Moe Lane's Blog, page 72

Put ‘Milken Forts’ up on Patreon.

Edited it and made a PDF for it (see here). I’m going to be putting some more of the Fermi Resolution stuff I’ve been working over on Patreon, too. Mostly the new stuff will not be going into the worldbook, but there’s a couple of supplements that need text. And remember: I’m giving out a free month for my birthday! No obligation or opt-out, either. You can absolutely go in, binge-read the archives, and leave.

03/11/2025 Snippet, LE BETE.

Getting there! And that’s not the title, either. It’s just shorter.

At least Carteaux wasted no time. For a painter, he had some talent in getting his men on the march — and keeping them under something like control, too. More or less. Most of the buildings the demi-brigade set fire to were empty barns and storehouses. “We were not idle while your force was giving Le Bete the glove,” Carteaux told him over a (looted) supper, the first evening. “This area has been gleaned quite carefully. For the sake of the Revolution, of course.”

Joseph mused that he had never heard the name ‘Paris’ pronounced quite in that way before, and he had thrived in an atmosphere where the Revolution and the capital were typically considered to be one. “You left enough for the people here to grow crops next year, I trust?” he asked, and realized with a start that it might actually be a concern. The last year had seen an unfortunate number of requisitions and outright confiscations. Which was reason enough to finally put down this rebellion, before it unsettled the rest of France further.

“I’m sure that they will manage,” Carteaux replied, in far too easy a manner. “If they do not? Well. Once Le Bete is caught and stuffed on Robespierre’s wall, it will not matter if a few monarchists here and there have paltry harvests for a time. They should be grateful they did not get kisses from La Veuve, instead.”

Patreon!

Tweet of the Day, Disney’s SHOWGIRLS Moment? edition.

Probably not. Hopefully not: the last thing anybody needs is SNOW WHITE becoming this strange cult classic. Still, this is… pretty hilarious, honestly. Malicious compliance, perhaps? Somebody in Costuming might have had Opinions.

They did not put her in Lord Farquaad's outfit https://t.co/SITxJaSPSS pic.twitter.com/VGky3ixzSC

— Steph Anie (@mynerdyhome) March 10, 2025

Via @DaddyWarpig.

‘Caribbean Blue.’

Caribbean Blue[image error], Enya[image error]

#commissionearned

The Second Republic in 2250, Part 1 (Fermi Resolution)

Getting some text in for the stretch goal adventure.

The Second Republic in 2250

By now, the United States and Canada have begun to move out of its core areas to recolonize the Northeast. The mutagenic curses of the previous century still remain, but the mermen and ghulmen are now in their sixth generation. The nagging fear that they will turn into the ravening or calculating monsters of legend has finally subsided. The oldmen of Canada similarly have come to terms with their affinity for necromancy, finding an ethical arcane path forward. Second Republic necromancers are second to none, and their exorcists are the best on the East Coast.

They have to be. While the entire Eastern Seaboard suffered horribly in the dawn of the First Age, the decade-long war between the United States and the Princes produced localized, bizarre horror-landscapes that are still being Soothed and redeemed. The population is a fraction of what it was, and is somehow not increasing quickly enough for a pre-technological culture that encourages large families. The core areas of the Second Republic are Rhode Island, Long Island, and the St. Lawrence River valley: outside them is a sparsely-populated hinterlands that are at best half-wild, full of determined settlements and a few small towns. The great projects for the Second Republic at this time are the reclamation of Boston and Toronto; there’s always work for somebody willing to traipse through urban desolation for salvage and information. It’s good-paying work, too. The folk of the Second Republic drive hard bargains, but fair ones.

Just don’t mind how they look. They literally cannot help it, and by now it’s just… how they look, that’s all. They’re not evil, and they’re certainly not mean.

Patreon!

The Fermi Resolution Worldbook preorder store is open!

Feel free to check it out, and honestly? Feel free to tell me what it needs, in terms of bells and whistles. I would actually like this to drive some sales. I’m working with my layout guy this week on how The Fermi Resolution Worldbook is going to look, and I want to hit the ground running.

(Also: this is an opportunity to score some signed copies of my fiction books.)

Moe Lane

PS: Note: the game will be fulfilled via DriveThruRPG, and the physical books will be USA-shipping only. Sorry about the latter, but international postage is getting insane. Honestly, if you’re far foreign you’re better off using an international KDP market to buy my books that way.

Kevin Drum has passed.

Got the word this afternoon. We were not friends. I even said some unkind things about him, back in the day. But it was just business, you know? I meant what I said, but it wasn’t anything personal. He was a hell of a lot better than the class of people that replaced him, let me tell you. And… not everybody who was around and causing trouble in the blogosphere is still around these days. Now there’s one fewer, and we are lessened for it.

My condolences and prayers to his family and loved ones.

An entertaining limit to AI.

I was trying to figure out where I first saw the “Socrates, no!” “Socrates, YES!” exchange, when the below derailed my idle curiosity.

That’s… not right. The original was this thing where the first sentence was somebody telling Socrates not to do the thing, and the second was Socrates gleefully informing that person that he was totally going to do the thing. Even if you didn’t read it that way right away, you get that, right? It’s a comedy concept that you can grasp, right?

Well, congrats. You’re not AI. I tested Google with various punctuation marks and quotes missing, and it never picked up on the possibility that it was the transcript of a conversation. Which is reassuring, in its way. It implies that, even in a true panopticon, we could still manage to keep our conversations private via a highly subjective form of slang, shared references, and inferences.

Or maybe AI just doesn’t know what to do with things that are goofy? That’s reassuring, too. Means we can still James T Kirk them if they get too stroppy.

The ANNE SHIRLEY anime trailer.

People made sure I saw this…

…annnnd ANNE SHIRLEY looks fine! I don’t speak Japanese, so I’m gonna need subtitles because I’m part of that faction, but, you know, nothing about it appears bad. I am known to have opinions about the proper treatment of the Anne of Green Gables novels, and I offer neither apologies nor regrets for that. But ANNE SHIRLEY feels like it’ll be a clean adaptation.

‘Risin’ of the Moon.’

Look, I don’t push stuff often, but if you read this site you should have, like, half a dozen of these guys’ CDs.

Risin’ of the Moon, The 97th Regimental String Band

#commissionearned