other continents can be found elsewhere in the world:

Maztica, the True World, lies to the west of Faerûn across the Trackless Sea. It is inspired by Aztec and Mayan mythology and consists of jungles, volcanoes and deserts. North of Maztica lies a land of open plains more reminiscent of the American West, although this area has not been explored much in canon materials.

Katashaka lies to the south of Maztica and consists of steaming, hot jungles inhabited by various hostile lizardfolk. Katashaka seems to have been inspired by South America, but it has received relatively little development so far.

Ossë is a large landmass lying to the east of Kara-Tur. It is quite hot, sparsely-populated and has not yet been explored in detail in any canon materials. Based on the limited information available, it appears to be a supersized version of Australia.

There are numerous islands of note in the world, the most famous of which are Evermeet, the home of the elves located far across the Trackless Sea; the Moonshae Isles off the coast of Faerûn; Lantan, the land of engineers and tinkerers; Nimbral, the mysterious Sea-Haven; the islands of Anchôromé off the coast of Maztica; Wa and Kozakura off the coast of Kara-Tur; and the large island-continents of Myrmidune, Tabaxiland, Aurune and Braaklosia, about which relatively little has been revealed.

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[shielddrake]

The Monomyth in Video Games (AKA My Longest Rambling Ever)

Tell me if this sounds familiar:

 A person who comes from humble beginnings is called to go on an adventure to accomplish something great. He (it’s usually he) may either jump at the call or initially refuse it, but finally goes with the help of a mentor figure. He meets various amazing people and faces a myriad of challenges to achieve his ultimate goal. He confronts the main obstacle, overcomes it, and is rewarded for it. He returns to his home a wiser person, and bestows upon his fellow people the lessons he has learned, to the benefit of all. The End.

 Anyone know this? Anyone? Yup, that is a short, short, very short and simplified version of the monomyth, also known as The Hero’s Journey, a narrative device observed by many people but popularized by Joseph Campbell.  It has been studied and used by storytellers of various media, ranging from oral tales to books to movies to, yes, video games.

 It is one of the most common narrative devices out there, if not possibly the most common, at least historically. I’m sure a lot of us were exposed to Greek myths such as The Odyssey in school (at least, in America we are). JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings has many of the steps in the early parts of the story, before drifting in other directions once the fellowship separates. Each individual Harry Potter book has its own cycle of The Hero’s Journey. Every. Single. One. Star Wars is still a popular franchise (the more recent criticisms aside) and George Lucas has admitted repeatedly he used the monomyth as inspiration while he was writing the scripts for the original trilogy. So even if you are not intimately familiar with The Hero’s Journey in detail, high chances are you’ve been exposed to it simply through consuming various media.

 That’s not to say that using this narrative device is always intentional. I would find it incredibly surprising if Hiromu Arakawa or Hajime Isayama were purposely trying to include monomyth steps in their creation of Fullmetal Alchemist and Attack on Titan, respectfully, or that the creators of the 2019 anime version of Dororo meant to put Hyakkimaru through the paces of The Hero’s Journey, but sure enough, all these have some aspects of the monomyth in them!

 Does this mean a story, whether it’s a novel, TV show, movie or video game, has to possess all these steps in order to be considered using the monomyth?  No, definitely not.  On the contrary, it would actually be a good thing for stories to not require use of all these steps.  Telling a story by just crossing items off from a list is bound to create a rather stale experience. What I’m saying is simply that stories will borrow aspects of The Hero’s Journey to make the story compelling. The same goes for order and magnitude. The monomyth is usually presented in seventeen steps, but I don’t feel like they necessarily have to show up in the story in the listed order, nor do the steps have to take up equal amounts of the story-telling experience. Steps four through ten usually are the longest, while the last five or so tend to be rather short.

 So, in my apparently endless determination to apply the same techniques used in literary theory and film theory to video games, I would like to go over a couple of video games and how they do or do not apply the various steps of the monomyth.  I will go over four video games, noting whether each step is present, how much it adds to the story by its presence or absence, and how well the game represents the step.

 I’ve decided to review Final Fantasy VII (because its remake it coming out relatively soon), Dragon Age Inquisition (for another RPG, but not made in Japan), Bioshock (to show this isn’t just an RPG thing), and Psychonauts (because I’ve still got Psychonauts on the mind from my last post). I will also be comparing this to the monomyth found in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone, The Lord of the Rings, and the Star Wars Original Trilogy.

 There will be spoilers for these movies and games, on the off chance that anyone who hasn’t seen or played them doesn’t want them ruined. Do I need to keep putting spoiler warnings on older games? Or for the books/movies? Although I’m also kind of writing this with the idea that you have at least a passing knowledge of these movies, books and games…Oh well, just to be safe: Spoilers Ahead!

 This is a really, really long one, so beware. Readers may want to take this in phases.

  Let us begin.

 1.) The Call to Adventure

 First, there needs to be a little backstory established. The hero’s journey usually begins in the home of the main protagonist, more often than not showing the protagonist’s life in its everyday normalcy, which is often put in a negative light, ranging from boring to outright dangerous.

 The hero will generally come from rather small beginnings, which is probably why orphans are a common origin story. Luke is an orphan who lives with his aunt and uncle, oblivious to the fact that his father is Darth Vader. Harry Potter is very much the same, living with a borderline abusive family who force him to sleep in the cupboard under the stairs. Frodo is also an orphan taken in by Bilbo, his second cousin (hobbit family trees are confusing). Please note that this does not preclude a hero from learning a parent is alive later in the story (looking at you, Luke).

 In addition to this, the hero is rarely someone with much power, authority or money. Being a moisture farmer on Tatooine is apparently not the most noble of professions (though on a desert planet I’m a bit surprised by this), and the Dursleys appear to be middle class at best. Bilbo and Frodo are wealthy by hobbit standards and seem to be higher on the social hierarchy in The Shire, but remember that hobbits mostly reside in the Shire and immediately surrounding areas, so they aren’t considered to be important players in the world of men or elves. They are small both in stature and in society.

 For our chosen video games, it’s a little bit up to interpretation of the word “orphan” and what the player decides, but the humble beginnings idea still applies. Cloud from Final Fantasy VII (FFVII) is half-orphaned at a young age when his father dies, but doesn’t become a full orphan until he’s a teenager, when his mother dies during the Nibelheim Incident. We only see this in a flashback, and adult Cloud is a full orphan by the start of the game. By this point, Cloud has fallen from a SOLDIER First Class to a mercenary. So he’s rebelling against the more powerful people in Midgar, or at least is being paid to do so.

 The Inquisitor of Dragon Age Inquisition (DAI) may or may not have living parents, depending on origin and player choice. A human Inquisitor probably has living parents, but it’s a bit debatable if an elf, dwarf or Qunari Inquisitor does. At the beginning of the game the Inquisitor loses any prestige they may or may not have had (especially the human noble), and a Carta dwarf, Dalish elf, and Vashoth Qunari don’t have much in terms of power or rank in Thedas anyway. Whatever the case, the Inquisitor ends up being just a simple prisoner for the early prologue part of the story, before being raised up to the Herald of Andraste and eventually to Inquisitor.

 Jack from Bioshock is an interesting case. He’s sold by his biological mother, “raised” by Dr. Suchong and Brigid Tenenbaum, and later smuggled out of Rapture to live with adoptive “parents.” He is also an outsider in that he is kind of an unknown factor, given his upbringing, so by the time Jack arrives in Rapture at the start of the game, he is basically nothing but another body that happens to be there. Without Atlas directing him, it is very possible he could have just become another splicer, the crazed and deformed human remnants of Rapture’s human population. Either way, he doesn’t have much in terms of money, power or authority by the start of the game.

 Raz from Psychonauts doesn’t fit the orphan archetype, as he clearly has a rather large family, but he is estranged from his father at the very least. We don’t know his relationship with the rest of his family, but perhaps we’ll see more of that in the sequel. Raz definitely fits the humble beginnings archetype though, seeing as a circus performer profession is looked down upon, especially if you ask Kitty or Franke.

 The Call to Adventure itself can come in many forms, either through circumstance, a person begging for help, the hero learning about their origin they previously didn’t know, the hero’s own desire for a better life, and so forth. “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.” Yeah, that one is pretty clear. Harry Potter gets his letter to Hogwarts delivered by Hagrid, and Gandalf says that Frodo must deliver The One Ring to Rivendell (although in the book Frodo takes a few months just thinking about it before actually leaving the Shire).

 For Cloud, the call really comes from both Barret and Tifa, with Barret paying him to help destroy the Mako Reactors, and Tifa pretty much calling in the promise Cloud apparently made to protect her during their childhood. The Inquisitor is basically blackmailed into working with Cassandra and Leliana to rebuild the Inquisition to close the Breach, which the player can either go along with willingly or unwillingly.

 Jack…doesn’t exactly have a call to adventure so much as he’s thrown into the adventure by way of mental conditioning and circumstance. The player doesn’t really get how the plane he’s riding crashed and why he ended up in Rapture until later in the game, but he’s basically told by Atlas/Fontaine what to do to help him save his (Atlas’) family. And things just go from there. For Raz, he receives a pamphlet for Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp, and being a psychic himself Raz decides to run away from the circus (in an inversion of the normal run away to the circus trope) to attend the camp. I would still like to know who it was that gave Raz that pamphlet to begin with. I’ve heard a lot of different theories. What do you guys think?

 2.) The Refusal of the Call

 When the hero receives the Call to Adventure, in whatever form it comes in, the hero often refuses the call, saying he or she is not cut out for whatever the adventure calls for or they have something else more important to do.  This can be saying you have to help your uncle on the moisture farm, saying you can’t possibly be a wizard, or trying to give The One Ring to the wizard who reveals the danger you’re in. The Refusal is of course short-lived and the hero goes along with the call anyway, otherwise there would ultimately be no plot, or at least a very, very boring one.

 Cloud’s Refusal of the Call is short-lived but repeated. He tells Barret that Shinra sucking Mako from the planet isn’t his problem, tells Biggs he’s gone once the job is over, proclaims to the entire AVALANCHE group that he doesn’t care about the planet, and tells Tifa he’s going to let AVALANCHE deal with Shinra and that he’s no hero. It isn’t until Tifa reminds him of a promise he made to her that he actually sticks around the group. All this occurs in roughly the first half hour of the game.

 In DAI, a Refusal of the Call is optional based on player choice. The Inquisitor can reject being the Herald of Andraste basically from the word go, with repeated rejections scattered about the entire game. Later, the player can refuse the idea of leading the Inquisition, including for race or religious reasons.  All this doesn’t matter, however, as the game continues on with the player’s character being referred to as the Herald/Inquisitor anyway, so the refusal is kind of a moot point.

 Bioshock and Psychonauts don’t really have any Refusals of the Call. Raz actually jumps at the chance of going on an adventure, away from the circus, away from his family, who he thinks doesn’t understand him.  If anything, the refusal comes from his father, Augustus, who destroys the pamphlet for the camp and forces Raz to practice acrobatics instead. But Jack’s story is the most interesting to me in terms of the refusal, and anyone who has played through Bioshock knows why. Not only does Jack not refuse the call, but also he also literally cannot refuse it. His “Would You Kindly” mental conditioning keeps him from doing so, and I love that it is buried in the gameplay in a way that the player doesn’t even realize the mental conditioning is there until much later. Story and gameplay integrated!

 3.) Supernatural Aid/Meeting the Mentor

 I’ve seen this step be called alternatively both Supernatural Aid and Meeting the Mentor, depending on who is describing The Hero’s Journey. Campbell called it the former, while the more recent Christopher Vogel calls it the latter. Personally I think these should be separate steps, but they often have to do with one another in some way, so I guess they can go together.

 The term “supernatural” is just vague enough that it can mean many things.  It can mean magic, divine intervention, magic, genetic manipulation, magic, psychic abilities, magic, aliens, or Force magic, to name a few. Harry Potter and Fellowship of the Rings all have some form of magic (of course), while Star Wars has the Force. FFVII has magic, the ancient spiritual race of the Cetra, and, strangely enough, the alien invader Jenova. Psychonauts has psychics (again, of course).  DAI has presumed divine intervention from the Jesus-like figure of Andraste, at least until the Inquisitor enters the Fade and learns it was actually Divine Justinia, who is basically the Dragon Age version of the Pope. The Plasmids that Jack uses throughout Bioshock is more scientific than magical, but it still serves the same function.

 As for mentors, some of those are pretty obvious for the books/movies. Luke has Obi-Wan, Frodo has Gandalf, and Harry has Dumbledore. For our chosen video games, it’s a bit less clear.  Cloud’s “mentors” might actually be his love interests Aerith and Tifa, depending on how far in the game the player is. Jack has both Atlas/Fontaine and Tenenbaum, for better or worse. Raz actually has several, which is no surprise considering summer camps have to have several camp counselors, but the two major ones are Sasha Nein and Ford Cruller, since those are the ones he spends the most time with and Raz clearly looks up to Sasha as his hero.

 For the Inquisitor, that’s where it gets a bit muddy. It would seem like Cassandra starts as a mentor figure, giving the Herald advice and trying to direct them, but quickly takes a backseat once the player character becomes the Inquisitor proper. She doesn’t even show up at the war table anymore, whereas in Haven she does. Is Leliana a mentor? Kind of, but only in the sense that she acts as an advisor, roles that are also played by Cullen and Josephine.  Solas? Well, he would like to think so, and you even get minor boosts in approval if you listen to him. Or you could ignore him entirely and piss him off.  Andraste? Sure, if your Inquisitor is devout. It’s more up to the interpretation and choices of the player.

 4.) Crossing the First Threshold

 This is the step where the protagonist basically goes, “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.” (Yes, MGM’s Wizard of Oz also has its own Hero’s Journey!) It is the point of no return, where the hero finally decides to go with the Call to Adventure.  It is also in this step that the hero first encounters some of the real world outside of his or her comfort zone. So, this is another step that is kind of more like two steps.

 Our movies certainly have this two-part step. Luke decides to go with Obi-Wan to Alderaan after his aunt and uncle are killed by Imperial soldiers, and the cantina scene is his first real interaction with the tougher people that exist in the galaxy, including the skeptical Han Solo. Frodo (eventually) decides to take the One Ring to Rivendell, and The Prancing Pony in Bree exposes the hobbits to full-sized people for the first time, other than Gandalf. Harry Potter also has two, once at the Leaky Cauldron (pubs and inns seem to be a trend) leading to Diagon Alley and again on the Hogwarts Express.

 Psychonauts has an obvious Crossing of the First Threshold: Raz enters Coach Oleander’s mind, the Basic Braining level, the first mind Raz ever enters…presumably. It’s possible he entered another mind before then, but it’s not likely.

 Jack’s first sight of Rapture kind of acts as a first threshold, for both Jack as a character and for the player, but I also kind of like to think of it as the scene where Jack first sees a Big Daddy defend a Little Sister from a splicer. It gives a bit of foreshadowing that nothing is what it looks like down here, and Jack (and by extension, the player) should be careful about who he trusts.  A Little Sister is not a small, innocent creature after all, because there is always a dangerous, hulking Big Daddy somewhere nearby. Atlas is not who he appears to be, and ultimately Jack isn’t either. Instead, they are both people wearing masks, one intentionally and the other completely obviously.

 The first attempt at closing the Breach in DAI is a clear crossing, because it is from there that the Inquisition is reborn and the main character becomes the Herald of Andraste. Nothing is the same for the player’s character from that point on. The same goes for Cloud and the gang after the pillar holding up the upper plate over the Sector 7 slums collapses. Most of AVALANCHE’s members are killed and Aerith is captured. It’s not about saving the planet by this point. It’s about saving Aerith and getting revenge. Things just domino on from there.

 5.) Belly of the Whale

 This step coincides with the previous one. It is the final separation from everything the hero knows and moving into the unknown. Oftentimes it overlaps with a step called Loss of the Mentor, but it doesn’t have to. Consumption by a whale is optional, though use of a metaphorical whale is the more common approach.

 Speaking of metaphorical whales, what’s a bigger one than the Death Star? The same place where Obi-Wan dies, leaving the last connection to anything Luke had to his previous life and the one who would help him step into the future. He’s aboard the Millennium Falcon with two other people, two droids and a Wookie, but in reality he’s completely alone.

 Another such whale is Moria, the underground kingdom previously ruled by dwarves, but by the time of The Fellowship of the Ring, it is overrun by goblins, orcs, and the Balrog. The fellowship is swallowed by the earth and needs to get out. The price of that, however, is losing Gandalf. Another mentor lost. An even bigger whale is seen later in the books once Frodo and Sam reach Mordor itself, and they have to face even more challenges to get the One Ring to Mount Doom.

 For Harry, the whale could be a couple of things. It could be Hogwarts itself, the Forbidden Forest, the Hogwarts Express, the forbidden room on the third floor, or perhaps the trapdoor under Fluffy and the passage underneath…Lots of options here.  Now, the mentor figure for this book, Dumbledore, doesn’t leave Hogwarts until near the end of the story, and thankfully he doesn’t die, unlike the previous mentors who happen to be old, bearded, wizard men. He waits until book six to do that.

 FFVII kind of has an opposite whale. On one hand, it could be argued that the Shinra, Inc. building could be the whale, and although it certainly could be, I think a more poignant one would be the greater world itself. Once Cloud and the gang escape from Shinra, they leave Midgar and head out into the world, and they don’t return to Midgar until the end of the game. This could also be considered a Crossing the First Threshold.

 Again, DAI is about choice, but there are two events that are pretty big whales. The first is trying to recruit either the mages or the Templars to the Inquisition to close the Breach. Whether the player ends up facing Alexius in a dystopian future or fighting an Envy Demon for control in the Herald’s own mind, the main character ends up delving deep into a dangerous situation they have to climb out of. The second time is during the quest line to fight the possessed Gray Wardens and the Inquisitor ends up falling into the Fade. Quite a whale there, the Fade. A giant world that is only supposed to be accessible either to mages or in dreams. This is even more intense of an experience for a dwarf Inquisitor, since dwarves do not dream and cannot be mages in this universe.

 Bioshock…well, besides the idea of Rapture itself being a whale (during the game’s opening scenes, we even see a whale swim between Rapture’s towers), I would consider the most likely place to be Rapture Central Control. It’s here that some of the most important game events happen, after all. Jack kills Andrew Ryan, there’s the reveal of Jack’s “Would You Kindly” mental conditioning, and Jack learns he’s actually Ryan’s illegitimate son. Not to mention learning that Atlas, who has been guiding Jack and the player throughout the game thus far, is actually Frank Fontaine, the big bad. He has actually been using Jack this whole time just to one-up Andrew Ryan in their little power struggle. And then Fontaine betrays Jack and sends security bots to kill him, leading to yet another loss of a mentor. That’s a lot to take in during such a short time.

 Psychonauts doesn’t have a whale, but it does have a Hideous Hulking Lungfish. Raz has to do battle with her beneath Lake Oblongata, and then enter her mind so Raz can release her from Kochamara’s control. By then, Sasha and Milla have already been kidnapped, under the ruse of “Official Psychonauts Business,” and Ford Cruller is forced to remain in his underground lair near the psitanium so he doesn’t fall into one of his many personalities. So much for help there.

 6.) The Road of Trials

 The Road of Trials is the meat and potatoes of the story. It’s all the challenges the hero must overcome in order to reach the ultimate goal, whether it’s a big or little one. The challenges themselves may also be large or small, and according to Campbell often occur in groups of three. These challenges prepare the hero for the final encounter at the end of the story.

 …Do I really need to go over these in detail for each movie and game I’m reviewing here?  It’s basically the plot all the characters go through during the course of the story, ranging from battles, dungeons, travel, magic classes, camp activities, puzzles, and so forth. I’m not going to list each one here. This post is long enough as it is.

 7.) The Meeting with the Goddess

 This step involves the hero meeting with another character who helps them in some way, whether it’s as part of the hero’s group, by giving an item that is helpful, or just giving good advice. More often than not, this character is one of high ranking: an actual goddess, a princess, a queen, or something of that sort. She may or may not be a love interest, and more modernly she may not be a “she” at all…our examples here though do happen to be female, but I’m just saying this doesn’t have to be the case.

 Star Wars is obvious. Luke meets Leia, the Princess of Alderaan who hides the plans to destroy the Death Star in R2D2, first in her hologram and then in person aboard the Death Star itself. Frodo meets Galadriel in Lothlorien, where she allows him (and Sam, in the books) to glimpse into the Mirror of Galadriel to see the possible future of the Shire should his quest fail. She also provides him the phial containing the light of Earendil’s star, which is vital to fighting off Shelob later on. I wouldn’t exactly say Harry Potter has a goddess to meet, but I like to think it’s supposed to be Hermione, since she knows so much and often is the only one who actually knows what’s going on.

 Let’s see. FFVII has Aerith, whose big “gift” to the story is giving her life while she prays for Holy to stop Sephiroth’s Meteor. Bioshock has Brigid Tenenbaum, who assists Jack throughout the game if he spares the Little Sisters, and removes part of his mental conditioning so Jack can resist Fontaine. Milla is one of Raz’s teachers at Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp, teaching him the Levitation ability, which is arguably the most useful ability in the game.

 As for DAI, there are plenty of characters that can play the role of the goddess, but I would argue the most important one might be Morrigan. She tells the Inquisitor about the eluvians and theorizes Corypheus is searching for one as a means to reach the Fade. Although she ends up being wrong, Morrigan also is a candidate for drinking from the Well of Sorrows, and if she does she helps the Inquisitor by fighting the red lyrium dragon during the final battle with Corypheus.

 8.) Woman as Temptress

 Here’s another misleading title. The Woman as Temptress originates back from Campbell’s research of Greek myths, where the hero is enticed by a female figure: Circe, Calypso, the Sirens, and so on. Today, the “woman” is really just anything that tries to drive the hero away from the path of his journey. This can be power, money, promises, or threats, for some other examples. It can still be a person, but lately that hasn’t been the case.

 There is always the temptation of the Dark Side of the Force, although Luke doesn’t really encounter this in full force until The Empire Strikes Back. The One Ring is the temptation itself, and it actually does succeed, since Frodo doesn’t throw the Ring into the fires of Mount Doom. It isn’t destroyed until Gollum bites off Frodo’s finger, reclaims the Ring, and falls into the Crack of Doom while doing a happy jig. Voldemort tries (very briefly) to get Harry to join him and hand over the Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone at the end of the book (it’s a bit longer in the movie) but that doesn’t last very long.

 There’s not exactly a temptation in FFVII, although I guess Jenova manipulating Cloud into bringing the Black Material to Sephiroth at the North Crater is the closest thing. I feel that goes more into the manipulation category than temptation though, but it still functions in a similar way. Bioshock has the temptation of harvesting the Little Sisters to receive more ADAM from them, and thus allowing Jack to obtain more abilities. This can be really appealing from a gameplay perspective, and results in the bad ending of the game if you kill every Little Sister. Alternatively, Tenenbaum compensates you if you spare the Little Sisters, so it’s not the end of the world to resist the temptation.

 …Raz doesn’t have a temptation to stop trying to become a Psychonaut. At all. Oleander never convinces him, Loboto doesn’t convince him (their interaction is actually incredibly small in the main game), none of the other campers dissuade him, and he faces all the obstacles in all the different minds with determination. The closest thing I can think of is Lili, who really just tries to give him a realistic view that the Psychonauts are not as important as they once were. I guess the “making out” scene kind of fits here, since Raz is clearing distracted by the idea of kissing Lili and doesn’t pay any attention to what she’s saying immediately after. Linda interrupting them puts an end to that though.

 As for DAI…yeah, I have trouble with this one.  There really isn’t anything that tempts the Inquisitor in a way that distracts them from the danger at hand. Romance doesn’t do it, power doesn’t do it, money doesn’t do it, blood magic doesn’t do it, demons don’t do it…Yeah, I’ve got nothing. Readers, please help me with this, if possible!

 9.) Atonement with the Father

 This is the step most people know even if they don’t know the concept of the Hero’s Journey itself, because it is such a common trope used in all kinds of story telling. This can be a father or father figure, and honestly it’s not unusual for this to be replaced by a brother in video games, and less commonly with another relative. This step may or may not be related to the next step, Apotheosis, depending on if the “father” is the source of the main conflict, but it is still one of the major obstacles the hero must overcome. Another thing to note that this step does not have to involve the death of the “father” either.

 Let’s face it: Star Wars is one of those films that normalized the father-son conflict dynamic in movies. Sure, it existed before then, but it became a huge thing after the iconic scene between Luke and Vader in The Empire Strikes Back. The conflict doesn’t come to a head until The Return of the Jedi, when Vader finally redeems himself by killing Palpatine and saving Luke’s life, giving his own in the process.

 That being said, it’s interesting that the other two movies we’re looking at have more distant aspects of the Atonement with the Father step. It’s not Frodo who has to deal with his father’s displeasure, but Faramir. Is there anything worse than hearing your father admit that he wishes you had died and your older brother had lived? Denethor doesn’t appear to care about Faramir until he appears to have died. This is less apparent in the book, but it’s still there.

 Harry Potter has the same thing. Obviously since Harry doesn’t have a living father, it’s kind of hard for him to have a conflict with him. I guess there’s kind of atonement with Severus Snape in the last book, but you have to really, really squint to make it that relationship one of a father-figure and son. …No, that doesn’t work for our purposes. There are issues with fathers with other characters, like Ron, Neville and Draco, but those relationships aren’t really elaborated on until later in the series.

 Video games often follow a similar pattern. Conflict with a father or father figure is incredibly common. Raz and Jack both have big issues with their dads, although Raz’s resolution is obviously more positive than Jack’s. Raz actually does atone with his dad, right before the final battle with a giant two-headed father monster in Raz and Oleander’s combined mental world. (If you don’t know Psychonauts, it makes sense in context, I promise.) Jack meanwhile…kills his biological father, although perhaps not willingly considering his mental conditioning. Andrew Ryan is a pretty terrible human being though, so maybe Jack/the player would have wanted to kill him anyway. Maybe.

 It should also be no surprise that the father issue doesn’t have to surround the main character, especially since being an orphan is a common backstory, as mentioned in the Call to Adventure step above.  The Inquisitor doesn’t really have issues with his/her father, presuming the player thinks the father is still alive, but Dorian certainly takes umbrage with his father trying to use blood magic to change his sexuality. It’s up to the player to either encourage or discourage Dorian from reconciling with his father, so this step is up in the air in that regard.

 Another similar conflict that occurs in DAI that isn’t with a father is between Morrigan and Flemeth, although I would hesitate to consider it”atonement,” especially if Morrigan is the one who drinks from the Well of Sorrows, thus tying her to Flemeth’s command. Of course, with Flemeth out of the picture and Solas taking over, I wonder how that connection stands now.

 The father conflict is also not related to the main character in FFVII. Red XIII, aka Nanaki, has issues with believing his father, Seto, abandoned his mother and his tribe during an attack by the Gi tribe. In truth, Seto actually sacrificed himself to prevent a backdoor invasion, turning to stone after being hit by several petrifying arrows. Once Red learns the truth about this, he proclaims that his father was a hero and he will protect his home, Cosmo Canyon, just like he did.

 And that’s not even getting into all the father issues present in the other Final Fantasy games, plus others in FFVII. Maybe I’ll do another post about that topic another time.

 10.) Apotheosis

 This is the point the quest has been leading up to. The final challenge. The final battle. The final countdown. The hero takes all they have learned over the course of their journey and applies it to this final challenge. If there’s a main villain of the story, this is the time where the hero confronts them.

 This is pretty self-explanatory. Luke Skywalker trusts in the Force, which allows him to blow up the Death Star. Harry Potter decides he wants to obtain the Philosopher’s Stone, but not use it, and that’s what allows him to receive it from the Mirror of Erised. And Frodo has to throw the One Ring into the Crack of Doom to defeat Sauron. That last one is interesting in that Frodo technically fails to do this final task, which is not something we historically see in Hero’s Journeys, but such a failure is becoming more common.

 Applying this step to video games feels a bit like cheating considering that a large majority of them have a final boss battle of some kind, and our four games are no exception. Most of the resolution of the main character’s stories coincides with the defeat of the final boss. Jack’s story ends when he is able to reverse his mental conditioning (with Tenenbaum’s help) and he defeats Fontaine, and the Inquisitor’s conflict with Corypheus ends, of course, with Corypheus’ death. The Trespasser DLC for DAI adds more conflict involving what happens after and what the Inquisitor is going to do about their Mark that is slowly killing them, but I feel that’s another story, so it’s beyond The Hero’s Journey of the main game.

 However, despite having final boss battles, I feel that Psychonauts and FFVII also have an Apotheosis step in terms of the characters themselves. Raz has to defeat the two-headed mental amalgamation of his and Oleander’s fathers, but he is able to do so because his real father breaks into his mental world and lends Raz his power so he can fight the monster. That reconciliation is more important to Raz’s story than beating the monster. Honestly, Raz probably wouldn’t have agreed to use his father’s strength if they hadn’t reconciled literally just prior to the final fight.

 Cloud’s Apotheosis really has to do with coming to terms with his false memories. He never actually joined SOLDIER, instead becoming a grunt in the Midgar army. He was experimented on after the Nibelheim Incident, escaped with Zack, and basically imprinted Zack’s life, experiences, mannerisms and skills after Zack was killed right in front of him. Cloud and Tifa have to sift through Cloud’s memories to figure out what really happened during the Nibelheim Incident, thus returning Cloud to his normal self. Essentially, Cloud has to realize that he is not as strong of a person as he previously believed, and that there’s nothing wrong with being weak. What you have to be is true to yourself. That’s more important than being strong.

 11.) The Ultimate Boon

 So if the Apotheosis is the final challenge of the journey, then the Ultimate Boon is the reward for overcoming it. This can be material or not, and likewise may or may not be what the hero initially set out to receive or accomplish. The boon can be large (such as saving the world) or small (earning a medal), and it can be public (again, saving the world) or personal (winning a love interest’s heart).

 Harry and Frodo both set out to accomplish a task, preventing the Philosopher’s Stone being stolen and destroying the One Ring, respectively, although Harry’s realization that he must do this thing is later on in the story compared to Frodo. They both succeed and are both rewarded. Harry and his friends are basically handed the House Cup at the end of the school year for thwarting Voldemort’s plan, and Frodo and the fellowship save the world, and more importantly for Frodo, save the Shire.

 However, Frodo does end up having to leave the Shire and go into the east due to the wounds he acquired throughout the journey as well as the strain of carrying the Ring. In a way, he is rewarded for his journey, but also punished because he didn’t actually accomplish the task he set out to do. He ends up leaving the Shire, his home, which he wanted to save to begin with.

 Luke is kind of the same way. He doesn’t set out necessarily to find his father and bring him back to the light. His Call to Adventure had to do with going to Alderaan with Obi-Wan to help Leia, and he is rewarded with a medal at the end of A New Hope for destroying the Death Star. However, his boon really has to do with reconciling with Vader, a conflict that doesn’t begin until The Empire Strikes back, later in his Hero’s Journey. However, this is just a good example of how the boon does not necessarily have to relate to the call.

 The boons for both FFVII and DAI are saving the world. It’s good for the world to not be destroyed, after all. Raz’s boon is a bit more personal: He is allowed to join the Psychonauts, which he set out to do, but his relationship with his father is also significantly improved now that the two of them understand one another better.

 For Jack, he saves Rapture…sort of. If the events of Bioshock 2 indicate anything, it’s that things really haven’t gotten better for Rapture following Fontaine’s defeat. However, presuming that the player spared the Little Sisters and gets the good ending of the game, Jack returns to the surface world with the cured Little Sisters, who essentially become his daughters. In the words of Brigid Tenenbaum, “In the end, what was your reward? You never said. But I think I know…a family.”

 Jack is given the short end of the stick in terms of family and future. His parents are not his real parents, his biological father Andrew Ryan didn’t want him, his mother sold him to Tenenbaum and Suchong as an embryo, and he has no control over himself or his own destiny. Considering it turns out everything Jack knew about himself and his family is a lie, a real family is the best thing he could have received. Jack basically has nothing at the beginning of the game, so the fact that he is able to still build a life for himself and the former Little Sisters is a great reward. Of course, this is thrown out of the window if the player harvests the Little Sisters and gets the bad or neutral endings, so there you go.

 12.) Refusal of the Return

 We’ve reached the point where the hero has accomplished the goal he/she has set out to do, has received their reward, and now has to go back to normal life that was left behind at the beginning of the story. What? The hero doesn’t want to return to normal life? They prefer the world they’re in now? Yeah, in a strange reversal of the Refusal of the Call, the hero no longer wants to return to their previous life, having earned the boon and learned the lessons they have.

 Can anyone really blame Harry Potter for not wanting to return to his aunt and uncle’s house once the school year end? Yeah, let’s go back to the house where he’s treated horribly, has a literal hand-me-down bedroom, and is not allowed to perform any of the magic he has grown to love. Plus his owl is forced to stay in her cage the whole summer. That sounds great! Let’s do that.

 Frodo, on the other hand, does return to his normal life in the Shire, but later has to leave because of his wounds and from carrying the One Ring (see The Ultimate Boon step above). It’s not so much that he refuses to return, but rather he is forced to leave again. Luke is kind of the same way. He doesn’t really refuse to return to his family and their moisture farm, it’s that he can’t return to it, because that has been destroyed. His previous life can no longer be. Even if we stretch the timeline to the end of The Return of the Jedi, Luke never goes back to just being a moisture farmer.

 Psychonauts only has a half-hearted refusal. At the end of the game, Raz acts like he’s going to go back to the circus, but only for a moment. Once the opportunity to go on another rescue mission comes up, Raz turns to nonverbally ask his father if he can go. It’s more like he’s asking for permission to not return rather than refusing outright.

 The Inquisitor of DAI doesn’t return to their previous world either. The life of running the Inquisition doesn’t end when Corypheus is defeated. It continues on until the Trespasser DLC, which even at the end of that the Inquisitor continues their adventure to stop Solas from basically destroying the world in a few years. I’m actually pretty eager to see how the Inquisitor fits in the next Dragon Age game, although the developers have given a 2022 release date, last time I checked.

 For Bioshock, Jack really does not refuse to return, symbolically indicated by him leaving Rapture and returning to the surface world. Regardless of whether he brings the cured Little Sisters to the surface to have a normal life or he becomes the splicers’ new leader and brings them to the surface to destroy mankind, he peaces out of Rapture at the first opportunity he has. There’s no refusal to return on Jack’s part at all.

 FFVII…okay, I’m again having trouble with this step. Cloud doesn’t really act like he refuses to go back to his previous life. His previous life is actually up in the air, with all his messed up memories and near lack of anything connecting him to his past, either as himself or with his false memories as an ex-SOLDIER. The only person really connecting him to his life before the story is Tifa, and I’m not going to get into the shipping wars about whether he should be with her or the now dead Aerith. That’s a different post. Regardless, by the end of the game, Cloud is more interested in moving forward than going back.

 13.) The Magic Flight

 In the process of returning to normal life, the hero will often have to flee from some kind of danger. This happens after the hero has received the boon, but before they are able to bring it to the people. If there’s a bad guy that needs to defeating or a task that needs accomplishing, this step often takes place immediately after. Actual flying is not required, but don’t be surprised if it does. The Magic Flight frequently merges with the next two steps, Rescue from Without and The Crossing of the Return Threshold.

 Let’s see. Luke escapes the Death Star on a shuttle with his father’s body. Frodo and Sam fly with the Eagles back to safety as Mount Doom is erupting. Harry is knocked unconscious and rescued by Dumbledore from the room containing the Mirror of Erised. Whew. Managed to keep that short.

 DAI doesn’t really have this step, because again, the story keeps going even after Corypheus’ end. However, I could argue there are other parts of the game that have a Magic Flight, such as escaping from the dystopian future after defeating Alexius or escaping the Fade after fighting the Fear Demon. These events just don’t happen at the end of the game. FFVII also only kind of has this step too, in the form of the Highwind bringing the party out of the North Crater following the defeat of Safer Sephiroth.

 Raz has to escape from his own mind, which is intertwined with Oleander’s in the last stage of the game, and his brain has to be detangled in order to return to his normal self. He’s not really conscious for the process though, so the player doesn’t really see it. As for Jack, this step is really kind of merged with the next two, so we’ll get to those.

 14.) Rescue from Without

 During the course of the Magic Flight, the hero will be unable to escape the danger they are trying to flee from on their own. Someone (or multiple people) will need to come in and rescue the hero. This is especially true if the hero is injured or weakened in some way, particularly after a rough final battle with the big bad.

 As stated before, this one often overlaps with the previous one and the next one. Vader saves Luke from Palpatine’s Force Lightning. The Eagles rescue Frodo and Sam from the erupting Mount Doom. Harry rescued from the attack from Voldemort/Quirrell by Dumbledore and brought to the Hospital Wing for treatment. Yeah, that sounds about the same as before.

 The closest thing the Inquisitor comes to being rescued from without, at least at the end of the game, is with the red lyrium dragon, where either a dragon-shifted Morrigan (if she drank from the Well of Sorrows) or the Guardian of Mythal (if the Inquisitor did). However, the red lyrium dragon defeats either Morrigan or the Guardian, and the Inquisitor and the party have to fight it anyway. So it’s an attempted but ultimately unsuccessful rescue.

 Raz is rescued by his dad, Augustus, from his own brain, and I imagine Cruller, Sasha and Milla all played a role in separating Raz’s brain from Oleander’s and rebraining him, even though this isn’t shown on screen.  Several Little Sisters stab Fontaine to death with their ADAM-collecting syringe, saving Jack from his final blow. It’s a wonderfully satisfying scene and I absolutely love it. FFVII has a rescue of sorts in that Aerith has to basically make the Lifestream rise up to help her Holy spell stop Meteor from destroying the planet. How she manages to do this from beyond the grave is never explicitly explained. It must just be a Cetra thing.

 15.) The Crossing of the Return Threshold

 So, this step is the final of the triumvirate of the return steps. The hero actually returns to their normal life or their previous home, and distributes the boon they have received upon the rest of the world. This is basically anything that happens after the climax of the story. Exposition explaining what exactly has happened may or may not be included.

 Luke returns to the rest of the characters on Endor to celebrate the destruction of the second Death Star, bringing the teachings of the light side of the Force with him. Harry Potter boards the Hogwarts Express to return to the Muggle world. And the hobbits all return to the Shire, although in the books they have to deal with Saruman and the Scouring of the Shire once there.

 For Psychonauts, there’s kind of a Return Threshold, but only if you stretch it, and not in the sense that returns Raz to his normal life. Quite the opposite actually. Raz and the gang levitate into the Psychonauts jet that just happens to show up from the ground. Hmm, didn’t Raz say he suspected that Cruller had a jet hiding in his lab somewhere? Oh look! More setup and payoff!

 Finally, we come to Jack. After defeating Fontaine, he is finally able to take a bathysphere to the surface again. The player sees this almost immediately after defeating Fontaine, and it occurs regardless of whether the player gets the good or bad ending.

 As stated in the Refusal of the Return step, neither DAI nor FFVII really have Crossing of the Return Threshold. FFVII just sort of ends and DAI doesn’t show the Inquisitor returning to their home origins, either in the game proper or in the DLC.

 16.) Master of Two Worlds

 This step is no so much of a step, but rather a final result of the hero’s journey. It is closely related to the next step, Freedom to Live. We see the hero basically in their final form, having achieved what they set out to do, whether that was the original intention or not. The hero is able to live in both their old and new worlds.

 In our chosen movies, Luke is really the only one who is the Master of Two Worlds. He recognizes the darkness that exists in him, but he can overcome it. Frodo, on the other hand, literally can’t become Master of Two Worlds due to his experiences. He has to leave one world (the Shire) permanently for the east.

 Harry…really has to compartmentalize his wizard and Muggle experiences, but that has more to do with his family not being willing to accept that magic is a part of him. Obviously his aunt and uncle do not care for his boon (magic) that he brings with him, forbidding him from using it, even without the Statute of Secrecy in place. He can’t really master both worlds in that regard, not until the last book and he reconciles with Dudley. (I’m really annoyed they cut that from the final release of the movies. That badly needed to be shown.) Harry does become a master of two worlds, the living and the dead, in the last book, but we’re looking at the first book alone, and this step isn’t really possible for him due to his circumstances.

 Now I have to admit, the only game (on our list anyway) that has this step is probably Psychonauts. Cloud steps away from his false life as an ex-SOLDIER when he admits that it was all in his head, choosing instead to continue to live as himself. Jack either returns to the surface with the Little Sisters and stays there (in the good ending) or becomes the master of Rapture and new leader of the splicers, rejecting his previous life. And The Inquisitor, well, I guess you could say they become the master of both the real world and the Fade, especially since he/she gets progressively better at controlling the Anchor and closing Fade rifts. However, they he/she still remains in the real world as the Inquisitor, until the events of Trespasser at least. These three games have the main character choosing one world over another, so it’s hard to pin them down as “masters” of two.

 Psychonauts, however, shows Raz accepts both parts of his life, as an acrobat and as a Psychonaut. This is illustrated excellently during the last platforming part of the game, during Meat Circus, with the rising water and Raz needing to keep up with his mental image of his dad. He uses both his acrobatic skills and his psychic powers to reach the top of the area. And as stated previously, Raz gains his father’s blessing before running off on another mission. Raz succeeds at being a Master of Two Worlds, and this kid is only ten!

 17.) Freedom to Live

 A follow up of the previous step, Freedom to Live is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Having mastered both worlds, the hero is allowed to live, as he or she wants, without worrying about any more conflicts…until the story sequel at least. This is the happy ending of the story, presuming the story has a happy ending.

 All of our protagonists, both movie and video game, manage this step in one way or another. Luke no longer has the threat of the Sith looming over him, and he can be at peace knowing he helped to redeem his father (and, for now, I’m going to ignore the stuff that happens in the New Trilogy, because that starts up a whole new set of the monomyth). Harry is given the opportunity to go back to Hogwarts for more schooling, and even though his Muggle family disapproves, he knows who he is now and has answers for things he couldn’t explain before. Overall, the end of the first Harry Potter book gives him a new lot in life, and the series continues on with that from there.

 And Frodo. Poor Frodo. Perhaps it’s hard to say he has “freedom” to live since he does end up leaving the Shire, but considering that his goal was to save the Shire (and by extension, all of Middle Earth), he succeeds. Frodo had to leave his home, but the other hobbits, including Sam, his closest companion, were able to live without a care. It’s a sacrifice, but one Frodo seems content to make.

 As for the video games we’re looking at, well, now Raz has the freedom to pursue his dream of being a Psychonaut without worrying about it alienating his family, his father in particular. Cloud is able to put the past behind him and move forward as his own person, rather than trying to live up to a standard he forced himself to before. The Inquisitor has challenges ahead to be sure, but without the threat of Corypheus breathing down their neck, they have a bright future to look forward to (at least until Solas decides to tear down the Veil, but we’ll have to wait for Dragon Age 4 to see how that turns out). And finally, Jack finally has answers to any questions he had about his life, and with his mental conditioning removed, he is finally allowed to choose his own fate, whether as a despotic leader of the splicers or as a father to the cured Little Sisters.

 So there you go. The Hero’s Journey in a bunch of movies and video games. As I said at the beginning of this extensive diatribe, the monomyth is not the only way to tell a story well, and it certainly is not mandatory to make a story good. However, whether intentional or not, parts of the monomyth somehow find their way into the stories we share in our various media. It’s worth looking at for any kind of story, if only to analyze how the presence or absence of the monomyth affects the story, for better or worse. And yes, video games can be a great form of story telling, if developers take the time to create it and players take the time to experience it.

 Okay. This post has gone on long enough. To anyone who managed to make it all the way here, thank you for your patience and commitment to reading my ramblings.

[rpgsandbox]

Gobblin’ is an original RPG setting and system where players control goblins settling and exploring a post-apocalyptic Earth. The creatures who crave violence, stupidity and chaos have just found the perfect means to obtain it.

Everyone knows about goblins. They’re violent and stupid little green guys who with just enough brain cells to know what they’re doing and black enough hearts not to care. They live in fantastic worlds where wizards battle dragons, kingdoms rise and fall, and armies of swordsmen clash to save the world from evil. All the while, there’s always goblins looting corpses and stealing cabbages.

When the higher races grew tired of the chaotic creatures so obnoxious that even the forces of evil didn’t want them around, they banded together to form a spell so powerful that it would reach across the entire realm. With what was essentially a magical, interdimensional eviction notice, every single goblin was hurled through time and space until they landed in what they would come to know as their new home. There were no humans or elves there, but those that had lived there before had left behind a strange world ravaged by war. The least cowardly of the goblins started to prod at the mysterious devices until they roared to life and the goblins cheered to realize their fate!  

This world had guns and cars, bazookas and robots! Things that exploded if you poked them enough! Exciting mutants and bombed out apartments that were MUCH cozier than any goblin hut. The goblins had a whole world of abandoned toys to discover, many of which could kill their fellow goblin from twenty paces away. The goblins ran wholeheartedly into their new world, wanting to be the first to discover the strangest mysteries, deadliest weapons and tastiest expired snack cakes of the world they would call Goblin House. The humans were gone from this place. The goblins would thrive in their ruins.

The story of Gobblin’ is about entering a generic post-apocalypse after living in a generic fantasy world for countless generations (it’s only countless because goblins are terrible at history and counting). Goblins adapt surprisingly well to their new home. Their twisted anatomy helps them deal with radiation, spoiled food, and their natural disregard for common safety practices. Their sheer numbers allow them to last long enough to figure out what explodes and what shoots what out of where. It doesn’t take long for them to scatter around the globe, hunkering down in salvaged homes, restaurants and shopping malls and starting to call dibs on all they can find.  

Goblins don’t understand what happened to Earth in the slightest. Some have a passing curiosity, but they quickly forget about it when they find a power drill or something that glows in the dark. Goblins have their priorities straight, and that priority is greed. They want shiny valuables, sharp tools, tasty food, weapons of great and confusing power, and the means to lord over their fellow goblins. If they’re lucky, they can find something that gives them all of the above. After all, this high tech world generated a lot of strange things in a desperate arms race before their end. Dibis found a tool that fires beams of light to burn your foes!  Kep tells stories of a magical armored vehicle that speaks to you when you approach. The shamans warn young goblins against going into the caves of Deepdown, since giant serpentine creatures slither in the dark protecting shiny and tasty treasures.Any goblin that looks long and hard enough will find something of interest, even if finding loot also means finding trouble.

Thanks to their monstrous adaptability and already filthy lifestyle, being a goblin in Goblin House is like being a kid in a planet-sized candy store. In this case, the candy is bullets and some of the candy will eat you because it’s been mutated by severe radiation poisoning. So like any kid, goblins are going to go looking where they’re not welcome and then quickly enter a blind panic and do something stupid. The fact of the matter is that goblins are eternally held back by their many flaws. Stupidity, cowardice, greed, and treachery will play a part in even the noblest goblins’ life.

Goblins came from a medieval fantasy world where they thought the catapult was the peak of technology and something a goblin would never get their hands on. Now goblins are learning something new every day, and they still barely comprehend what's going on. A pile of skeletons don't even get a second glance from goblins because where there's human remains there's loot and delicious bones! Most goblins would rather fight over a piece of chocolate than take the time to figure out the codes to a bank vault, and that's just the ones that are literate. The setting is full of childlike wonder and shallow violence with a dash of comical indifference to the grim and ruined world around them.

Of course, they're not totally disorganized. Goblins likely would have just starved to death centuries ago if not for the occasional bossy type to make decisions. There is always one goblin in charge, being loud and selfish enough to yell at them to go get food, build houses, construct weapons, and generally get off their little green butts once in a while. The crux of any goblin’s life is going to be who's their chief. If they’re lucky, they’ll do their job and avoid his attention. If they’re very lucky, they’ll suck up to him and prove themselves strong enough to become on of his favorite toadies. If they’re absurdly lucky, they’re loud, strong or brave enough to overthrow the chief and take over.

For most of the players, they’re going to be that sad circle of scrubs that's unusual but talented enough that the chief gives them the strangest and riskiest jobs. Time and again, they’ll be expected to pile into a salvaged car or trudge off into the wasteland to scrounge through an abandoned truck stop to find any more of those moldy sandwiches the chief likes so much. Of course, there are many things lost and forgotten in this vast, dead world. Some of it is dangerous, and some of it is essentially (or sometimes literally) magical. The greatest risks come with the greatest rewards, and goblins will start out as extremely willing to fight and explore for the promise of reward. It's all about being the one to survive those mutated animals, outdated security systems, collapsing ruins, and (perhaps worst of all) your fellow goblins. Little green bandits and rival tribes are a blatant threat while your incompetent villagers may cause as much trouble as they stop. Then it's another just one more job for our scavenging cleanup crew.

Gobblin’ features a unique gameplay system centered around our old neglected friend: the d12. If a human rolls a d20, then a goblin would be a d12. Invariable weaker and a little funny-looking, but with more chance for pathetic failure and shocking success.

All major rolls come down to a d12, adding on situational bonuses and one of your goblin’s six stats: Bash, Brave, Run, Know, Laugh, and Jerk. These will determine how good your goblin is at stealing, hiding, punching, shooting, reading and pretending to know karate.

Goblins aren’t especially weak, but they are enormous cowards. While they can take immeasurable damage, every time a player runs out of HP, they take a physical injury to hinder their abilities and must roll to avoid Panic. If a goblin ever falls into a Panic, they are reduced to flailing, screaming idiots that can do nothing productive until they are brought to their senses by a teammate. Failing that, they’ll just run into the wasteland, never to be seen again as some wild animal, land mine, or speeding car finishes them off. One too many Wounds can lead to you holding down your bleeding and screaming teammate, yelling at him to stay and fight while your buddies are fending off the actual monsters.

Character creation is achieved using one of three distinct methods. Players may choose a standard-issue Specialty (such as the junk-hoarding Tinker, the Headroc master of the headbutt, or the loudmouthed bully that is the Boss), build their character piece by piece from the ground up, or throw a handful of dice and determine their stats and Perks within minutes.

Goblin Greatness serves as a combination of experience points, life-saving tokens, and roleplaying rewards. When the GM finds that a player acts in an impressive, hilarious, or especially stupid way, they can reward them for getting into the spirit of Gobblin’ with a point of Goblin Greatness. This represents the rare moments in a goblin’s life when he feels pride, and they that can empower their character in a number of ways. Players are encouraged to leap headfirst into danger and make conscious mistakes for the sake of such rewards and the fact that in the most extreme cases, a goblin gets the beating they deserve.

Goblins can make due with just about anything for a weapon. A loose ruleset for weapons makes it so that a goblin with a golf club would fight as well as one with a morning star. A potato gun can work as well as a shotgun. Similarly, loose armor categories let goblins run around in anything from a loincloth (None), t-shirts (Quick), garbage can plate mail (Clunky) or imaginary armor. Yes, imaginary armor is different from no armor. At least to a goblin.

Gobblin' is loaded with ideas and triggers for adventures and stories, both short and long. The book includes plenty of ridiculous NPCs, colorful villages, obsessive factions, and a list of 50 brief adventure prompts to use in building the world.

Kickstarter campaign ends: Fri, November 10 2017 4:00 PM UTC +00:00

Website: The Drunk and the Ugly

[yahooben]

‘Injustice 2’ review: Kneel before this sublime superhero fighter

‘Injustice 2’ brings back the all the super hero brawling you loved from its predecessor.

All heroes are not created equal, especially when it comes to the expanded universes of comic book titans Marvel and DC.

From The Avengers and The Guardians of the Galaxy to lesser-known but equally potent stars like Ant Man and Doctor Strange (an original Defender, back in the day), Marvel’s mightiest have outmuscled DC’s potent roster cinematically. “Suicide Squad” somehow won an Oscar, but it also nabbed two Razzie nominations. “Batman Vs. Superman” scored eight (and won four).

When it comes to video games, however, DC has fared a bit better. DC franchises — mostly Batman, honestly — have carried the torch for console superhero games. That includes 2013’s excellent fighting game “Injustice.” And though it failed to match the success of developer NetherRealm Studios’ more famous series, “Mortal Kombat,” it served as a fine thirst quencher for comic book gamers.

The sequel is, in just about every sense, an improvement. It’s a bigger game in both character and mechanics, playful but intense and absolutely packed with clever ways to maim the members of “The Superfriends.” It’s also pretty addictive thanks to a new loot system that’s as much “Diablo” as it is DC.

We could be heroes

True to form, NetherRealm has given “Injustice 2” a full Story mode right out of the box. Picking up where the original left off, “Injustice 2” envisions a future torn apart by Superman, now captured after going full tyrant in the first game. As Batman wrestles with rebuilding the world in Superman’s wake, the Kryptonian’s nemesis, Brainiac, shows up hell-bent on destroying Earth. A few thousand plot twists later, and the gang has to save multiple universes while figuring out, once and for all, what to do with a power-mad Clark Kent.

Harley Quinn takes it to Batman in ‘Injustice 2.’

There’s a bit more agency here — you occasionally choose between two characters as you navigate through the linear narrative — but this is not NetherRealm’s best work. It relies too heavily on overused reasons to get superheroes to beat each other up (lots of inexplicable mind control … again), and full play through takes just about four hours. The stress between Batman and Superman, once novel, is a little played out at this point, and if you didn’t play the first game or possess at least a BA in Superhero Lore, the ins and outs of the drama can be tough to follow. It’s a brief, somewhat disjointed tale.

That said, the voice work and cinematics are top notch. And Story Mode does ultimately what it sets out to do: introduce you to the game’s mechanics and offer a veneer of justification for socking Robin in the head as Swamp Thing.

Get in gear

“Injustice 2” keeps the basics of “Injustice” (which itself felt a bit like a retooled “Mortal Kombat”) pretty much intact. You can still knock enemies into different stage areas, engage strategic “clashes” to swing the tide of a battle, trigger temporary character buffs, and, most memorably, unleash hysterically awesome Super Moves. I will never, ever get tired of watching Flash grab an enemy by the collar and literally drag them through time to smash their face into a feeding Tyrannosaurus. This is a thing you can do in this video game.

Superman gets an attitude adjustment in ‘Injustice 2.’

New this time around is the ability to burn your super meter on evasive maneuvers and blocks. Advanced tactics like move cancelling are also baked in, though most players will get by just fine with the intuitive combo system and merciless “Mortal Kombat” style juggling. “Injustice 2” is at once accessible and deep, a game easy to jump into but packed with subtleties begging for your time and attention.

The biggest new addition, however, isn’t in what you do while fighting, but what you get when you win. A new Gear System doles out loot after every match (you can also buy boxes of loot with in-game currency); like a traditional RPG, each piece of loot works with a specific character. You might win an exciting new bow for Green Arrow, for instance, or a fresh new head for Blue Beetle. The more you play as a character, the higher their level and the more potent the gear they can equip. This is crucial, because it’s not just for show: the gear tweaks stats for each of the game’s 28 characters, increasing strength, resilience, and other qualities.

It’s a bold move. Most fighting games rely on obsessively tight balancing to ensure that no one character outshines the rest. The gear throws that off, making your character faster, stronger, or stouter than the standard version. Cosmetic changes occur as well, too, making “Injustice 2” one of the most customizable fighting games ever made.

Gear is, unfortunately, marred by a baffling, overly complicated array of resources to gather and manage. You’ll acquire various kinds of credits and tokens (one of which can be purchased with real-world funds) to spend on gear, upgrades, and more. While you never feel pressured to spend cash, it’s an inelegant system that feels weirdly fussy for a full-priced game. Expect to grind a lot.

Aquaman and Deadshot tangle in ‘Injustice 2.’

But in case you were concerned about gear and competition, put down your red flag – the gear system won’t ruin competitive play, as Warner Bros. wisely created a separate, official tournament mode that resets all characters to their standard versions in order to ensure a level playing field.

Close competition

Of course, hopping online feels anything but level. As good as you get with your offline Aquaman, playing online opponents, with or without gear, is the real test. And since the “Injustice” core remains largely intact, expect to meet more than a few extremely talented amateurs online.

The good news is that “Injustice 2” includes a Practice mode that offers a window into pro considerations, including detailed character frame and move data for really dialing in moves. This is a game well aware of its esports aspirations; even before release, the game was added to the roster of titles at the upcoming Evo 2017 fighting game tournament.

Blue Beetle is ready to rock in ‘Injustice 2.’

Sadly, it doesn’t go the full distance getting amateur players up to speed, failing to include deeper character-specific training to help newcomers learn more advanced tactics. But it’s clear that there’s a lot to dig into here, and since fighting games these days function more as long-term competitive platforms than one-off games, “Injustice 2’s” depth, even if a little opaque, should serve it well in the long run.

If getting pummeled by other players is too much, you can hand the reigns to the game’s AI, building teams of heroes to take on other computer-controlled teams and watching them duke it out online. You even gain some loot from these battles, giving you yet another avenue for earning precious Super Pants.

Worlds within worlds

Even if you never test your mettle against other players, “Injustice 2” offers plenty to do. The game takes a cue from “Mortal Kombat X’s” Living Towers with the Multiverse, a constantly changing, timed set of matches that yield big rewards and often feature curious modifiers. You might play a series of matches in low-gravity or collect health-boosting hearts.

Multiverse battles dole out some of the game’s best gear and loot boxes, ensuring repeat visits. It’s a nice way to extend the solo game beyond the Story and Single Fight modes, and though it feels a little derivative, it delivers a wealth of variety that will undoubtedly keep players coming back. And at least until “Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite” steps into the fight, you’ll want to come back to “Injustice 2.” It’s the complete package — beautiful, nuanced, and inviting — and though it trips up a little with its short, uninspired Story, it more than makes up for it with the most rewarding superhero power fantasy this side of Batkid.

Platform reviewed: PS4

  What’s hot: Accessible yet deep; wildly creative super moves; addictive gear system; plenty of ways to play

What’s not: Story mode is a disappointment; resource mania

More games news:

How Microsoft is bringing VR to the masses

The New 2DS XL could be Nintendo’s best handheld yet

‘Middle-earth: Shadow of War’ lets you lead orcish armies — and destroy them

‘The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’ review: A new classic for a new generation

Ben Silverman is on Twitter at ben_silverman.

[adam16bit]

Super Mario Bros. 3

I just got through this one on the NES Classic, which afforded me something I could never do on the console version - actually play through every stage!   As a kid you couldn’t exactly hog the TV for the hours it would take to play through every world, which is why things like Warp Whistles were incredibly useful.  It’s obviously possible to beat this game in a couple of hours, but not unless you skip chunks of it or have beaten it before and generally know what you’re doing.

This was probably the best game the system had to offer in terms of variety and general vastness.  There was no save or password system, but you could pick up a variety of items to use later (as needed) and I believe more and better power-ups than on any subsequent Mario game.  

Marketing

They did a good job with this one - thanks to it coming out in Japan over a year before the USA, various import video game magazines probably made a fortune by picking up an import copy and posting screen shots.   (See: GamePro #1, a freebie at Toys R Us that I got with Blaster Master.)   Other publications advertising their product for free - or paying for the right to preview it - would be a remarkable feat for Nintendo, as there were countless unlicensed video game news magazines.  But they realized they could go much, much bigger.  They could manufacture a significantly larger phenomenon.

Nintendo got itself some fantastic product placement in The Wizard, a feature-length ad for video game stuff with a free mini Nintendo Power (”Pocket Power”) magazine with your ticket purchase.  How or why my parents agreed to take me to see this is still a mystery given how few times we saw movies in the theaters - the somewhat insufferable movie did a great job showing us something that many of us to this day still don’t realize.   The power of marketing to kids in the 1980s was utterly insane, and while many of us think back on kidvid like She-Ra, He-Man, G.I. Joe, Transformers, and the like as good clean wholesome fun?  It was there to sell us stuff.  Even though The Wizard had elements of sports movies and road trip movies, it was basically a wish fulfillment fantasy - and that wish was for kids to see footage of a video game they couldn’t actually buy until next year.    Given how long a few months seems when you’re a kid, this sort of thing really stirred up the frenzy even more, making the game scarce upon release in the USA in 1990.

The TV ads were similarly kind of creepy with a cultish atmosphere of an endless stream of kids chanting Mario’s name, waiting for their icon to arrive once more.   But TV marketing didn’t stop there - there was also a rebranded Saturday morning TV show called “Super Mario Bros. 3″ that had musical numbers.  Some are the stuff of pop culture legend, like Wendy O. Koopa kidnapping Milli Vanilli to play her birthday party.  Others are more forgettable but more insidious - there’s a whole song and dance extolling the virtues of the Frog Suit power-up from the game.  Looking back on it, it’s diabolical, creepy, and insanely effective.

But wait - there’s more!  Nintendo Power magazine was famous for being a way to market to kids and charge them for the opt-in privilege.  One issue of the magazine was completely devoted to Super Mario  Bros. 3 - some may dismiss it as a strategy guide, but it was an ad.  Full-color illustrations showing all of the fun stuff in the game could be dismissed as spoilery, but that wasn’t a term people used in 1990.   You’d buy a game guide (like the Official Nintendo Player’s Guide) and use it sort of like how people used Leonard Maltin’s guide to the movies.  There was no Internet, so these magazines were showing people what to play, rent, or purchase - and boy howdy did they help get kids to ask mom and dad to drop fifty bones on software that they could finish in a couple of weeks.

For your very brief political moment, you might say “that’s fine” or “shouldn’t there be laws preventing this kind of marketing to kids?”  As someone in the toy business I’m both creeped out by it and a big part of it - my office is packed with toys and games dating back to my own childhood, and most of the new stuff I get is tied to marketing/programming/culture I experienced as a kid.   I don’t buy Avatar, I buy Star Wars.   There were indeed laws against carpet-bombing kids on TV with marketing, but comic books were largely fair game and Saturday morning TV changed from kid versions of adult shows and weird puppet entertainment to training wheels for the consumer vehicle of today.  Show of hands - who here watched one or more Marvel-based TV show as a child 20, 30, or even 40 years ago and is now a fan of the movie franchise?

We’re in a weird place.   I could go on a tear about how the cereal and magazine aisles in 1980s grocery stores served as my Internet but we’re on too big of a tangent here.  Point being - SMB3 was a huge success because Nintendo heavily invested in that success.   If you had any connection to their target demographic, they probably lobbed something at you and got your attention.   It helped that the game was indeed everything they promised.

Believe the Mario Hype?

The first batch of NES games had a bunch of original-ish ideas.  Super Mario  Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Castlevania, and others would have one or more sequels on the 8-bit console, although all of them seemed to have an unwritten rule to “return to form” for their third entries.  They were bigger and better, sure - but Mario gave us a completely different sequel before reverting  back to a powered-up version of the original game.  Link’s adventure diverted him into a Metroidvania/RPG hybrid before returning to the not-quite-RPG top-down adventure game format most of us know and love.   Castlevania, too, introduced and removed RPG elements to return to the classic block stage format.

Mario’s levels were very similar to the first game, but larger.  On the whole you always moved left to right, there was no warping from the right to the left of the screen, but you could go up into the sky by flight or climbing a vine.  Auto-scrolling levels were introduced to mix up the dynamic.  A map screen allowed you limited control of how you advanced - some levels and challenges were wholly optional, and certain items like Jugem’s Cloud actually allowed you to skip over some of those challenges.   In the original Super Mario Bros., your options were to go to the right side of the screen and maybe select a Warp Zone.   By the third game, you could choose to assault a fortress, or hop in a Mushroom House to take a power-up, or blow a Warp Whistle when you so decided.

The world was covered in familiar, more modernized versions of faces you’ve seen before with only Bob-Omb returning from the second game.  Pretty much the entire cast of the first game came back with prettier sprites, and Mario also got a facelift - not as good as his look in the second game, but his controls were tighter and his pants were, for some reason, blacker.

Power-ups are what really made the game special.    A lot of gamers would say Super Mario World from the Super NES was an inferior game, and I’d almost agree.   In the 16-bit Mario, you could have fireballs or don a cape and fly.   Super Mario Bros. 3 let you get a raccoon tail, fireballs, a Hammer Bros. suit, a Frog Suit, a Tanooki Suit, and the P-Wing which granted infinite flight on a single stage without having to take a running start first.  You had options.

Clever enemies - some of which you only met once or twice - included a Goomba jumping around in a giant green shoe, reptiles who would  barf up a spiked ball and chuck it at your head, and spiny eggs that would sometimes refuse to hatch.  Even the sun itself bore an angry face and would chase you down through the desert!   Squids would send their children after you in the seas to bring you down!  What did you ever do to them?   Oh, right. Calamari.

A World of Difference

One of the things that set Mario games apart from the competition were its themed worlds - “Grass Land” and a desert don’t seem too thrilling, but they were fun.  The ice level in this game got clever with frozen bonus items - if you wanted coins, you had to hit them with a fire ball to thaw them out.  One world was filled with pipes and man-eating vegetation.   Another world - easily the best in the entire series - was Big Island, where you were normal size and most of the enemies were actual giants!  I wish they would bring more of that back in the 2D series, which has gone from evolving from game to game to  basically being the same thing since New Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo DS.  Not bad - but the level of change between each of the Super Mario Bros. games released over 5 years is pretty staggering.

Because of these differences, the game really made you make decisions.  Do you skip ahead to world 8 to beat the game and watch the brief, credits-free ending again?  Or do you go hang out in World 4 again because World 4 was awesome?   Do you use those awesome power-ups you found in a Mushroom House now, or save them for later when you might actually need them?   It’s a heck of a lot more to consider than “run to the right, and try not to die.”

I found that the game held up very well to a replay - there were some weird glitches where sometimes an item would hit me and I didn’t die, and others where it didn’t hit me and I did die, but I assume this is emulation bug stuff or something I just lucked in to this time.   Levels were significantly shorter than I remembered, lacking the extensive obstacles and obliterating any replay value (per game, that is) as you’re locked out of a stage once you beat it.  Nintendo didn’t really start experimenting with forced replay of Mario stages to get all the exits and to find all the secrets until Super Mario World, and then in Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine the game was more about replay, replay, replay.   The levels were bigger, there was more you could do, the games were prettier, but you also were treading the same ground repeatedly.  Super Mario Bros. 3 didn’t make you replay anything until  you got a “Game Over” screen.

Very few games had the marketing impact of Mario’s final NES adventure, but Acclaim and Sega did learn a lot from the hype Nintendo created with “Mortal Monday” for Mortal Kombat and “Sonic 2sday” for the second Sonic the Hedgehog title - and people showed up.   We saw a lot of this throughout the 1990s, with the first “midnight madness” event for an action figure launch in 1999 for The Phantom Menace, and the film would really kick off the ghastly trend of day- or week-long “line parties.”  Now people just reserve their seat online, but back then it wasn’t uncommon to see the cinema briefly transformed into an experience not unlike tailgating at a football game.

The game was a smash hit, which you know - the NES cartridge sold millions of copies.  It would go on to  be a pack-in game with the NES.  They upgraded it to 16-bit graphics and sound as part of Super Mario All-Stars.   The upgraded port would be sold separately - at full price - on the GameBoy Advance a decade later.  That’s a lot of money for old software, and Nintendo has trotted it out as a download for the Wii and Wii U for about five bones.  I don’t doubt it will also be on the switch.  Heck, Super Mario All-Stars also got a $20 Wii port.   The best value for this game is on the NES Classic Edition from late 2016, which I just played through, because each game averages $2 plus you get the game hardware.  I still am somewhat shocked how cheap (for Nintendo) the whole package was, as the Mario games alone are so fondly remembered I bet they could’ve got $60 for just those titles.  I still enjoy the games - the marketing worked, I watched the stupid cartoons too, and I’ve got a 20-inch Mario action figure waving to me from the other side of my office as I type this.  Is this a good thing?  Is it terrible?  You tell me.

[patriciavetinari]

Long post, personal crisis

Sorry I don’t know if I can use the Keep Reading thingie on mobile. Tw: suicide mention. Please don’t reblog. Replies ok.

I think I basically just realized or at least spent significant time thinking about a definite weakness of mine that I should and want to deal with - it’s the horrible toxic jealousy/perfectionism that I feel, and the poisoning strive to be brilliant and recognized for it.

You know those posts and feelings about new hobbies - if you try one and are not immediately amazing at it, you never practice or try again? I believe I have some horrible exagerrated version of that. I feel it even around people, especially in new groups, beit online or offline. This fuckinf need to best, brilliant, expert, I want to cause awe and amaze people.

I think it also might very much be connected with me growing up and prett much being fat, having to prove my worth to people around me, having to be funny, witty, smart one, which I’ve tried so hard to always be and yet I obviously can’t always be like that, plus I can fucking feel capitalism making me duller, taking away my creativity and imagination (then again, is it just the horrible me just looking for excuses for not developing self?).

What triggered it is the online rpg community that I’m part of but I’m sort of a wallflower, still kind of new, and not very good and the particular theme of that rpg (star wars). Yet it’s filled with brilliant creative people, one of them whips out poetry on the whim and I read that thread just now and absolutely broke down because I can’t do that. And I need to outshine that person immediately, I need to be better, I need to win over others and evoke awe.

I hate this feeling. Not that person - I try very hard to focus on the fact that other people being good at something creative is good and wonderful and go them. That is the right thing to think, yet I immediately spiral into this anxiety and perplexion - how can I outdo them and at least be equal, at least be loved and appreciated just as much? Is the lack of love and appreciation? I so feel like a worthless third wheel. Talentless, useless, dull, background npc.

It’s like those positive posts “one person being beautiful does not stop me from being beautiful”, but again, extremely exagereated and with activities AS WELL AS looks. Is it the lack of purpose? The general perfectionism? I don’t know what I want to do with my life and who I want to become, when I contemplate going to college I have no idea what do I want to study. Everything. Nothing. I don’t want to study or practice, I want to immediately be good at everything.

And it’s the same with most such encountera both online and real life. Instagram is horrible in its own rite, but when I just joined it I felt exactly the same about those makeup routines. I bought so many products, I tried, I actually tried there since it was something I did every say, and then I realised I have hooded eyes and will never actually be able to show off instagram-worthy eyelids, and I had breakdowns over this.

It’s the same with almost every fuckinf hobby I encounter, I try to make it if not my monetized brand, then my fun personal mastery. It was the same with yoga (still is, I want to be Amazingly Flexible Fat Person), smoothie bowls, photography, calligraphy, drawing, poetry, writing (even though I don’t have a single finished fan or original work yet I call myself a fuckinf writer). It was even same with relationships, hoping to be able to be a hoe/sugar baby both for the possible pleasures and material side AND thw recognition of A Skill to Seduce, I guess (I’m fat and never been asked on a date, so guess how that is going, I’m completely clueless around flirting). Same with music, style, running aesthetic blog, running a livejournal blog (yeah, this has been going on since LJ era), even running a twitter, or instagram, or any social media, or learning to speak in accents, or dancing, knitting, embroidery and other crafts. Lately I see “witchy stuff” trending in my feed, so obviously I’ve already looked into that.

But I think it’s the creative outlets and being absolutely dull at them, not being able to Produxe Content - not even for monetizing – bur just Not Having a Thoughts is what pains me so much. I’m not fun, not interesting. Especially when there are Brilliant People in close proximity. Even those who would be able to recite poetry if not come up with it on the spot. Those people are so amazing to me I want to fucking kill myself for not being One of Them. I hate it.

It’a slightly better with my work, as I’m sort of an expert in my team by now, people ask me for help a lot and it sends me beaming, I like helping, being the expert, Offering a piece of my mind, but my work is not creative, it’s horrible, it’s ruining my sense of humour, my mind, and it’s completely useless outside that specific field and my colleagues. I’m fun to them because I’m smart abour our job and sassy but it’s horrible job. And I’m bad at everything else. I have no hobbies, no personality outside work.

And even at work I’m vulnerable. I had lunch today near the French team, they were speaking French, and I spent time regretting I don’t speak French. I “only” speak three languages. English is my third one. I go absolutely fucking stellar when native speaker compliments my English, vocabulary and all. Do I struggle without recognition? Do I need constant pats on the back? Am I good enough? Am I trying to prove my worth no matter to whom? Am I trying to please or entertain, be useful?

I want to be brilliant. I want to be sure of what I like to do, of what my actual hobbies are, I want to find out who I am so I can be in contact with other People With Hobbies and be content with our differences, be able to just be happy for another persons talent, and enjoy it, and recognize them instead of turning the spotlight onto myself while having nothing to say and demanding applause. I will always support people having phases, pickinf up and putting down hobbies when they feel like it, but I want at least a little bit of permanence in myself, at least for a moment, I want to try and find out my actual interests, not trends I fall for desperately trying to be relatable and marketable and presentable and acceptable.

I want to find myseld and be happy with myself. And fuck, I want brilliance and recognition and applause. Maybe it’s a form of craving love and attention, but I want it. I want to be creative, good at something, brilliant. I even feel like all my interests are Like That, not genuine, like some sort of Imposter syndrome subcategory, Trying To Be Liked. Yes, I was that kid that was no trouble and acted so mature. Read books to keep out of way. No serotonin to speak of.

I can’t say I hate myself, I just feel lost, lonely, not an unfinished work - a not even started one. I feel like empty shell, and there is a person lost deep inside that shell that I desperately want to meet and I hope one day I can.

[60stvshows-blog]

60s TV Shows

He moved to Hollywood in 1946 at a friend's suggestion. Her gift for being able to do dialects (Scottish, Irish, Spanish, Italian, German and Russian - to name a few) got her hired straight away and she soon became one of the regular members of the radio series Hollywood Hotel. For more details on the best 60s TV shows see our resources section below.

While the series animated in large networks seemed mediocre, the cable television cartoon achieved several successes. It was while she was attending Los Angeles City College she was persuaded to audition for a role on a radio show. Before the TV show, there was a Gunsmoke radio show than aired from April 26, 1952 through June 18, 1961, co-existing with the Gunsmoke TV show for six seasons! Gunsmoke remains available on television and other media formats in the United States and worldwide. In the United States the frontier is open ended and usually means West.Other cultures have sometimes different understanding of frontiers.

60s TV Shows

For me, they are among the best Western TV themes, but I know I have omitted some other good ones. I know you were probably taught like me, not to stare at people, not to eavesdrop because it’s rude, not to judge people without knowing them, but that doesn’t stop us, does it? I like L'Amour. Many films have been made of his stories. The Museum continues to receive great ratings on the popular travel web sites, so someone else out there still appreciates Western art like I do. Gunsmoke was the first TV Western that appealed to adult viewers, depicting life as it might have been in a frontier town. Have a blessed night. One of his cowboys is always studying around the campfire at night reading Blackburn or other law books bartered for or bought. My one desire for Halloween, as yet unfulfilled, is to go out with friends dressed as Stormtroopers.

Go out as Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem! I just couldn’t concentrate on what the preacher was trying to say because from the back there were so many people to watch and notice instead of hearing the message. After all, there were, what, eight channels for 150 million people in those days? Abraham Lincoln had quite an impact in Springfield -- he worked as an attorney there, served as an elected official in the Old State Capital, and is buried there. Refresh your memory of the old TV shows that were popular in the 50's and 60's. Listen to the music that was popular during those years. No. That's an old concept/pass. There was a Western movie serial called The Black Whip. My dad has always been fond of the "Western" because many of them show a clear division between the good guys and the bad guys. The main characters were highly motivated, and tried their best to protect their community from some really bad guys.

This is my favorite, firstly because it's the earliest one I remember from the times I watched it with my father and secondly because it's the best. The first one was terrible. While there had been other westerns before such as "The Lone Ranger" and "Annie Oakley", Gunsmoke was the first one oriented towards Adult audiences. First Lady, "Lady Bird Johnson", was such a huge fan of the program that, when she learned that James Arness was a Republican, she felt personally betrayed! Starring James Arness, Milburn Stone, Amanda Blake, Dennis Weaver, Ken Curtis, Burt Reynolds, Buck Taylor, Glenn Strange, Roger Ewing and many other regular stars and guest stars. Ten years later their police began regular patrols. The museum began as a non-profit in 1960 with the help of Barry Goldwater and H K Machennan. The Museum has a website with information on current exhibits, upcoming exhibits, volunteering, special events and membership. Alongside mainstream animation nineties there was a strange and experimental movement.

In a short animation festival in 1989, organized by Craig Decker and Mike Gribble Spike (known as "Spike & Mike") and originally located in San Diego. I don’t remember him even kissing anyone during the series. I was not exaggerating about men and women kissing on the lips on camera for fear of the censor cutting scenes. Brian De Palma also borrowed from it in his movie "Body Double." De Palma borrowed quite a bit from Hitchcock. Updated on October 21, 2017 Denise McGill moreAs a Baby-Boomer, Denise and millions of others are becoming senior citizens. He chooses to fight because he knows that if he runs the bad guys will simply hunt him down anyway. The movies tend to present the townspeople as wimps and cowards, such as in high noon, where Gary Cooper had to face the bad guys alone because none of the townspeople would support him.

The series currently features the central characters of the USS Enterprise as well as several recurring characters. The U.S.S. Enterprise from 1967 (the Original) has always fascinated audiences and fans alike! Other fans have undergone various treatments to look exactly like Elvis Presley or Johnny Cash at various stages of their careers. Just to provide some perspective, let's take a look at what it would take to get one of the higher end rare weapons that you will need at the end of the game. You need to work hard to keep your ring intact. But for the aliens to reach Earth, dozens or hundreds of light years away, they would need quite sophisticated spacecraft. Experience the Star Trek universe like never before in STAR TREK TIMELINES, a truly immersive mobile game featuring hundreds of characters, stunning 3D ship battles, and an immense galaxy to explore. Trek number 3 was the last newspaper style format of the magazine, the new format began with the next issue number 4 and it featured a full color cover of a harder stock and high-quality paper and printing.

On purchase of your ticket you will receive an email that will contain your ticket in PDF format. Does it make sense to purchase medical evacuation insurance? It was puzzling to gauge why Krall was scouring the Enterprise looking for this magical device. Its fun watching Star Trek's classic episode of "the Cage" today with the camera sweeping across the "Enterprise" bridge officers on duty. You can acquire new bridge officers either from a personnel requisition officer or through completing missions. More and more of you will end up picking through the same generic artwork and similar cookie cutter designs, all while never finding better artwork. Read more why girls will strap this guitar on and not want to take it off! You know you want to. Geordi LaForge : 'The laws of physics just went right out the window. Check out Disposal Rule Adopting Launch, supra notice 15, at component II.B.

Now its time to install the blu-ray. Most of the time you have to interact with an anomaly or a star system, and often there is no combat involved but rather a lot of scanning and environmental interaction. I accepted that, however, there is still a way to manipulate time and transfer information in the form of blank to gain control and establish order and the best reality possible for the United States Of America. Desert or Mountain weddings such as Valley of Fire, Red Rock Canyon or Mount Charleston are possible with little effort on your part. No premiere date has yet been set for the second season of “Star Trek: Discovery.” But the new season is beginning to come into focus as casting and story details are revealed. Star Trek: Discovery’s second season is inching closer to its start of filming. Charlie X is a first season classic Star Trek episode written by Gene Roddenberry and DC Fontana. Here is another Shatner cult classic from The Transformed Man. I introduced this concept here at Star Trek Sci Fi Blog eleven years ago and then wowsers on the 60s tv shows!

What could be more Trek than a landing party encountering a race of peacenik energy beings on a planet that emits its own electromagnetic ‘music? As the Name Brand of "Star Trek" Progressed from the 1960's, the popularity of Star Trek also continued to grow. Publisher: IBArena The Star Wars legacy brings forth brilliant ideas for a Halloween party theme. Either way your friends list needs to be targeted to your market. While this feature appears often in single player RPGs, it is a rare inclusion in a MMORPG and has been a cornerstone for the game's ever growing success in a tough market. With the tough trekking done, the second night’s camp had a much more lively spirit. Chords are combinations of two or more notes. All rooms are spacious, airy inside and are exceptionally good, it's worth remembering. When Tribbles are near, Klingon's have plenty to fear which proved true.

There was a time when there was not any woman with their own talk show. But it did because TV only needed one prime time cartoon and The Flintstones came first. I wondered what his story was and how it all came about. She wasn't the most powerful witch and sometimes her spells came out all wrong. Take this quiz to find out if you’re a true child of the Sixties! As with many 60s TV series' the viewer is just expected to take the show's premise at face value. However, the R rating was introduced in the late 60s so it was clear that subject matter would become a bit more adult-oriented as the decade waned. The majority of today’s rising videographers tend to be more familiar with non-linear video editing. Using the switcher, cuts are easily done in varied video sources and in wipes, dissolves, and fades. This is the question that more and more thinking people are asking as it becomes more and more apparent. To this day, with the exception of maybe the Simpsons, it is one of the most well known cartoons and one of the few that went from cartoon to the silver screen using real people.

These characters are real and their interaction almost comic - it has kept viewers glued to the goggle box every afternoon. The show takes place in the year 2517 and follows the characters as they encounter and wrangle a whole new frontier- a new star system. You could easily do a Part 2 and more on this topic to capture more clueless characters! At the end of 1939, Sinatra accepted an offer from the more popular big band leader Tommy Dorsey. But the worst is "Potsie" from Happy Days, who went from cunning and clever to early altzheimer's by series end. Cox, of course, would go on to star in the mega hit series Friends. Due to presenting the changed behavior of cops, The Mod Squad became a big hit and one of the few cop shows with a big audience of youngsters. Due to the hiatus, Damages has fallen off the radar, but this show absolutely deserves a "best of TV shows" nod. The following list charts the best shows that are currently trending right now on Netflix Australia. Shows are made up connected with several specific graphics termed supports. Gail Leino takes a wise practice way of preparing and organizing events, celebrations and vacation parties with unique a few ideas for sixties party items and fun sixties topic celebration games.

Artificial material have been really widely-used throughout the Sixties. No, but i've done some things that may have seemes weird to someone in the mid-1960s. I am certain Judy Carne might have worn a romper like this one on the iconic 60's TV show, "Laugh In". People like talk show topics that the whole family can watch, and that entertains us. Which ones did you like best? What this means is that the actual set can be a lot thinner than a CRT receiver and that is very attractive for people as the old ones were very bulky and took up a lot of room. She can twist very well. Each episode of In Treatment features therapist Dr. Paul Weston (actor Gabriel Byrne) having a session with one of five patients. The show remained popular during its initial run of five seasons and 123 episodes. The show went up against Dallas and fared horribly in the ratings, it was then scheduled against Beauty and the Beast and did even worse in the ratings, if that was possible. Sinatra acted in a television special in November 1965, A Man and His Music, and released a corresponding double vinyl album, which reached the Top Ten chart and also went gold.

Television New version in 1976 only. The soap opera will be a perennial television favorite - we will always need to wash our hands, will we not? The cab converted into a helicopter when the need arose. The fascination with the dysfunctional family dynamics, the ornate settings of the Southfork Ranch and the glamour that surrounds the three sons - JR,Bobby and Gary - all contribute to this programs ready viewership. The show aired 143 episodes all of them in black and white. Fashionwise, the black leather catsuits became instead a set of colourful Emmapeelers. Set in the midwestern town of Salem, Days of Our Lives revolves around the Horton and Brady families - and the ongoing tussle will always be a crowd teaser. Sham-Ir gives Jeannie two weeks to find a new master, or return to Mesopotamia forever. I researched the Internet for costume, hair, and magic bottle reference photos to assist me in painting Jeannie.

The Saturday night show starred Groucho Marx, his cigar, George Fenneman, and the Duck with the Magic Word. PuffnStuff show. I thought Witchie-Poo downright mean. You mean the 1995 mini-series with Scott Bakula? Perfect for layering over bell bottom jeans. And those lessons stayed with us over the years, molding us into good citizens who care about community and country and, most importantly, each other. In 10 years - who knows. Macnee’s character appeared in all but two episodes, accompanied by a string of beautiful women who were his sidekicks. Since there was no internet, everything was stacked in warehouses. Which of these cartoons was not on TV during the 1960s? I absolutely loved to hate Dr Zachary Smith in Lost in Space. It is a gothic style house. I loved the 60's/70's and really miss them. Their records sold through the roof. She was signed by the Wilburn Brothers to their Sure Fire Publishing as they were highly impressed with her song writing skills.

Top Tv Shows of the 60s

In the 1st STAR TREK film, Gene Roddenberry finally had the cost to create every one of the footage he wanted of ENTERPRISE just a slave to, looking real purty, and also by gum he was gonna put it to use all. I personally don't mind watching all those minutes, 22 or 187 or whatever it had been, but many folks think that's excessive. If your main readers say something needs to be changed or added or deleted, tune in to them.

The villains with the movie really stick out though it is like they fight to fill an opening the Joker forgotten. Alone, none in the villains really supply the type of memorable performance Heath ledger surely could display at nighttime Knight, however each villain does a great job of testing Batman/Bruce Wayne and pushing him to the limits. Tom Hardy as (Bane) is definitely an absolute force of nature, towering, intimidating, and intelligent, he plays the entire package and certainly the most physical challenge that Batman has faced yet. Anne Hathaway in the role of Selena Kyle a.k.a. Catwoman presents a totally different undertake the type, she actually is much more of a modern-day grifter then this cat like super villain we all grow up watching. Gary Oldman returns as Commissioner Gordon, he really nails his performance when on-screen, it is possible to really feel the inner turmoil that lying towards the people of Gotham is responsible for him, and just how hard it really is to praise the man that almost killed his son. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (John Blake) comes through once again which has a great performance, you sense him because the moral compass with the movie, one character with no mask really wanting to do a little good.

The graphics were created to mimic the actual feel of the comic book. Despite the coming of numerous versions, the launch from the Batman version for PlayStation 3 this year developed a revolution in the gaming world. The title was Batman: Arkham Asylum and was rated as the best among each of the Batman Games created up to now. With advancements in technology and widespread use with the Internet, it's got greater prospects inside future. Its evolution from 2-dimensional graphics for the latest 3-dimensional graphics depicts its growth and demand among Batman fans.

Storylines emerge outer space actually give you a fantastical and fascinating place for a plot to unfold, especially since it refers to women. In addition to the romantic storylines that inevitably come up, living in a limited space such as a space ship and managing the unpredictable natures of intergalactic enemies brings out multiple elements of a character's personality. This gives writers the opportunity to develop interesting, dynamic female roles which go beyond slapstick humor or trivialities.

There is much fascinating science that may be found in the Star Trek series and many movies. Sure, some of it is simply not possible, but mostly things that will make for a boring storyline should they weren't possible. The real catch and the reason the series has stood the exam of your time is that it is essentially a representation products we may be in some centuries like those 60s tv shows.

Resources:

The 12 Best TV Shows of the 1960s – Blaze DVDs

1960's TV Shows - Best of 60's TV - Popular Series 1960-1969

60s TV Shows Top Rated - Strikingly.com

[hermanwatts]

Sensor Sweep: Irish Horror Writers, Robert Jordan, E. C. Comics

Indie Fiction (Jon Mollison): Given that indy comics are shouting into the gale-force winds of multi-billion dollar marketing campaigns.  It’s hard to get noticed, and every little of help that I can offer my fellow creatives is time well spent.  These reviews aren’t just the writings of a fan, they are recommendations to help you choose the best works to fill your time.

    Fiction (Matthew Hoskin): I was reminded of this poster recently, reading my Oxford World’s Classics edition of Ludovico Ariosto’s Italian Renaissance epic, Orlando Furioso. The cover depicts Ruggiero rescuing Angelica, mounted on a winged steed (bird? hippogriff? I don’t know yet), lancing a dragon from atop his mount. Angelica is nude.  This led me to start thinking about Howard and Ariosto. Now, I’m not saying that Robert E. Howard ever read Ariosto (or Boiardo’s Orlando innamorato).

  Gaming (Kraken Originals): Four more Mythical Mystics are ready to be released into the wild. Mermaid, SaberWolf, Unicorn, and Yeti will be available for sale at 6pm PDT on 10-24-19. The different ink options give each set a very unique and different look from their counterparts, and with our Naked sets the outcomes are endless! Don’t miss out on completing your collection with these 12 or 14 piece sets.

Currently there are no Naked Fairy sets available, but the other four sets are available in all ink options. 12pc Set is $19.95 and the 14pc set is $24.95, a $3 savings from buying the 30mm and 15mm alone.

  Fiction (Goodman Games): So even when Joe Goodman suggested doing some Appendix N Archaeology articles, I had not thought of the Bard of Baltimore until he suggested revisiting Poe. And in retrospect, decades from those dreaded reading assignments, I can think back, remember stories like The Pit and the Pendulum, The Masque of the Red Death, and The Telltale Heart and realize that he was, more than Hawthorne or Stoker, the father of modern horror fiction. Before Poe, there were horror stories and novels like Varney the Vampire or Geoffrey Lewis’ The Monk, but the majority were more morality stories than anything else or ended, Scooby-Doo-style, with the villains unmasked as mere charlatans.

  Gaming (Nerd Stash): Destiny plays a major role in Call of Cthulhu as well. Your choices have a lasting impact on the world and Pierce and will make all the difference in the final moments of the game. Choose to betray a character’s trust and they may not assist you in a key point of the game. While helping them with something will earn you a reward later on that may get you to a different area or give you a new piece of lore. I’m a huge fan of pen and paper roleplaying games and Call of Cthulhu plays out exactly like one. That’s excellent seeing as it is based on the same mechanics as the RPG of the same name.

D&D (Skulls in the Stars): UK4: When a Star Falls (1984), by Graeme Morris.  We start today with another of the UK-produced modules, which tend to have a very different flavor and welcome quirkiness when compared to their US counterparts. The fact that this module is written by Graeme Morris is a good sign: Morris was an author or co-author of many excellent modules from the TSR UK office, including Beyond the Crystal Cave, which I’ve written about before!

  FIction (Cleveland.com): But it wasn’t “Star Wars” or Atari that made the biggest impression on the Cleveland author growing up. Thanks to his father, Bruening grew up reading the pulp fiction of the pre-World War II era, the noirs and adventure tales and Westerns and aviation tales that kept earlier generations rapt. “My father was born in 1929, six months before the stock market crash, his childhood was defined by the Great Depression and then war,” says Bruening. “He read all of the adventure classics, Kipling, Dumas, Edgar Rice Burroughs, cowboy stories. He was really enamored of that whole type of entertainment.

  H. P. Lovecraft (DMR Books): Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett—better known as Lord Dunsany—passed beyond the Fields We Know on this date in 1957. H.P. Lovecraft, was, without a doubt, one of the foremost Dunsany fans to ever walk the earth. Below is the poem he wrote in tribute to that titan of fantasy literature. As far as I can ascertain, HPL’s ode to Dunsany was written in 1919. Lovecraft would precede his idol to the grave by two decades.

“To Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Eighteenth Baron Dunsany”

  Fiction (From Dundee’s Desk): Back in the 1992 – 94 time period, under the pen name Adam Rutledge, James Reasoner wrote a six-volume series of books for Bantam entitled THE PATRIOTS. As the over-arcing title suggests, these stories are set during the Revolutionary War years when young America rose up and won independence from England.

  Fiction (Don Herron): Far be it for me to sit on my beanbag when you guys are having all the fun with the Siege of Malta. This inscription is from The Knights of St. John (1932), a novel by Paul L. Anderson which — while I haven’t read it — undoubtedly deals with the siege. Just check out the Dedication. Anderson of course is well-known for his stories of prehistoric man which appeared in issues of Argosy during the early 1920s. These stories were obviously enjoyed by Robert E. Howard, and influenced him when he wrote tales such as “Spear and Fang.”

  Culture Wars (Brian Niemeier): Merely mentioning a Disney/Marvel property, even to negatively contrast it with a superior indie work, just gives the Devil Mouse brand social proof as the one to beat.

Refusing to feed the beast doesn’t suffice by itself, though. We also need positive messaging that promotes superior alternatives. Freeing Gen Y fanboys from the nostalgia trap has also proven more of a challenge than even I anticipated. Studying methods professionals use to combat addiction and deprogram cultists may be in order.

  Horror (Ireland XO): The people of Ireland have a reputation for their skill as storytellers with the nation producing some of the most lauded novelists, playwrights, and poets that the world has ever known. The genre of horror is no different, as three of the great early authors in the field had either immediate or very close connections with Ireland.

Horror (Digital Bibliophilia): There is a point while I was reading The Spirit by Thomas Page that I had flashbacks to the fairy tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I won’t spoil anything, but if you read the novel, or have already read the novel, it might happen to you too. I read the re-print version by Valancourt Books, which has come about via the enormous success of their coffee table reference book Paperbacks From Hell by Grady Hendrix with contributions from Will Errickson.

  Comic Books (Goodman Games): In fact, it’s also fairly easy to see how Gary Gygax, the main co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons (and an entire gaming industry) would fess up to being influenced by the art and storytelling found within the comic books of his formative years. But they are not just any old comic books that he mentions; Gary took the time to single out the creative output of one particular company among the veritable sea of comic books being printed at the time. Yes dear readers, the creeping tendrils of Tales from the Crypt, Weird Science, and Vault of Horror have been christened part of the root system beneath the mighty sequoia that is Dungeons and Dragons.

Westerns (Brandywine Books): The scene above, (involving lost luggage) near the beginning of Owen Wister’s novel, The Virginian, seems to me to foreshadow a major theme of the novel. This is a panorama painted on a canvas a thousand miles wide. The landscape itself is a character in it. It’s a slow book, episodic and discursive, but that’s because everyplace is a long way from everyplace else, and travel takes time.

Robert Jordan (Every Day Should be Tuesday): Decades ago James Oliver Rigney Jr. wrote a book.  That book allowed him to break into the publishing industry.  He sold it several times.  It established his working relationship with Harriet McDougal, who would become his wife.  It led to his first published book, The Fallon’s Blood (as Reagan O’Neal).  It led to a gig writing (eventually seven) Conan pastiches for Tor, this time as Robert Jordan, the pseudonym he would make famous.  It also heavily foreshadows themes and elements from The Wheel of Time, his landmark work of epic fantasy.  It was not, however, published before his death.

Pulp Magazines (Mystery File): Have you ever received a book in the mail and immediately stopped what you were reading, stopped whatever you were doing and sat down and read the book? This is what happened when I received Queen of the Pulps. I had seen Laurie Powers work and do research on it for several years and finally here it is! She must of gotten sick and tired of me nagging her about the book and asking for progress reports.

Writing Philosophy (Rawle Nyanzi): The post — and the novel it reviews — asserts that good and evil are real, and that with great struggle, good can overcome evil. The novel in particular asserts that the Christian God is the source of this good, and that through Him, all things are possible. On the other hand, the tweet decries those who find the Joker film to be too nihilistic. Its writer asserts that the movie did well because heroism is dead. According to him, no one wants heroes anymore because society is corrupt and collapsing, with nothing to look forward to.

Sensor Sweep: Irish Horror Writers, Robert Jordan, E. C. Comics published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/