Moe Lane's Blog, page 720
June 30, 2021
Tweet of the Day, Yes, That Is SO Much Better edition.
@EsotericCD is correct: they should have let the kids have them. I’m not precisely sure how they could have done a worse job of disposing of the things:
how it started / how it’s going pic.twitter.com/ib24mll7LF
— David Hines (@hradzka) July 1, 2021
Annnnnd… below is how it kept going. Hopefully, nobody was seriously hurt…
The moment the explosion happened. Wow.
— Jessica Oh (@JessicaOhTV) July 1, 2021: alyssaacasillas @FOXLA pic.twitter.com/bz0epXHUUr
RIP, Donald Rumsfeld.
He was one of our better poets. I’m not actually joking here. I would like to write a poem that was this good. My condolences and prayers to his family and loved ones.
Reports that say that something hasn’t happened
are always interesting to me, because
(as we know),
there are known knowns;
there are things we know we know.
We also know there are known unknowns;
that is to say
we know there are some things we do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns
—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.
And if one looks throughout
the history of our country
and other free countries,
it is the latter category that tends to be
the difficult ones.
Item Seed: Spell Cubes.
Spell Cubes
Appearance: A regular-sized Rubik’s Cube; while looking like a toy, it feels heavy in one’s hand, and metallic to the touch. Spell Cubes are not invulnerable, but they can take a battering and still function.
Use: typically, a miniature grimoire. Each Spell Cube can hold up to six basic spells. Traditionally, the spells are variants of the following:
Red: Heat
Orange: Move
Yellow: Glow
Green: Deflect
Blue: Cool
White: Heal
To activate, touch the center square on one side, concentrate, and spell whatever magic energy is required. The basic spells do not need to have the Spell Cube in a pattern to work, but they also have very mild effects, and the amount of energy that can be put into one is limited.
Creating a pattern with a Spell Cube can produce more blended (and powerful) effects (for example, combining Heat/Deflect to make a fiery shield), but the process is not instantaneous. At a minimum, the caster will have to make both magical skill rolls to define the effect, and a physical dexterity check to weave the spell together. On the other hand, magical failures involving Spell Cubes give much less dire results.
Spell Cubes are typically used in mages’ academies to give apprentices practice in both basic spellcraft and hand-eye coordination. Most mages graduate to direct magical manipulation, once they graduate, but a few do fiddle around with Spell Cubes for their entire careers. It gives them something to do with their hands, you see. And it’s useful when you don’t want to worry about generating a serious magical backlash over a simple spell.
And, yes: those mages do modify their Cubes. An Archmage’s Spell Cube could have all sorts of spells on it.
The KING IN YELLOW RPG Bundle of Holding.
Having backed the KING IN YELLOW RPG Kickstarter I can tell you that the stuff that they’re offering in the Bundle of Holding‘s worth it. Particularly Robin Laws’ THE MISSING AND THE LOST: it’s just a good book in its own right. He should be selling it more widely — in fact, why am I not telling him that?
The June Patreon stuff is up!
Behold!
RPG: Monster War Doom, Part I: The World of Coming Doom. Can’t have Doom without a world to put it in!Short Story: We Like To Talk About The Place. And they certainly do!As always, sign up for my Patreon if you haven’t yet!
Patreon!June 29, 2021
The new BLOOD RED SKY trailer.
I watched a lot of trailers today. It was that kind of day. But this latest trailer for BLOOD RED SKY doesn’t look half bad. It’d be even more interesting if she wasn’t an actual vampire: just a regular mom who maybe shouldn’t be taking flights…
The LUCA Honest Trailer.
LUCA was surprisingly free of emotional torture. I mean, considering it’s a Pixar flick. I liked it, and so did Honest Trailers, apparently. You do have to wonder just how much Vespa paid for that product placement, though.
Snippet the Last, WE LIKE TO TALK ABOUT THE PLACE.
Damn thing got harder to write, the farther along I got. How sharper than a serpent’s tooth is an ungrateful short story.
Patreon!You’re probably wondering why your parents didn’t just go over the fence themselves. Then, or any time until you finally got yourself tied to the rope so you could be hauled over the side. They kept acting like they were about to, but they never quite committed. Not an adult did a thing to help.
How did that feel, Andy? — Yeah, I know it’s you. It’s been, what, forty years, but I remember the look in your eyes when you were safe on this side of the fence. Well, safer, because you still got that look. You never really believed you were out of danger, and I’m figuring you’re tired of feeling that way, right?
There wasn’t any fuss about what happened to you, although I guess you knew that already. Your family left town, your dad making threats and your mom keeping thoughtful and quiet, but nothing else ever happened. On the other hand, at least every kid in town since then got the message: some haunted houses you stay the hell away from, because if you get stuck in one, nobody’s coming to save you.
Oh, put away the damn gun, Andy. Of course we’re going to the Place. I knew that as soon as you knocked on the door.
