Moe Lane's Blog, page 584
March 11, 2022
The Secret World Legends TTRPG Kickstarter teaser trailer.
Am totally looking forward to this. Hell, maybe people will play the MMO more. That’d be nice.
#secretworld #secretworldlegends #dungeonsanddragons #ttrpg
— Star Anvil Studios (@AnvilStar) March 11, 2022
I still think this video came out great. When we get close to launch there might be a new video with some hints of things to come…https://t.co/Ki0N01OGHG
March 10, 2022
Anybody playing Elden Ring?
I normally would say that Elden Ring ‘looks fun,’ except that as I understand it there’s no quest log. A videogame without a quest log is by personal definition pretty much not-fun. In fact, it sounds like something that I’d be forced to play in Hell. But people keep raving about the game. Is it still worth it, even if I have to write everything down*?
Moe Lane
*I do not begrudge the developers their right to create a game that fits their vision of play. But if it doesn’t fit mine then I don’t have to play it, right?
#commissionearned
Tweet of the Day, Antidote edition.
An antidote for what, you may ask. I dunno, man. Whaddya got?
now this is cinema pic.twitter.com/PAcVTgeeQ2
— F*CK IT WE'LL DO IT LIVE (@AndersonVilien) March 10, 2022
Via @emmcoy_writer.
Item Seed: Būsai Sard.
Writing smaller stuff is good for me.
Busai-Sard-Google-DocsDownloadBūsai Sard
Description: a cheap, mass-produced machete made out of faintly rusted steel. The name “Būsai Sard” (Tajik for “Cold Kiss”) is inscribed on the lower part of the braid. Magical scrying of the item invariably leads to nausea and nosebleeds. The weapon does not come with a scabbard.
Būsai Sard is a sadist’s weapon. It doesn’t do any more damage than a regular machete might, but the wounds it makes are extra painful, hard to heal, easy to fester, and leave nasty scars. In the 1950s and 1960s it was carried by one mercenary or another, when it wasn’t being used by death squad commandos (or outright torturers). It’s said that Būsai Sard appeared in every civil war, revolution, and massacre in Africa and the Middle East, and that it never changed hands peacefully. That might even be the only good thing about the weapon: everybody who wielded it ended up dying in a horrible and richly-deserved fashion.
The artifact disappeared in 1975, not that it was ever very famous outside of a particular (and extremely unpleasant) class of people. Anyone who cared assumed that Būsai Sard had simply been destroyed, out of sheer moral repugnance; but it’s recently resurfaced. Worse, the group who found it is ready to sell it at an extremely private auction, the fools.
We know the date and place of the auction, then: so that’s where your team comes in. Your job is to kill every person in that auction house. Top to bottom, front to back: leave nobody alive. However you want to do it is fine, as long as you get everybody. Everybody. This is a full sanction job, no witnesses, no survivors, no exceptions. No notice will be taken of any actions you do in that auction house, just as long as everybody dies. Think of it as a vacation, of sorts.
…Oh, put your guns away. Congratulations, you’re the first team that’s managed to not succumb to — whatever vile thing or energy it is that Būsai Sard is all tangled up with. It’s been pure hell on briefing officers, too: we actually had one authorize the use of sarin gas. Obviously, you can’t just kill all of those people, down to the caterers. Oh, most of the bidders will have warrants out on them (the ones that don’t are probably the worst of the lot), but it’d be better if they were arrested by mundane police. Better for your team, that is: murdering in the presence of Būsai Sard is contraindicated.
But if Būsai Sard has enough power to affect us at a distance like that, then it has to be destroyed. Not confiscated, not analyzed, not secured. Break the damnable thing. Do it clean.
The “Nerd Culture has assimilated it all now” MOONSHOT trailer.
Hey, everybody, we won after all! They’re now making romantic comedies about going to Mars and MOONSHOT has to make it look like the actors are actually going to Mars. BEHOLD THE AESTHETIC!
…To quote the philosopher: Isn’t that just swell?
So, Airborne Kingdom is pretty good.
Airborne Kingdom is a resource gathering/exploration game with no combat, so Steam actually said You sure about this? It’s not like any of the games you usually buy. So I was all, Shut up, Steam! You’re not my mom! and bought it anyway. It reminds me of Stellaris, except that I could put it down after three hours and I don’t hate it*.
If you like building giant airships and cruising around the landscape peacefully unifying kingdoms using your awesome airship, then have at it.
Moe Lane
*I loathed Stellaris, and I couldn’t stop playing it. It was horrible. And I don’t mean, I played it a lot. I mean, I was playing it for sixteen hours a day. As I said, it was horrible.
March 9, 2022
‘Parple Rain’ (Live).
Not… exactly a typo. Via @EsotericCD, who reacted to this like a Maelstrom gangoon reacts to an application of the Short Circuit quickhack:
#commissionearned
The STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS teaser trailer.
I like the uniform, I like the aesthetic, I have absolutely no idea what the hell the continuity is in this IP anymore.
Talked with my editor on TINSEL RAIN.
Based on that conversation, I am hoping for a publication date for TINSEL RAIN of some time in mid-May. That will depend on the Kickstarter going off without a hitch, but we’re halfway through and doing fine, so I think it’s a reasonable hope. Right now, the two major things I need to do after getting the editing finished is to get the map updated and the cover design squared away. Both of those are easy enough to arrange, if you’re willing to pay professional rates. And I am.
Will I have TINSEL RAIN in time for Balticon? …Maybe, maybe not. But I will have it in time for Fright Reads, and that’s pretty good. I do like fulfilling my Kickstarter obligations as early as possible.
