Joshua Unruh's Blog, page 7

I Did a Lot of Stuff Today

And if you count what I did yesterday, I have been absolutely a whirlwind of doing stuff! Seriously! What you ask? Well, let me tell you!

I had lunch with a friend I haven't seen in far too long. Good times and needs to be done way more often.
I mowed the damn lawn. With a new blade on the mower so it actually works properly. This meant the bag actually caught grass. I had to empty it 50 freakin' times. This was total bullcorn.
I named Courtney's intractably unnamed sequel to Rethana's Surrender by misreading a computer screen. #AccidentalGreatness
I sent out 16 Advance Reading Copies of Saga of the Myth Reaver: Downfall. Really, that was mostly aggregating email addresses and composing the mail before hitting "send" but it led to...
Sixteen mostly strangers are reading my book. I know it's a solid read so it isn't exactly nerve wracking, but neither am I entirely settled on the matter. It is a complicated headspace when you're wildly egocentric yet handing your baby to other people for the first time.
I've done the very tentative first steps of making a comic book. It's quite a balancing act between researching the how to do things versus the writing of new things I've never written before (scripts) versus just diving into the next writing project I already know how to do.
Also, I've had sticker shock over the above.
I suggested the next big publishing revolution as part of Aaron's Draft2Digital initiative. Hint: it has something to do with the above two bullets.
I've done a surprising amount of off the cuff plotting for The Next Project that I should probably write down somewhere before I forget it.
I butted heads with my kid a lot. This first full week of school stuff is pretty intense.
I've generally had a lot of interpersonal complications this week, although not so much in the last couple days. But it was big enough that the shadow looms over the rest of the week.
I, a grown-up, bought costumes for a fundraising event tomorrow night. I have not purchased a costume in a long, long time. We also bought one for the Senior Partner. Since she hates costumes and costume parties, it might literally be the first costume she's owned since Strawberry Shortcake was a hot new fad.

Seriously, when I finally got home (after an hour of driving due to some apparently serious car accidents on the highway), my head was splitting and I needed a lay down. Still, I'm pretty pleased with the output of my first full week of all day writer rather than all day dad with writing on the side.

INDUSTRY! PEOPLE PUTTING THINGS INTO OTHER THINGS...AND TURNING THEM!

The above should be read in Tom Servo's voice. If you don't know who Tom Servo is, then we may have nothing further to say to one another.

If I were a tougher guy, I'd write that "Paladins v. Clerics" post right now. But I'm not. So I'm going to do everything I can to write that up for you guys tomorrow and maybe also get something in the tank for Sunday. I think the PvC debate (see what I did there?) is pretty interesting, and I'll try and make it so outside my own head.

In the meantime, gentle ARC readers, godspeed (to your reading) and good luck (to the writing). To the rest of you, excelsior.

From the frozen lands of the North comes…The Myth Reaver! (And he’s bearing gifts!)

Greetings fans and well-wishers!

By this time tomorrow, the good people at Consortium Books and Draft2Digital will have Advanced Reading Copies of Saga of the Myth Reaver: Downfall. We have a few dedicated reviewers who are getting a copy, and I'm hitting up Aaron's fanbase as well, but I also wanted to extend the opportunity here.

We will likely publish this book the first half of next week. With that in mind, we'd love to have honest, helpful reviews ready to go on Amazon, Goodreads, and Barnes & Noble. If you absolutely hate the book, I'd appreciate an email to me on the subject but silence elsewhere.

If you would like an early look at this novel (which I am very proud of and think is my best work to date) and can commit to those reviews (they can be copy and pasted, no need to reinvent the wheel for each site), then say so in the comments section.

Make sure you have a valid email address on your comment (I won't publish it) and, by close of play tomorrow, you should have a digital copy of my Viking dark fantasy ready to rock your socks. It will be in both mobi and epub formats, so any e-reader or app should handle it.

Thanks, guys! You're my favorites!

O Holy Knight 2

As promised, here's a few of my thoughts on the Western Paladin.

No, not that one! (Although this guy did imprint on me a bit, but more on that another time)

I mean this type of one.

Actually, I don't entirely mean this one either. It was years before I heard of the Song of Roland. My first real brush, and it was love at first sight I might add, looked more like this.

Dungeons & Dragons, baby! Get your dice bags and Doritos! It's time to roll a paladin, kill monsters, and take their stuff! And here's how I knew what I was doing.

Man, that brings back memories both misty AND watercolored.

Yep, well before literature or myths and legends, I fell in love with the paladin while playing D&D. In case you were wondering, my favorite of all time was Jombers, the Fist of Torm. That bad ass started out as an NPC fighter, but I made him into a holy warrior!

Here's the thing I didn't realize for a long, long time. Paladins in Dungeons & Dragons make zero sense. They are basically pseudo-medieval crusaders in a Germanic pagan, polytheistic world who had to follow Fauxdeo-Christian strictures. Say whaaaaaa...? Even Crystal Dragon Jesus doesn't really make this make sense.

But at the time, I didn't care. Holy warriors delving into the depths of the earth to kill evil things and bring back treasure to their ridiculously ornate and wildly out of place cathedrals was exactly what I wanted to play.

As for the current best and only paladin "done right," I can't suggest The Deed of Paksnarion enough. If you're going to do D&D paladins, at least this frames them in a conceptual way that makes sense. Go read it now!

At some point in the not-too-distant future, I, too, will be throwing my hat into the ring of "paladins done right." I'll keep you posted, but for now, just go read about Paks. She's pretty damned amazing.

More tomorrow! Probably "clerics v. paladins" since I opened the whole D&D can of worms today.

O Holy Knight

I love Paladins. As far as I can remember, I always have.

This is kinda crazy for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being my own personal views on spirituality and pacifism. Maybe that's one of the reasons I like the idea of a holy warrior so much. It is much easier to fight and die for what you believe in than to just die. That clarity of purpose is hard to come by in real life, which may make it so attractive in fiction.

At any rate, the turnkey moment for my paladin was was the realization that I appreciate paladins across cultures and genres. Sure, the love started with the very Dungeons & Dragons idea of a holy knight dispensing justice from the back of his white charger, but there are some other archetypes I didn't understand my own appreciation for until I tied them into the concept of the Paladin.

Obviously this is a pretty broad definition of paladin as "holy warrior," but I think that's fair considering how far away from The Song of Roland the D&D paladin is. I'm just widening the net similarly, but feel free to argue in the comments. Now, without further adieu, here's two of my most Eastern examples of paladins I love.

Sohei

"Only three things disregard my wishes: the rushing waters of the Kamo river, the unpredictable dice, and the mountain priests."

-Emperor Shirakawa (1073-1086)

First off, just look at that bad ass! A masked samurai with a sword on the end of an eight foot pole! Shields and big horses aren't the only way to roll like a paladin.

Sohei were the military arm of Buddhist sects in Japan during at least the Sengoku and various Shogunates, especially Tokugawa. These guys are sorta the token example of "fighting for peace" and how relatively stupid a concept that is. But like all Japanese warriors, they made up for philosophical holes by being amazing fighters.

Sohei favored the naginata enough that the weapon has become traditionally synonymous with them. Part of their fame was the ability to spin the weapon so hard and so fast that no arrow would hit them. Otherwise, they armed themselves more or less like the samurai, often incorporating steel helms beneath their trademark white cowls.

"Temple samurai" is a pretty boss concept.

My favorite story about sohei shows that they were thinkers willing to use religious beliefs against their enemies just as deftly if not as often as they did their weapons. There is a tale of an intractable daimyo (lord of lands, akin to a duke) who simply refused to come to accord with the monks in the mountains near his capitol. Normally, the sohei would swarm down the mountain and fight the daimyo's forces. But this daimyo's capitol had grown over a trade crossroads, making the lord very powerful and very rich. This allowed him a standing army strong enough that such a fight would likely end badly for the monks even if they won the battle.

Instead of a massive force, a small cadre of sohei marched down the mountain bearing their shrine's idol, sort of a large, ornate box acting as a, for lack of a better term, Buddhist reliquary. They set it down at the crossroads of the daimyo's capitol, right in the middle of where the merchants conducted all their trade and business. They placed a curse upon the idol and walked back up the mountain.

For several weeks, the cursed idol crippled trade. Nobody wanted to go touch the thing. Most wouldn't even go near it. The daimyo found his brisk trade ground to a halt. He made accord with the monks, who promptly came down the mountain, de-cursed the idol, and took it back to the monastery.

Wudang Monks

You know these guys best from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, starring the inimitable Chow Yun Fat (pictured right) and Michelle Yeoh.

Wudang Monks were real, but their reputation as "holy warriors" is apparently largely fictitious. Since I'm not from ancient China, the fictitious reputation affects me way more than the historical reality. At their core, the Wudang monks are Taoist counterparts to the Buddhist Shaolin (or vice versa) named for the mountain housing their monastery.

On a basic level, they're "Chinese sohei," but they diverge in a few big ways that make them different enough to appeal to me in other ways.

First, they didn't typically go to war, which means no vast armis of Wudang monks. In fiction, the Wudang typically ran in singles or duos, although they would team up with larger groups of non-monks.

Second, and the reason they didn't go to war, is that Wudan monks fought primarily for justice. In a vast land with little access to anything like a modern day police force, an expertly trained fighter who wished for nothing but seeing justice done and stood outside the social order of wealth and privilege would have been an absolute godsend (see what I did there?) to peasant villagers. That's a recognizably paladin idea applied in a very Eastern way.

Third, they retained their unassuming, monkish look. Sohei wore the cowls so that nobody ever forgot that a monk stood beneath all that armor and weaponry. The Wudang wanted to be recognized as monks first and only, they just happened to be really amazing swordsmen as well. No stallions, no big armor, no piles of weapons. This is absolutely a paladin focused through an Eastern mindset.

Lastly, the fictional Wudang are the sorta inspiration for the Staten Island rap supergroup, Wu-Tang Clan.

Okay, this post has gone on longer than I expected. In the near future, I'll probably talk in more detail about the original, Western paladins. I'll suggest the best novel about a paladin (until I write my own, that is). I'll also discuss the difference between a cleric and a paladin in roleplaying game terms since D&D had made that a conversation almost necessary if you're going to write or game in the fantasy genre.

Settlers of Catan is a Harsh Mistress

So between hanging out with a bunch of people I love and playing frankly epic amount of Settlers of Catan, there is no paladin post. So I suppose I'll have to make it double big tomorrow.

Yes, even moreso than the one that had nothing going for it but cover art, this is a super lame blog post. I obey the letter of Blog Everyday in August law if not the spirit.

Good night!

My Subconscious Might Be a Jerk

In the last two days, my writerly subconscious has thrown me two massive curveballs. They were great pitches, but I completely wasn't expecting them, so right now they're pinging off my conscious mind's bat and going foul all over the place.

That is almost assuredly the end of the baseball metaphor. Probably. I'm writing by the seat of my pants, here.

I have mixed feelings about fantasy as a genre. I've gone on about this once or twice. Even so, I came up with a couple fantasy ideas. One of them was a single novel dark fantasy story full of Vikings and Noir trappings. That became two planned books, the first of which is Saga of the Myth Reaver: Downfall and comes out later this month (most likely).

The other one is a re-re-re-reworked idea based around making a Paladin really work. I love Paladins. I'll probably do a blog post about that someday. Maybe even tomorrow since right now I don't have any other ideas and a list of my favorite Paladins or Paladin archetypes from around the world would probably fill a few hundred words.

Anyway, this story started out as urban fantasy Paladin set in a more or less "World Outside Your Window" a'la Dresden Files. For various reasons, that stopped working for me and it became a couple other things along the way. I finally really nailed the actual structure of the story, which simultaneously brought the entire first novel into focus as well as suggesting there would have to be two more. It wasn't meant to be a trilogy, but now I see it has no other choice but to be one.

But through all that, it was still a fantasy story. The trappings changed all over the place, but urban fantasy was as far as I got from the usual pseudo-medieval, Tolkienesque fantasy stuff. Well, until this week anyway. Then I read 18 Days by Grant Morrison and Mukesh Sing. It's a Kirby-ized retelling of an epic Indian war myth. The book isn't really a story as much as it is a story bible for an animated feature.

The myth sounds amazing, the art is freakin' fantastic, and the idea of a superhero flavored ancient myth sunk its claws into my brain and would not let go. I dreamed about it. Myth Reaver 2 started to look like it in my dreams until another part of my brain shook its finger and said, "No, stop hijacking things with existing themes! DOWN! NO! OFF THE FURNITURE!"

Then it hit me yesterday. The Paladin story that had been fantasy mostly because I didn't know what else to do with it and not because I really loved fantasy...that had to become a space opera. Or a planetary romance. Or a science fantasy. I'm not clear on exactly where the lines are drawn or how those genres shake out. Bottom line, my nice, pat fantasy story about a holy warrior in shining armor is now about a holy warrior in shining armor that looks like this:

Hell yes, right?

In addition to that seismic shift on that story, I had another epiphany just this morning. When I finished Myth Reaver: Downfall, I needed a sunshine and unicorns break. It is dark, it is gritty, and it is not optimistic at all. I said, out loud, "I need to write something happy for a while."

Only I didn't. Well, I wrote all these blog posts, but I didn't really start anything new. Between waiting on MR edits, the boy starting school, and blogging daily, I just didn't have the energy. I figured I'd write the Teen Agents sequel, except then I decided I'd like that to be a graphic novel (more on that later). Then I figured I'd write the Paladin novel. That felt right, it's very optimistic and , especially with the sci fantasy move, very shiny.

But then this morning I figured out how the first two chapters of Myth Reaver 2 would go. I knew the broad strokes already. I know the story question, I know the conflict Finn, the main character, will have to deal with, and I know that it won't go well for the guy. But I have also studiously been avoiding thinking about the details because I didn't plan to write it for a while.

Well, that's out the window now. My mind is racing. And you know what?

It's even darker than the last one.

I'm a little appalled with myself.

And all it took was a shift from physical violence to others and toward emotional and spiritual violence to oneself.

Anyway, I have like a bajillion words to write now on a half dozen ideas. And every one of the ideas is like a Meatloaf song: louder than everything else.

Stupid subconscious.

Myth Reaver Update at the Buzzer!

Hey gang! I promised a blog post every day in August, but I didn't necessarily promise a good one! Stick with me until the end, though, and I'll give you a little treat.

The last two days have been taken up with my one and only son starting school and my first two days in the Consortium offices. What was I up to while there, you might ask?

Nothing much, just final story edits on Saga of the Myth Reaver: Downfall.

That's right! My long anticipated Viking dark fantasy should be in your hot little hands...well, very soon.

We still have to do copy edits and get it all set up for publishing, so I can't nail down a date right now. But when I say soon, you should know that we are aiming for SOON.

And to go with this splendiferous news, I give you a first look at the gorgeous cover art for Myth Reaver, courtesy of the lovely and talented Amy Nickerson. Peep this awesomeness.

I know, right? More to come, stay tuned. (Including a less lame post tomorrow...I hope.)

Ajax Stewart in Werewolves of Mass Destruction – Excerpt

Not long ago, another issue of The Consortium's speculative fiction magazine A Consortium of Worlds came out. Inside is the first professional example of a character and story type that has rattled around my head for the better part of five or six years. Werewolves of Mass Destruction introduces (more or less) my modern pulp hero, Ajax Stewart Engineer of the Impossible. It also introduces Verity Sooth, Freelance Reporter of the Weird. Here's an excerpt of the story. Let me know what you think and go pick up aCoW3 if you like it. There's a lot of other amazing stuff in there as well sure to thrill and chill. And now...on with the show!

Intrepid readers, you've been with me through so much. You were there when I posted definitive proof that the Loch Ness Monster was more Nestor than Nessie. You read with bated breath how I discovered through personally harrowing danger that the chupacabra is willing to suck the bodily fluids of a lot more than goats. You thrilled as I worked my way backwards from Area 319 all the way back to Area 57 (so close!). And you thrilled with me to discover that the Men in Black were an elaborate cover-up maintained by the Men in Plaid.

I enjoyed experiencing and writing about those adventures as much as you did reading about them. But, patrons of the Bizarre Bazaar, I assure you they are small potatoes compared to the shocking turn of events that began with me about to be sacrificed -- burned alive, actually -- by a druidic offshoot of the Irish Republican Army. I do not well play the damsel in distress, but I assure you, intrepid ones, that I was in deep distress when my “hero” arrived. I must admit, though, I never expected to have my life saved by a grown man the world once called a Teen Science Detective...

- Excerpt from Verity Sooth's Bizarre Bazaar Blog

Verity sat thirty feet in the air behind the “bars” of wicker cage. Her rattan prison made the chest cavity of a man-shaped figure created from bundles of straw. She wondered if, after everything else, this was how it would end, burned to a cinder by a bunch of IRA terrorists-turned-druid-wannabes so they could get in on the international occultic arms trade. The bonfire was starting to get hot even up here, and its smoke combined with the incessant drone in Gaelic to give her a migraine. And she was already irritable, what with the whole about-to-be-murdered thing.

“Could you guys throw some lighter fluid on that fire to hurry this thing up?” she yelled down at the circle of thirteen men wearing rough robes. “If the fire doesn’t get me, I’ll probably die of embarrassment just being this close to you yahoos.”

The men ignored her and continued to chant. Moon and firelight glinted off wavy daggers and the points of the stag antlers worn by--and Verity inwardly snorted in derision just thinking this--the Archdruid. She slumped backward and felt the whole wicker man sway with her movement. She wished her last-ditch attempt at getting rescued had worked. She’d always wanted to meet the Engineer of the Impossible, ever since she was a kid.

“Wow,” a non-Irish, non-chanting voice said from far below her. “Is this an honest-to-goodness wicker man ceremony? And right next to a trio of standing stones, too? I expected the beauty and history of Ireland to astound me, but I sure didn’t expect to get a show like this.”

Every hooded head turned toward the voice, and Verity scrabbled around, trying to see who spoke. The distance, the smoke, and the angle kept her from getting a good look at the man, but she couldn’t help feeling a flutter that she might not die here tonight. The Archdruid, stupid, giant, antler headdress and all, stepped in the direction of the voice, waving his arms and making angry noises in the same way Verity’s grandmother used to if somebody got too close to her azaleas.

“This is a sacred rite,” the Archdruid began in his thick brogue, “ye cannae be trespassin’ here!”

“You mean this isn’t some sort of reenactment for tourists?”

“Naw, mate, this is the real deal. And we cannae let ye wander off to tell a bobby, now can we?” The other robed men began to drift away from the wicker man and surround the newcomer. “So I guess the wicker man gets another sacrifice in addition to this nosy reporter.”

“A reporter?” The voice sounded amused. “Oh, good, I was afraid I’d stumbled on the wrong set of idiots bent on burning people alive.”

Verity finally saw something of the voice’s owner, but it was a blur that darted into the circle of bonfire light and toward the Archdruid. A fist shot out and vanished into the dark recesses of the Archdruid’s hood. There was a sound like a sledgehammer hitting a side of beef, and the antlered man flew backward a couple yards.

There probably weren’t ten men in the world who could throw a haymaker like that, and Verity had only sent word out to one of them. Her desperate attempt to call for help must have worked, because Ajax Stewart was on the scene!

The night filled with the sounds of fighting punctuated by the same thunderclap sound of Ajax’s punches, the tearing of cloth, the snap of bones, and the screams of men. Verity couldn’t see any of it, which frustrated the heck out of her. The only thing she could see was the prostrate form of the Archdruid starting to stir.

She watched as the robed and horned figure stood, shook its head to clear it, then took up a chant again. She stared in horrified fascination as a reddish, glowing ball of fire coalesced between his outstretched hands.

“Ajax, look out!” she screamed just as the fireball flew from the man’s hands and in the direction of the fight. The night lit up with baleful light and the air sizzled as the ball flew across the distance. It nicked the wicker man and added crackling, fiery fury to the bonfire that already worried at the straw figure’s ankles. There were screams of pain and fear, and Verity started to think she wasn’t saved after all. Until she heard a rich baritone yell up to her.

“Thanks for the heads up.”

The Archdruid began chanting again, and wisps of flame gathered between his palms. The flames from his previous onslaught now licked up the side of the wicker man. The floor of Verity’s cage began to smoke heavily. She couldn’t wait on Ajax now. She’d be Cajun-style reporter before he finished dealing with the spell-slinging Archdruid.

She threw herself against the side of her cage facing the Archdruid, then flung her whole weight back against the opposite side. She focused all her energy on causing the wicker man to sway back and forth, ignoring the fact that the flames seared holes in the floor of her prison as two, three, and four more bolts of eldritch fire seared the night air.

Within half a minute, the stench of burnt rubber joined the smell of smoke as the soles of her sneakers started melting. But she had the wicker man bowing so that the chest cavity that held her was perpendicular to the ground. As it bent steeply over the Archdruid, Verity threw herself toward what had been the top of her cage. She heard the satisfying crack of the straw effigy’s support pole snapping under her weight. The noise caused the Archdruid to look up, and even his shadowy hood couldn’t hide wide, terrified eyes from Verity as her flaming cage hurtled downward.

The wicker man hit the ground--and the Archdruid--with a literally bone-crunching impact. A swelling cloud of dust blinded Verity, and she doubled over, coughing. Flames snapped closer to her face, but she couldn’t catch her breath enough to make a run for it.

Verity was still coughing when Ajax snapped the thick, wicker bars of her cage as though they were toothpicks and heaved her out of its blazing confines. “Well done, Ms. Sooth. That sorcerer was giving me some trouble. I’d probably have sorted him out, but thanks for saving me the trouble.”

“No--cough--thank--cough--you,” Verity rasped. She blinked away the dust that caked her eyes and got her first good look at Ajax Stewart, Engineer of the Impossible.

He was big, over six feet tall and heavily built, but with obvious brawn rather than needless bulk. He had a head of thick, dark hair, and his clean-shaven face held chiseled features right down to the cleft in his chin. A shirt torn open across the front in the struggle with the robed hooligans revealed rock-solid muscles and a bulging bicep. He wore a longish leather pouch at his left hip that might have been a gun holster but looked too long and bulky. It connected seamlessly to a belt with the most complicated and technological buckle she’d ever seen. She caught herself staring and shook her head, a blush coming to her cheeks.

Ajax opened his mouth to say something but was interrupted by a howling roar that echoed across the Irish heather. A shiver of fear went down Verity’s spine, but Ajax simply rolled his eyes and turned toward the sounds of massive, stomping footsteps reverberating through the night.

Coming over the hill, framed by the fat gibbous moon, was the silhouette of an ill-shaped man. At least twelve feet tall, the figure looked like it was made entirely of bulging knots of muscles, awkwardly put together and sometimes working at cross purposes. They pulled in odd angles against crooked joints, rippling beneath the mottled skin. The face was framed by shaggy, lank hair that hung in front of red, piggy eyes. The nose was snoutlike and the mouth was a jagged line broken by tusks jutting from the lower jaw. As the thing came over the hill, it saw Ajax standing near Verity, bellowed a challenge, and hefted the great, two-handed, doubled-edged axe it had slung over its shoulder.

Ajax muttered, “I can’t believe these poseurs managed to summon a troll.” He patted Verity on the arm and said, “I’ll be right back, Ms. Sooth.”

Before Verity could protest, Ajax broke into a dead sprint toward the troll. She took a deep breath to yell for him to stop. But her tortured lungs couldn’t handle the sudden inrush of air. All she managed was another chest-wrenching coughing fit.

As Ajax ran toward the behemoth, it swung its gargantuan ax toward him in a two-handed, overhead chop that whistled through the night air. Ajax dodged to the left, and the axe blade slammed into the earth next to him, digging a furrow three feet deep. The ogre’s arm muscles strained against the stuck ax head, trying to haul it back up. The ground held it fast for a moment, just long enough for Ajax to leap lithely onto the axe handle.

The handle must have been a small tree trunk in its former life, so balancing on it as he sprinted up its length barely taxed Ajax’s agility. The ogre yanked the blade free, flinging the handle backward and catapulting Ajax high into the air.

Ajax reached into the leather pouch along his leg, pulled out a handful of black powder that glimmered in the moonlight, and flung it into the eyes of the ogre. The monster dropped its axe and clapped its misshapen claws over its eyes. A screaming roar tore from its throat as Ajax sailed over its head in a comfortable arc. He dove toward the ground, landed in a roll, came to his feet, and whirled to face the monster.

The ogre spun, its eyes even more bleary and bloodshot, its face a twisted mask of rage and pain. Empty of the ax, clawed hands grasped the air with murderous intent. Both combatants tensed, ready to rejoin the battle.

But an out-of-breath, red-faced Verity stood between them with her hands thrown up over her head, a palm turned to each of the fighters.

“Stop!” she screamed.

Both fighters froze in their tracks, looking confusedly from Verity to each other and back again.

Verity turned to the ogre first. “Ungus Bonecracker, I don’t think Queen Mab sent you here to get your behind handed to you by a human, did she?”

The ogre actually managed to look sheepish. “No, miss.”

Verity turned to Ajax. “And you, mister man of action. Did it ever occur to you to ask if the monster was on our side before you attacked?”

Ajax fidgeted under Verity’s glare. “Um, not really. I mean, it’s never come up before.”

“Really?” Verity asked, a quizzical look on her face.

Ajax shrugged.

Verity sniffed. “I suspect you’ve missed out on some opportunities to make friends, then.” She turned back to the ogre. “Ungus, go back to your queen and tell her I’ve found the men who hunted the wee folk from her court. Thanks to the help of my friend, Ajax, they won’t be bothering her subjects, or anyone else, ever again.”

Ungus glared at Ajax. “Manling threw cold iron in my eyes. Ungus must break his bones.”

“Didn’t you hear me? He’s the main reason those men won’t be killing your Unseelie brethren anymore. It was all a big misunderstanding, and I want you two to shake on it and leave as friends.”

Ungus and Ajax looked at Verity in disbelief. Verity wiggled her eyebrows up and down at Ajax and motioned with her head. Ajax sighed and stepped forward, offering his hand to the monster.

Ungus eyed it warily, but Ajax brushed the hand on his pant leg and held it up. “No more iron filings, see? It’s clean.” Ungus peered at it closely, then engulfed Ajax’s hand in a gargantuan paw. They pumped once. Ajax was afraid Ungus might tear his shoulder out of the socket if they had to shake again.

“Now get going,” Verity told Ungus as she hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “Mab will want to hear your report.”

Ungus Bonebreaker hefted his humongous ax over his shoulder and stalked back over the hill. Verity watched him go, then turned to find Ajax staring at her.

She held out her hand. “My turn, I guess. I’m Verity Sooth, blogger of the bizarre.”

Ajax shook her hand. “Ajax Stewart, Engineer of the Impossible. I’m a fan of your work, Ms. Sooth.”

Verity blushed. “I’ve been anxious to meet you for a while as well, Mr. Stewart.”

“Ajax, please. Anyone who’s friends with Queen Mab can call me by my first name.”

Verity shrugged. “Call me Verity. I owed Mab one. Besides, I did not like the idea of men preying on her littlest fairies. Unseelie or not, pixies are just little mischief makers. They don’t deserve what those guys were doing to them.” She shuddered. “Well, obviously you got my Tweet.”

Ajax nodded. “I did, and just in time too. I’m happy to rescue somebody from certain doom, but your Tweet mentioned a lead on something I’d be especially interested in.”

Verity nodded. “Do you know why those guys were hunting Unseelie fairies?”

Ajax shook his head.

“They were harvesting their blood. Do you know anybody who might be interested in buying cut-rate Unseelie Fae blood?”

Ajax’s face darkened. “Thule Reich.”

“Got it in one.”

“I hate those guys.”

“I know. That’s why I called you.”

“I’m glad. Do you have their contact?”

“I do, but I’ll only give it under one condition.”

Ajax looked unsurprised. “And that is?”

“You have to take me with you.”

He sighed. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what I expected.”

Verity beamed at him.

Ajax looked toward the smoldering burial place of the Archdruid and then toward the pile of his minions Ajax had trussed up next to it.

“Let’s talk to my friends at MI5 and make sure neither of us is going to jail over this business tonight. If we can dodge that, then you’ve got yourself a deal.”

Verity nodded and tried to look cool. On the inside, though, she was squealing with excitement. This would be the story of the century. Engineer of the Impossible Brings Down the Greatest Mystical Menace of the Last Century.

And Verity Sooth will be there to live-tweet the whole thing. Assuming the ex-Nazi nihilist necromancers don’t kill us, that is.

Parents Who Watch Phantom Menace Have Children Who Watch Phantom Menace

The other day, my 5yo son started humming the Imperial March. Now, we'd watched the Star Wars Trilogy with him when he was, like, three. And he is pretty precocious. But it seemed a bit of a long shot that the song had somehow imprinted itself on him two years ago when he could barely follow a conversation with bread. The weirdest thing was how familiar that tune is to me. I fell right in with him for a couple bars before realizing the whole scene was weird.

"Hey, where did you hear that song?" I asked.

"At Evan's house. He was playing Lego Star Wars." Thoughtful pause. "Dad, can we watch Star Wars?"

I said yes without thinking, and I meant it. But the question of which Star Wars movies we would watch and in what order instantly took center stage of my mind. At first, I thought the answer would be an easy one. We'll only watch the good ones, obviously.

Well, the good ones and Return of the Jedi.

But then my friend Jeff called me to task. "The week he starts school, you're going to introduce him to Star Wars...but not the Star Wars all the other kids know? You're a terrible parent."

My gut reaction was, "Or I'm the only good parent!"

And I stand by that to some extent. Those prequels are terrible. Really terrible. They took a series of movies I'd seen countless times, one of which I'd even heard before seeing because my mother was VERY pregnant with me when she saw it in the theater, and sucked the life and joy right out of them.

But I did hear those Clone War cartoons are pretty cool. And of course there was potential in the prequels before Lucas turned the whole thing into a latrine. Countless allusions and suggestions across books and comics showed that. Was there a way to introduce the entirety of the Star Wars movie canon to my son without wanting to drill through my own eye?

Another friend to the rescue, this time Brett Grimes of the famed Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes entry to Kanye + Comics. He linked me to a post on Absolutely No Machete Juggling suggesting the author has nailed the viewing order for Star Wars. It's really quite inspired and I won't steal his thunder by explaining it all here. Essentially, the order boils down to IV, V, II, III, VI.

I'm going to give it a try on myself while showing them to the boy. If nothing else, it ought to make Return of the Jedi look thousands of percent better. And then, even if it's a mistake, we can watch a bunch of Clone Wars cartoons. That's a win, right? At least a Pyrrhic one? Maybe?

Damn you all over again, Lucas.

Yellowjacket

Matt, the player running GI Viking, has been having a hard time coming up with a stateside, crimebuster type character. I had already written one down as an example of what a finished character might look like, though, and I think he's going to end up using that hero. So let me tell you a bit about Yellowjacket.

Yellowjacket is this sorta crosswise mix of Green Hornet, the Shadow, and the Spider with maybe a bit of Golden Age Batman thrown in for good measure. He also might have just a sprinkling of Golden Age Superman's Populist roots (in fact, a future story arc could see if he swings from Populist all the way to Socialist...hmmm...). Anyway, I love all those characters for different reasons, and, if I were going to run a Golden Age Mystery Man, Yellowjacket is who I would want to play.

What a giving and generous GM I am...

Yellowjacket
Richard Cranston (Secret)
History:

As a young man coming of age with his nation in the throes of the Great Depression, Richard grew disgusted with the excesses of his very wealthy family's opulent lifestyle. While so many Americans fought and clawed just to get a square meal and lived in shanty towns in public parks, the Cranstons sat in their mansion atop the hill living as though nothing had changed. Richard's father decried him as a "bleeding heart" and told his son he could waste his inheritance however he wanted...after his father was moldering in the ground. Unwilling to live another day in this hypocrisy, an aimless Richard left to wander the world as a penniless traveler.

Eventually, Richard found himself in the Far East. Still spiritually lost and unsure of his life's direction, he climbed the towering Wudang Mountain in search of the monks that lived there. Kent's life among the monks was hard, nearly unbearable. But the simple life and honest worldview sparked something in young Richard. He grew to believe, as the Wudang did, that the fight for justice was itself a path to enlightenment.

After years spent wandering the Chinese countryside dispensing Wudang justice with sword and fists, word came to Richard that his father had died. Mr. Cranston had died a terrifically wealthy man. He had also died a hidebound conservative who felt it was his duty to leave everything to his only son despite the fact that they never saw eye to eye on anything. Perhaps he hoped giving Richard his "seat at the table" would change the young man's mind. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

At first, Richard didn't plan to return home. But he began to worry for his mother and younger sister, unsure if they were provided for should he not receive his inheritance. After much soul searching and communion with the monastery's abbot, Richard left the misty Wudang mountains to return to the Windy City of Chicago.

The years had not been kind to Chicago. Though the Depression had ended, Prohibition had created mobs with power and influence that staggered Richard. Criminals no longer skulked in the shadows. They wore expensive suits, had memberships in all the right clubs, and included lawyers and accountants in their armies next to buttonmen and killers. Outrage ripped at Richard and he resolved to do something about the mob the only way he knew how. The same way he'd handled injustice in China.

But Richard was no fool. Monks have no families to protect, no loved ones to worry for, but Richard had his mother and sister. So he created the identity of Yellowjacket to protect his family from retaliation as well as create a specter of terror against the underworld. Richard cultivated the falsehood that Yellowjacket was a mobster kingpin muscling in on the action. Although the lie made him an enemy to the police, it gave the mob an enemy it could understand...and truly fear.

Personality:

Richard is a man torn between two worlds. By day, he ruthlessly manages a multi-million dollar empire and pretend to be a useless layabout interested only in excitement and money. By night, he wages a one man war on crime, hunted by police and mobsters alike for his efforts. He feels as though nobody really knows him except perhaps his late father’s closest friend, Police Commissioner Walter Sternwood. Sternwood is the only person who knows that Richard and Yellowjacket are one and the same man. The only reason Sternwood hasn't shut Richard down is  fear of what his nocturnal habits would to to his dead friend's good name. In the meantime, Sternwood is content to believe Richard thinks he's a force for good. Richard has vowed to prove it to Sternwood.

But after a few years fighting the mobs in Chicago, Richard is a man looking for a new way. Though uncomfortable with his wealth, he's beginning to feel he could do as much good exploiting his fortune as he does as Yellowjacket. Having learned at his father's side before leaving, Richard has a keen mind for business. Running the company day-to-day has demonstrated just how extensive his holdings and influence truly are. Charities, soup kitchens, low interest loans, building inexpensive housing. Could the Cranston fortune, in its own way, undermine the mobs that run Chicago as much as Yellowjacket does scaring them to death and beating them senseless? Richard aims to find out.

The lonely crusade as Yellowjacket is also taking a psychological toll on Richard. He's wondering if it there might be allies, as both head of Cranston Amalgamated and a scourge of the underworld, that could fight his battles alongside him.

Abilities and Resources:

Yellowjacket is a formidable hand to hand combatant and boasts knowledge of ancient Chinese martial arts that few other Westerners can. Using his own scientific savvy, Richard also invented his own weapon, the Sting, from capacitors and toxic chemicals created by subsidiaries of Cranston Amalgamated. With a reluctant connection at the highest level in the police department, Yellowjacket always seems to be one step ahead of both the police and the mob. He’s cultivated an air of mystery and menace that serves him well in the dark corners, but hurts him badly in the shining halls of the law.

As the sole inheritor of Cranston Amalgamated, Richard commands vast wealth and contacts. Cars, planes, helicopters, or any other asset is available at a moment’s notice. The same goes for the ear of most of the city’s, if not the nation’s, power brokers and deal makers. As Yellowjacket, Richard would happily ruin himself if it meant freeing Chicago from the grip of organized crime. That is, unless he can figure out a way to fight crime with money and influence also.

Affiliations: Solo d10, Buddy d8, Team d6

Distinctions: Millionaire Playboy, Underworld Infiltrator, A Monk's Simplicity

Fists of the Wudang

Enhanced Durability d8    Enhanced Reflexes d8    Enhanced Stamina d8

SFX: Chi Focus - In a pool including a Fist of the Wudang die, replace two dice of equal steps with one die of +1 step.

Limit: Exhausted - Shutdown any Fist of the Wudang power to gain 1 PP. Recover power by activating an opportunity or during a Transition Scene.

Sting of the Yellowjacket

Electric Blast d8    Toxic Cloud d10

SFX: Knock-Out Gas - Add a d6 and step up your effect die by +1 when inflicting a Toxic Cloud complication on a target.

SFX: Flood the Room - Using Toxic Cloud against multiple targets, for each additional target add a d6 and keep an additional effect die.

SFX: Immunity - Spend 1 PP to ignore stress, trauma, or complications from airborne poison or disease.

Limit: Gear - Shutdown Sting of the Yellowjacket and gain 1 PP. Take an action vs. the doom pool to recover gear.

Limit: Gas Cloud - When using Flood the Room SFX, friendly characters MUST count as additional targets.

Specialities: Business Master d10, Combat Expert d8, Crime Expert d8, Menace Expert d8, Technology Expert d8, Science Expert d8

Milestones:

More Than One Way to Catch a Crook

1 XP when you use your Business Expert in a conflict.

3 XP when you exploit another character’s business holdings or resources.

10 XP when you choose to either seize another character’s business assets or surrender your own to them.

Team Player

1 XP when you give support to another hero not already on your team.

3 XP when you confront a team member about your place on the team.

10 XP when you either walk away from your team or join it at a cost to your family.