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December 3rd, 2009
09:15 am
I am still relatively new to the experience of being a member of a work organization with things like an HR department, holiday "merit banquets", and an obsession with a mediocre football team with a terrible color scheme. In a few short weeks, our Christmas meal will occur. I will trundle upstairs to get a plate and perhaps watch, again, the poorly edited slide-show/poem "the Night Before Christmas" starring the sweaty, house elf-like building director going from office to office while a deadpan narrator reads from the literary genius of some long retired secretary. ("Pie" does not rhyme with "tonight"!) Among the other employees of the building I and be faced with the predicament of deciding whether to sit beside the surly, forever unhappy janitor with the endless 'Nam stories, the Sarah Palin obsessed woman, or the obnoxious orca of a woman who gets paid three times more than I do to organize stupid holiday office parties. I will share a snippet of an email about this party that she sent out to everyone:
...I’m wondering if anyone would like the idea of a non-traditional meal for Wednesday. Rather than limiting to the usual holiday food, maybe bring in favorite ethnic dishes like lasagna, tacos, chicken fried rice, curry chicken, jambalaya, etc...
My differences with this person were great before this revelation about what she and (I am assuming) others in the building think is exotic. Lasagna? Apparently any school cafeteria offers a variety of food from other cultures for her to choose from.
This presents me with a new dilemma for this year's Christmas. For one if I go I am sure to be mildly offended that they think of hot dogs as german food, yet on the other hand this provides the impish side of me the chance to educate these people. Would you like some pho, Mr. 'Nam? How about some masgouf Mrs. Mini-Palin? Why Mr. Building Director, you seem like a Hungarian goulash type of guy. Ah, and for you Ms. Orca, I cooked up some Australian Aboriginal delicacies for you: bat, opossum, even cricket. I know you are on the Atkins diet and all...
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November 30th, 2009
01:11 pm
These are some words I love, but hardly ever have the opportunity to use:
feck, bonny, ammonium, cider, corollary, postulate, apsis and periapsis (or particularly the phrase "perogee and apogee"), gherkin, phoneme, wasp, and Nunavut.
Most of the above words are best appreciated when said aloud over and over again, preferably in ridiculous accents.
Immediately after typing this I brazenly uttered "I postulate that this bonny cider would leave you feckless if you forgot your ammonium and wasp gherkin up in Nunavut."
Immediately after that, my coworker looked at me with no small amount of derisive alarm.
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November 19th, 2009
09:56 am - Worldbuilding
There is a hierarchy of Nerdom. This is not a natural order, as there is no ecosystem or balanced biosphere were everything has its place. Nerdom is more like Dante's Purgatory, a massive tiered pinnacle, an Olympus Mons rising from the florid fungal landscapes of distant Alpha Centauri.
At the base of the mountain, where the ground is rocky but still largely even, are those that indulge in a good sci-fi movie, or perhaps even watched episodes of the old Star Trek with their dad as a kid. Further up the slope are those that read such fiction, and dabble in imagining themselves at the Battle of Pellenor Fields. Even further up, amidst the slime encrusted limestone cliffs, traversing the canyons created by ancient glacial floes, dwell those that play role playing games. These polyhedron-wielding Morlocks usually dwell in the recesses of dark forbidden caves labeled with devilish names to try to ward off curious interlopers. "Dark Sun" this one is called. "GURPS" is the guttural cthonic name of this one. "Big Eyes, Small Mouth" promises to house Gollum-like mutants that will surely feast on your flesh, or perhaps just a solitary tentacle monster.
At the higher reaches of the cliffs of the RPGers are those that actually design their own settings to host their games in. They'll perhaps create a map (with or without slime-covered cliffs) for their players to explore, roughly determine a reason for fantastical gods to exist and for evil to be smitten (smoted? smited?), and then lead their players into this newly invented netherscape. They preach down from their precipice to their comrades who howl below. These beings are feared and revered by the RPGers, and given such shamanistic titles as "Game Master". Then, there are the worldbuilders.
Dark and brooding along the jagged, sheer surfaces of blacken volcanic glass, the worldbuilders' smoldering eyes seldom look down at the beings who dwell below them. Having left their cannibalistic tribes of RPGers for a solitary existence, their reptillian wings keep them warm in the howling, frosty, thin air. They breathe out great bellowing gouts of smoke. These beings might have once designed maps and settings for the specific purpose of entertainment, but then the obsession took hold. No longer satisfied by simply letting a gold piece be a gold piece, they instead have to ponder the worth of a particular country's coinage. Which denominations do they use? What are the implications of the existence of magic on currency? What is used for international trade? How abundant are these precious metals to make the coins? Where are these precious metals mined? Since that place has gold, will it not be the center of many battles and intrigues? How does that affect this neighboring country? What does that country use for coinage? AD INFINITUM.
No, there is no end to the detail that must be fleshed out. What once started as a few blobs scribbled on a paper slowly transforms into continents, countries, regions, greeting customs, legal systems, table manners, local delicacies, and more. Then there is always the possibility to not design a world that is simply static in time, but one with history, and suddenly there is a thousand years of the above questions to answer. Running out of things to flesh out? Just turn your attention to a new area on that little map. Should the RPGers below wish to use the world for their purposes of entertainment is of little interest to the worldbuilder, save for a passing amusement that the Great Sapient Madness has shaped the rituals of insects below.
I am a worldbuilder. The first time I gazed acrossed that line from simple madness to Madness-with-a-capital-M was in the latter years of highschool, when I designed a little D&D setting, and then redesigned it to show what it would be like 500 years later. It was the most in-depth a setting I had ever made, one with continents that floated on soupy clouds and world-changing wars and a new species or two. It was a simpler time for me, pastoral and tranquil and ignorant of the depths of the devilry to follow.
The world I've been building for the past several years is a monster. I have gigs of maps, including regions, landforms, religious majorities, migratory phases, and the state of countries at various times in their 5000 year lifespan. I have a 800+ year timeline and history of the events of one country's recorded history (only a general synopsis of their orally kept histories) that now spans over 60 pages of a size 8 font, and it still grows. I have a 17 page document detailing in the most abstract terms that country's calendar, festivals, entertainment, government, and genetic ancestry. I have rough equivalents for other regions so that I could tell you details, by heart, of the general way of life for probably 60% of humanity on the planet, and I've so far designed humanity to cover only about 30% of available landmass so far. I may claim that I only fill in a little piece here and there when I am bored, but how can I not be sure that I am simply bored when not crafting the the make, size, and building materials of the trade ships of the Veridian Coast, or when I am not defining the marriage ceremony performed by the painted-headed priests of the vulture god Cshen? Surely there must be an answer. Perhaps I should question Emperor Merivanon "the Bittersword" of the great Draconic Empire, or consult the faceless masked Aelvs of the north...
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November 13th, 2009
01:44 pm
As per John's request, a photo from the late Halloween party I attended last weekend...
( Read more... )
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November 12th, 2009
02:38 pm
Two fine Victorian gentlemen, equally wealthy from the windfalls of African colonisation, meet for tea and crumpets. Over their fourth crumpet, they decide to make a game out of comparing the contents of their wallets. Each is ignorant of the contents of the two wallets. The game is as follows: whoever has the least money receives the contents of the wallet of the other (in the case where the amounts are equal, nothing happens). One of the two men can reason: "Suppose that I have the amount A in my wallet. That's the maximum that I could lose. If I win (probability 0.5), the amount that I'll have in my possession at the end of the game will be more than 2A. Therefore the game is favourable to me." The other man can reason in exactly the same way. In fact, by symmetry, the game is fair. Where is the mistake in the reasoning of each man?
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November 10th, 2009
08:42 am - Harvest Moon
I loved Harvest Moon in high school. While my friends were perfecting their Counterstrike headshot, or doing yet another Protoss Carrier swarm tactic on Starcraft, I was often found ploughing my virtual fields and living the quiet life of a Japanese villager. I played other games a plenty, and Harvest Moon was by no means the majority of my playing time, but when I played it I felt that it was good for me.
You start out with a pathetic heap of a farm: a place overgrown with weeds, a field littered with stones, a tiny one room house, and a pittance of savings. Though it is spring and the town market offers a huge array of produce seeds and livestock for sale, you can only afford to buy enough turnips for one or two small parcels of your field's potential. You toil all morning trying to tame your land into some semblance of civilization, and you spend all your remaining free time in the hills, scrounging berries and tubers to supplement your income.
But what of the villagers? They want you there, openly inviting this young, silent stranger with dark hair into their lives and homes. They invite you to visit them and participate in the act of being a part of the community. One cannot forget that they have pretty young daughters as well, and there are five eligible ladies who, if not overtly interested in you, are at least willing to talk to you any time you wish. Pretty good odds for a shy kid. The fact that winning over their hearts involves repeatedly giving them presents simplifies the interactions into something completely stress-free, as wooing her with words is a difficult task for a mute Nintendo character.
Before you know it, you are bringing in huge cash crops, adding extensions to your home, and having babies with your new bride. A capitalist success story, accomplishing the American dream in an agrarian way. You now live for the holidays, training your horse and dog to be good at the races, insuring your cows' milk win all the prizes, and maintaining your friendships with a community that by now adores you. All that extra time? Just go fishing.
The virtue of the game was in that first year as a poor farmer. Everyday you'd work your little pixelated character to utter exhaustion (try to swing a ho and he would just fall over and sort of cry and sweat for a minute), so that by winter you could make a profit. The special game items you sought were not things to make life more regal and pleasant, but things to give you more endurance so you might work a little longer. All personal relationships had to be maintained by frequent, if not daily, interaction. Hard work and kindness. I even want to say "hardwork" - a compound word, a basic and necessary phrase.
The reason the game was successful in conveying its educational message was because that message was simply a byproduct of making the game. There weren't little cheerful people preaching at you in tutorials, you did not get points, the game didn't even really have an ending if you didn't want it to stop. Your rewards in the game were that you had a nice house now, that you had a wife and strangely animated little baby. No one told you that you succeeded or failed. If you wished to play the whole game earning just enough to go get drunk every night at the town bar, you could do just that*. At the time in my life while I was playing it I was sixteen and "preparing for life" with grand expectations upon me that should I become anything less than the first astronaut-president-CEO-Bodhisattva I would some how be disappointing people. I still have my N64 and the game, and once in a while the impulse to play it does come upon me, though I'd like to think that the escapism from those expectations is no longer needed.
*I actually played a game like that once... while humorous to an extent it was also very depressing.
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November 5th, 2009
02:56 pm
Having scrounged and scavenged for my meals the last couple of days out of a tenacious loathing of the act of going to the store, I find that it is unavoidable tonight. No longer are warm summer evenings about me as I head home, instead they have been replaced with autumnal darkness and headlights, headlights, headlights. So I had best take up the old rote of cataloging items needed on a napkin in the order in which they are encountered in the store: a tired invocation of ideas for meals for two and the necessities of lunches to bring to work.
Then off I will skulk to the store in my dented car with no radio, grimacing through the foggy windshield at headlights, headlights, headlights. The choice of the store which will be the source of the groceries seems trivial, but even that dark decision has a part to play. Does one choose the store with unwashed, camo-wearing white trash piling their frozen garbage in their buggy while they ignore their vacant-eyed children buzzing about them like wasps, or perhaps go across the street where the sour, undersexed faces of middle-aged housewives scowl should your buggy bump into theirs? Should you feel adventurous, you could drive a few minutes further out and go to the store where there was that stabbing the other week.
Churn through, row by row, until you've gotten everything, make your way through checkout and off back home through all the headlights, headlights, headlights. Then it is a matter of filing it all away in the cupboards and the fridge. Fruit on the bottom, bread on the top, boxes in the pantry. If you get all that done in enough time, you have yesterday's dishes to look forward to.
Yeah, just being bitter as I am tired and not well fed (3/4 a pound of gummy bears, while tasty, is not nutritious).
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November 1st, 2009
09:10 am
With the annual Halloween fiesta that we share with my brother and various Crossville people having been put off a week do to our host needing jaw surgery and a biopsy (he found out he's ok!), last night I prepared to receive a horde of trick-or-treaters. I very much live in "the hood" of Knoxville, but not the bad hood, the good one. The bad one is down on Magnolia, were the hookers and the shootings are. My hood instead is just where the black people live in Knoxville, so people assume it must be dangerous.
There are a lot of kids around here, as well. A school bus stop across the street both confirms their existence and the abundance of them, and the elementary school just 3 or 4 blocks away signifies that there are some of trick-or-treating age. As such, I prepared for an assault. Candy was attained in three times the quantity that I would normally purchase for myself, and in popular flavors and known name brands rather than the esoteric delicacies that I prefer. Kate even purchased a pumpkin, accessorized by a pair of teenie colorful gourds, which she artfully arranged on our porch. I was ready.
Imagine my disappointment then, when not a single damn kid showed up. Not a one. Not even a teenager asking for a handout. My other place across town didn't get any either, but back then I suspected that it was because it was an apartment complex filled with younger age people, and there weren't any kids around. It does make me wonder what these poor "city kids" do for Halloween. Kate suggested they go to Halloween events at their various churches, but I am sure that there are a lot of children with irreligious parents. Plus, I have been to a few of those events, and they typically have a lot less booty-to-time ratio than traditional trick-or-treating. Having to say a bible verse or mini-putt a ball into a hole in order to get chocolate is definitely not the same as running screaming through the night from porchlight to porchlight, shoving your fellow goblins and ghouls down into the begonias, and praying that the scarecrow that's been sitting on Old Mr. Crazy's porch for the last couple of weeks hasn't been secretly replaced by Old Mr. Crazy dressed up as a scarecrow, remaining very still and waiting for you...
I suppose I will have to find something to do with all this extra candy I have now. Hmm.
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October 29th, 2009
12:53 pm - Vampire Update
After their Embrace, and the recent meddlings of a certain "Trent Kallo", the characters have been left paranoid of others' intentions, and aware as to the depths of their own lack of education as to the realm of the Kindred. While they once thought they hunted a serial killer, they now are faced with the knowledge that the person they hunt is not a man, but a monster: a fleshcrafting tzimisce that has formed a loyal cult of blood crazed zealots around himself. Faced with the knowledge of such a deadly foe, they have come to suspect that they might be no more than bait to lure this fiend out of his hiding place. As such, they have come to the plan that instead of facing off against them, they will instead target the mortal (or ghoul?) whom the established Camarilla Kindred in town thinks is the tzimisce and present his corpse, pretending it is the dead fiend himself, in order to buy themselves more time. All the while, the knowledge that they have repeatedly heard rumor that Gotham City only has a place for one new Kindred in town, not four, so only the "best" of them would be allowed to be kept in existence once all of this is solved.
Furthermore, one of their numbers has been missing for some time, and they suspect that he has been captured by the sheriff of the city in order to punish him for Embracing without permission. The fact that his unlawful Embracee is another player character only makes things more complicated...
After John's cameo I told him that I would keep him up to date on the goings on of the campaign. The missing player has been missing because of various dinner engagements with young ladies, and happens to be the player who is a rookie to vampire, so when he returns and finds his character tied to a roof with the sun coming up, being interrogated by red hot pokers, things should be entertaining.
And by the way: In response to all the Twilight crap I have had to hear about lately...
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October 27th, 2009
01:05 pm
The virtue of the photograph is capturing a moment in time to be remembered. It becomes all the more important when it is of something you will never be able to see, whether it is of a deceased loved one, or of a place and circumstance that you will never be able to experience.
SATURN
This is what it looks like when Saturn is eclipsing the sun. As I will never be "behind" Saturn to look back on it in this way, I get tickled seeing this photo (brought to you by the Cassini orbiter). Thank you, that is all.
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October 22nd, 2009
04:46 pm - E-petitions
One of the many reasons that I am often absent on Facebook is the presence of "Facebook Causes." I never sign these internet petitions, regardless if they are to oppose child rape in South Africa, wish Oprah a happy birthday, encourage some celebrity to get naked on camera, or fight world hunger. They irk me, not only from the endless barrage of requests I receive, but also in that they are entirely futile enterprises meant only to delude and gratify the individuals participating. I found a well thought out essay sharing my views on snopes.
I have a hard time imagining myself keeping my Facebook account for five more years. It remains at is because it is nice to occasionally log on and exclaim "Lordy, Bobby Sue has a kid!" or "Look at that, Fishy Bob is getting his doctorate in street luge at MIT!" but other than that... eh.
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October 20th, 2009
10:22 am
Similar to many continental locales throughout the world, the shift from warmth to cold has happened quickly here in Knoxville. It is all the more dramatic for Kate and I because of our frugality in heating and cooling our house. During the summer we left the thermostat off whenever we could, and set it to 79 when it was too hot to bear. In the winter our heat is provided by expensive natural gas, and so we set the thermostat to 55, the minimum to avoid pipes freezing and the like, and warm ourselves with layers of clothes and a space heater in the room we are currently in. Getting out of bed in the morning is the hardest part. Twenty-five degrees is quite a dramatic shift from summer to winter, especially considering many people I know that just turn it on to 70 and leave it there. My mother accuses me of being miserly for refusing to pay for heat, I like to consider myself rugged, but in truth I think I'm just stubborn and a little poor.
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October 15th, 2009
01:34 pm - The Private Life of Chairman Mao
I just finished The Private Life of Chairman Mao by Dr. Li Zhisui, all 92 chapters of it. While I consider myself thoroughly educated, sometimes getting through dense books is as much an achievement as comprehending them. I felt a similar way in 8th grade when I read Roots by Alex Haley.
The book itself was definitely good for me to read. It feels like all knowledge of world history I possess has all been acquired on my own initiative. Cumberland County High school's sophomore World History class, taught by football coach Doug Inman, covered a checklist of points to align us with a few standardized test questions, then spent the rest of the time focused on America's military accomplishments (but never making it to the Korean War). Humanities at Sewanee was very Euro-centric as it sought to teach us over two millennium of art history and english lit over four classes. Beyond any perceived failings of past curricula, I have an obsession of ridding myself of ignorance. Someone could claim that its from me wanting to rid myself of the instant associations with certain groups I experience when one tells a citizen of somewhere else in the world where I am from, or perhaps from a frustration of being comparatively under-traveled and inexperienced. I might just enjoy learning.
I have had limited knowledge of even an outline of the history of China since 1950, since I had not anchor point to understand why certain things were done, as well as had no point of reference to Chinese culture. The book provided basic knowledge as well as the motivations behind the movements, the purges, and the vacillations that occurred, and as I mentioned before the author's "outsider" perspective made it a lot easier for me to relate. While told through the lens of a western styled physician from a bourgeois family, I found most of the bias in the book was in Li's depiction of himself in the events. His depicts himself as principled and apolitical, but his actions seem a bit pliable and politically-aware. While I believe he started the way he described, he eventually lost all such innocence. The pictures in the center of the book are the most telling, depicting a goofy grinning young man next to Mao, but as the dates under the pictures progress, the more bothered Dr. Li looks. I believe he convinced himself he was principled and apolitical to get through some of those rough times, and perhaps such bias was placed in humility, or in nostalgia as he wrote the book at the end of his life. The book is banned in China, and is refuted by many back there of being false as Dr. Li did not have any documented proof and relied on memory when writing the book. The fact that he had to burn his diaries in journals during the Cultural Revolution to avoid the Red Guards was not lost on me, but I don't doubt that my having read the book precludes me of ever being welcomed by parade into that country.
As far as its depictions of Chairman Mao Zedong as an emperor, complete with his hedonism, philandering, encouragement of the factioning of his supporters to play them off one another, nonchalance about tens of millions of people dying under his rule, or unwillingness to tolerate criticism towards himself... what can I say? You can see the same thing happen the world over countless times whenever one person has that much power, such a cult of personality, no matter the form of government. Communism played a direct role in those plights (the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, etc.) becoming so terrible. I could go on about how primitive I think it is, but I think that's almost beside the point of the book, and therefore this post.
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October 13th, 2009
09:34 am
The building that I work in is located at the bottom of "the Hill" on campus. Its pipes are old and leaky and were no doubt built by the lowest bidder back in the 50s. Add a good nighttime rain to these factors, and on occasion there are some mornings in which the building 'farts'. In my little section I am safe from such odours, but walking through the halls in the morning I can get a pretty good whiff. Furthermore, on the ground floor is located a pair of student cafeterias of the greasy fast food variety. There is a particular staircase that I must ascend every morning, at the top of which is the accumulated breakfast smells of the morning: eggs, bacon, syrup, and gravy. On mornings such as this, when strolling through the parfum de merde, reaching that point in my journey creates a moment of the most nauseous unpleasantness that I gag.
As I was turning green this morning the buildings assistant director was walking by, a man nicknamed "Big Mac" by my staff of student workers because he looks like he eats a lot of them, and he looks like he manages a McDonalds due to his choice of melon and turquoise shirts and burgundy ties (among other combinations). Upon witnessing my reaction to the hellish bouquet he looked at me with abject disapproval. Other people were near to us wincing, coughing, and commenting, but I was the momentary object of his displeasure. By acknowledging that I, too, was among the malcontents, I was betraying the Party. Being overt in my unhappiness of some Victorian precedent of stinky mornings, I think he was simply channeling his misery in the fact as the second in command of the building his own acknowledgment of this decade(s) old flaw was impossible.
It was only a passing scowl, a brief moment of the day made memorable only by the combination of sausage-biscuit-shit-ketchup-piss-egg-frowny fat guy. Having typed this I feel washed clean of the incident, and things should be smelling better outside my office within the hour.
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October 12th, 2009
09:50 am
Problem
My computer died. It has been through a number of deaths during the time its been under my possession, each time a choke and a gasp that causes me to scowl. As a laptop, its not something I feel comfortable disassembling as the parts are small and the case is sealed in certain places, whereas a desktop you just pop the hood and start pulling wires.
Medical History of the Machine in Question
The first time was a bad RAM chip, causing it to throw itself in epileptic convulsions of blue screens and groaning ones and zeroes before the screen went black. Under warranty, kindly doctors took it back to the land of its birth and replaced said chip, and returned it to me after a pleasant stay at that sanatorium. The battery was the next to go. Sounding a bit like a monster truck idling every time it was turned on, the laptop slurped up every volt from it within five minutes of it not being plugged in. Eventually it actually would use more power to have the battery in and the plug in the socket than it would otherwise, and so that part was amputated so that the rest of it might live. Next, the power adapter ceased functioning. After so arduous a time of caring for the greedy computer and the flawed battery, it simply could not run any longer. Naturally it was a special Taiwanese adapter that required me to purchase it and ship it direct from the orient. This last year my computer has been ailed with video card problems (I suspect from the cards close proximity to the power supply) which cause it to overheat and turn off the computer. I believe that is what has slain my computer this time around, though the processor could have finally made a rude gesture to the rest of the machine before committing suicide.
Conclusion
I might have to finally buy a new computer.
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October 7th, 2009
03:45 pm - Yarn art
Hanging like grisly trophies claimed by some amazonian tribe of cannibalistic stuffed animals, a series of foul yarn art has been a plague upon my existence for some years. Every time I look out the door of my office to the hallway, to what would be freedom if it were closing time, instead chills my soul and fills my heart with convulsive dread. Dreary and tattered sentinels donning rainbow colors, these stasi scrutinize all I do, all I say, surely all I even think during the course of the day. I have been hesitant to comment on for some time, but now with illustrative proof of what exactly I am attempting to describe, I speak up about my persecution.
( Read more... )
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October 5th, 2009
04:08 pm - Slow day at work...
This comic by xkcd pretty much describes what a slow day at work looks like for me:
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10:19 am - More books
Undertaking what may be a bad idea, I'm reading two books concurrently.
The first is Izzo's A Sun For the Dying, the same Izzo that wrote the very bleak "Mediterranean noir" detective book I read about a month ago. This book is about a homeless man in France, deciding to flee the winter of Paris to find some solace on Marseille's southern shores before his mind and body give up on life. Considering the ending of the last book I read by Izzo, I'm just hoping the poor character makes it to Marseille before dying sad and alone.
The second is The Private Life of Chairman Mao by Dr. Li Zhisui. A memoir of Dr. Li of his twenty-two years serving as Mao Zedong's personal physician. Dr. Li was a western educated physician, and having that mindset allows him to be sort of an intermediary for me and Chinese culture, as well as attempt to communicate his experiences with Mao and the PRC in a personal way. Its a controversial book as it depicts Mao in a less than idealistic light, and has doubtless been banned and refuted back in China. Its a heavy tome filled with unfamiliar phonetics, and a decade or so ago I could not have considered making my way through it. Regardless, its very interesting and I find myself turning page after page. In the foreword Dr. Li makes the distinction that the book is a memoir, not a biography, and that is how I am trying to read it; a story about himself, not about Mao.
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October 1st, 2009
09:05 am
A coworker of mine introduced me to the Fruit Bats, an enjoyable band whose singer was with the Shins, if you'd like a musical reference point to what they might sound a bit like. Its the first new music I've had in a while, and I do feel as if I've been going through a drought. Anyone have any suggestions of people I should listen to?
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September 30th, 2009
08:55 am - Gotham Vamp
Imagine encountering an abandoned rubber factory one sleeting night deep in the heart of the Arkham area of Gotham. The windows and doors crudely boarded up and the building suspiciously free of any sign of habitation beyond a few sloppy attempts at graffiti, the factory is a maze of broken glass and rusting metal. Beyond that, it is completely pitch black inside, as it has long been secluded from the power grid.
Now imagine that you were led here on the trail of a serial killer, a violent man who has claimed at least eight victims in a brutal and ritualistic way. The killer might very well be inside this place. Recent events around this killer's case include the mauling of police officers and the inexplicable instantaneous combustion of another suspect since proven innocent. You have companions, and are all armed, but no one present in any way is a professional officer of the law.
Now give yourselves a single tiny keychain flashlight to maneuver around this unfamiliar territory, that even on a clear day would be an invitation to tetanus. You have to practically form a congo line of yourselves by putting a hand on each others' shoulders. You wander enough in the darkness and stench of rotting rubber to eventually find definitive proof that the serial killer has been here.
Then, as you find yourselves separated from one another for various reasons, you start hearing the sounds of something large out in the black...
I've been running a vampire game with the gang I've assembled here in Knoxville. Happily, its one of the player's first times with vampire, and I've quietly instructed the others not to talk too much about what to do about vampires out of character. I'm going to see if I can drive him to bedeck himself with garlic and hide in church. In regards to the above scenario, they went there themselves with very little prodding from me.
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