Shocktober Day 12 - A Flash of Horror - Masks

She was told Thursday night was always Mask Night, but that didn't make it any easier to accept the true creep factor of the tradition. It was a club she'd never been to in a part of town that made her uncomfortable with friends she had only meet a few weeks ago. What could possibly go wrong? Of course, she couldn't be too choosy since she had transferred to her new school months ago and just now, in a dumb stroke of luck, she had found a few people who fully embraced her quirky nature - or at least seemed to.

So after months of being homesick for her old university and not having any excuse to do anything fun, she was beyond excited for an opporunity to break out one of her dresses from an as-yet-unopened packing box and doll herself up for her first true night on the town with friends since the school year started.

Shocktober Day 9 - A Flash of Horror - Intrusion

(I cheated a bit on today's Flash - it's more of a start to a longer story that I'll never likely tell, but I think it'd be a great foundation for a one-shot game)

Intrusion

The house has been abandoned when he broke in to put a roof over his head for just one night before moving out of town. He was evicted with practically no notice, and his apartment had been emptied before he got back from class. He never thought he'd have to break into some place just to get out of the cold, wet snow and survive a night on his own. Then again, he never imagined being kicked out for being just a couple of days late on paying his rent. He resisted the temptation to curse out his old landlord - even if he deserved it - as he pulled up some rough patches of carpet he cut up from the largest of the three bedrooms upstairs. He still remembered that day he broke his first rule of civilization to take what didn't belong to him. It was months ago, and for some reason, when broke the taboo, something in him just felt right. It was freeing and wonderful and terrifying all at once. The house was his through nothing other than having the will power to break open a window and the sense of calm necessary to allow himself to sleep in the stolen home. 

Shocktober Day 4 - A Flash of Horror - "Click"

(It's Thursday! That means you get a little bit of original flash fiction following the prompt of the week's theme, in this case "Props" - so here we go!)

Click

For some reason beyond Ken's understanding, the pen meant everything in the world to his brother. It was a simple thing, brown with little silver highlights where the different pieces joined and screwed into one another. Ken clicked it several times, turning it over and rotating it before extending the tip and retracting it. Ever since he picked it up at a tiny farmer's market just outside Munich - a place he'd visited almost every weekend to pick up his week's supply of vegetables and fresh meat - he regretted the purchase. He couldn't understand it, but at every step of the way he felt this compulsion to tell Michael about it.

Harry Potter Setting Riff - The Silent Castle.

As a belated homage to the end of the Harry Potter series (and as a tribute to my favorite of the eight movies), HP 7 - part 2 had my mind running wild with What-If's and Elseworlds stories that, if tweaked just a tiny bit, could turn into one helluva fun setting for a one-shot game. Today I want to focus on one thought I had for a far-future adventure set in the HP world. I'm going to warn you that my HP appreciating nerdiness is going to shine through brightly here, but forgive me a bit of indulgence. My favorite sequence both in the movies and the books is going to be discussed with a bit of detail below right alongside some other spoilers from the whole series, so if you've been waiting to read the books or haven't seen the movie and don't want anything spoiled for you, don't read more! If this doesn't apply, come join me for a dark vision of the future of Hogwarts...

Elves - A Great and Terrible Thing

You'd think that countless years and countless lifetimes would lead the elves toward a greater understanding of forgiveness and allow them to develop the ultimate live-and-let-live mentality, at least you'd hope. Sadly, those who have had the ill luck of crossing paths with one of the lords of the forest know better. The elvenfolk are vindictive, vain, petty, and above all, powerful.

Some say their immortality has fostered a kind of madness known only to those who need not fear death. They believe the long, drawn-out, almost ritualistic ways in which they plot revenge and carry out personal vindication against those who have wronged them. Those few who have survived an elf's retribution and payment on what they whimsically refer to as a "life debt" often have no idea what they even did to wrong the fae creatures in the first place. They claim to have in fact offered the greatest hospitality and courteousness toward the fae lord or lady they encountered. Only a madness, those who have been repaid by an elf claim, such as that possessed by dragons and other creatures from before time could so cloud the eyes of those with such power.

Setting Riff: Bushido of the High Seas

I picked up the first hardcover collection of the Okko comic at c2e2 directly from Archaia Comics' booth on the cheap and just finally got a chance to read it. I've got mixed feelings on the story overall, but there's no denying that the art and coloring (two separate jobs in the world of comics) are gorgeous and down-right inspiring. Given the name of the first collection (The Cycle of Water), the first collection tells the story of how the group of characters get together and focuses on the adventures they have in pursuit of their quest across various islands and seas.

This got me thinking that, well there are several good samurai settings out there (Okko being one, but of course the granddaddy of them all is Legend of the Five Rings) to game in, I wanted to dream up a setting that focused exclusively on the concept of naval warfare in the world of the Samurai.

The Shackleton Scotch Flash Challenge: Gun-Nut

This is my entry in Chuck Wendig's flash fiction prompt inspired by the recent discovery of Shackleton's Scotch over at his Terrible Minds blog. The rules are simple, 1,000 words or less, any genre, has to be able to be tied back in a vague manner to the scotch discovery. Never one to shy away from a flash fiction prompt, here's my entry into the challenge! I wanted to do something darker than I've done before and a little psychedelic since I don't really push myself when I write to explore new styles. I didn't really mean for it to get so dark, and will simply say that I'm an optimistic guy. This isn't where my head is at all. It's simply a writing exercise! This might suck, but you never know how much you suck and how you can improve without sucking in the first place. Last disclaimer: even for flash fiction it sits nice and short at 320 words.

Call of Cathulhu, Part 4 of an Origin Story

Yay! Part 4 and it's actually the conclusion! It turned a little bit into one of those incredibly long, incredibly annoying jokes where the humor lies in the length of the telling rather than in the strength of the punchline. If you don't get it now, read on, and I apologize for the last line in advance. Consider this story a little bit of creative experimentation. And after today, it's over! Win-win.

They took council for a time, the Mother Cheetah and the king and queen of the mice. She wanted to take them back with her to her husband, the lion father Barnible to hatch a plan which she hoped could not fail. The king Josev cast that thought out immediately. "It is one thing to invite us to entreaty with your pride, but it is another thing entirely to ask we stride into your territory trusting to all of your kind. Mother Cheetah, you alone have proven yourself, and you alone we will work with to meet our mutual goal."

She accepted their demand, although it meant her lord and her family would go countless time longer without knowing how she fared. It was a sacrifice with which she could not deny the necessity. Queen Meredev assumed the role of matriarch while the king mounted the great cat's back to speed them away on their long journey to the doors of the realm of all-that-isn't. They traveled for days over the earth from forest to jungle to prairie and finally to the great desert at the heart of the world. Mother Cheetah paused to rest as they approached the final oasis before the last leg of their journey. The would drink deep from the waters of the oasis, rest, and the next morning confront the great beast at the threshold of her realm.

Call of Cathulhu, Part 3 of an Origin Story

Ok, so I'm a liar and this isn't quite the conclusion of the Origin Story. Today's post is the third part of a piece or weird original fiction with part 1 and part 2 posted over the course of this week. I've had a lot of fun writing it, and it's really stretched my writer muscles quite a bit to try to emulate the style of ancient myth and creation stories. I hope you've enjoyed it, but hey, if you didn't, I can pretty much guarantee you're going to like what comes next week as we delve into exploring the amazing terrain creations of The Hopeless Gamer's own Keegan. I promise, it won't disappoint! On with the story!

As the great pride waited for her return, Mother Cheetah was forced to look wide and far for the target of her diplomatic mission. As youngest of Barnible's wives, she possessed the mission of least consequence, but never the less pursued her targets, the King Josev and Queen Meredev of the kingdom of mice, with great passion. It was a difficult journey, but Mother Cheetah would not return to her husband in failure of even the meager task of locating the minuscule monarchs. Finally, after a time longer than she could recall, she flopped down onto her spotted side in her own personal despair and exhaustion.

Call of Cathulhu, Part 2 of an Origin Story

This is part two of, what I swear will be better titled at some point, Call of Cathulhu, an Origin Story. You can find part one, which was posted just yesterday, here. You'll probably want to read that before jumping into part two. This, again, stretched on a little longer, and now it looks like it will be a three act story, so expect the finale to come very soon! Warning though, by the time you get to part three, you may realize that this is actually quite a silly thing.

It was with a great degree of consternation that the war council was broken and the great lords and ladies of the living realm parted ways. Grishla, mother bear goddess, dismissed Barnible for a fool for too much boldness. Rossum, great queen of the hives and clans of crawling things, accused the great cat of favoring treachery over strength of mandible and claw. Mis'kr, the matriarch of all flying things and great sparrow of the clouds, mocked Barnible as a coward and a fool.

Call of Cathulhu, Part 1 of an Origin Story

This is something dumb I made up. It's a bit long for the main page, so I split it up, so there's more, just keep reading! I'm planning on posting part 2 tomorrow. Hope you enjoy it, and for those of us in the midst of this eldritch abomination of a blizzard, stay warm!

There is a being older than time. She, if you are so bold as to attribute gender to her, is a fractured entity. Torn apart across the faceless eons, she has been born and perished a million million times throughout history recorded and otherwise. Before her shattering, she ruled all in existence that did not live. Wilderness, rock, and the dead spirits of all things were her domain. Her monarchy was a cruel thing as she tightly grasped all she saw before her in her countless tyrannical appendages. 

NaNoWriMo Check-in Time!

So, we're a solid week into NaNoWriMo, and it's confession time. But first, a quick review of NaNo. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel starting November 1st and ending November 30th. It's National Novel Writing Month! The much smaller goal (but still quite admirably an undertaking!) is to write 1,667 words a day in order to reach the overall 50,000 words in 30 days.

As I reviewed earlier this week, I'm cheating as much as possible. First off, I'm not writing a novel for NaNo. Instead I'm going to be sprinting a bunch more content for a game I've been working on. I said I would let out a couple of little snippets, but honestly I don't know where to start and what would be really constructive. So, with being as vague as possible, I'm working on a sci-fi game. There! Now you have a spoiler - that is if you wanted one to begin with.

So how have I been doing in reaching my goal? There's another cheat! I started November 1st with around 17,000 words. At that starting place, I only would have needed to average 1,100 words a days to reach 50,000. Of course I haven't done that. Instead I'm now at 19,665. It's not bad, and actually quite high if I would have started with zero words (if that was the case, I should have been at 11,667 words by today), but it only averages to 381 words a day. Naturally I've only written two or three days this week, but it's just really not up to chops. Soon I'm going to fall behind the curve if I don't really amp up my writing. The stuff that I have created so far is focusing on introduction and fluff material, but soon I'm going to have to take another crack at building some more crunch.

The good news is that this week I have a lot of time on my own as Andrea's working most nights this week. This should give me a good chance at being less distracted by fun stuff (and Infamous which I'm currently nearing the end of my second play-through - evil this time). Wish me luck!

Shocktober Preview/Horror Hook - My Mom's Story

We absolutely love Halloween and horror role-playing in general around here. Last year I tested myself and tried to write a horror hook every day in October (otherwise known as Shocktober 2009). While we have different/lots of new plans for Shocktober 2010, I wrote up a bit of a horror story based on a very short little experience my mom told me about from when she was a kid. I changed some details, but it's mostly true. And no, the picture to the right here is not my grandma and grandpa's farm but rather the house from Night of the Living Dead, which is suitably creepier. Keep Reading for the story, and I hope you enjoy! * Details are left vague to protect the innocent.

The Saga of Hoplite - The Story So Far

I've got this Twitter account I'm playing around with trying to tell a superhero story 140 characters a time. It's been a really fun experience, and I would recommend it to anyone out there thinking of starting a Twitter novel. You can check out the account at The Saga of Hoplite, but to make it easier to get into the story (since it's over 100 Tweets strong and is displayed in reverse on Twitter), I've rearranged the story into traditional prose:

Buckets fell like it was the end of the world. The bronze of his Corinthian helm softened the endless drops. He glanced down all 27 stories. He let his helm drop, then his shield. He was left with the short stubby sword; it would do. The job was easy; the getting to it was hard. Looking back as his tools clanged against the concrete below, he regretted the damage done to the structure, what was next would be worse. He pushed slowly against the wall towards his target. Gravity and the gods would do the work of building his momentum. He eyed his landing. He was hoping he read the scene right - the things looked like giant Buicks on legs. He'd seen his share of mad science, but this felt off. The three machines kept watch. Though bulky, they had a feminine quality. He only had seconds - he plunged, bringing his fists together. His momentum grew faster than it had a right to. He braced for first contact, fists clenched. Too late he realized where he'd seen them.

A flash of greasy light and his surroundings morphed. He crashed into concrete a second later, right arm snapping, taking the full impact. Fire surrounded him. The air was dry, still. His eyes took time to adjust while he struggled to understand the constant murmuring. Words began forming slowly. He began to recognize the language as ancient Greek. He kept thinking he knew bits of it. "Abraxas." He turned. Stark clarity came to him, although what he saw was impossible, even by his standards. He was in the center of an arena. He was surrounded. Those around him appeared undisturbed. Taking in his surroundings, there were people of all ages and dressed from all periods of time. Looking up, he realized he was in a huge structure with wooden walls and slated ceilings far off in all directions. The fire sat in hearths. "Abraxas" the voice came again, three voices in unison. Focusing, he turned his attention and joined the crowds. He made his way forward. A great creaking filled his ears - filled the entire place. He winced, but moved forward. He could see in the distance a great wooden wheel. The wheel appeared to be part of a greater fixture turning as a cog in the great machine. He approached what appeared to be a sort of stage.

Abe knew the crowd was there for this. The place's true purpose. He could see three women on stage. They appeared to be tied together. He could be sure of nothing in this place. It felt like a cozy home with hearth and heat to comfort those who were lost. Why was he here? He approached the three women. They shared an unnatural resemblance. One was ancient, one was middle-aged, and the last was a young girl. He saw now that their hair was tied together, wound into a great thread. The wheel turned slowly and their hair was pulled around its edge. The thread was pulled into the ground, out of site and its purpose only guessed at. In unison the women looked to Abraxas and spoke. "Abraxas of House Baros. You have much to hear but will remember little from your time here. Heed our words or the doom finally befalls you. Three fates will be revealed to you as we stand here and work." There was a pause as Abe realized the voice was one but with shadows. Each word shifted the focus to a different woman and like clockwork the other two spoke. He couldn't rightly call it an echo.

"First beware the last." There was silence. "The last? The last what? That's not even a full sentence. Seriously, sentence fragments?" The women ignored Abe's outburst. "Next you must guard the dark cygnus" "The dark what? Anybody have pen and paper?" His right arm throbbed. He saw spots and realized his right side was drenched with blood from his arm. He knew going to sleep would fix it. But he needed to listen. Dragged back to reality by spots in front of his eyes, he remembered the scene he left on the roof. Sleep wasn't going to come for awhile... He heard laughter from behind him, it was quiet, but he thought pervasive. He still didn't know where he was. He was losing it quickly."Abraxas" They spoke. "Abe," the youngest took a step away from the wheel. She alone spoke next. "The woman's fate is set. We're so sorry." "The woman's...? Which woman?" She resumed her position at the wheel. "This is crap, I need to get back there. Can you send me" He was back.

He blinked away the rain before getting thrown across the roof by a giant wall of metal moving faster than his brain could catch up with. He wouldn't have much time, but it looked like the sisters hadn't made their move, and the building still had time before it came down. He drew sword with his left hand, thankful that his right took the hit, while he took 8 long, quick strides towards the nearest Mechawitch. Her attention turned, Abe knew to aim for the control unit. Who ever sat on the other end of the controller this time was anyone's guess. Their sister fallen, the two remaining bots turned. screeching like a car with loose belts. Abe regained his sword, preparing for the rush. The rush didn't come. They both turned away, raised their arms, and started smashing the rooftop with hydraulic arms. Just what Abe feared. The roof was rocking, and Abe could feel the supports give way beneath his feet. Finally remembering the threat he came to stop, he lunged. He couldn't let the building fall, not with what it contained. He knew they'd be guarding the controls; he desperately went for the legs. He couldn't let the building fall, not with what it contained. He knew they'd be guarding the controls; he desperately went for the legs.

Praying to Hephaestus their impacts wouldn't topple the building, he slashed wildly at the pumps and tubes working to keep the bots upright. Their screams intensified but at least the roof stopped shaking. He knew his sword wouldn't finish them off, so he jumped between them. Their engines running madly, sending more fuel to the failing pumps in the legs, the bots broke free of their control; they raged on wildly. "Well, that definitely did not work as planned." He felt the foundation shake below as he dodged their heavy fists. The sisters battled. It wouldn't be long, he had to act. Sheathing his sword he leaped as the next blow came and gripped the giant appendage with his whole body. As he hoped, the bot he grabbed aimed to smash him against the hardest surface within reach - its sister. He had to time it perfectly. It wasn't perfect. He hadn't figured the rain as his grip slipped, instead of smoothly sliding off the arm before the punch, he flew. He felt the shockwave as the two connected and he was already falling off the roof. He twisted to confirm danger had passed. The bots fell. The sisters struggled every story they fell. Abe was falling at a much slower pace, but falling nonetheless. This was going to hurt... alot.

He couldn't help but smile despite falling 23 stories. Whoever lured him into this trap had failed and the items inside would be safe now. The rain had picked up. He hadn't noticed it during the fight, but it was nice now, for at least two more seconds he could enjoy the fall. He heard an incredible crash just below him, and then he hit. His gamble paid off. The pain was beyond comparison, but he still had a pulse. His vision became a screen door, then thick spots took over and his eyes swelled. Every joint felt like it'd popped. Eyes closed, he slept.

It was a strange bed, and a strange place to wake up. He sat up and looked around. It was dark, and felt like he was underground near water. It wasn't a hospital; he knew what it was like to wake up after a particularly brutal fight in a well-lit room full of concerned faces. He was still in the blood-stained clothes he fought in yesterday. Oddly, he found a suit and tie hanging for him along with his weapons. Changed, he wore helm and shield around neck and shoulders. He wore the sword as he had the day before and grabbed his spear. It was dark. He took a few steps out away from the bed and realized her earlier feeling was true - he was at the far end of a large underground lake. He assumed there was a far side, but the darkness was thick. "So," he said to the darkness, "Abby, how the hell did you get yourself here?" A cold glow grew from the borders of the lake as blue flood lights slowly activated. He guess it was some kind of automatic system. "Hello?" he shouted. There was no use in being stealthy here, whoever had helped him obviously was in control, but possibly an ally.

"Mr. Hoplite," a voice from above, likely a speaker of some sort, "Unless you'd like to swim, you'll just have to wait for the boat." A slow but steady splosh could now be heard far away. Abby thought he recognized the voice. It was silky smooth with an underlying threat. With the lights raised, the cavern was still dark, but the small boat came within view. The style was Greek bireme, but mini, with 1 rower. He didn't recognize the design, whatever it was, the robot was homemade. It's purpose was singular as its arms were fused to the oars. It reached his side. "I suppose you're the taxi, insulting as this 'replica' is." The robot didn't reply. He grabbed the boat and hopped in. The voice boomed from above, "Mr. Hoplite, it is simply an homage, the best I could do on short notice. You could be more grateful." "And you could less ominous," he replied under his breath. "What was that?" the voice spoke, "You'll have to speak up." Abe didn't reply. The trip across the lake was taking forever. "So who am I talking to?" He shouted upwards. "No need to raise your voice," said the boat.

"Clever enough, I guess... Well? You now my name, but I don't know yours. That's not fair." The robot was silent momentarily. Its mouth lit. "I am... a benefactor of your cause, Hoplite. Or is Abraxas, or do you go by Abby now? It's hard to keep up." "It's Abe." He replied. "Ah, yes, Abe it is then." The sploshing of oars continued softly in the background. "Abe, I have a question for you, and I demand honesty." "It seems you've got my attention. And, seeing as how you won't tell me even your name, or where I'm going, why is my honesty questioned?" "Perhaps I misspoke," came the voice again, now from the robot in the boat. Abe appreciated this change - it at least felt more civilized. "How do I say this? Abe, I need you to concentrate on gathering your memories here before you answer..." Abe cut him off, "What the hell?" "Why are we going in circles? I know there've been a couple of forks already, but you always steer me away again. Just be straight with me." "You still don't know who I am? I could have sworn you've been been. My mistake, if you'd kindly watch the monitor," the voice demanded.

The rowing robot's face separated as a small tv monitor was revealed. There was static as the video began. It looked to Abe to be the news. "This is Laura Remington for Channel 4 news team. It appears the Hoplite, after successfully saving the Oswalt museum of Ancient History, was then thrown off the top of its 23 stories by the rampaging sister bots. He appears to be moving, but the police have cut off access." A voice from off camera questioned her, "Laura, is there any news of what the cause of this fight was? Why were the sisters attacking?" "I'm afraid there's no revelations yet. Witnesses say the sisters' only purpose seemed to be to tear the building down. Wait, what is that?" The anchor turns around as the camera's focus switches from her to over her shoulder. It focuses on the spot of the Hoplite's fall. A black blanket has covered all the area sectioned off around Abe. It seemingly appears from nowhere. It's clear the anchor is startled. The blanket - or whatever it is - seems to contract in an instant and shoots straight up. Its hard to tell whether it was pulled or flew. All that's left is the crater Abe made with his body. The anchor looks back at the camera with wide eyes. The screen goes black. It is dark.

The flood lights from lit back up. Abe raised an eyebrow, "I couldn't help but notice we've stopped moving." Abe heard the robot chuckle. It was the laugh of his 'benefactor'. "I'm afraid you've got it all wrong Hoplite. You haven't been moving, but the cave is now still, yes." Abe wondered about the sanity of the man behind the robot. What a ridiculously expensive charade, but he could now confirm his suspicion. "Black Swan, I'm afraid we haven't met, well, I haven't met you, but you're probably pretty familiar with me at this point. Creeper. What's the point of all this anyway?" Abe continued. The robot finally lit back up and Abe could hear breathing on the other end. "Took a little longer than I hoped for you to solve that one Abe, but what can I expect from an old man?" Abe was confused "What are you..." "Don't interrupt me." The Swan stopped him in mid-sentence. Something in his voice made Abe follow the command, but he wasn't sure what.

Black Swan continued, "At what point does comfortable become tedious? When does familiar becomes predictable? How long does it take?" Abe felt the need to speak up - none of this was making sense and he was getting sick of trying to wait this out. He had heard rumors... Rumors of the Swan's eccentricities. Some who knew him called him a fascist behind his back while lauding him praises in public. "Abraxas Baros, how many lifetimes does one have to live before he wishes he could just curl up and die?" "You're starting to piss me off." "It's time Swan, show me the way out and never talk to me again. If I see you on the street, like that could ever happen, I won't stop." "There'll come a day when you need help and all of your high-tech crap won't save you. Guess what? Neither will I." Abe sat, waiting.

Nothing happened for a while as he awaited a response and nothing came. He began to eye the walls and the ceiling trying to find a way out. He tore off an arm from the robot oarman and was using it to pull the boat towards one of the floodlight-lit walls, hoping it'd be easy. He stood in the boat near ready to climb the craggy wall assuming he'd be able to punch his way out towards the surface when he got up top. Shoulder socket still sparking, the silicone silhouette sprung back to life, startling the shocked soldier. Abe fell backwards in the boat. The sounds that came from the broken bot sounds less like an imitation of a voice and more like an old tape recording of events long ago. It was his voice, or close enough since it wasn't his accent, and he didn't think he was actually speaking English. How'd he understand it? The sound seemed to be far away from the recording device, and it was difficult to make out. He believed there were actually two voices.

As he leaned in towards the bot, he exerted his ears to hear a little more. it sounded like two of him, or at least him talking to himself. It was difficult to make out what they were talking about. There were regular cracks in the transmission - almost like it was an old record. The odd version of him: "I'm so -KZZK- there just isn't enough -KZZK- to warn you... likely you won't remember -KZZK-" Abe sate, mouth open. "You're -KZZK- to be chased. Don't believe -KZZK- Swan. Oh you don't know what I'm talking -KZZK-... don't even know -KZZK-" Abe heard what sounded like him talk "I don't -KZZK- got my armor, but I'd -KZZK- it anywhere. Why are -KZZK- perpetrating this fraud?" The strange one replied "Just listen. You're -KZZK- to be followed, just remember!" At the end of this plea the voice neared the microphone. "If you won't -KZZK- seeing me, I at least know how you'll -KZZK- be able to hear me. Abe, -KZZK- the Swan was -KZZK-" There was a pause.

That's it for now! Check the Twitter account for regular updates to the story!

What's awesome right now?

Glad you asked! There are a couple of things that are awesome right now, and you didn't even know. I bet you didn't!

1. Getting FFG's board game card sleeves for both Galactica and the Pegasus expansion. I picked these up on Tuesday and they are indeed quite awesome. I've been using random CCG-sized card sleeves for a good period of time now on those BSG cards (of which there are many), and finally I went all-in and picked up four packs each of the european style card sleeves offered directly from Fantasy Flight Games. They're all transparent on both sides and they all match! It makes a world of difference having the slimmer sleeves for the normal sized card, and it's completely awesome that they know make sleeves for the smaller cards. Now if our new kitten would stop trying to eat the actual boardgame boxes, I can confidently say my copies of BSG are going to see a lot of play and last a long time. (You can find the card sleeves themselves here at FFG's website.)

2. Speaking of FFG, this picture in particular is quite scintillating and sexy. Even though I don't necessarily want to play or pay the price, just seeing them all stacked up is so tempting. Starter sets of anything will always make a fool out of me for how badly I'm attracted to them.

3. My NaNoWriMo novel is coming along fine, although I skipped yesterday (bad Hopeless Gamer, bad!). It's fun writing with such complete abandon and allowing yourself to write something really, really bad, at least from your own personal, too-high-standards point of view.

4. Hammer Horror movies are awesome. I don't know what finally motivated me, but I've picked up a couple of double feature DVD's from Netflix and have not been disappointed in their awesomeness. Peter Cushing is quickly becoming my favorite actor!

5. I'm working on my next article for Eye of the Vortex. It's another White Wolf article that looks at one of the most important books in the line. I'm not going to reveal it here quite yet, but you should check out the website if you haven't yet, the guys there are awesome and we cover a ton of different gaming topics.

6. I'm still in the early stages of planning my first All Flesh Must Be Eaten session, but I think it's going to be good. Brainstorming for NaNoWriMo has got me thinking about some pretty great concepts that I know the guys haven't seen yet in a game all together, so here's hoping that continues going strong.

(Image today is brought to you by the Cool Aggregator, thanks!)

NaNoWriMo Update!

Ok, so I don't plan on updating everyday, but day 2 is a big deal, right? It shows that the idea to start wasn't just a flash in the pan, it was a real gun shot that produced a big plume of bad-smelling smoke! I more than met my quote today, which was pretty awesome, I started to get into the story a little bit more, which is really awesome, and I came up with a title, which is really pretty awesome!

If you read the Shocktober post that inspired my novel, you won't be surprised by the title, so here it is: War Drums. Pretty straight forward, and it works as kind of a tension builder, and you hear the war drums sounding just right before battle, and that's what this first entry will likely be. At only 175 pages, it can't really be an epic, so I'm planning for the future baby! Maybe someday down the line, 4 or 5 years from now, I'll have a series of novels in the series. Probably not, but it's fun to imagine anyway!

NaNoWriMo

So I'd heard of the odd collection of letters in the title of this post several months ago and definitely missed out on last year's event. Just an hour ago The Wife comes home and asks what it means. A quick google search leads to the National Novel Writing Month homepage.

I don't know if I would have been up for this last year, but this year it's something I'm going to go for, and The Wife is joining me as my writing buddy. If anyone else out there is interested in NaNoWriMo and needs a buddy or two, let us know as I have a feeling I'll be posting updates here on my efforts.

Of course I'm jumping the gun here. What is NaNoWriMo? Basically every year in November a large number of people (tens of thousands) set out to write 50,000+ words by midnight 11/30, local time.

I had my doubts for a good 15 minutes because I wasn't sure what I wanted to write. I needed a prompt, hell, I need a genre. Then it occurred to me, I just wrote the seed of 31 different stories throughout the last month via my Shocktober posts. I'm not sure which one I'll end up using, but there's my motivation. Wish us luck!

EDIT: I decided to draw inspiration from October 7th's Shocktober post, for reference.

Shocktober Day 31 - Happy Halloween

One warning about Halloween: always make sure you have enough candy to go around. I once heard a story about a family that ran out of Halloween candy early but neglected to turn their lights off to signify they weren't taking any more trick or treaters. They ran out, and the next group that came to the door didn't take "no" for an answer. They didn't survive the encounter to see the next group. And I know this is true, because my cousin lived across the street from where this happened.

Happy Halloween!

(Image borrowed from a New York middle school page.)

Shocktober Day 30 - The View

It wouldn't come off. She pulled and pulled, the clothing wouldn't release its grip from her body. She felt compelled to take a step forward towards the large patio door opening. At first she feared some weird supernatural mind control, but it was so much worse. The pantaloons of her pirate costume were pulling by some unseen force, one step at a time, towards the balcony of her 8th floor apartment...

(Image borrowed from the Crown Towers Resort website.)

Shocktober Day 29 - Bad Break

She hated all children, sad but true,
Normal candy would not work, no it just would not do.
She dreamed and she planned, and schemed even more,
This candy, no way, you could buy in a store.
Discovery, alas, almost came too late,
Cyanide, she explored, for the love of her hate.
That would not do, but what special treat to bake?
She finally decided, those teeth, she must break!

(Image borrowed from ehow.com, cause it's awesome. I apologize for the lame poem, but I was inspired and I don't ever write poetry, and afterall, children's poems are like the best poems anyway.)