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Really Wild West Bestiary: Gulchers

Of course you can use any creatures from the Starfinder Alien Archive as threats in a Really Wild West campaign, but in most cases you’ll want to reflavor them to something more appropriate for it’s 1891 aesthetic and technology level.

It’s useful to dream up brand-new threats as well of course, to get foes hat are unique to the dangerous world of pulp theosophy and super-science that is Really Wild West. Here is a very RWW-themed undead, which may be encountered alone or in mass numbers as dictated by the plot. If you want to make different of higher-CR gulchers, just take any undead and replace one of its offensive powers with bad off, add false life, lower its EAC by 2 and raise its KAC by 1.

GULCHER (CR 1)

XP 400

NE Medium undead

Init +2; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +5

DEFENSE

HP 24

EAC 9; KAC 14

Fort +3; Ref +3; Will +3; DR 3/magic; Immunities undead immunities

OFFENSE

Speed 30 ft.

Melee pitchfork (or other tool) +8 (1d6+5 P; critical: bad off) or

Ranged revolver +6 (1d6+1 P)

Special Attacks bad off (DC 11)

STATISTICS

Str +4; Dex +2; Con —; Int +0; Wis +1; Cha +0

Skills Athletics +10

Other Abilities unliving

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Bad Off (Su)

A gulcher is imbued with the bad times that lead to its sorry state, and can sometimes inflict its bad luck and sad-sack existence on those it hurts. Any attack from a glucher that scores a critical hit causes the target to feel down and out, gaining the sickened condition for 24 hours, or until the target receives a morale bonus (to anything) or is the recipient of a Diplomacy check to improve their attitude.

A gulcher can also attempt to inflict its bad off ability on a creature as a standard action, creaming in contagious misery. Used this way the ability is sense-dependent and the target can negate it with a successful DC 11 Will save.

A DC 11 Mysticism check can identity the nature of a creature being bad off, and reveal the circumstances that negate this effect. Bad off is a curse effect.

False Life (Ex)

A gulcher that doesn’t realize its own true nature is not affected by spells or abilities that only target undead.

ECOLOGY

Environment any

Organization solitary, pair, posse (3–12), or settlement (13+)

Gulchers are undead that appear to be gaunt, dirty, badly-tended humans, often dressed in patched and worn prairie clothing, though they can also have the appearance of drovers, gunfolk, miners, merchants, gunfolk, and native people can also become gulchers. Most have sallow skin, yellowed, crooked teeth, stringy hair, and sullen or bloodshot eyes. A few appear jaundiced.

Gulchers are most often normal people who went through a time of despair, tribulation, hunger, and pestilence, and died. But they didn’t notice. Things had been so bad, for so long, that dying would be a relief, and gulchers just don’t expect anything to get better.

As long as a gulcher is unaware it has become an undead, it goes about the dreary and colorless motions of living a life. It eats, if food is available, lies in bed and doesn’t realize it never sleeps, sucks down duststorms and doesn’t realize it should choke. In this state, the gulcher isn’t affected by powers that only effect undead, but it also isn’t immune to fear and emotion effects, and takes the penalties for being shaken at all times (though this is more a dreary lack of verve than true fear).

All this changes if the gulcher is made aware of its state. The easiest way to do this is to deal piercing or slashing damage to it – gulchers have thick, black blood and realize the horrible truth of their state if they see their own tarlike vitae. Evidence of their lifeless existence, lack of food, lack of sleep, and so on, can also be used to convince a gulcher it is no longer living with a DC 15 Diplomacy check. Once it knows that even the peace of the grave is denied it, a gulcher is slowly consumed with a desire to make everyone and everything as pained and hopeless as its own existence.

It’s not unknown for entire towns to become gulchers, often during thunderdusts, droughts, and locust plagues. Sometimes one or two take the gray journey, and their desire to cause misery slowly kill off everyone else in town. Othertimes a real bad situation takes out near everyone most all at once. And sometimes, a drakul, ghul, black spirit, or other bigtime black hat decided to take over a town as a base of operation, and intentionally nurses the despair that causes god-fearin’ folk to become the things other folk fear.

In very rare cases, gulchers perform a useful service, such as toiling at a mostly-played out mine that would be pointless for living creatures to port the food and water needed to operate, operating rickety barges on distant rivers with little traffic, or slowly clearing stones from areas that might, in a few decades, be worthwhile farmlands. Of course, these gulchers are also likely to be angered by the sight of anyone doing better than they, and may drown passengers, or dump scorpions into their sleeping blankets.

CODEWORLD CAMPAIGN SETTING: Part II

CODEWORLD is a campaign setting that borrows heavily from a number of popular cartoon, comic, and toy franchises where the heroes and villains all have fascinating codenames, like Black Adder, Magnum, Overkill, and Code Blue.

It could be used for a heck of a supers or super-agent game, or even the backdrop of nearly any modern, sci-fi, or science-fantasy game system. This is a world with four color action, but no masked superheroes to speak of. Its tongue is firmly in cheek, but lovingly so.

You can find the Rank One and Rank Two code groups here.

Rank Three Code Groups

Rank Three groups are even less impactful than Rank Two groups, often with much more limited membership or resources as well as a more tightly-defined area of concern, but within their wheelhouse are still more impactful than normal organizations. In some cases Rank Three groups are a single powerful individual, who simply lacks the support and scope to be a Rank Two group, but is more potent than any individual in most Rank Two code groups. Rank Three groups at least have the potential to grow into Rank Two Groups, and a Rank Three group can go toe-to-toe with a unit of a Rank One or Rank Two Code Group in the right venue.

CRONOS is a cult that believes the original deity, the progenitor of all god myths, can be awakened by creating enough death and misery. They are lead by PROFESSOR RAGNAROK, who is imbued with some kind of supernatural power, though it’s exact origin and limits are debatable. CRONOS works to create mass disasters and start wars, which often brings them into conflict with S.T.E.E.L. and occasionally VIGIL.

The CYBERPACK, lead by the heroic STEELWOLF, protects the lost continent of Urheimat, and seek to find and neutralize threats from the pre-Atlantean nations. Originally the CYBERPACK were an elite anti-terrorist team, who chased a MAMBA Snake Charmer into a huge storm in the Indian Ocean, and  crashed into Urheimat during a rare conjunction that exposed one of the entranced to the submerged continent. While STEELWOLF and her people were badly damaged, they were found by the ancient ZARSEN, ancient robots set by the residents of Urbeimat to protect it after they left it. But the ZARSEN did not know human physiology and mistook the anti-terrorist unit’s wolf-mascot on their patches and canine-based codenames as a sigh they were partially canine. Thus when rebuilding them as cyborgs, the ZARSEN gave the CYBERPACK wolf-based abilities and partially canine appearances. The CYBERPACK has access to the ancient Urheimat ley-gates, allowing them to quickly move to any continent, but only at one of a few dozen locations.

DOCTOR LICHGATE, is a human who bonded with a FEL GHUL spirit, who is generally a frail older male but can for a temporary period transform himself into a powerful, monstrous skull-faced, green-skinned form. The doctor is seeking the Twelve Crystal Menhirs that the pre-Atlantean nations used to control every aspect of the world’s weather, tides, and day/night cycle, causing him to always be searching for entrances to the three LOST CONTINENTS, Meropis, Rutas, and Urheimat. He is aided in this by the MADNORMALS, mutant humans with a few animalistic-appearing traits who (when exposed to the LICHGAS created by the doctor) can assume much more powerful, twisted, bestial forms.

DOCTOR LICHGATE controls a single Crystal Menhir, the ONYX SPIRE, which allows him to travel back and forth between the normal world and the CAIRNWORLD, a version of the Earth where nearly everything has died. As only the doctor controls access to the CAIRNWORLD, it serves as a nearly impregnable base for him to operate from, and while he can only travel between worlds at places with strong ties to death, it also allows him to travel easily and secretly worldwide.

HACK, INC is a distributed cyber-mobster syndicate that performs computer-based crime-for-hire. The most members of HACK, INC have codenames they use online, and avoid ever meeting anyone in person, though the most elite members often have Hat Racks, where numerous hackers are brought together to work as a collective (often without being made aware they are hacking for HACK, INC.) Only a few agents are aware that HACK, INC is ultimately the tool of AUTOMALA, a self-aware program that seeks to ensure its own existence by spreading itself into every computer-controlled device on Earth… very much including the POLYMECHS, CALIBURN, and the systems in use by MAMBA and S.T.E.E.L.

VIGIL is an international NGO disaster search and rescue team. They operate out of the SAFEHOUSE, an enormous dirigible mobile base that carries a number of VIGILANCE VEHICLES, or VVs, including VIGILANCE 1 (a supersonic jet plane and communications center), VIGILANCE 2 (a high-speed, heaving-lift aerostat roughly half the size of the SAFEHOUSE, and able to carry any 2 other VVs), VIGILANCE 3 (a reusable orbital rocket), VIGILANCE 4 (a rescue sub capable of being dropped into the ocean from the SAFEHOUSE, or VV 1 or 2), and VIGILANCE 5 (a high-speed digging machine). The SAFEHOUSE, and VV 1, 2, and 4 also have support centers for EXO-SHELLS, modular suits of powered armor designed for operations in extremely dangerous conditions (though many of their rescue gear options can also be used in a combat capacity, and they possesses modular less-lethal munitions for use when needing to potentially incapacitate hostiles when performing rescue operations in a war zone). EXO-DRONES launched from a support center can fly new EXO-SHELL modules into the field fairly quickly.

WICKED WENDY is a powerful necropath, who also appears to be some kind of psychic vampire. She is the only creature who can travel between the normal world and CARINWORLD under her own power. She and DOCTOR LICHGATE dislike each other, but see no benefit in fighting one another, given CAIRNWORLD is a whole planet. WICKED WENDY carried a tattered teddy-bear, MISTER CHUCKLES, which is inhabited by a demonic spirit (and thus is self-mobile, and can fight with eldritch knives, claws, and fangs) that urges her to create chaos and misery, but is also entirely loyal to her and wants to make her happy.  WICKED WENDY is in love with the OMEN KING, an ancient god that might also be progenitor god worshiped by CRONOS, or the FEL TYRANT of the FEL GHULS… or might not. The OMEN KING sends her omens through raven messengers, but seems to be limited in what he can do. WENDY plans to awaken/free the OMEN KING, and doesn’t care what cost must be paid by anyone for that to happen.

PATREON

Patreon is the codename for the way you can support me, so I can make more geeky stuff!

Another Trip Around the Sun

Today is the four-year anniversary of Lj’s and my arriving in Seattle, and here I am again in a new apartment, surrounded by boxes. That makes it feel like I haven’t made much progress in four years, but that’s objectively not true.

In that time I have developed more words than in the ten years before, written about half as much as the two years leading up to it but finally gotten an Adventure Path adventure done, moved two more times, fallen in love with a restaurant that closed but took the friendships I made there with me, been to seven different conventions (a few of them many times), helped shepherd a brand new RPG into the world in Starfinder, been taken to the ER, visited friends in the ER, and acquired a cat.

I’ve learned a lot since my arrival, about myself, and Seattle, and game design, and challenges other professionals face that I don’t, and challenges I face that some other professionals don’t. I have created, and helped others create, and talked to a lot of colleagues and fans and friends about things that never would have come up in my original hometown. Of course I have also missed a lot of things from my old social group, who collectively still manage to play games with a frequency I can’t come close to matching.

It’s been a huge change and, four years later, I’m still adjusting to it. But I am also still looking forward to what happens next, with opportunities I knew I couldn’t guess at but that would come only with this huge risk continuing to pop up.

I can’t say I have no regrets. I am too introverted, and too trepidatious, and miss too many lifelong friends not to have regrets. But I can say that knowing what I know now, I’d still make the same decision. There’s no question this was a smart move for my career, but it’s up to me to make sure it’s a smart move for the rest of my life.

Lin to My Patreon

I would love your support.

Index of Old School Ideas for Pathfinder

I admit it–I lost track of what Old School gaming ideas I did Pathfinder versions of.

So, time for an index!

Multiclass Hybrid Classes

These are ways to have the feel of 1st and 2nd edition multiclass characters, by creating a new class for Pathfinder. These work a lot like hybrid classes (and there aren’t combinations for things already covered by hybrid classes–who needs a cleric/fighter when you have the warpriest?), and don;t duplicate things that already work fine with pathfinder’s multiclassing rules (a fighter/thief already works well, and if not just take levels of slayer). These new multiclass combo rules give a balanced way to have the same kind of character feel the old multiclass combinations offered.

Cavalier/Paladin

Cleric/Assassin

Cleric/Fighter/Magic-User

Cleric/Fighter/Thief

Cleric/Ranger

Druid/Fighter

Druid/Magic-User

Fighter/Magic-User/Thief

Illusionist/Thief

And over at my Patreon, my patrons can enjoy the Illusionist/Fighter!

Other Concepts

There are some Old School ideas worth porting over beyond multiclass character combinations. here are three!

“Druidic” Bard (the Anruth)

Thief-Acrobat

Randomly Acquired Psionics

CODEWORLD Campaign Setting

CODEWORLD is a campaign setting that borrows heavily from a number of popular cartoon, comic, and toy franchises where the heroes and villains all have fascinating codenames, like Black Adder, Magnum, Overkill, and Code Blue.

It could be used for a heck of a supers or super-agent game, or even the backdrop of nearly any modern, sci-fi, or science-fantasy game system.

This is a world with four color action, but no masked superheroes to speak of. Its tongue is firmly in cheek, but lovingly so.

CODEWORLD

Rank One Code Groups

These are the largest, and best-known code groups. They are among the most important forces on Earth.

POLYMECHS are sentient, sapient robots able to take on multiple forms–normally one that is roughly humanoid and one that closely resembles a vehicle. They are divided into the GUARDROIDS (which include Morality Circuits that cause them to struggle to act in ethical ways and protect weaker entities), the dangerous WAR MACHINES (which are locked into carrying out ancient military operations despite their original foes having long-since been exterminated), and the COMPUTECHS (which are free-willed but lack anything recognizable as ethics, and function on pure pragmatism).

The three groups all originated in different extra-terrestrial societies, with the WAR MACHINES the oldest (having destroyed all the biological entities that created them), the COMPUTECHS nearly as old (having survived as probes and exploration surveyors for a culture that died out long ago when their system was consumed by a red giant star), and the GUARDROIDS only a few centuries old (having evolved from assistance-AIs created by a race that suffered a slow decline as devolution caused them to be less and less viable, even as younger civilizations attacked them, including the WAR MACHINES).

All three POLYMECH groups were ravaged by a 3-way internecine war that left their numbers radically reduced and their resources depleted. The WAR MACHINES seek out new worlds (such as Earth) and seed them with enough of their kind to conquer it and turn it into a support planet for their endless conflicts. The GUARDROIDS attempt to send a unit to stop such efforts and preserve as much of the invaded world’s culture as possible, and the COMPUTECHS think it’s a bad idea not to keep an eye on any world where the other two POLYMECH forces are fighting.

Because their advanced technology is well beyond Earth’s tech base, and support is far way, all three factions prefer to remain camouflaged as much as possible on Earth, revealing themselves and their true battle forms only when absolutely necessary to achieve a major goal.

S.T.E.E.L. is the Special Taskforce on Espionage and Enforcement of Law. It is an international force, operating alongside but separately from the U.N., which draws its members from the elite forces of most of the Earth’s nations. S.T.E.E.L. operates only against threats deemed by all its supporting nations to be a serious risk to the collected nations of Earth, which generally includes international terrorist cells (most often MAMBA) unaffiliated with any member-nation, extraterrestrial threats (including WAR MACHINES in specific, and POLYMECHS in general), and lone madmen and apocalypse cults. S.T.E.E.L. has its own chain of command, its own (small) fleet of military air, water, and land vehicles (including a single submersible aircraft carrier, the U.N.S. Ironside), and an extraterritorial prison for extraordinary prisoners (Codename: Limbo).

PROJECT HELM is a semi-independent division of S.T.E.E.L. that uses vehicles enhanced with retrofit POLYMECH technology, which was confiscated by S.T.E.E.L. after several early clashes with the WAR MACHINES, and partially reverse-engineered in conjunction with a COMPUTECH who felt giving humans more advanced technology was the only way to maintain a balance of power on Earth.

Since the POLYMECH tech used by PROJECT HELM is retrofit, and its neural inputs are still too advanced for any mechanical or computer input device to control, PROJECT HELM operatives use helmets with neural relays to allow pilots to  learn how to control specific “Great Helm” vehicles that have various POLYMECH tech in them (some of which are capable of partial transformations, such as from car to boat, or motorcycle to powered armor).

MAMBA is a ruthless terrorist organization, built by a coalition of billionaire oligarchs who seek the means to anonymously impact international politics, and manned with the spies and operatives of failed states, renegades of nations with recent revolutions, zealots who challenge the status quo at any cost, and angry repressed people willing to allow the ends to justify the means. While no nation on Earth publicly supports Mamba, enough powerful people with vast resources support it to give it a huge (if decentralized) military branch and incredibly effective cybercrime, covert operations, and assassination branches.

MAMBA generally seeks to gain power at any cost, and has had infrequent but not unproductive collaborations with the WAR MACHINES. The most far-reaching of these was a project where the WAR MACHINES aided MAMBA scientists in building incredibly advanced mecha known as the FOE-BOTS, which were used to artificially boost the apparent size of the WAR MACHINE presence on Earth in an effort to convince the nations of the world to capitulate. However the FOE-BOTS are cheap knock-offs of true POLYMECHS, able to change form from battle mode to some camouflage state, but not functioning beyond the most basic level in that camouflaged mode, and requiring human pilots to operate. While that plan failed, the FOE-BOTS division of MAMBA remains one of its strongest units, and are the most common antagonists of PROJECT HELM.

Rank Two Code Groups

Rank Two groups are either significantly less numerous than rank one groups, or less powerful, or a combination of both, but they still play important roles in world events even if they aren’t as well known.

CALIBURN is a solo hero who appears to be the last of the STAR KNIGHTS (who place their life essence in soul rings so their android knight bodies can fight eternally against the vile FEL GHULS, a semi-unliving race of space sorcerers and shapeshifter). However, he has done his best to equip a small group of young people who have a natural talent to see FEL GHULS true nature even when they are shapeshifted, creating the STAR SQUIRES, who have spirit disks that boost their natural psychic abilities in random ways when triggered, giving them a new set of powers (and codenames and costumes) whenever they are used, but which can only function for one hour out of every 24.

The FEL GHULS wish to create the Negalife Ritual, which will kill all life on the Earth and raise their FEL TYRANT, an elder god that sleeps beneath the Pacific Ocean.

KAIJU are giant monsters created by the FEL GHULS to subjugate the world. Opposed by the RONIN FORCE of giant robots that represent the only joint effort between the GUARDROIDS, CALIBURN, and S.T.E.E.L. Because the KAIJU threat is unpredictable and requires massive firepower to oppose, and are most often fought in international waters, the RONIN FORCE is largely left to handle such matters with little outside interference. While most of RONIN FORCE are giant mecha with multiple human pilots there are two exceptions, LASER LEOPARD, a giant robot controlled by a transplanted STAR KNIGHT soul-ring with no memory of its previous life, and ROCKET OMEGA, the enormous POLYMECH transforming ship that brought the COMPUTECHS to Earth, but has sense decided the FEL GHULS desire to wake their FEL TYRANT is the greatest threat in the galaxy.

PATREON

Patreon is the codename for the way you can support me, so I can make more geeky stuff!

 

Starfaring Species in Really Wild West (part 3 and finale)

This is the third and final part of a series of articles looking at how to contextualize the starfaring species of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game into the world of the Really Wild West, a setting hack that uses the science-fantasy rpg for a campaign with magic, monsters, and weird science in an alternate Earth in 1891.

When looking at the Starfinder Roleplaying Game species for things I can use to tie them to a fantasy-science-fiction-pulp version of the real world, sometimes I have gone with cultural or game ability elements… and sometimes I have leaned on fantasy versions of biology, as is the case with shirren, vesk, and ysoki.

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Shirren

Shirren are big bugs, which means they should have evolved someplace that supports larger arthropods. The largest land-dwelling arthropod currently in existence on Earth is the coconut crab, which is found on islands in the Indian and Pacific Ocean. Assuming they originated in the same regions in the timeline of the Really Wild West, shirren would have built their own island cultures (perhaps in conjunction with other species, perhaps not), and spread in Ancient times as trade blossomed throughout the Indian Ocean. This takes our ancient shirren to China, Egypt, India, Java, Somalia, and southeastern Europe. While they would have spread worldwide from there, I assume those regions along old trade routes going through the Indian Ocean still have the largest, most integrated populations of shirren. That gives me guidance on what cultures they might be drawn from, and what traditions they could have, without claiming something small-minded like “Arabs are shirren” (which erases real Arabs and eliminates numerous cultural advancements, historical figures, and real-world ethnicities from being part of RWW, and is also pretty structurally racist).

Vesk

Australia leads the world in reptile biodiversity, so that’s where I am having my vesk evolve. That has vesk populations being tightly concentrated in Australia, New Zealand, and surrounding islands. I’m guessing I’ll need to add a frontier wars or “Lizardman War” (as the colonial powers call it) between the British Empire and various vesk groups at some point, and chances are the vesk lost. But by now, they’re at least partially integrated, and some will have travelled throughout the British Empire, despite suffering a fair amount of racism. While vesk likely have a lot of native culture that impacts their fashion, those that travel abroad are likely to adopt Western clothing sensibilities when in western nations, including the Really Wild West.

Note that this is a change from my original thoughts on vesk, which was to make them the product of Doctor Moreau’s anthropomorphization of animals. I can hold on to that idea for more minor species (as I add them), but it ended up feeling too limited for a “core” species, and had some connotations I wasn’t comfortable with.

Ysoki

In the real world, rodents are populous on every continent except Antarctica. They date to the Paleocene on the supercontinent of Laurasia, spread across landmasses, crossed oceans, and pretty well got everywhere (even Australia) on their own, without human intervention.

So as much as I am tying most starfaring species to specific region of the Really Wild West? Ysoki are everywhere.

And they got there first.

With cheek pouches as built-in bags (allowing them to carry goods—even water—long distances before the invention of sacks or gourd-bottles), bonuses to Stealth and Survival, and darkvision? Ysoki were the main competition with humanity for global domination. Much as there were Neanderthals and other cousins to homo sapiens sapiens who didn’t make it, there were multiple lines of ysoki through the ages, though none of this is well understood in the RWW year of 1891.

In general, every culture has a ysoki element to it. There are sure to be exceptions—Egyptian cat-worshipers may not have taken to ysoki citizens, some ysoki clans likely existed in regions without significant human presence.

But the core assumption in Really Wild West is that ysoki are everywhere from the most remote, paleolithic cultures, to the suit-wearing bankers of New York.

Speaking of context!

Articles like this are only possible with the kind support of my Patrons, through my Patreon. For example this article is sponsored in particular by Copper Frog Games! (Artistic Games for All!)

Be Your Own Brand

I’m not doing #ATTRPGMaker, but a lot of people I know are, and they all hit “What’s Your Brand?” today. And suddenly, I feel like answering.

My brand? My brand is Owen K.C. Stephens.

I love the fact that so many people are willing to employ me in one capacity or another (and honor me with the trust to all do so at once), but with 20 years of this under my belt, I know that I can’t depend on any game, trademark, or company to necessarily be around for as long as I want my career to last.

But, obviously, *I* will be here as long as I am here.

So yes, Paizo, and Green Ronin, and Rogue Genius Games, and Rite Publishing are all things I strongly promote. Starfinder, and Really Wild West, and Pathfinder, and Pathways are all lines I have staked a lot of time and effort in being part of.

But that’s all part of defining my one core brand, which is me.

My name. My professionalism. My reputation.

Hopefully, both industry folks and customers have some idea what adding me to a project means. Obviously lots of people have never heard of me, but my focus on myself as a brand is to try to make sure that when they DO hear of me, they do so in the context of the image I want to project.

And, hopefully, that makes adding me to other brands a benefit to those, as well.

The one thing you get to take with your wherever you go is your name. Things might change so the rights to games I work on get restricted, or companies that pay me might be struck by asteroids. And I think it’s *very* important I give my very best effort to everyone who hires me. I never “save something back” to promote my own brand at the expense of another.

But by making sure I do the best I can for everyone who hires me, I make THAT part of my brand.

I try to do the same in social media, on forums, and even in public. And by doing my best for everyone who hires me, and being professional in all game-related dealings with the public, I can build my brand at the same time I do my best to promote the other brands I am paid to work with.

Speaking of my brand:

I have a Patreon! Feel free to back it!

New Video: The Aftergame (episode 1)

I’ve uploaded to YouTube the very first of my gaming-and-geekery podcasts, The Aftergame… still in Beta!


This is a special episode filmed at the magnificent AFK Tavern in Washington State, with special guests Mercedes Lackey, Chris Pramas, Larry Dixon, Jacob Blackmon, and DJ Trishy!


No specific topic (not with THAT list of guests!), but a lot of Q&A, and interviews with fabulous creators, and a Crown of Bacon!
(And discussion of the Eagles from the Hobbit, and new book series, and RPG plans and products, and freelancing, and tons of other stuff!)


Want to see more content like this? You can support me through my Patreon!

Setting/Writing Prompt: Lok

The Geigamorphs can become anything, and turn anything into more of their kind, and mix with anything. No one knows where they came from, but they are destroying the world.
But every once in a rare while, when two Geigamorphs meet, the attack one another. And if one dies at another’s hand, it always turns into a weapon. No one knows why, and what random is entirely random.


That weapon never changes, and it can kill Geigamorphs, though not easily. But it can only be wielded by someone it locks onto… and that’s a one-in-a-few-million chance, apparently also at random.


And when it does? That person gains vast strength, endurance, resilience, and speed. And? Their physical form never changes again for more than a split second. If wounded, they heal. If they eat, it just goes away. If they were groggy when they were locked? They’re groggy forever.


You get a lock weapon near enough someone who it can lock onto, it’ll pull them to it.


So the last lines of defense send “loks,” people set in a single physical state forever, into zones with lots of Geigamorphs to find more lock weapons. then they take those to population zones, to lock them to someone.


And that person’s life changes forever… but their body never changes again.


They’re a Lok.


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The Evil Dragons Do (Microfiction)

“So, do you think all red dragons are evil?”

“What are you naming as ‘red’ dragons? I care not what color a dragon is, nor the color of its breath unless it is directed at me. The blazing dragons of the suns are creatures of rigid law, not evil, though crimson in color. The infernal hellfire dragons of the lower regions are no less ordered and no less flame-hued, but certainly do have the save supernatural infusion of evil as is common to their fiendish neighbors…”

“No, I mean regular red dragons. Chromatic dragons. ‘Normal” red.”

“Ah, the Ascandeth, the fire-blooded tyrants of ash and unforgiving mien. There is no doubt that their numbers are filled with those who crave power and wealth, and do not care what means must be used to gain it. Dragons, you must understand, are only barely mortal. They are descended directly from the blood of gods, and the blood of the Ascandeth is fiery and harsh.

“They are hatched already speaking two languages, filled with the cunning and knowledge nearly that of an adult human, with all the drive to meet their core needs of an infant, yet the power to fly, burn, and make demands directly. Every Ascandeth is born with all the urges to be murderous and uncaring, and the power to enforce such desires immediately.

“Does every Ascaneth then take steps down that path within hours of cracking from a shell and never varies from that increasingly-well-worn route? Surely not. They are creatures of free will, and some must—by accident, or intervention, or through the sheer internal moral fiber to sense that the rights of other creatures have value—have avoided becoming agents of pure evil.”

“But I have never met one.”

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