#anyway. stagnant npc moment

[skunkes]

ive already talked about this at length in my feelings journal but i need to be insane here too sorry

Something I keep noticing is I've not really had any interest in consuming media... I've very much been living under a rock when it comes to it esp movies.

Lately I keep wanting to watch movies but stop myself because I want to do it with Somebody...but its not enough to do it with a friend, yknow? Idk, I wanna share that New Experience with someone closer than that.

So I don't watch stuff ! Partly because I wanna share it with somebody and the other part is...because doing so takes something away from me.

I'm not an interesting person. What usually stands out for people is the things I Haven't done. Like what do you mean you havent seen x? You haven't eaten y before? You havent done z? At your age??

All I have is what I Don't have! If you remove that then I'd have nothing...ykwim? I'm such a boring person, if I suddenly filled the gaps in all these experiences I've missed (like watching all the movies i wanna watch that ive never seen for example) then I'd have nothing New and Exciting to share with other persons...bc thats all i have lol...if that makes any sense at all.

[miirshroom]

Elden Ring (Shadow of the Erdtree) vs. the definition of Bad Writing

Pondering the question of whether something can be called bad writing when it is intentionally "bad". Like, good fiction writing is engrossing - it evokes emotion and can through linguistics alone paint a very vivid sense of space and atmosphere. Any emotion - joy, anger, sadness, etc. So if bad writing is the opposite, then it would be writing that causes confusion about what emotion should be felt or is structured in a way that breaks the suspension of disbelief.

But what if causing confusion is the intention? While in fiction writing it is desirable to provoke an emotional response so that the reader becomes invested, this is a lot like the goal of propaganda - an appeal to strengthen a certain point of view and evoke sympathy for it. The main difference being personal scale compared to a society scale. Some fiction stories focus on showing how a single person is the hero of their own story and others split the viewpoint between multiple characters for a window into the fundamentally different personal philosophies that cause them to be in conflict. If the point of view of 9 demigod characters are presented via the themed zones of the map and NPC interactions and each make a propagandistic emotional appeal, then which is the player going to empathize with?

It's a confusing choice, requiring extensive research to weigh the options. And I mean, both in-game and research into real-world dog whistles, snake oil, and other esoteric nonsense that can help identify the types of crackpot ideas involved with each faction.

But critical thinking is hard compared with just gravitating towards the character that a person projects onto most strongly based on surface aesthetic. And if that character later has character development due to the status quo changes in a way that the reader DOESN'T personally empathize with, then that's bad writing. How dare they change the precious blorbo Miquella, he should have remained a sweet innocent child and forever stagnant in the narrative. Or otherwise, he was robbed of his role in the narrative to grow into a powerful and beautiful saviour.

However, a different truth is revealed after stripping emotion from the situation: this is an expectation of a YA fantasy solution in an adult fantasy story - expecting a lone perfect child saviour to carry the weight of the world and be victorious where experienced but flawed adults fail.

Alternatively, the objection that actually Miquella is a wise adult cursed to be in a child's body ignores a fundamental facet of the narrative - Miquella knows that he has not grown to his adult form and seeks to remedy this. He KNOWS that he is undercooked and not finished developing. So it comes to this: either Miquella's worth is reduced to his ability to produce offspring by sexual reproduction (thus requiring him to become a biological adult), or he was intent on become an adult because stories operate on metaphorical levels and his child-like ignorance of the rules of magic that govern the Land Between is making him terminally incapable of devising a functional plan to bring his dreams to fruition. Unfortunately, that ignorance also extends to the conditions of that metamorphosis being faulty. Miquella was doomed by the narrative from the moment he was presented as a child prodigy and above critique.

Oh, and also the general theme of Shadow of the Erdtree is that it is bad on purpose! But in that second way of deliberately trying to break suspension of disbelief. Observe a few ways that this surreal design logic is worked into the environment:

Helpful developer hints for things like "hit the weak point" that players would have figured out anyways quite quickly

Forest populated by 20 wolf packs and not much else

The Scorpion-spiders are a badly designed chimera creature that is even anatomically inaccurate in how the stinger is rendered. This after the accurately rendered wildlife (crabs, crayfish, tortoise, Golden Eagles, etc) of the base game

The red flesh mushrooms are comically cartoonish - the 3D render being a nonsense version of a Fly Agaric (that doesn't even match the item 2D portrait). Compare to the more accurate Fly Agarics embedded in the 3D render of the Melted Mushroom.

Piles of the broken Rosus statues scattered about the entrances to Catacombs in place of the more subtle directional guidance of the base game

The soul item colour coding convention is entirely broken - an orange item is more likely than base game to be something generic while any plain white soul item could be a unique armour or weapon

The way that you can walk too far in a direction and break the great rune to drastically change the worldstate in the middle of some random fields that don't even look like significant checkpoints

The design logic is disjointed and seemingly contradictory with the main game for a simple reason: it is a dream of the past. A dreamworld with barely enough Order to hold it together. The Shadowlands is a parallel universe to the Lands Between in the similar way that human imagination has invented explanations for how the world works in fanciful ways that run parallel to the scientific explanations. Paying attention to the differences in the environmental storytelling reveals the sense of wrongness that saturates the DLC, like waking up from a dream and realizing that in hindsight the rules of reality in the dream were simply wrong. It isn't even a new concept to have a deeper dreamworld to a surface fantasy world - this concept is used in both Wheel of Time and the Realm of the Elderlings and probably other fantasy settings.

The idea that dreams influence the reality of the real world can explain seeming inconsistencies. The "Mother of Fingers" is a retcon in-universe in that she did not exist until someone imagined it so, and then retroactively she has always existed since some vaguely defined primordial era. Somebody dreamed up Metyr from some misinterpreted observation and invented Finger Creeper constructs in homage to her. Like how people knew that unicorns and basilisks existed and created art of them for centuries with the belief that this is a thing that is totally real, and now digital constructs of them exist in fantasy computer games.

If the Shadowlands is a dreamland and Marika originated from here, then it follows that Marika was a dream woman fashioned by the Fell God of Fire - her soul did not exist in the Lands Between until crossing the boundary between the waking world and the dream (the Gates of Divinity), overtaking the physical body that holds the Elden Ring, and transforming it to the image that she was designed to have. Messmer is all of the base serpentine nature that Radagon (who is himself said Fell God of Fire) forced out of sight and out of mind in his pursuit of becoming Marika. So Messmer is a child of Marika because he represents everything that Radagon suppressed in the Shadowlands in the process of embracing the identity of Marika. But just as the base serpent breaks through Marika's seal of grace on Messmer, this is paralleled in Marika struggling to maintain her identity until that of Radagon overwhelms her once again.

Miquella brings the perspective of a boy who has recently pushed his own dream girl-self off a cliff. This is a drastic shift of his character, in the sense of character development. It's just not character development in a positive direction. It is literally tied into defeat of Mohg, Lord of Blood that Miquella's story requires an understanding of causality. Trina being discarded by Miquella is an effect. What is the cause? A wounded Miquella decided that he needed to discard pieces of himself in the Shadowlands to become a god. How did Miquella arrive at the Shadowlands? Mohg helped him there. How did Mohg "help" Miquella? By kidnapping and traumatizing him into not wanting to inhabit his own body - allowing Miquella to fall into a sleep so deep that it is indistinguishable from death. The Shadowlands is not a place for good well adjusted thinking to end up.

So in conclusion: bad writing is writing that lacks the self awareness to know that it's bad. The Shadow of the Erdtree knows that it's in the dead timeline where rejected ideas go to burn out and diminish. The writing of Shadow of the Erdtree may be uncomfortable or upsetting, but it is actively trying to be these things. Miquella's dreams and nightmares have a depth to them that is beyond anything that the player can guess from looking at his aesthetic in isolation and without considering the full cause and effect of events surrounding him. The writing is going to seem most nonsensical to people who accepted Miquella's goodwill and genius on blind faith.

[auredosa]

Simping for Cyrus Drake and Why I Write: A Nice Saturday Morning Statement

Good morning! Here's a sappy, sentimental, but ultimately important explanation of why I write the things I do for this fandom. Read this when you're feeling blue.

I think one of the best things about the W101 fandom, especially the writing portion, is that there are so many pieces exploring how Cyrus deals with his brother's and Sylvia's deaths. We take time to think about how he feels, how this stubborn, grumpy old man might be hurting on the inside, and we all give him as much emotional investment as the next person.

He's just a character, an NPC in a kids' MMO game that was probably never meant to be taken so seriously. And yet, we do it anyway. We give him an ending of tragedy or hope, seeing who he might become and what he might do, and I think that, in and of itself, wonderfuly shows how compassionate the people who make and take those works are. We're not content to see him be forgotten as another character with canon-typical trauma. We're not content to watch him rot away in or out of universe. We want to see his story continue, and so, we write it ourselves.

And it makes me wonder, what if we could treat people in real life like that, too? What if what we write about this game inspires people to take that hope we imbue into our characters and send it to those who need it most in our universe, our Spiral? Behind each of those stories was an author who had the spirit to pull a man out of his despair. I wonder if that person would be willing to do the same off the page.

When I first got back into writing fan fiction, I had to ask myself, why? Why are you putting so much time into writing about a game from your childhood instead of being more productive? Writing about characters from W101 isn't going to do anything but give you nostalgia, so why?

Well, I came to this conclusion. Yes, I do it for the nostalgia. But only in part. I don’t like to stay in the past for the sake of escapism and nostalgia. That’s just not who I am. I always want to move forward, but that’s not easy when I don’t know where I want to go or what I want to do with myself. Sometimes, I, too, get caught up by my past, and fall stagnant, and can’t get up.

And in that grief, in that moment of “I am hurting,” I begin to write. I write about how a grumpy Chiquita-Banana looking wizard might have dealt with this. I write about the people who might help him, or the lack of people who don’t. And while I love writing the bad endings, I love even more writing the better ones. They’re not perfect, but there’s hope in them, because in writing, we give characters birthed in our image and likeness the strength to change their world for the better, and through writing, we find ourselves the strength to change our world for the better.

In fiction writing, we empower our characters, and through writing, we empower ourselves. That, I have decided, is why I write, and will be why I write long after my interest in this fandom is gone. 

Don’t stop here guys, keep pushing, and take what you have learned here . . . spread good and mercy throughout the Spiral . . . 

[drawn-on-phone]

This! I had a character roll IMPOSSIBLY well once and spun up a similar situation.

In a YA Cosmoc Horror setting (shut up I know I'm evil), the SETTING'S Big Bad (not the campaigns mind you the whole damn cosmic horror setting) showed up at the final session of the campaign. He though the current dictation was interesting and wanted to have some fun during the resulting chaos. The PC, lla literal 13 year old child with a heart as big as an ocean and a head as empty as the void, took a swipe at the thing for fighting his favorite NPC. Said NPC is the owner of the camp the kids were at and deals with Cosmic Horror things on a regular basis (think Stan Pines and Buffy fusion).

Anyways the kid takes his favorite weapon "the poking stick" and charges. It is literally a stick from the first session the kid had used fight off a Bug who wears human skin in the first session. And had been his constant companion for 30 sessions.

The player roll the highest roll I'd ever seen in the system (exploding d6) in my 10 years of playing. We're talking a system where a 26 rates as "impossible" for PCs to achieve. This person rolled something like 72!

But he poked a thing I have 4 campaigns built around to even sniff at hurting it. Like, he is basically poking a manifeststion of Azothoth something WITHOUT STATS in other books/system.

So he got a "Belmont" Situation.

The stick shimmered into a blade and scores a gouge out of the things flesh. As some wet scap of the thing falls to the ground writhing, the kid sense a growing feeling of awareness from the thing that doesnt end until all his sensory organs ignite and he feels as is hebis drowning while on fire and crushed inder the gravoty of the sun. I casually explain (as he fail his fear check), thos thing has for the briefest of moments turned its attention to him. Kind of like noticing an ant that has just bit you or the pebble that is rattling around you shoe.

Then the PC was back to the moment just before he poked the stick. Everything had rewound to before the attack. The fear penalties erased, but the searing memory lingering inches back of the mind like a recurring nightmare.

Except a few things were different. The stick was a partial blade (1/2 stick 1/2 metal), the cut flesh now writhed around the stick-blade like a living leather handle, and the Setting Boss was coming AT THE PC not the NPC he was previously engaging.

The rapid vassilation between excitement, horror, and ABSOLUTE dread is still one of my favorite moments as a GM.

As I'm not a monster, they got out and to the campaign Big Bad relatively safely. But to commemorate the event the stick became part of the wider setting called "Halted Emergence." A weapon which transcended the boundaries of reality though the power and belief of a single child trying to what was right. Only, in its moment of birth, it's nemesis and antithesis broke its causal like with time. Now it waits, suspended in-between, feeding off the hope of others to stave off its growing madness from the pain of it frozen transitionart state. Hoping to find someone or something that can end its stagnant exisistance.

something about netflix castlevania felt really weird but oddly familiar in the way the story is medieval low fantasy and yet every character is not only speaking in a super modern way but constantly dunking on eachothers backstories, dropping f bombs with impunity, and going on 5 minute tangents on whether or not vampires really are killed by running water and I couldn’t put my finger on it until I realized they all talk like they’re players in a dnd campaign

[elkrs]

Red Suns: Let's Make A Dungeon - The Slithering Shade

I started designing the Red Suns setting as a world to play in, and so far, I haven't. Well, actually, if you are reading this on the day it came out, then I have played it once. I'm running a game for NotACon 2018 (see Red Suns III for deets) set in Red Suns, and so I want to prep my first session for it on here. You'll see some parallels between the Scarlett Citadel Conan story, and that is because it was the inspiration for the adventure. At the bottom of the page you'll find a link to the live play of this session, so you can watch how my prep played out in the end (if I remember, if not, look in the top corner, press the three lines and you should see a YouTube link)!

Initial Thoughts and Goals

This is a fairly new part of my preparation process that I have begun to find exceedingly helpful in staying on-task with both prep and running the game. I take 3-5 ideas, goals or cool things that I want to be in the game, and I note them down at the start. It gives me a very quick and easy reference during the session, as well as making sure that the session runs how I want it to.

A twisting labyrinth filled with unspeakable horrors - I want to have the players explore a weird dungeon that could very well threaten to swallow them.

An evil shade, determined to end the world - I want the player to fight the Shade. I want them to have to deal with the fact that this person has no qualms about doing unimaginably awful things to themselves and others to achieve their aims. I want the player to go "Oh shit... This guy will kill us all and himself."

Weird, lasting effects on the characters - I want the players to feel as though any moment could be their last. I want them to be scared to go around corners and nervous about touching ANYTHING.

Gonzo, crazy NPC - I want them to meet someone who will drill home the fact that, if they get lost, they are doomed to end up like this guy.

I think that'll do it. I can always add to this if I want to, but this will keep me in check for how I want the game to go.

The Dungeon I - Why and Wherefore

When I prep a session based around a dungeon, I do so in a completely different way than I would for a dungeon-less session. Normally, I'll prep some scenes, a combat or two and have a narrative structure in place. Very light, very LITTLE prep. However, for dungeons, that simply will not do. Instead, I think about the dungeon itself. The first part of which, is why?

Why is this dungeon here? A dungeon for dungeon's sake, does not for a good session make. As such, the first thing I want to think about, is the purpose behind it. Who built it and why? For this dungeon, that's easy.

Ocotl is the bad guy for this session. He's a nasty boy who wants to... Well, what does he want?

World domination is dumb, and boring.

Scorned and seeking revenge is better, but I don't feel like that fits my vision of Ocotl.

Got it. Ocotl was always the little guy. A worthless worm who cowered in the shadows of his betters, mocked and ridiculed (so I guess there is a bit of revenge, but hey, that's good). Anyway, he got some sorcerous power, then found that he wasn't so little anymore. Thus, his crusade to gain  A B S O L U T E    P O W E R  began.

He started messing around with the darker stuff, and eventually turned into a Shade. He was now powerful enough to do horrid things to those who wronged him, but it wasn't enough (never is!) and so he decided to try and attempt the Ritual of Red Tears (see Red Suns I, or below) in order to become a demon of immense power.

To do this however, he needed a space to experiment. A hidden space where he could practice in peace, while also having access to lots of people and bodies to play with. Hence, he needed somewhere in a city, hidden and safe, but in a prime piece of real estate. Also, Ocotl always had a love of meddling with the physiology of creatures, creating monstrous hybrids and the like, so it needs to be big.

That is why he built his dungeon. In the interest post, I said that it was below Ashkul's hall. This means that the dungeon is in Basharoud, and that is have a reson for existing. Now all we need is to build the darn thing! That and design some encounters, as well as our big ole' bad guy.

The Dungeon II - Structure, Feel and Execution

Firstly, the entrance to the dungeon is going to be a trapdoor, hidden in the floor of Ashkul's Hall. As a result, I think the dungeon should have a sewer-type feel. Not to do with the muck that flows through it, but more the actual building materials and such. For example, I think it should be built from huge bricks of dark stone that have been smoothed with age. I think there should be random grates and tiny tunnels from which scuttling, squeaking noises can be heard.

As for theme, well, it's a magical menagerie for malicious and maltreated monstrosities, who live trapped in the cells and cages that litter the place. I also want a clear progression towards the goal, though it should still feel like a maze. I want it to be cold, dark and smelly, with the players understanding the truly terrible place that this is.

Execution. This refers to how we want the actual session to go. Best to start thinking about this as early as possible, that way we can be sure that all the cool stuff we come up with later fits properly. We want the session to last about 3.5 hrs. I'll allocate about 20 mins for them to get into the dungeon, and about 10 mins for a quick epilogue. So, we've got 3 hrs in here, and a half hour of that should be the final fight. If we assume that Ocotl is in room 6, then our aim is to get the players there within 2.5 hrs. I don't want to do all the rooms, and many of them will be just quick descriptions, so this should fit nicely into our time frame.

The Dungeon III - Rooms and Encounters

Here we're just going to go through and have each room listed out with some ideas for encounters and the like. I'm not worried about killing players and making them go weird, because it's a one shot, so we can go a bit insane with this. In other words... Welcome to the fun part. In each room, I'm going to try and describe three things, and that's it. That way, everything doesn't take ages, but there is still enough description to go around.

Room I - The Entrance

Description

Cold air, dank and thick. Hard to breathe due to horrible smells.

The rotting corpse of an enormous anglerfish.

Strange sounds coming from rooms beyond.

Encounters

None.

Room II - The Serpent

Description

A smell of rotting wood pervades this room, and a sickly sweet odour hangs at the back of your throat.

An enormous pile of wood and rags sits in the corner, it is about six feet high and ten feet across.

Cupboard in the South wall (contains an old, gold chain. When worn as a belt, grants ADV. to CON tests. It used to be some kind of leash).

Encounters

Giant Snake: Hiding in the pile in the corner. Will attack when disturbed or when the party try to leave the room. (HD3, 2d4D, CON test or +2d6)

Room III - The Old Library

Description

Old, ruined books litter this room, as well as smashed and broken shelves.

Pools of stagnant water sit on the floor.

An old, amulet of +1 INT lies on a bookshelf in a smashed, glass case. Was used for research. when touched, it reveals a curse. When the wearer touches it, they immediately put it on and are forced to constantly read, otherwise they take 1d4 damage per round. Can be pulled off, though the reader will fight back.

Encounters

West corridor contains a Giant Ant Warrior (HD2, Poison Bite (1d6 + CON test or + 2d6)

Room IV - The Prison

Description

Decrepit, rusted cages stand everywhere.

A table with rotten food sits in the middle.

A beautiful, black dagger sits on the table. When touched, it rots the hand of whoever touched it after a CON test with DIS. They now have DIS on all attacks.

Encounters

Farruk. He is an old man, dressed in rags, who has lived here for years. He is stuck in one of the cages, and has gone insane. He keeps calling the members of the party either 'Jasaline', 'Asha', 'Denad', or 'Abbar'. He just wants to be free, and seems earnest. A successful WIS test will reveal him to be quite mad. If he is freed with the keys that sit on a hook in the corner, he will immediately attack (Human Berserker, HD1, DIS on defence tests against him).

Room V - The Pits

Description

Three large dirt pits in the floor, smelling like dung and with vague, dark shapes inside. The pits are each 10ft wide and 20ft deep, and are very dark.

Rattling sounds can be heard from below, and bones can be seen moving in the darkness.

The door closes behind them, and is locked with a magical seal. Dispel magic to break the seal or take 1d6 damage. When broken, the doors are still locked (unlock, or break down (STR test DIS).

Encounters

3d4 skeletons in the pits. (HD1, 1d4HP, 1d4D, shoot with bows)

Room VI - Ocotl's Chamber

Description

Large, round room. An altar stands in the centre.

Ruined, black tapestries cover all the walls.

They see 1d6 skeletons around them, waiting. As well as a figure on the far side of the room, sitting, chanting and coated in black blood. He has one hand, and the severed limb sits on the floor next to him. Suddenly, he begins to chant something different. He begins to cry tears of blood. He then chants even more words, before erupting in red flames. Black, obsidian skin, bat-like wings. Red eyes and curled horns. He screams and stands, now a demon of 9ft tall (Hezrou Demon, HD9, 2d10D, (2 Claws (1d3) + 1 Bite (2d8), Cause Fear (as per Banish) or Darkness (spell) - each once per fight)).

Encounters

Hezrou and 1d6 skeletons.

Room VII - The Mirror Room

Description

The walls are dark mirrors, and a shining orb of white light hangs in the centre as your reflection dances around the room.

Bones lie all over the floor here, and they crunch as you walk across them.

Black smoke burns from a censer hanging from the ceiling.

Encounters

Censer: CON test or paralyzed for 1d4 rounds

Mirror Reaper: Hands come out of the mirror, as well as a head shrouded in black rags that hang down below it. They try to grab a character (Mirror Reaper, HD4, 1d10D, Whenever it attacks, STR test or dragged into the mirror).

If they get pulled into the mirror, they must roll WIS tests each round to escape. Otherwise they stay trapped.

Corridors

There are many labyrinthine corridors that can be found throughout the temple. In each of these, we'll be rolling random encounters every time they turn a corner.

1-3. Nothing

4. 1d4 Manes Demons (HD1, 1d4D, 2 Claws (1d2) + 1 Bite (1d4), Half damage from nonmagical weapons)

5. 1d2 Ghouls (HD2 (1 armour), 1d6D, 2 claws (1d3) + 1 bite (1d4) + CON test or Paralysed)

6. Basilisk (HD6 (5 armour, +5 to tests against it, 1d8+1d6D, CON test on eye contact or be petrified)

Ending

We will probably assume that the players will run away or die. There is no way they can beat this monster. Not a chance. As a result, if any players escape, we will leave it to the players to decide what their characters do, though they will have to make a DEX or STR test to escape Ocotl back through the dungeon.

Starting the Adventure

We don't want to waste too much time on getting the characters to the dungeon, so we are going to be handwaving a lot of the earlier stuff in order to make the session feel tighter and sharper, without lots of wasted time at the beginning and the end. So, we will have the party be introduced by saying that they have been hired by the stewards of Ashkul's Hall to go down and investigate the strange noises that have been coming from the basement.

They will enter the basement, then give a brief description of their characters and introduce them, before finding the entrance to the dungeon. The basement itself is full of things like wine and food, supplies for conducting ceremonies and the like. However, with a successful WIS test, they notice a strange trap-door under a rug in the corner. Thus, the dungeon starts.

That's it, that is all you need. This is only a one shot, so it doesn't need to be a huge introduction. Just needs to get the party where they need to be for the adventure to start!

Running the Adventure

Now obviously, this is A LOT of prep for a game, and I don't like to have this much stuff to look at when I'm running. So I've taken my own notes from this, and put them into a style that I'd actually use, all shrunk down onto a side of A4. Enjoy!

Watch the Live Play on YouTube