Moe Lane's Blog, page 120
January 15, 2025
Tweet of the Day, Go Ahead And Write The TTRPG Investigative Scenario edition.
I mean, it largely writes itself.
Hunter Biden artworks worth ‘millions of dollars’ destroyed in Los Angeles fires: source https://t.co/F2s5Nf9Sw8 pic.twitter.com/TjEAkt6ZrP
— New York Post (@nypost) January 15, 2025
(Look, I’d still have posted this if it had nothing to do with the Thing We Don’t Talk About Here.)
01/15/2025 Snippet, IRONGHOST.
Oh, deer.
Sorry, not sorry.
They started finding the obligatory bones just past the ponds. Or, rather, past the lake; that whole area was now one big marsh, with flooded neighborhoods that neither man needed to be avoided like the plague. You didn’t go poking around broken-down suburbs without a full crew behind, especially in the wet. There was no telling what might be lurking in the cellars.
The two men instead kept to the old Seven-Five, which was still good enough for walking. There wasn’t much to see except trees and briars, and nothing to hear but wind and the occasional bird, but they kept an eye out anyway. Most critters only made sounds after they pounced on you.
It was Nat who spotted the deer skeleton first, waving Oxman over before squatting down to take a closer look. “Guess they got big critters around here after all.” Nat frowned. “There’s something weird about this one, though.”
“The bones look natural,” Oxman replied. “Smashed up a lot, but… no, wait, you’re right. They’re just broken, not gnawed on or sucked for the marrow. Too much hide left, too. Whoever killed this poor bastard must’ve used a club, then just left it to rot without even skinning it first. That’s just wrong.”
Patreon!
January 14, 2025
‘Dancing With Myself.’
The album version is longer, but the aesthetic of the video cannot be denied.
Dancing With Myself, Billy Idol
#commissionearned
The THE BLOOD OF DAWNWALKER videogame cinematic teaser.
Well now. This looks fun. Kind of messed up, in that special Central/Eastern European ‘so far from God; so close to Germany and Russia’ way, but fun.
More on THE BLOOD OF DAWNWALKER here.
Terrorists, Ritual Nihilists, and the Space-Happy, Part 2.
Yet more background. If you’re new to the setting, here you go.
The Space-Happy
This is the colloquial term for Sudden-Onset Violent Psychosis (SOVP). The first cases of it showed up about fifteen years into the colonization process, and it is most common on the Tomb Worlds. The larger the planetary population, the less likely someone is going to go space-happy.
The cause is unknown. Some researchers have attempted to link it to pre-Contact Terran conditions such as amok, berserkergang, going postal, or pibloktoq, but there has never been a credible psychological or physiological link found. There is no true preventative, but individual and group psychological counseling, coupled with mandatory socialization, does severely reduce the number of cases per standard year.
Preliminary symptoms include the initiation or increase of self-isolation, a refusal to communicate with others, and reduced self-care. If left unchecked, sufferers will eventually suffer a full SOVP episode. During this time, sufferers display the following traits: homicidal monomania, sadistic behavior, hysterical strength, extreme pain tolerance, and self-mutilation.
Treating patients with SOVP first requires them to be subdued: some sufferers will sleep and eat, but many will literally keep going at full psychotic and violent intensity until they fall unconscious, or die. Once subdued, patients respond well to medication. Even over-the-counter antipsychotic medication can reliably snap a SOVP sufferer out of his murderous fugue state. Long-term care requires intense psychological counseling, but a full recovery is often possible. Assuming that the patient does not later commit suicide over feelings of shame or horror at the things he did while space-happy; despite medical science’s best efforts, there’s a limit to what they can do.
The reaction of society to the space-happy is complex. The sight of someone suffering from active SOVP is one of the familiar horrors of the Tomb and colony worlds; most people have seen it happen or known somebody it’s happened to, and everybody worries that it will happen to them. It is absolutely societally permissible to shoot the space-happy on sight, without later question or criticism. The condition is supposedly non-contagious, and has never been proven to be contagious, but nobody actually really believes that.
Still, the space-happy are captured whenever possible. SOVP is seen as a disease, not a moral failing. Sufferers are no more to blame for their condition than they would be at blame for accidentally ingesting mercury. Besides, once someone is cured of SOVP they never go back to where they were living when the episode occurred. That would be too psychologically damaging to everyone concerned.
Patreon!
An update on the worldbook project.
Sat down with the layout guy today and we worked out a schedule. Currently, and assuming all goes well with the Fermi Resolution Worldbook Backerkit (sign up here for notifications), he should be done with the project by mid-March at the latest. That dovetails nicely with the Backerkit, since it’s running in February. I collect the money, pay my guy, get the RPG up at Backerkit, and I should have copies in time for the summer convention circuit. Which will be cool.
Excelsior!
The art prints are done!
11×14, suitable for framing, now all I need to do is find sleeves for them with the cardboard inserts and so forth. They look pretty good, I think. How much would you pay for one, if you saw them at a book fair?
BEHOLD! Prints. pic.twitter.com/ZDdrEPFxV7
— Ogiel (Moe Lane) (@Ogiel23) January 14, 2025
(Back the new project here.)
01/14/2025 Snippet, IRONGHOST.
Oh, hey. These guys, again.
Deadlime was one of the sharp-angled places.
Oxman Granger felt the wariness settle into his shoulders as he and Nat Smart-Mouth skulked along the too-straight, too-long streets. Lots of towns still used the Old American block-grids, but humans liked to round off the edges of wherever they lived. You only found the old kind of roads in places where there weren’t people.
Places that didn’t have people weren’t always safe.
Behind him, Nat murmured, “No big animals,” and that was another thing. Deer loved abandoned cities. So did wolves and wildcats. If there wasn’t any trailsign of them, there was a reason for that.
Patreon!
January 13, 2025
‘The Son Never Shines (On Closed Doors).’
The Son Never Shines (On Closed Doors), Flogging Molly
#commissionearned
Why the Russo brothers are doing MCU movies again.
Two reasons, really.
1). There’s a story they need to tell.2). …for eighty million dollars.Mind you, I don’t begrudge them the money. All that the traffic will bear, baby. Desperation deals are great, when you’re not the desperate one.
