#fictional weapon war round 1

[its-to-the-death]

Fictional Weapon War Round 1

The Punisher (Trigun) vs Orb (Pondering My Orb meme)

Mod comments:

Can the Trigun fans overcome the power of memes?

[its-to-the-death]

Poll here

GO VOTE FOR THIS GUY AT @its-to-the-death

link

With your help we can get those numbers up!!

"But what's so cool about a butter knife?"

Well well well, it's no ordinary butter knife. This one in particular is being held by Mr. VIP (Kenji). ENOUGH SAID.

"I don't watch JWCC, how will I know this is the best choice?"

Look into my eyes. O_O Would I lie to you?? No, I wouldn't. Now vote in favor of butter knife!!

"You're losing by a large margin how–"

BELIEVE. YOU GOTTA BELIEVE.

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Adult SFF Books Bracket: Round 1

Book summaries below:

A Dowry of Blood by S. T. Gibson

S.T. Gibson’s sensational novel is the darkly seductive tale of Dracula’s first bride, Constanta.

This is my last love letter to you, though some would call it a confession…

Saved from the brink of death by a mysterious stranger, Constanta is transformed from a medieval peasant into a bride fit for an undying king. But when Dracula draws a cunning aristocrat and a starving artist into his web of passion and deceit, Constanta realizes that her beloved is capable of terrible things.

Finding comfort in the arms of her rival consorts, she begins to unravel their husband’s dark secrets. With the lives of everyone she loves on the line, Constanta will have to choose between her own freedom and her love for her husband. But bonds forged by blood can only be broken by death.

Fantasy, horror, gothic, historical fiction, adult

The Machineries of Empire series (Ninefox Gambit, Raven Stratagem, Revenant Gun, and other stories) by Yoon Ha Lee

To win an impossible war Captain Kel Cheris must awaken an ancient weapon and a despised traitor general.

Captain Kel Cheris of the hexarchate is disgraced for using unconventional methods in a battle against heretics. Kel Command gives her the opportunity to redeem herself by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles, a star fortress that has recently been captured by heretics. Cheris’s career isn’t the only thing at stake. If the fortress falls, the hexarchate itself might be next.

Cheris’s best hope is to ally with the undead tactician Shuos Jedao. The good news is that Jedao has never lost a battle, and he may be the only one who can figure out how to successfully besiege the fortress.

The bad news is that Jedao went mad in his first life and massacred two armies, one of them his own. As the siege wears on, Cheris must decide how far she can trust Jedao–because she might be his next victim.

Science fiction, fantasy, science fantasy, space opera, military science fiction, series, adult

[fairytale-poll]

ROUND 3! MATCH 1 OUT OF 4

Propaganda Under the Cut:

Bugs:

So the story is that the Three Little Pigs sell Bugs their straw and wood houses, the Big Bad Wolf blows them down, and Bugs decides to get revenge - by dressing himself up as Little Red Riding Hood, getting the Wolf to play his part in that story, and then messing with him as only Bugs can. Here's the video if you've never seen it: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6vk41x

Bugs Bunny is an icon and he was so good for his role in this short. When he and the wolf realized they could work together against the pigs... oh my God. Come on Tumblr, you have to admit they had a little gay tension between them. Besides, at the end, when the brick house comes down and the wolf, so surprised and proud of himself exclaims "I did it!" and then it pans over to Bugs with the bomb and he slyly adds "We did it!" communist Bugs canon.

I love Bugs but badass little girls with the personality of a gruff action heroes are everything to 12 year old girls.

Red Hood:

she’s red riding hood but CYBERPUNK. and she’s part of the REBELLION. she’s can hack MILITARY tech in a matter of moments. she uses her WOLF VIRUS to hack into CROWN VEHICLES and RIDE THEM INTO BATTLE. she REPURPOSED a GOVERNMENT VIRUS into a weapon to HURT THEM. her GRANDMOTHER was killed by the corrupt government virus that she has since TAMED and uses it AGAINST them. her fiction (this is canon!): https://themechanisms.com/fiction/what-big-eyes/

mechs fans need a win methinks. my mutual told me to go submit red but i also have very strong opinions on her because this entire album makes me insane. red started as a young 12 year old hacker who eventually put her skills to the test when a government-made computer virus (called the wolf virus) went rogue and unplugged her grandmother from life support. (the wolf virus was initially intended to figure out what wasn’t necessary for the war and divert power to weapons instead. it went rogue and started going after people who would never be able to help the war [ie disabled and elderly]). so red FOUGHT IT OFF ON HER OWN and TAMED IT. so then she essentially had a weapon designed to take down crown weapons and vehicles. so she joined the war effort and fought for brutal 30 years. it’s unclear whether she survived the final battle, but i think she deserves to take the win. also. she’s in space. she’s cyberpunk. she’s part of a retold fairytale cast BUT IN A COSMIC WAR. it’s like if star wars was actually good.

[frogblast-the-ventcore]

USS Sorcerer (NCC-9670-B), Arlington-class long-range fast dreadnought:

(Arlington-class reference art via @MarcSherwood8 on Twitter)

The Arlington-class dreadnought USS Sorcerer (NCC-9670-B) started her life as an Odyssey-class dreadnought, one of the sister ships of the USS Enterprise-F. Like her famous sister, the Sorcerer was heavily damaged in the 2411 Battle of Midnight, the climactic battle of the Iconian War, fought above Earth. The Sorcerer lay in spacedock above Mars for several years as subsequent events redirected Federation shipbuilding towards new endeavors. Finally beginning reconstruction in 2412, she saw several planned refit suggestions come and go - first, she was to be rebuilt to Odyssey-class standard, then to the upgraded Yorktown-class refit, then the upgunned Lexington-class subclass of the Yorktown-class. Finally, in 2414, it was decided that the Sorcerer would become the second in the newly designed Arlington-class of long-range fast-response dreadnoughts, to spearhead a new Federation effort to explore the Gamma Quadrant alongside the Federation's allies in the Klingon Empire, Romulan Republic, Tzenkethi Coalition, and the newly peaceful Dominion, as well as follow up on issues related to the Hur'q Crisis of 2411. Under the command of Captain Yanute, the vessel was relaunched on January 1, 2416, the 5th anniversary of the Battle of Midnight.

The Arlington-class long-range fast dreadnought:

As a descendant of the Odyssey-class, the Arlington is one of the largest ships ever built by the Federation; the subclass measures 1041.5 meters long, 385.22 meters at the beam, with a draught of over 200 meters, and a mass of over 7.25 million metric tons. With a crew of over 900, space for a full Starfleet Marine Corps battalion of 800+ members, and an embarked air wing of 400 personnel, the immense long-range vessel is thusly provided with a laundry list of amenities ranging from an internal promenade/mall, a dozen holodecks, two arboretums, two internal pool/sauna complexes, three main social lounges, and dozens of observation areas.

Able to maintain quantum slipstream travel for a full six hours, the Arlington-class combines its impressive speed with some of the heaviest firepower ever added to a Federation vessel. Boasting 29 MkXV phaser arrays, 4 light and 4 heavy MkXV pulsed phaser cannons, and a whopping 14 multipurpose torpedo/probe launch tubes. These tubes are capable of fully automated loading of the full Federation probe range, as well as photon, quantum, and transphasic torpedoes, the latter-most only available in limited quantities due to weapons limitation treaties.

In addition, the Arlington-class carries over the Lexington-class's phaser spinal lance, capable of devastating damage against vessels even larger than the Arlington. The phaser lance has been colloquially nicknamed the "Wave Motion Gun" by Lexington- and Arlington-class crew members, as it's immense energy discharge resembles that of a similarly devastating weapon from a late 20th century Earth science fiction franchise.

The Arlington also plays host and mother ship to an Eagle-class light "parasite" escort, itself a formidable and agile vessel, armed with multiple phaser arrays, four phaser cannons, and four torpedo tubes. A full wing of 60 Federation Aerospace Force Valkyrie aerospace fighters, falling under the command of the vessels' Commander Air Group, rounds out the vessels' firepower.

Defenses consist of a quadruple-layer hyper-capacitor-based metaphasic shield array, a full meter of albative armor, and a full suite of phaser- and microtorpedo-based CIWS systems; the Arlington is also fitted for but not with a Nanotech Molecular Ablative Generator field array, based on technology from an alternate 25th century.

[gayelderstourney]

OLD WOMAN YURI BRACKET ROUND 1

Propaganda:

Hanayo Nishida/Yoshiko Dojima:

This story is sooo sweet and heartfelt. I 1000% recommend it. I feel really bad though because it was recently canceled, even though the creator still wanted to keep making it. (#homophobic smh 😔 /j) It centers around a 66 year old newly-widowed woman named Hanayo, who is trying to find new purpose in her life after the passing of her spouse. Her husband was 12 years her senior and often treated her like a child and belittled her interests and hobbies… he was kind of a jerk, and because of this, Hanayo had internalized a lot of his comments and must now learn to undo this self-toxic mindset. She meets Yoshiko, an attractive older woman, who owns a make-up and perfume shop at the local mall, and is immediately smitten. Yoshiko and Hanayo bond over their love of make-up and the importance of self-care and appear to be developing a very lovely relationship right before the story unfortunately was ended. From what was given to us though, Schwinn was setting up interesting commentary on the intersections of ageism and misogyny, the value of support systems, as well as planting the seeds to explore the damage of comphet, and the journey of deconstructing such damage by finding queer love and joy later in life.

Navani Kholin/Raboniel:

Sorry submitted twice because I accidentally clicked the button instead of this text box. Navani’s in her mid 50s or 60s with multiple children, graying hair and wrinkle lines, Raboniel is an immortal ancient 12 foot tall crab woman who has died and come back so many times she’s nearly on the verge of developing immortality-related dementia. They’re both scholars but Navani is sort of repressed because of how her previous husband abused her and dismissed her interests, and Raboniel has antiquated views about their two species and how they can interact peacefully. Raboniel helps Navani come into herself as a scholar and scientist, while Navani helps Raboniel see that their war doesn’t need to lead to destruction: as she puts it “you say that oil and water don’t mix, but that’s not scientifically true. They’re different, but they can mix cleanly in the presence of an emulsifier” They hold hands and hum the tune of their souls in order to perform frequency combination science magic, they create a new form of light-energy together, Raboniel dies for the final time by Navani’s hand using a weapon they created together, and uses her final moments to protect Navani’s life. Absolute peak old woman yuri. Somehow they are not cannonically attracted to each other , despite the fact that everything I have described to you happens basically as is in the book. Insane how Brandon Sanderson can make the most accidentally queer characters in fiction.

Scientists working together but also against each other; their deep mutual understanding helps them make very cool new discoveries (in one scene they harmonize together to form a new "tone" - a sort of music with magical properties). The whole time there is so much tension as they are enemies (on different sides of the war), so they don't want to give the other too much advantage in terms of information/inventions.. raboniel wants to end the war (that has been going for thousands of years) by delivering a crushing defeat to the other side, navani wants to win (but is currently disadvantaged)… together they raise the idea of peace but despite wanting it know it wont happen… navani finds so much fulfillment in her research despite knowing it may (and does) aid the other side..

And they were labmates!

[misrepresentedmorallygrey]

PROPAGANDA

Tony Stark

The whole fucking point of this character is that he is an arrogant billionaire arms dealer who realizes that he Kind Of Sucks and consequently spends the next fifteen years trying to Not Suck to mixed but ultimately decent results. On one hand you’ve got the people who act like hes terrible and like I get it I would hate him in real life too but this is a fictional character and you have to admit theres more going here. On the OTHER hand are his legions of fans who insist that he has never done anything wrong ever, he is the smartest nicest little boy who isn’t actually even a little arrogant, and actually everyone who ever went against him even for understandable reasons (incl. very morally upstanding Captain America) is Evil, actually. I say this as a fan of the character: PLEASE you can like this man and have him suck a little at the same time!!!!! I am begging you!!!! Help!!!!

Literally a millionaire who started out manufacturing weapons for the military. Was then chased by the consequences of his actions while not making any sort of reparations. Of course stayed a millionaire the whole time. Then did not communicate with the team about making a sentient "suit of armor" that turned into a massive slaughter bot. People claim that this should be excused as a result of PTSD but is his responsibility to seek out help and he most certainly had access to whatever treatment he could choose as a -in his words- "millionaire playboy philanthropist". Then supported an accords rife with human rights violations that he was of course exempt from - and refused to hear any of the others rebuttals to it - like they were not millionaires and did not have access to entire legal teams that would work to exonerate them. Then exposes Clint's family and farm which he had revealed to Tony in confidence and kept secret from any authority to protect them. Then Tony spends the rest of Civil War trying to straight up murder Bucky - ignoring that it had already been established that Bucky had no agency nor autonomy in his time as the Winter Soldier, in doing so ignored the Accords he had advocated for. He then kidnapped a 16 year old child - who he did not tell why he was taking him - in direct contradiction with the accords and then allowed for Steve's team to be held in a maximum security prison with no trial. He then proceeded to refuse any sort of communication with Steve, resulting in a delay of him defending Earth from Thanos' invasion. After this - despite his failure playing part in the deaths of half the universe, and the child in front of him he treated as a son - he refused to rectify his failure because he had a family now - ignoring the literal entire universe who had lost their families. Upon his death he was treated as a hero and the one who saved the universe, despite his actions being that of hubris.

The Darkling

Okay so this guy is the main bad guy of the series. He made “the fold” this barren wasteland of darkness and monsters dividing the land, causing like hundreds of thousands of people to die. He killed his mom. He psychologically manipulated his girlfriend (like, he caused her to hallucinate and a whole bunch of other crazy stuff). He made one of his followers (a young girl) use her body to slowly poison the king over time. He started a cult. He did a LOT of crazy stuff. However, we do see his backstory of him as a kid, and learn that he did all this in the name of equality, so people would stop torturing and killing the ‘grisha’ or the witches/magic users. Later, he fakes his own death and starts a cult worshipping him and acts as the leader of the cult, going by his old name Aleksander. He is a very complicated character. So tell my why everyone thirsts after him and is like “he did nothing wrong” HELLO?! He is NOT your poor little meow meow he is complies please please don’t sanitize him

[apocalyp-tech-a]

An Unusual Alliance excerpt:

“Do you see them?” Tech asked.

“Yes. There are two different ones that we did not see before, cybernetic enhancements.”

“Yes, Haxion Brood syndicate, but the female Rodian we saw last time seems to be closing in on us first.”  Tech ushered Layna down the main road, walking the traffic side with his hand behind her back.

Layna threw her head back in laughter so she could peak behind them. “She has her weapon drawn, she is hurrying toward us.”

Tech now grabbed Layna's arm and pulled her down a side street and they broke in to a run. A blaster shot sparked against the wall where they had just hurried past. Tech unholstered his blaster and shot behind them, motioning to Layna to take the lead ahead of him.  The blue toned Rodian ducked behind a garbage drum, but was soon on their trail again. At the end of the alley between the buildings, Layna stopped.  A small metal ball hovered slowly in midair and spun to a stop, its tiny red lights blinking very quickly signaling that it was about to go off before Tech and Layna could find proper cover.

Tech's protective instincts kicked in and he shielded Layna bodily as an enormous shockwave from the Haxion Brood repulsor grenade knocked them both backwards off their feet. Layna's ears rang as she shook her head, trying to recover from the blast. Tech seemed to do the same, but a little quicker as he was already up and started shooting with one hand as he pulled Layna up by her bicep with the other. A Haxion cyborg appeared at the end of the alleyway with blaster rifle in his half metal half flesh hands, his long black duster swaying around two metal legs. Layna grabbed Tech's other blaster from its holster and started shooting as well, walking backwards, stepping over the Rodian who was behind them and had been knocked unconscious from the repulsor shockwave grenade.

Unlike the Rodian, this bounty hunter was shooting round blue rings at them. Stun bolts. The Haxion Brood syndicate wanted them alive for the larger bounty.

*Imagine my excitement when I heard a Haxion Brood mention in Episode 8 because they play a very small part in my Tech x OC fan fiction An Unusual Alliance as you can see in the excerpt. Here's the link if anyone wants to give it a chance hopefully:

[the-xp-budget]

Goblins - Part 1 (Warrior, Commando)

There’s a rustling in the bushes as the world around you goes silent. No bird song, no footsteps, nothing but the wind to comfort you.

You look around, seeking a target, a threat, something you can face down. But there remains nothing.

Suddenly, the air is filled with shouts and war cries, as an arrow emerges from the underbrush, followed by another, then another.

You take cover and look up, locking eyes with you assailants. Big eyes, green skin, pointed ears. Your party is being attacked by Goblins.

Roll initiative.

Goblins are perhaps the most iconic creature in all of fantasy, featuring in epic works of fiction such as Lord Of The Rings and Discworld, but also in mythology and folklore of all kinds.

In Pathfinder, Goblins come to us in four main forms, those being the Warrior, Commando, Pyro, and War Chanter, with the first of those sporting a level of -1, and the rest falling two levels higher. They are also a playable ancestry, but that’s not especially relevant to this post.

I’m going to focus on the martials here, with the next post going into detail on the latter two of that group. But first, let’s go over the basics.

Generally speaking, Goblins will want to roll stealth for their initiative, as it is mostly higher than their other skills. A War Chanter might be better served with Deception, and a Commando can probably get away with perception, but in general, a Goblin will want to start the fight hidden.

This gives them an advantage, allowing them to have their weapons drawn at the start of the fight while their opponents may struggle, and allows for greater numbers than the enemy is expecting.

Goblins are comparatively flimsy, which means that they will most likely strike in teams, perhaps laying an ambush to keep their targets busy, and striking them while their backs are turned.

They do, however, have a reaction called Goblin Scuttle, which has a ton of uses, mostly around mobility. Goblins aren’t heavy hitters; they’ll be mostly out for an easy fight.

As more and more Goblins join the fray, you find the battle shifting between blinks. While your gaze is locked on the one charging you, his companion has slipped behind you and is leveling their sword at your back. You've been outmaneuvered, and you're going to think quickly to defend yourself.

As such, Goblins are more likely to strike when their prey is outnumbered, issuing a first round of strikes, and if the enemy is still up, judge the situation.

I usually allow for my PCs to know when a creature they are facing is below half HP, and it would be unsportsmanlike to not offer any opponents the same dignity. Goblins aren’t eejits, they can strategize.

So, I would say this: if the Goblins have brought down one of their targets completely, or brought at least half of them down to half HP, they might shout an offer of surrender to them. Let them know that they are outnumbered and that their valuables are forfeit. If the ambushes decide not to surrender, take them down.

Worth noting here is that I am basing this on the trope of Goblin bandits, but it is completely reasonable to suspect a different reason of a fight. Goblins are thinking beings after all, and just like humans, dwarves, and other such folk, can be diverse in motivation. Maybe they want a prisoner that the party took returned to them, or maybe they are guarding something and just want the party to go away. Those are reasonable demands that can be substituted in for “valuables”.

However, if the fight goes poorly, say the targets manage to get a few strikes in of their own, or the initial volley did next to nothing, I reckon the Goblins would cut their losses and GTFO. I would say that if any member of the goblin group gets killed and the group hasn’t already taken down one of their targets, the entire group would bail.

This is the first place where Goblin Scuttle comes in, offering a quick means of escape if the goblins move together. Each time a goblin moves, it triggers this reaction from its friend, repeat en masse.

Goblin Warrior

Through the chaos of the market, you notice a solitary figure. Sturdy trousers are tucked into riding boots and a dirty tunic and apron that sit over simple leather armour. Yellow eyes, like those of a cat, watch you from underneath a wide brimmed hat, focusing on you as the she raises her bow to take aim at your neck.

The Goblin Warrior is the least powerful of all goblins, with 6 hit points at maximum and an AC of 16, compared to the average of 7 and 14 respectively for a creature of their level (I’m using the Building Creatures tables from the GM core for these statistics). These creatures can’t take more than one strike from almost any weapon if they are hit, which will happen.

They do have an above average attack modifiers and strike damage, with a Dogslicer and Shortbow that both have a +7 to hit and deal about 1d6 damage. So, they aren't defenseless.

Add all this together, and you end up with creatures that are primarily glass cannons that can deal a ton of damage then get mown down by the players.

The Dogslicer has two things going for it, the Agile and Backstabber properties. These lean into what I said earlier about outnumbering opponents. The dog slicer is designed to be used when an enemy is flanked.

Here’s what I mean:

With a +7 to hit against an armour class of 14 (once again using the tables in the GM core and pitting the goblin against a generic creature of the same level), a goblin will hit with this weapon 70% of the time, with a 20% likelihood of scoring a critical hit. The weapon uses a single d6 for a damage dice, so you get an average damage in one attack of 3.15 points of damage.

The multiple attack penalty for the second strike is diminished by the Agile property, so that has 50% chance to hit, and can only crit on a natural twenty. As such, its average damage is 1.93

First Attack: 0.5 * 3.5 + 0.2 * 7 = 3.15 Second Attack: 0.45 * 3.5 + 0.05 * 7 = 1.93 Total: 5.08

I’m not worrying about the third attack here, because I’m assuming that the Goblin has to move to get into position.

The Goblin ducks around your blade, drawing back her own and launching into an attack. The short blade lashes out at you twice with blinding speed, each strike from a different angle. You barely have time to register that her sword has holes drilled into it before you are forced to defend yourself from it. Do a twelve and an eighteen hit?

Now, let’s look at what happens when the Goblin has someone flanked. First up, the obvious flat footedness adds a 10% chance to hit and that affects the crit percentage as well, but if we add on the precision damage, we get the following:

First Attack (Flanking): 0.5 * 4.5 + 0.3 * 9 = 4.95 Second attack (Flanking): 0.5 * 4.5 + 0.1 * 9 = 3.25 Total: 8.2

You will notice that most of the benefit comes from the increased chance to crit. This is because any higher percentage to hit than 50 goes to this chance and increases the damage by twice as much as it would otherwise. Mostly.

One advantage of this strategy is that Goblin Scuttle allows for better positioning as a group to get into place for a flank, making this more likely to succeed.

But let’s rewind a bit, because our Goblin friend has another weapon in her arsenal, a Shortbow, and that has the Deadly property, which allows it to add an extra d10 of damage when it is used to score a critical hit. This is a rarer bonus, but it means that the Goblin doesn’t have to get too close to danger and doesn’t have to waste her first action moving.

Her chance to hit for the first shot with this weapon is the same as for a Dogslicer, but because this doesn’t have that oh so important agile property, her second and third attacks are much less likely to hit. (45% and 20%, respectively). So, our formula looks like this:

First Attack: 0.5 * 3.5 + 0.2 * 12.5 = 4.25 Second Attack: 0.4 * 3.5 + 0.05 * 12.5 = 2.03 Third Attack: 0.15 * 3.5 + 0.05 * 12.5 = 1.15 Total: 7.43

The bulk of this damage is coming from the Deadly trait, but even so, it doesn’t really compare to flanking, despite the extra attack. So, what if we used that action to do something else, instead.

Our Goblin friend has proficiency in Acrobatics (+5), Athletics (+2), Nature (+1), and Stealth (+5), which give her access to a few actions.

Acrobatics and Athletics actions are mostly about movement, with jumps and things helping with mobility around difficult spaces. Reposition and Shove might me useable to knock someone off a ledge if they sneak up on our Goblin. It will work in a pinch, but because of her low Athletics modifier, they aren’t likely enough to work for our friend for her to go out of her way to achieve them.

Nature is useful with two main actions. First up, commanding an animal to defend our friend on its next turn. Maybe the market has guard dogs and she can try out that skill. Alternatively, a nature check might recognise a high level of primal magic and let her know that it’s probably a good idea to flee.

It is Stealth that provides the Goblin with her greatest advantage, as it can hide her from opponents, preventing her from being targeted, and allowing an increased likelihood of striking a target. With a weapon that relies as heavily on crits as a Shortbow, I would advise this course of action.

The average perception score of a level -1 creature is +5, so if you add the +2-bonus gained from cover to our Goblin’s own +5 to stealth, she has 65% chance of succeeding, and that ain’t bad at all.

The first strike, from cover, has an average damage of 5.5, with the following formula.

First Attack (Hidden): 0.5 * 3.5 + 0.3 * 12.5 = 5.5

But is it worth it? The stealth roll isn’t guaranteed to succeed, does that make it less of a viable option? Let’s compare.

Hide Then Attack Twice: 0.65 * 5.5 + 0.35 * 4.25 + 2.03 = 7.09

Ok, this doesn’t look like it supports my point, since just attacking thrice offers an average damage of 7.43. But hear me out.

The difference is only 0.34 hit points, and I think that is worth sacrificing for the defensive properties of the hide action. I think not getting shot back at balances out that miniscule amount of damage. Especially considering how few hit points the Warrior has in the first place. She can't afford to be shot back at.

In addition, we need to take into account the fact that greater cover is a thing, and if you are setting up the ambush, you chose where the battle is. Again, Goblins ain’t dumb, so they might choose a place where cover is more abundant. That extra little bonus to hiding makes the formula above look like this.

Hide Then Attack Twice: 0.75 * 5.5 + 0.25 * 4.25 + 2.03 = 7.21

Now, the difference is even smaller, so we have a gameplan.

Set up fifty to sixty ft. from the ambush site to give a decent amount of space between our Goblin and the party’s Barbarian, who has to waste a ton of movement just to get to her.

For her first two actions, our Goblin raises her bow and takes two shots at the weakest looking party member, hoping to drop them quickly and hopefully take out any spellcasters. She’s seen spellcasters before, and she’s seen how much damage they can do if not counteracted quickly.

Then, she ducks behind cover and hides, setting up her next turn and waiting for the signal from her higher ups as to whether or not to stay and fight or to bail.

As the market erupts into chaos, you lose track of your assailants until an arrow thunks into your armour with a nineteen to hit. You whirl around and catch a glimpse of her as she looses another shot. That's a two on the dice for a total of four, so I'll say the arrow shatters a pot about five ft. from you, way off target. As you glance at the wreckage however, even for that split second, when you look back, she has disappeared once more.

If someone makes the decision to sprint at her, the Goblin will emerge from cover to take a pot shot at them before skedaddling. They most likely can’t cover sixty ft. in a turn, especially not while wasting an action to draw their axe, so it’s safe to take another shot and then bail to regroup. If chased, she will look for the smallest space to squeeze through and avoid pursuit. But at that point, this isn’t a fight anymore, it’s a chase. Even then, the party is now spread across the map, and they are easy pickings for her co-conspirators.

The same reaction goes for if she is hit by an attack such as from an enemy bow. She will quickly realise that another such arrow could end her, and she will back off.

Alternatively, the Goblin could just attack in darkness. She has Darkvision, which renders opponents who don’t have it blinded against her. In that case, she doesn’t have to hide and can just stand there and pick off the party while they stumble about.

For weaponry in that situation, since being flanked and being unable to see both cause a target to be off-guard, and we can assume the targets will try to move around and escape, use the above formula for an average damage of 8.2. Meanwhile, the Shortbow has the following equation.

Shortbow (Darkness): 5.5 + 0.4 * 3.5 + 0.05 * 12.5 + 0.25 * 3.5 + 0.05 * 12.5 = 9.03

Like I said, stand in darkness, pick off opponents that can’t fight back. Our goblin wants to win this fight, so naturally, she’s going to find the easiest way to do that.

Goblin Commando

You hear the scraping before you see it's source. Silhouetted against the setting sun and illuminated only by rays reflecting off the water, you make out long, pointed ears, and a jacket coat over a set of sturdy leather armour, as well as a lazy grin that looks almost demonic in the rippling light. Your eye, however, is drawn to a heavy looking hooked spear, the blade of which this figure is trailing along the dock to their side as if it weighs nothing.

The lore for the Goblin Commando states that they steal glory from their fellows, and I do like that idea. An opportunistic fighter who will make a beeline for the most injured opponent just to claim that kill for themself. I think that's a neat concept to work with when coming up with tactics.

After all, in my opinion, the skills and tactics of a creature should reflect that creature as an individual. If a Goblin has a vendetta against people with cats, for example, they might single out that opponent against all better judgement. Or, if they want to steal glory, they might switch up their tactics to target whoever is the weakest.

As for statistics, the Commando can take multiple hits, with a HP of 18 and an AC of 17. When compared to the averages of 20 and 16, respectively, we have another skirmish fighter, although we are much closer to the average here, meaning we could play around with someone more willing to go toe to toe with their opponents.

Add to this the perception modifier of +5, and this is someone who can play defensive and hold off attackers if the lair is invaded.

The Commando does have a bow, and an attack modifier of +8 on that, so if we run the above tactics (replacing the target AC with 15, and the target perception DC with 17), we end up with the exact same as before:

Hide Then Attack Twice: 0.6 * 6 + 0.4 * 4.25 + 2.03 = 7.33

This is all well and good, but it is slightly worse than for the Warrior, so let’s take a look at the Commando’s other options.

The Horsechopper has the same +8 to hit, but instead of just a d6 this weapon deals 1d8 +3 points of damage, for an average of 7.5. It also has the Reach and Trip properties, which change things a bit.

Reach just extends the range of the attacks, in this case to 10 ft., which means that the Commando can attack from a distance and force their enemies to waste an action to get close. It also protects them from reactive strikes, but they aren’t as common at this level, so I’d say they won’t be expecting retaliation from anyone they move past.

It also extends the range required for Commandos to flank, meaning that an opponent who closes in on one Goblin leaves their back open.

Trip, meanwhile, allows the Commando to attempt to knock their opponent prone with the weapon in their hands, and extends the range of this action to the range of the weapon. Since this is a reach weapon, that becomes 10 ft.

This provides two possible courses of action. Either make two attacks with the Horsechopper, or try to Trip the target and make them off-guard against the next attack.

With the same +8 to hit against an assumed AC of 15, we end up with the same 70% chance to hit the first strike, and a 45% chance for the follow up.

Two Attacks: 0.5 * 7.5 + 0.2 * 15 + 0.4 x 7.5 + 0.05 x 15 = 10.5

Meanwhile, since the Trip action still counts towards the Commando’s multiple attack penalty, we have to take that into account with our formula. For reasons that will become obvious, let’s assume that the Commando’s Trip succeeds, and factor the target being off-guard into the Commando’s singular attack and end up with a 55% chance to land the strike, and:

Trip Then Attack: 0.5 * 7.5 + 0.05 * 15 = 4.5

This strategy, at face value, doesn’t work. It would seem that trying to be fancy doesn’t pay off. But hold on a moment, let’s run some other situations. What if the Commando starts their turn with an opponent within reach? What then?

Three Attacks: 0.5 * 7.5 + 0.2 * 15 + 0.4 * 7.5 + 0.05 * 15 + 0.15 * 7.5 + 0.05 * 15 = 12.38

Trip Then Attack Twice: 0.5 * 7.5 + 0.05 * 15 + 0.25 * 7.5 + 0.05 * 15 = 7.13

It’s still not a viable strategy. I had the idea for what might happen if there were multiple Commandos in a fight. Maybe knocking an opponent prone would allow for everyone to jump on the fallen combatant to gain that juicy off-guard bonus.

But in that case, it would be easier to flank the combatant while they are standing up, and just whale on them while they can’t fight back.

The Commando lunges forwards, twisting their weapon in the air and extending it for an impressive distance, before deftly bringing it back around for a sweeping arc leveled at your head. That is a twenty-one to hit on both attacks.

The Commando is opportunistic, according to their lore, so they can choose whom to target. Let’s say they use their first action to get into a good place for a flank, and then their second and third to swing that Horsechopper twice at the outnumbered prey.

First Attack (Flanking): 0.5 * 7.5 + 0.3 * 15 = 8.25 Second Attack (Flanking): 0.5 * 7.5 + 0.05 * 15 = 4.5 Total: 12.75

Genuinely, this is better than the Goblin just making three strikes against whoever starts in their range, so, we have a strategy.

At the start of the Commando’s turn, they look around to see if there is an enemy they can flank, then spend an action to get there, and use their remaining momentum to strike twice. Because of the extended range of the Horsechopper, there might even be an easier opponent to hit already with range. Also, remember that this Commando has Goblin Scuttle, which they will be more than happy to use to manoeuvre around the battlefield in search of easy targets.

Once again, Darkvision makes this so much easier, and the Commando doesn’t have to flank their opponents to deal the most damage they can.

Finaly, if, at any point in the battle, the Commando is reduced to below about 6 hit points, or to 9 from a single hit, they will turn and run. Glory isn’t worth their life, and they won’t even bother with a last strike. Instead, they will use all three of their actions to sprint in the direction of the closest alleyway or hiding spot.

Alternate Weapons

One of the easiest ways to diversify a battlefield is by switching around weaponry. The proficiency system in PF2e makes this relatively easy to balance, so here are some options:

Our Goblin Warrior might pick up a shield on her travels, most likely a wooden one. It doesn’t change her Armour Class too much, and with her hit and run tactics, she would be better suited to just using that item to strike twice, but it provides options.

Alternatively, she could be equipped with a Horsechopper. You would have to swap around her dexterity and strength to make it work, but that would decrease her AC to 13. In this case, I would advise that she attacks only once per turn and uses the rest of her movement to duck in and out of combat as a skirmisher.

Meanwhile, a Commando would be incredibly well suited to a similar set up, either a Dogslicer, or a Dogslicer and shield. As before, the action is better used striking than raising the shield, but it never hurts to be there.

The Commando adds an extra +3 damage to their strikes with a Dogslicer, which means the formula for that turn looks like this.

Two Attacks: 0.5 * 6.5 + 0.2 * 13 + 0.45 * 6.5 + 0.05 * 13 = 9.43 Two Attacks (Flanking): 0.5 * 7.5 + 0.3 * 15 + 0.5 * 7.5 + 0.1 * 15 = 13.5

This is more damage than the Horsechopper, which averaged out at 12.75 damage per turn using this strategy. But it does lose out on the manoeuvrability and versatility that come from a reached weapon. So, I’d say it’s a fair trade.

Looking to the Goblin Ancestry for more inspiration, the Goblin Weapon Familiarity offers access to a plethora of uncommon weapons. These might not be applicable to every setting, but I'm sure someone will use them, so here they are.

The Explosive Dogslicer functions like a regular Dogslicer in melee, but doubles as a ranged weapon that deals 1d6 slashing damage, with a range increment of 20 ft, and the Backstabber, Fatal d10, Scatter 5 ft., traits. It also has a reload of 1, which limits it to being shot once or twice per turn.

The traits do mean that it is incredibly well suited to the hide and shoot strategy from before. Just substitute the second attack from that strategy with an interact to reload, and you get this:

Hide Then Attack (Warrior): 0.65 * (0.5 * 5.5 + 0.3 * 15.5) + 0.35 * (0.5 * 4.5 + 0.2 * 13.5) = 6.54 Hide Then Attack (Commando): 0.6 * (0.5 * 5.5 + 0.3 * 15.5) + 0.4 * (0.5 * 4.5 + 0.2 * 13.5) = 6.42

This doesn't really compete with the bow. But remember that the strategy deals an average of 0.77 splash damage for a Warrior and 0.76 for a Commando to any creature within 5 ft. of the target. Which means that if a party of four characters are clustered. This attack will generally deal about 8.85 damage in total. Naturally, this scales with the number of opponents.

The strategy does have one major drawback, that being the range of the weapon. So, I would advise this only as an opening Gambit. This would be the warning shot of a Goblin who favours melee fighting. She uses her first turn to shoot and then reload and hide. Then opens her second turn with another shot before engaging her target in melee.

Since the only difference between this and a Flingflencer is the range increment (the Flingflencer has an extra 10 ft. to play with) and the fact that the Flingflencer requires two hands, I would advise the same strategy. However, I think she would be better served using the second action to switch weapons rather than reload, meaning she can rush into melee immediately on her second turn.

A Big Boom Gun, meanwhile, has the same basic traits, although it doesn't have a melee option, and its traits are all replaced by a Fatal d12 ability. Still using the above strategy, its formula looks like this:

Hide Then Attack (Warrior): 0.65 * (0.5 * 3.5 + 0.3 * 13) + 0.35 * (0.5 * 3.5 + 0.2 * 13) = 5.2 Hide Then Attack (Commando): 0.6 * (0.5 * 3.5 + 0.3 * 13) + 0.4 * (0.5 * 3.5 + 0.2 * 13) = 5.13

Again, it's less useful than a Shortbow, and is best suited to an opening gambit. This weapon does also have a misfire option that, while incredibly detrimental to the Goblin, is rather funny when it does happen. So, as a GM, I would definitely advise this strategy.

I would advise this strategy as well for a Spoon Gun. It won't do as much damage against a single target due to not having the Deadly Property, but it does have the Scatter property, so focusing fire on clumped targets would naturally be the most optimal.

Conclusion

Goblins are an integral part of TTRPG lore, and I’m not talking about in game. Every party has fought Goblins. So, I couldn’t exactly start with anything else, could I.

Once again, I want to highlight that the idea for this blog comes from the The Monsters Know What They’re Doing blog, which is an excellent resource designed specifically for Dungeons and Dragons, but with ideas that can easily be brought over. I thought I might try my hand at this concept through the PF2e system, because it looked fun, but also because Pathfinder needs more love and attention.

In any case, if you have any suggestions for creatures you’d like me to cover, send me a message or put your suggestion in the replies or the ask box. I’d be happy to oblige.

[bestfictionalplant]

Round 1, Group 5

Propaganda and spoilers under cut

Tannot root: Tannot root has a calming, euphoric effect. Even touching the root is enough to be affected, and as it's edible and very nutritious tannot farmers are pretty much always under its influence. One of Moya's crew, D'Argo, visits a tannot farming community and says he feels a profound sense of peace and satisfaction for the first time in years (babe, it's not the cottagecore lifestyle you're just high) However, there's a dark side to it. First, tannot root depletes and contaminates the soil, making it impossible to grow other crops. Second, it's the main ingredient in the chemical process to produce chakan oil, a highly volatile substance used to power pulse weapons. The Peacekeepers, an interstellar empire, force planets to grow tannot to supply their military. Some species naturally metabolize tannot root into chakan oil. Rygel, another member of Moya's crew, ate some tannot and began sweating and urinating explosive fluids

Broccoloids: The Broccoloids are broccoli-like aliens from outer space. Their plan was to mind control every person in Townsville and complete world domination with vegetable-based weapons, war vehicles, and even a horse-like carrot creature.  They infected the local produce with spores to hypnotize the populace. Fortunately, they only hypnotized the adults, as none of the kids in townsville would eat their vegetables. As they advance with their own firepower, the girls first try to fight them by beating them up but being plant-based lifeforms, the Broccoloids can regenerate damaged body parts.  Blossom then realized the only way to beat the Broccoloids was to eat them. The girls and all of Townsvilles children devoured the Broccolids alive and then smashed the leaders scepter, ending the hypnosis (Yes, the whole episode is a lesson for kids to eat their vegetables, but its an absurd and entertaining one)

[culttvblog]

The Tomorrow People Master Post

Previously on Cult TV Blog...

I did just a handful of posts on the 1970s children's series The Tomorrow People (you can see them here: https://culttvblog.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Tomorrow%20People?m=1). I also did this 'master post' about the series purely to try to get my head round it. Since I'm no longer blogging on blogspot I thought it would be useful (hopefully for others too) to copy the post here.

This 'master' post is therefore predominantly an attempt to get a grasp on the amorphous mass of the series in my own head and keep track of what I have already written about. One of the difficulties that have stopped me writing about this show is that it is basically a different show from beginning to end, and is at best patchy. Additionally as said above some of the things on the show would not appear in TV today and I can't begin to think what they were thinking. If I have some personal rude remarks to say about an episode which don't deserve a full post, I may put them here.

Another thing which has always confused me is that although I now have the complete set in one box, region 2 releases have taken two different trajectories, one released in series and the other released in adventures.

Series 1

Slaves of Jedikiah (five episodes) broadcast 30th April to 4th June 1973.

The Medusa Strain (four episodes) broadcast 11th June to 2nd July 1973.

The Vanishing Earth (four episodes) broadcast 9th to 30th July 1973.

Series 2

The Blue and The Green (four episodes) broadcast 4th February to 4th March 1974.

A Rift in Time (four episodes) broadcast 11th March to 1st April 1974

The Doomsday Men (four episodes) broadcast 8th April to 6th May 1974.

Series 3

Secret Weapon (four episodes) broadcast 26th February to 19th March 1975

Worlds Away (three episodes) broadcast 26th March to 9th April 1975.

A Man for Emily (three episodes) broadcast 16th to 30th April 1975.

Revenge of Jedikiah (three episodes, but with such a similar name no wonder I was confused) broadcast 7th to 21st May 1975.

Series 4

One Law (3 episodes) broadcast 21st October to 5th November 1975.

Into the Unknown (four episodes) broadcast 7th to 28th January 1976.

Series 5

The Dirtiest Business (two episodes) broadcast 28th February to 7th March 1977.

A Much Needed Holiday (two episodes) broadcast 14th to 21st March 1977. This is the one with the slave children and the Jimmy Savile impression. 😳

The Heart of Sogguth (two episodes) broadcast 28thMarch to 4th April 1977.

Series 6

The Lost Gods (two episodes) broadcast 15th to 22nd May 1978.

Hitler's Last Secret (two episodes) broadcast 5th to 12th June 1978.

The Thargon Menace (two episodes) broadcast 19th to 26th June 1978.

Series 7

Castle of Fear (two episodes) broadcast 9th to 16th October 1978.

Achilles Heel (two episodes) broadcast 23rd to 30th October 1978.

Living Skins (two episodes) broadcast 6th to 11th November 1978.

Series 8

War of the Empires (four episodes) broadcast 29th January to 19th February 1979.

The reason for my confusion will be readily evident from the names of the different adventures. Some have similar names and others have names similar to other series and fictional works, including H P Lovecraft. The show evidently gave itself an ability to venture into all sorts of subjects and times, real and fictional. Looking at the titles it comes across as a less orderly Dr Who. No wonder I'm confused!

[its-to-the-death]

Fictional Weapon War Round 1

Ness' bat (Earthbound) vs Kendal (Aurora webcomic)

[monstersdownthepath]

Monster Spotlight: Xill

CR 6

Lawful Evil Medium Outsider

Bestiary 1, pg. 283 (pic from 2e Bestiary 2, pg. 299)

These tyrannical parasites from the Ethereal Plane have a scattered, militaristic government hellbent on subjugating all non-Xill life. While this doesn’t necessarily make them  different from most Lawful Evil creatures with any level of society, the general emptiness of the Ethereal Plane and the elusiveness of most other inhabitants in the transitive plane means war is all Xill society IS. Whatever infrastructure they manage to create (or, more likely, steal) is used to build weapons and armor, whatever knowledge they gather is devoted towards the capture and exploitation of other species’ and resources, whatever farms they create are solely to feed their victims, and all forms of art and entertainment are tossed aside in favor of complete military focus. A great many creatures in the Ethereal Plane are born from mortal thoughts or dreams, the incarnates of ideas themselves... so it may very well be that the Xill, whose origins are otherwise unknown, could be an invasive, living nightmare, a rogue thought escaped from a vast and alien mind, or even flesh and substance given to the very idea of conquest.

Perhaps the most alarming evidence to the latter is how they treat their victims. One may at first thing that these obviously carnivorous, predatory creatures may see all others as food, but that is, unfortunately, far from the truth. As Outsiders Xill don’t need to eat, and they don’t even have to feed on an abstract sensation like pain, fear, or love like some fancier Outsiders do. Rather, victims captured from the Material Plane are put to work at whatever tasks the Xill has for them in eternal slavery--oh, sorry, no, that was [checks notes] 99% of every other Evil always-marauding race in fiction. No, while the Xill may sometimes use captured victims as slaves, that means their bodies risk going to waste. You see, Xill are capable of infesting any form of life with their terrifically invasive eggs, with Phase Spiders--their greatest, longest-term enemy--being their favored incubators.

A Xill can Implant 2d6 eggs into a helpless creature by using a “grotesque ovipositor” located in their mouths, the tenacious young hatching a day later to consume the host from within. Each writhing lizard-bug deals 1 Con damage to the victim per hour until they’re removed (via Remove Disease or invasive, damaging surgery) or the host dies, the latter of which prompts the younglings to gorge on the tissue as much as they can before shifting back to the Ethereal and into the arms of their waiting brethren to grow into another conquering parasite. As written there’s no limit to the number of eggs a Xill can implant into a single host, nor a limit on how many eggs they can lay per day, but I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that a Xill can either only lay one clutch a day, or the maximum per host is 12... because otherwise, there‘s no mechanical reason they couldn’t capture, say, a deer, and shove 40 eggs into it.

But how do Xill capture victims in the first place? Preferably alive. Paralytic poisons are favored whenever they can get ahold of them, but most Xill simply knock targets out via overwhelming damage. Their Multiweapon Mastery prevents them from ever taking penalties on attack rolls with their numerous weapons or from using weapons and shield-bearing claws in the same flurry of attacks. While they can comfortably wield any weapon, the example Xill wields three shortswords (1d6+3 each) and leaves one hand open to deliver a claw attack (1d4+3), the claw also capable of Grabbing victims. Even when wielding one or two shields, the claws can still be used! Their four limbs also, amusingly, allow them to use two bows at once (or two melee weapons and a bow, should they wish), the example Xill firing two longbow attacks a round for 1d8 damage if they need to take care of opponents at a range.

Bereft of weapons, a Full-Attacking Xill can use all four claws, and whether they possess weapons or are going at it feral style, they can mix their incredibly deadly bite (1d3+1) into their Full-Attack. No, the damage isn’t threatening... but the 1d4 hours of paralysis if one fails a DC 16 Fortitude save is. The damage is meant to be low, because biting victims over and over again to keep them paralyzed is how Xill prevent their incubators from becoming a danger to the eggs. Whether a battle ends once an enemy is laid low by damaging attacks or by their paralytic bite, a Xill can then Planeswalk with a helpless (or willing, if they threaten a victim into compliance) to or from the Ethereal Plane. Their Planeswalk has no cooldown or per-day restriction, but takes two entire full rounds to pull off, which thankfully means that the threat of kidnapping a paralyzed party member is low, but not zero, especially since Xill become harder and harder to hit as they fade away.

Also, to close on some fun facts and DM advice: While it’s more likely than not to encounter a Xill hunting to begin its own colony, they heartily embrace the idea of working together, and an army of Xill hunting as one can disappear entire towns in a single day, making them excellent foes for parties to face at just about any level in their adventuring career. HOWEVER! Due to the animosity between the Xill and every other species in the Ethereal, a party hoping to battle against an especially massive Xill incursion may be able to find unlikely allies in the plane of ghosts and memories... and depending on the scale of the invasion, they may need to.

You can read more about them here.

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Fantasy Books Bracket: Round 1

Book summaries below (and bonus article by Sascha Stronach):

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles. By all rights their paths should never cross, but Achilles takes the shamed prince as his friend, and as they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine their bond blossoms into something deeper - despite the displeasure of Achilles' mother Thetis, a cruel sea goddess. But then word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped. Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus journeys with Achilles to Troy, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they hold dear. Profoundly moving and breathtakingly original, this rendering of the epic Trojan War is a dazzling feat of the imagination, a devastating love story, and an almighty battle between gods and kings, peace and glory, immortal fame and the human heart. Fantasy, historical fiction, mythology, retelling, romance, adult

The Dawnhounds by Sascha Stronach (The Endsong series)

A police officer is murdered, brought back to life with a mysterious new power, and tasked with protecting her city from an insidious evil threatening to destroy it. The port city of Hainak is alive: its buildings, its fashion, even its weapons. But, after a devastating war and a sweeping biotech revolution, all its inhabitants want is peace, no one more so than Yat Jyn-Hok a reformed-thief-turned-cop who patrols the streets at night. Yat has recently been demoted on the force due to “lifestyle choices” after being caught at a gay club. She’s barely holding it together, haunted by memories of a lover who vanished and voices that float in and out of her head like radio signals. When she stumbles across a dead body on her patrol, two fellow officers gruesomely murder her and dump her into the harbor. Unfortunately for them, she wakes up. Resurrected by an ancient power, she finds herself with the new ability to manipulate life force. Quickly falling in with the pirate crew who has found her, she must race against time to stop a plague from being unleashed by the evil that has taken root in Hainak. Fantasy, science fiction, biopunk, adult, Māori-inspired*

*Additional context: I also want to share this article by Sascha Stronach that was posted earlier this week (literally perfect timing). Especially since I'm including words from the marketing copy like "Māori-inspired" on the polls in the hopes that it helps readers find their new thing, it felt important to add the author's own words on the difficulties of working with US-based publishers and the power they exert over the process

[cephydots]

Project Moon fans I know we're in some dumb fuckinf drama or whatever but please can we focus on what's important here and vote for Mimicry in the weapon bracket poll

https://www.tumblr.com/its-to-the-death/723787687397638144/fictional-weapon-war-round-1?source=share

We are getting our ass beat here

[mechanicalinertia]

Bubblegum Black: For A World Without Gold - Chapter 3 & Author's commentary

This is the longest chapter I've written for this fic, despite it being mostly characters talking to one another. 11k words of this shit, man. That's either great or terrible, depending on who you ask. Anyway, here we go!

Doctor Hartland: Relatively obscure character, the guy who provided Roberta with her murder-meds during the Blood Trail / El Baile De Muerte IIRC. He, like many such characters Cyberpunk 2020 would call 'ripperdocs', is what I assume is the front line of medicine in a city like Roanapur. I imagine a city where hospitals are either for syndicate soldiers or extremely rich people, and everyone else can rely on doctors who import or print any medicine they can get their hands on. Presumably 'Traditional Chinese Medicine' is pretty popular, too (did you know that the Chinese government, at least in Hong Kong, prescribed traditional remedies for COVID awhile ago? It did not, of course, help, but it was an alternative to Decadent Western Pig-Dog Medicine I guess. Eugh.)

Revy's Custom Ammo: Delayed-fuse HESH rounds, truly terrible fleshripping monstrosities, are actually something I got from Masamune Shirow's work. You know how in the original manga and in the 1995 movie, Motoko goes "Oh, is that so", shoots up the one guy, and then it takes a second before his cyborg body is blown to bits? That's the effect I'm going for. The tungsten tip is to penetrate body armor and dig into a target's vitals, although that doesn't work 100% of the time with heavier armor. Still, even if there's no penetration, damage can still be done. HESH rounds were originally designed to kill a tank crew through spalling, hitting the armor with shockwaves such that slivers of metal inside the tank would break off and kill the crew. This is something one can easily mitigate with composite armor and a Kevlar inner lining in the tank, but to translate that back to body armor is probably a little more difficult. One can imagine shockwaves and slivers of armor lining pulverizing human or light Boomer innards even without penetration.

Seburo M-057: A completely fictional Seburo handgun. For those readers who don't slobber over Shirow's non-porn work the way I do, Seburo is a Japanese gun company built up after around World War Three (in the 1990's in Shirow's timeline). Apparently it might also be a subsidiary company of Poseidon Industrial, the megacorp that becomes the entirety of Japan by the time Appleseed rolls around. Either way, it's a famous Japanese arms company, which makes one wonder: Are handguns legal in Japan in Shirow's world, where they are not in ours? For the sake of lore, let's say that Japan allows organizations like GENOM to possess and manufacture weapons for security purposes, but not individuals. Remember how in BGC2032 there was that whole subplot about how military-grade Boomers in Japan were technically illegal and ideally should only be manufactured offshore? And GENOM just ignored that law for the most part? Well, fuck that game. In the 2060's GENOM happily supplies the JSDF with whatever Boomers they want, the better to defend against China. Anyway, yeah, the M-057 is a caseless pistol, ammo stored in the gun's handle like normal, but a whole lot more of it, we're talking 18+1 per magazine. In the 2060's, caseless weapons are juuuust starting to make a comeback as a concept, aided by new chemical configurations with higher ignition temperatures and better structural integrity. Revy's handguns are the equivalent of a high-performance electric car compared to everyone else's Toyota Corollas, is probably the best way to think about it.

Second-Highest Boomer Per Capita City: First is Anchorpoint.

Lightning Hawk: A silly Resident Evil reference.

The Master: Okay, this is going to take some explaining. Or at least a picture:

Yeah, okay, you see that gun Priss has? Sure looks like a laser magnum to me, doesn't it? And, hey, look closer, that's definitely its name on the side alongside the name of the sight! So, since no one has never done anything with this information, I have decided to do it my goddamn self. Now, as I've said before in the Hardsuit Tech document, laser weapons are actually pretty viable so long as you dial down the pulse train to femtoseconds and thereby jack up the pulsed power to the gigawatt or terawatt range. I do not know what the effective overall damage of a tactical-vehicle mounted terawatt laser would be, so in the end I settled on measuring the gun’s stopping power in joules, easy enough to compare to ballistic weapons. For the record, that max power level, 5KJ, is more stopping power than even 7.62 NATO. Which might be overkill even for futuristic high-density capacitors, but what the hell.

Chiborgs: Abbreviation of Chinaborgs. In this particular iteration of the future, following World War Three between the US and China's respective power blocs (and all the ruination that has brought upon the earth), Cold War 2 has been going on ever since neither side could claim absolute victory due to climate change-induced mass crop failures starving their armies out. So GENOM has one big rival in the 'Sinobloc': The China World Prosperity Corporation, a conglomerate of old State Owned Enterprises that privatized themselves following the war, rolled themselves up into a separate power structure, about as independent from the CCP as one can get, and resumed Chinese imperial efforts in the old Belt and Road bloc. But - but but but - they've never quite managed to emulate the entirety of Boomer technology. Oh sure, they've got robots, but Boomers are biomimicry nanotech down to the cellular level, a common platform for alternative life. WPC doesn't have that, so they've aligned with the turbo-Leninists in the Party, arguing that GENOM's Boomers alienate the proletariat from their labor on a societally toxic scale, and simply continued the use of prosthetics and augmentations coupled with inferior robotics to an absurd degree. A Chiborg, then, is a WPC-produced set of augmentations designed for relatively specialized labor, turning a human into a near-machine relying on constant maintenance and subject to constant surveillance. It’s not like these ‘shells’ are expensive, or cheap but low-quality. The WPC is more than happy to sell, as per Party directives, at an ever-so-slight-loss even in economically turbulent times. The insidious part, besides the addiction to maintenance and the monitoring of every micro-movement the brain orders the body to make, is who ends up with these things permanently grafted into themselves. Migrant workers in the bottom tier of the hukou system; ethnic minorities treated as culturally and mentally inferior to the Han majority; Taiwanese or Koreans or North Viet treated as near-slaves, the ‘curse’ of their WW3-era resistance against the benevolence of True Socialist Xi Jinping Thought with Chinese Characteristics For The Eternal Bright Future having marked entire families with generations of debt only payable by concentration camp labor. Voluntary, of course, but, y’know, not really.

Mycoplastic Packaging: Fungus-derived materials that have replaced most petrochemical-based plastics by 2060. In the case of easily-biodegradable packaging like what the Master comes in, it's more akin to a sort of micromesh made from hymenophore tubes. Check out this Vice article about more high-performance materials that fungi could help make. It's not really the same principle, but I imagine it's... plausible, to grow the right materials with some funky bioengineering.

Singto Phumici: Proud Lion in Thai. Note how some districts have English names and others have Thai. You could, I imagine, track the economic bracket of a given district, or perhaps who it relies on for authority, by the language used in a name. Might throw a Cantonese name or two in there later. We'll see.

Sawyer's Bloody Business: Yes, most of the meat in the 2060's is lab-cultured tissue or an imitation thereof, 3D printed into a meal. And yes, Sawyer feeds human corpses to flesh-eating bacteria which are supposed to build up a nice big blob of biomass that can then be fed to meat cultures. One meat becomes another, just with more extra steps and less maintenance than feeding human remains to pigs as one might do in the old days. You know, they've managed to print lab-grown Wagyu. How much longer before Mickey-D's is marketing luxury synthmeats in its products? I wonder.

Sawyer In General: The idea of Sawyer being an obsessive Priss fangirl has been a fairly crucial part of this crossover ever since I started thinking about it in early April. Perhaps it runs against her canon characterization as a stone-cold killer in Gore Gore Girl, but all we have to go off of for G3 so far is chapter summaries on the wiki, and it strikes me as a somewhat sillier spinoff than mainline Lagoon. Which is fine, but then what the hell, I have license to fuck around with what we're given in terms of Sawyer, because It Is Fanfiction. I guess I find her at once intimidating but kind of pathetic? I mean, those scars on her arms definitely aren't something someone else did to her, if Hiroe's claim that she was based of a friend with depression is to be believed. Without spoiling anything, suffice to say that in earlier drafts of this chapter Sawyer was even more of a mentally unwell gore fiend than she is here. My beta took issue with it, said that there was no way that what I want to do with the character in the long run made sense if she was like that. And you know what, he was right. We haven't seen the last of the Gore Gore Girl, not by a long shot. I didn't write that scene to set a big ol' nothingburger up. You'll see.

Priss vs. Revy: Okay, could Priss actually beat Revy in a shootout, even by one point or whatever? Hard to say. Priss's skill as a marksman is more up in the air just because we've seen less of her overall, and less emphasis is placed on her ability to shoot well. But I think that she's got some skill, at least, from her time as a bosozoku and from having to make crucial railgun shots as a Saber. Also... she kind of cheated. A little. Not a lot, but enough to win. Those who have read Anatomy of a Lovedoll, or remember a little side bit from Chapter 2, will recognize how.

Fediverse: Mastodon is the most famous of these platforms, but the fediverse is more than just 'the open-source Twitter replacement', it's more... federated networks are disconnected communications networks that can still talk to each other over a common platform, so the idea behind the fediverse is a galaxy of 'instances', small servers run by a person or organization that can all share common accounts with differing rules of operation and moderators and stuff. No one company owns the protocols used, and so it's a lot more of a wild west - plenty of people who were kicked off Twitter for good reason (Nazis) have taken root on fedi instances - but the idea in mentioning fediverse-like platforms in the noosphere of the future is that they're sort of the alt-internet, the cyberpunk-y version of the internet that has otherwise been carved up by big platforms and those Everything Apps I was talking about in the Chapter 2 notes (even more prescient now that Twitter-cum-X is being set up by Elon to be Explicitly That). Forums that run the gamut from respectable to shady; software and 3D printing libraries of varying quality and trustworthiness; piracy and crime and all the corrosive forces that eat away at the respectable foundations of the Noose - these are the kind of networks Benny and Jane love to hang out on. In other words, the only ways to use the internet of the future are Facebook, Amazon, and 4chan. God, don't you miss the days of nonplatformed webpages? Let's bring Geocities back, guys. Let's do that to save the internet.

Tewwowizm: Are the Knight Sabers terrorists? In the eyes of many, they probably are, a menace against the prosperous GENOM-lead global order that... you get the idea. The hope is that enough people can recognize that the Sabers mostly kill GENOM execs and blow up GENOM assets like industrial facilities and Boomers, and avoid killing innocents for the most part. To make them superheroes and not supervillains in the eyes of the body public. This was something I wanted to play around with in this conversation as it organically unfolded. At least, I think I did. This conversation textually pulling double-duty as a way to lead Eda off the trail of the Sabers working with the Lagoon Company and also letting Dutch get all weird and philosophical... I'm happy with it, but it's weird all the same. Either way, it does get to the desired outcome, highlighting how easy it is to needle Rock now after... well, have you Lagoon manga readers figured out who died yet? Yeah, I bet you have.

Eda's Pet Naming: Not in the manga, but I think it's funny and kind of mean-spirited on Eda's part, so in it goes. Okay, what else to put in here...

What I'm Stealing From: You may have noticed, dear reader, that I'm writing a lot of Rock. Hell, the next chapter is mostly his perspective again. This is probably not a good thing, because even if I find him super interesting as a character, most people are probably here for the girls, not him. Too much Rock, too much of the Lagoon cast in general and the Sabers risk being only bit players in a larger drama, which they should not be. So that's a balancing act I haven't quite gotten the hang of. Anyway, there's one Lagoon fic I want to bring up real quickly that has had a major impact on how I think about the franchise. It's called Apotheosis, which is, in my opinion, perfect in every conceivable way. While it lacks the balls-to-the-wall super-action of Lagoon as we know it, it makes up for that by having really interesting prose, heartfelt character development, firm grounding in late 90's history, and really getting inside Rock's head, both his best impulses and his worst ones. It almost made me cry at the end, and the only reason I haven't reread it extensively is because I'm afraid I'll either succumb to Fic Envy and start kicking myself, or I'll just rip off chunks of characterization and plot wholesale. Which is kind of what I'm doing now to navigate the Lagoon cast as people, but to a lesser degree. The Sabers have to provide a catalyst, a reactant, stuff like that - that means the plot can't be the same thing beat-for-beat. It better not be. Are there other fics that have made me think about this franchise deeply? Yep. Sure are. But I don't think any are going to be as radically influential on this fic as Apotheosis. We'll see. I have high hopes for this project.

Anyway, rough draft of Chapter 4 is already done, it just has to get edited but it's pretty short. Next time, a deal will be made that will change the way you think about Roanapur forever...