Joshua Unruh's Blog, page 8

The Tale of Willy Wonka and Sammy Davis

This past weekend, the Senior Partner and I celebrated our birthdays. We both get older together in August, but probably haven't had an actual birthday party since the first year we were married. And that one was celebrated with like 200 of our closest friends and well-wishers (but that's a whole other story). We decided to round up all our friends who could possible make it and meet them at Saints, a Public House in Oklahoma City's Plaza District.

We held court for five or six hours. Everyone had a lot of fun, I think, and many, many drinks were purchased for us.

Neither the wife or I drink much anymore. We typically have a bottle or two of wine and a couple sixes of good beer in the house, but we cannot remember the last time we drank to more than a light buzz. But even when we did drink more, the Senior Partner has never had much of a tolerance. Calling her a light weight might be an insult to light weights everywhere.

Just keep that in the back of your mind. The wife + not much alcohol = very giddy behavior and silly decision making.

Enter two gentlemen I immediately dubbed Willy Wonka and Sammy Davis. Here's a picture to show you why.

And now you understand.

We loved these guys. The Senior Partner decided she wanted a picture with two such outlandishly garbed gentlemen. Our good friend Brandie immediately volunteered to go with, I'm sure as much with hope for a good story as to keep the SP from doing anything monumentally stupid.

Doing two things completely out of character, SP walked right up to them and brazenly asked, "Can we get a picture with you?"

Brandie interjected at this point, probably to explain my wife's overly loud voice and frighteningly bubbly smile. "It's okay. It's her birthday."

Sammy brightened up and smile broadly at them. "Sure! I'm George and it's my birthday, too!" Turning to the wife, he says, "Leos are the best, am I right?"

SP sticks out her hand. "Hi Leo! I'm Andrea!"

Face I'm sure full of chagrin, Brandie leans into her ear. "I'm pretty sure he said his name is George."

But by then it was too late. Andrea was calling him Leo come hell or high water. The pic was snapped, thank yous were given, and the ladies, one partially supported by the other, ambled back to the table. Upon reaching the table (so about a minute and a half later) there was a denoument conversation that wrapped up the shenanigans perfectly.

A very serious, somewhat confused look came over my wife's face. "Was his name Leo?"

"No," Brandie replied with the same kind of voice you use to explain taxes to toddlers. "His name was George."

"No, that's no good," SP said, shaking her head. "I like Leo better."

The GI Viking

I swear, eventually I'm going to run out of these. But I'm having a lot of fun doing the write-ups on these guys while I wait for edits and such on Saga of the Myth Reaver, so you're stuck with Marvel PCs for a while. Also, it's surprisingly fun for my players to see them put together in a public forum as well.

Today you get a semi-original character for my good friend Matt Gambill. He's based on the DC comics character The Viking Commando, but he's taken enough odd turns (and I have some more in store I bet he takes) that I thought it was worth giving him a little name change for our own campaign. As you can imagine, in a WWII setting, anybody with GI in their name is probably kicking it on the European Front. GI Viking will be used in the second Event. We're still working on an idea for Matt's stateside guy.

One quick note. I only have one set of Milestones for Valoric right now. That's partly because I'm pretty sure he'll take one of the Event-specific ones I'm working on. The other part is I just haven't thought of another character arc for him yet. By all means, suggest one in the comments and I'll update him with anything that sparks my imagination enough to get turned into a Milestone.

The GI Viking
Valoric Olaffsson (Public)
History:

About a thousand years ago, Valoric was your typical marauding Viking. He raided coasts, collected loot, flew into berserker rages, swung massive axes, and generally lived out the stereotype. In fact, if Valoric was out of the ordinary at all, it was in that he made survival quite a habit.

While he was an above average warrior, Valoric's true power came from his willingness to take any horrible wound in order to win the day. Normally in a time when leeches seemed like a good way to handle sucking chest wounds and baths were considered bad luck, doing this once would have earned him a good song and a Viking burial. But Valoric simply refused to die.

After three or four grievous wounds, he'd earned himself the nickname "Valoric the Undying." They joked around the campfire that all the Valkyries in Valhalla simply refused to pick him up, so repugnant did they find Valoric. Little did his countrymen realize just how backwards they'd got it.

What nobody could know, least of all Valoric, is that a Valkyrie had actually fallen in love with the marauder. She'd quietly shooed the other supernatural warrior maidens away from Valoric, even when they should have flocked around him like carrion birds. While Valoric had lain suffering from horrible wounds, she had kissed his lips and dried his forehead, loaning the fallen warrior some of her own might.

Each time, this Valkyrie hoped Valoric would learn his lesson. But each time he reentered a battle, Valoric the Undying fought even harder and received even more grievous wounds. The charade went on long enough that might Odin in his infinite wisdom and vision discovered the plot. Summoning both the Valkyrie and Valoric before him on his High Seat, he passed judgment on the warrior maiden.

Odin blessed Valoric with the ability to heal any wound until such time as the Valkyrie had scoured all Nine Worlds. When she finally found him, then and only then would Valoric fall in glorious battle and receive a flight back to storied Valhalla. Until then, the Valkyrie would suffer knowing that her love walked the battlefields evermore receiving harsher and harsher wounds.

The Vaklyrie burst into tears at the thought. Valoric laughed and thanked Odin for his benevolence. And that's when Odin had his last laugh. Rather than simply banishing Valoric to some farthest reach of Jotunheim or Hel, the All Father sent the Viking into the future as well.

Valoric arrived on a battlefield during the Second Great War. He fell in with American soldiers, though the only word he recognized was "Hun." But that told the time-lost Valoric all he needed to know until he could learn English properly. It told him who to kill. Fighting as an unkillable warrior of unparalleled ferocity has won Valoric many friends across the European front. And the more he learns about Nazis, the happier he is to kill them. He's beginning to hope the Valkyrie never finds him.

Personality:

Valoric is still exactly who he always was, only the battlefields and enemies have changed. There may be a glimmer of heroism starting to shine through his gruff exterior, but if so, it's only because he's seen how evil the foes he fights truly are. In addition to their terrible plans of world domination and willingness to murder innocents, Valoric takes issue with Hitler's insistence that his Reich is an heir to the Norsemen of old.

It would be one thing if they were simply bastards, but no, these Nazis claim to be spiritual descendants of Valoric's people. This sullying of his people's "good name" angers Valoric almost as much as...well, everything else the Reich does.

Valoric fights hard, drinks hard (since it's incredibly difficult for him to get drunk with his newfound abilities), and is a darling of the Allied forces. His reputation is approaching legendary status and just his arrival has emboldened Allies and weakened Axis resolve enough to turn the tide of battles previously thought lost. He glories in the thrill of battle.

Valoric does not, however, recognize any of the Allied chains of command. He attaches himself to whichever company amuses or interests him, follows along on their missions, fighting wherever possible, until he gets bored. He then leaves those comrades and carries on with a new set. Recently, Department Sigma of the OSS has reached out to him, hoping to earn the so-called GI Viking's trust so they might use him more strategically. In fact, they have a very special mission ready for him right now...

Abilities and Resources:

Valoric's abilities, delivered upon him by Odin's power and the passionate farewell kiss from a Valkyrie, have rendered him superhumanly strong with reflexes at the peak of human conditioning. Most impressive, though, is the inexhaustible stamina that has rendered him nearly immune to poisons and fatigue. It's also the reason that any wound, no matter how terrible, heals within seconds.

When these supernatural abilities are combined with is already impressive skills as a Viking berserker, Valoric is a peerless warrior. He is a terrible soldier, rarely if ever following orders, and is an even worse tactician. He simply wades into the fight where it is thickest and keeps stabbing and shooting until there are no enemies left.

The most surprising thing about Valoric is his willingness to learn new technologies as long as they're weapons. With is prodigious strength, GI Viking has taken to carrying multiple machine guns, grenades, and even a bazooka along with him wherever he goes. Combined with his usual axes and knives, he's festooned with weapons and ready for any battle.

Naturally, Valoric cuts a vicious figure on the battlefield. Allied troops don't necessarily want to be near him when he fights, but the Axis troops have been known to drop their weapons and run for the hills en masse.

Affiliations: Solo d8, Buddy d6, Team d10

Distinctions: Viking Commando, Peerless Warrior, Hotheaded Hero

Kissed By A Valkyrie

Enhanced Reflexes d8    Superhuman Strength d10    Godlike Stamina d12

SFX: Berserk - Add a die from the doom pool to one or more attack actions. Step up the doom pool die by +1 for each action; return it to the doom pool when you’re done.

SFX: Wild Attack - Add a d6 to your dice pool for an attack action and step back highest die in pool by –1. Step up Physical Stress inflicted by +1.

SFX: Unkillable - Spend 1 PP to recover your physical stress and step back your physical trauma by –1.

Limit: Exhausted - Shutdown any Kissed By A Valkyrie power to gain 1 PP. Recover power by activating an opportunity or during a Transition Scene.

Festooned With Weapons

Knives & Axes d6    Machine Gun d6    Bazooka d8

SFX: Grenades - Add a d6 and keep an additional effect die for each additional target.

SFX: Full Auto - Step up or double a Festooned With Weapons die against a single target. Remove the highest rolling die and add 3 dice for your total.

Limit: Gear - Limit: Gear - Shutdown a Festooned With Weapons power and gain 1 PP. Recover during a Transition Scene.

Milestones:

The Hun Are No Vikings!

1XP when you are angered by Nazis appropriating Norse culture.

3XP when you use Berserk on a Nazi and return a d12 to the Doom Pool.

10XP when you destory or utterly ruin a Nazi/Thule plot dealing directly with Norse culture.

Tora no Shi

Continuing the series of characters for my as-yet-unnamed Marvel Heroic campaign (no, Homebrewniverse, while clever, is not a name), I'd like to introduce you to Tora no Shi, the Tiger of Death. This character is also for Courtney Cantrell, but we aren't doing troupe play yet. That's probably going to require a little explanation.

Most RPGs (for the less interested or less informed) are one-character focused. One player has one character until the campaign ends or the character dies. Some games support troupe play where you have a rotating stable of characters you cycle through. We are planning to do that per Event, so it's something of a middle ground. In each Event, each player will only have one character. But the next Event will spotlight a different set of heroes in vastly different situations.

I'm taking the lead on this with two interlocking WWII focused Events. The first is stateside and will deal with a McGuffin that is then handed to another set of heroes in the European Theater for the second Event. Captain Tomorrow is Courtney's stateside character, Tora no Shi is her European Theater character.

Everybody got it? Good. Then here's a ninja from a time before ninjas were played out. (Yes, I realized we've reached a point in pop culture where ninjas are no longer played out. I'm very happy about it, but it doesn't negate the fact that the 80s sorta lit them on radioactive fire for a while.) A nod and thanks to Billy Tucci for some of the concepts, written in his comic book Shi, that I folded into this character.

Tora no Shi
Evelyn Hishikawa (Secret)
History:

Evelyn is the child of an American mother and a Japanese born, but nevertheless American citizen, father. They met in Hawaii, fell in love, moved to California to get away from the stifling and hidebound Hishikawa family.

Evelyn was born to the newlyweds shortly after their first anniversary. She was happy, but reserved. To give her confidence, her father taught her the secrets of the Hishikawa family. The Hishikawa were one of the few surviving ninja clans from the Tokugawa Shogunate period, though they could trace their lineage backwards much further.

Evelyn took to the training with fervor and passion, learning the skills better and faster than her father could have hoped. They did teach her confidence, though she never managed to become the outgoing, vivacious, social butterfly her mother was. She had just celebrated her 19th birthday a month before Pearl Harbror's bombing. Only another week passed before the authorities came to arrest her father.

The government allowed her mother to remain at large, but Evelyn and her father were put into one of the concentration camps for Japanese citizens meant to hold them while their loyalties were "assessed." Growing angry at the unfairness and impatient with the process, Evelyn used her mystical shinobi skills to sneak out of the supposedly inescapable concentration camp. She continued to infiltrate the office of the general running the camp. When the general came in, she dropped from the ceiling, took him hostage with a letter opener, and demanded to see someone who could "satisfy her honor."

Not sure who to call when ninja girls started threatening to behead generals with office equipment, the executive officer called in the Office of Strategic Services. When the dust settled, Mr. Hishikawa returned home to his wife and Evelyn became a member of the newly created OSS Department Sigma under a codename her father said had special significance to her family: Tora no Shi, the Tiger of Death.

Since then, Evelyn has been busy in the European Theater and beyond. When secrets needed stealing with none the wiser, there was Tora. When high-ranking generals or government officials had to vanish, there was Tora. When Thule machinations had to be destroyed well behind enemy lines, there was Tora.

The Tora no Shi is a ghost, a rumor, a myth used to scare German soldiers at all levels. The ones that know she's real are more than scared...they're terrified. Department Sigma is putting together a squad that won't skulk in the shadows, a team meant for higher profile missions. Evelyn volunteered immediately. The Tiger is ready to step into the light.

Personality:

Evelyn is quiet and reserved. She used to be shy, but months of skulking about in the most dangerous areas in the world and living to tell about it have turned that shyness into a taciturn confidence.  She is the essence of economy in word and deed. Though she speaks and acts rarely, when she does, it is with decisive precision.

But Evelyn is far from humorless. She enjoys playing pranks and practical jokes that only someone with her skills in ninjitsu could perpetrate. The other operatives in Department Sigma have learned to check above their doors, under their beds, and look for their wallets when the Tiger wanders the halls with a wry smile playing on her lips.

The only subject about which Evelyn remains prickly is the way her nation treats its Japanese citizens back home. While her immediate motivation in joining Department Sigma was to save her father, she hopes in her heart that every successful mission changes the heart or mind of another American officer or official about her people.

So far, Evelyn has done her best work solo, but she's taken a keen interest in group tactics. She's looking forward to the day that she can use her skills to support a teammate. For a woman who is used to her nearest backup being hundreds of miles behind her, ready to disavow as much as help, she's even more excited about a set of people she can trust to have her back. She only hopes that, in taking her skills so far outside their usual use, she'll still bring honor to her father and her country.

Abilities and Resources:

The ancient arts of the ninja have been refined by the Hishikawa clan until they reached superhuman proportions. Added to that, Evelyn is a particularly gifted student of the art. Her reflexes are honed to a razor's edge, she is able to make herself effectively invisible, can change her features subtly to blend into any group of people, and is even able to teleport short distances (though this brings with it a telltale puff of smoke and small flash of light). These abilities seemed fueled by her ancestors in a mystical fashion even her father was unable to explain.

In addition to her inborn abilities, Evelyn is a master of the many tools of the shinobi. Though most of these weapons are hand-to-hand and ancient, in her possession they are as deadly as any gun or bomb and decidedly more subtle. These weapons also double as tools for infiltration and sabotage.

Though much of the regular military looks upon Evelyn with suspicion, and even OSS remains at arms length, Department Sigma has nothing but trust in her abilities and character. This opens up the resources of an entire shadow war and the warriors who fight it. Wherever there are covert operatives of any Allied nation, Tora no Shi is known and welcomed.

Affiliations: Solo d10, Buddy d6, Team d8

Distinctions: Heroic Ambition, Ninja Master, Fades into the Scenery

Ancestral Ninjitsu

Invisibility d10    Shapeshifting d6    Superhuman Reflexes d10    Ninja Vanish d6

SFX: Ancestral Boost - Step up or double an Ancestral Ninjitsu die for that Scene, or spend 1 PP to do both. Take your second-highest rolling die of each subsequent action or reaction as emotional or physical stress.

SFX: Memory Surge - Use your current emotional stress die as your effect die, then step up your emotional stress by +1.

Limit: Conscious Activation - While stressed out, asleep, or unconscious, shutdown Ancestral Ninjitsu. Recover Ancestral Ninjitsu when you recover that stress or wake up. If you take emotional trauma, shutdown Ancestral Ninjitsu until you recover that trauma.

Shinobi Tools

Ninja-To (Weapon) d8    Miraculous Block (Enhanced Durability) d8    Swingline d6

SFX: Shuriken - Step up or double Weapon die against a single target. Remove highest rolling die and add an additional die to your total.

SFX: Kusarigama - Add d6 and step up effect die +1 when inflicting a complication on a target.

Limit: Gear - Shutdown a Shinobi Tools power and gain 1 PP. Take an action vs. the doom pool to recover.

Specialties: Combat Expert d8, Covert Master d10, Psych Expert d8, Acrobatic Expert d8

Milestones:

For My Ancestors

1XP when you first use your Ancestral Boost SFX

3XP when you make your Japanese heritage the subject of an argument or confrontation

10XP when you either embrace your heritage completely or deny it.

Shi Kage

1XP when you first inflict stress on a foe who cannot see you.

3XP when you make yourself visible in order to assist an ally and take stress from this action.

10XP when you choose to inflict physical trauma on a foe who has inflicted stress on you and at least one ally, or you choose to redirect stress from that foe as emotional stress and allow yourself to be stressed out.

Captain Tomorrow

I've started running a Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Game for some friends of mine. They're all total noobs when it comes to RPGs, but they were game to give it a shot and have been having a good time. The game suggests doing things in Events just like comics. You might think of it as Storylines for smaller things.

We got about halfway through the one in the book, but I didn't feel it was working very well because these friends aren't big comic book readers. They know who the big guys are, but the arc in the book required some...let's call it specialized knowledge about some fairly obscure villains. Combining that with the idea that I didn't want to bring up baby gamers who don't know how to gamemaster, and I hit upon an idea.

Each of us would take turns running an Event for a different team. Not just a different team of heroes, but different types of heroes. Somebody might run the Cosmic JLA/Avengers type game. Somebody might run the Nightstalkers type supernatural game. Somebody might do the street level vigilantes like Batman or Heroes for Hire. Somebody else might do the persecuted heroes like the X-Men. After taking a couple turns around the table, we'd have created a new superhero universe.

But, again, these are noobs. So I'm leading the way with two interlocking Events, both set in World War II. I want to make it clear how important punching Nazis is to the superhero genre. Also, once they've played through the Events, they can look at my notes and see how I put it together. It's a teaching exercise.

But this means making a LOT of characters. In this case, two sets of heroes: One focused on stateside spy smashing and crimebusting and one focused on European theater superheroics. So I'm going to spotlight these characters over the next few days. I'm in the process of writing backgrounds for all of them, statting them out, and making Milestones. I'm including the stats for any fans of Marvel Heroic, but the main thing to watch is the Milestones.

Milestones are basically the personal story arc that each character is going through at the same time they're punching all these Nazis. It should reward them for a character quirk or something they do often. It should reward them a little more for taking that quirk to the next level. Finally, it should reward big when the hero comes to a choice and makes it definitively one way or the other.

Today, we're going to start with Captain Tomorrow, Science Police Detective of the year 3012.

Captain Tomorrow
Detective Captain Tiw M'urow of the Science Police, c. 3012 (Public)
History:

Tiw M'urow is a Science Cop. Her old man was a Science Cop, her grandsire was a Science Cop, and her great grandsire was a Science Cop. There's been a M'urow on the force as long as there's been a force it seems like. As long as it meant a jetpack, some rayguns, and perps to bring in, Tiw saw no reason to change that.

In the year 3012, the Galactic Union is policed by a group of officers and detectives known as Science Police. They handle everything from petty crimes all the way up to crimes against Nature, like reality manipulation and time travel.

Due to her amazing skills in various areas of science, technology, and engineering, Tiw rose through the ranks of the Sci-Cops and joined the Chronal Crimes Unit as a full Detective Captain. Her doctorates in Chronal Physics and Time Displacement Theory opened up avenues to even higher promotion, but Tiw declined them all. Any further movement up the ranks would chain her to a desk, and for Tiw, that might as well be a death sentence.

Doc Ticktock, a low level, time travelling supervillain crook from the mid-21st century, showed up in Tiw's time and tried to steal weapons and technology to take back to the past with him.

Despite it playing a little fast and loose with the rules, Tiw used hot pursuit as an excuse to chase Ticktock all the way back to the mid 20th century. The early 1940s to be exact.

She quickly apprehended Ticktock, including impounding his time travel equipment. But, much to her shock, Tiw discovered some sort of massive chronal event happening in roughly 2012 had disturbed the timestream too much for her to return home.

Stranded in the 40s, Tiw is still trying to do the work of a cop as best she can with no partner, no backup, and technology that might as well be from the stone age. She's become something of a celebrity superhero when the newspapers misunderstood her name and dubbed her Captain Tomorrow.

Personality:

Despite her keen scientific and analytical mind, Tiw is a maverick cop. The only thing she's ever done by the book is throw it at criminals. She's a daredevil who tricked her jetpack out to go extra fast and her rayguns to shoot extra hard. She laughs in the face of danger and spits in the eye of crime.

A scientific genius as well as an action cop, Tiw tends to spout scientific formula and technological facts that justify her otherwise crazy behavior. She'll tell you exactly how her velocity to mass ratio as she rammed the space whale's uvula created the gastric spasm necessary to force the regurgitation of the the colony. And she'll be right every time.

Tiw tends to be a very "just the facts" cop when speaking with civilians, which belies her more action-focused demeanor once she gets on the case. All she wants is to be a good cop, and she's still trying to figure out what that means now that she's trapped more than a thousand years in her own past.

Thanks to the weirdness of the usual Sci Cop beat, she's fairly nonplussed by her predicament and is actually more interested in solving the chronal disturbance in 2012. Getting home would just be a happy side effect.

Abilities and Resources:

Tiw's standard issue Science Police uniform gives her access to abilities approaching superhuman powers in the 1940s. She is able to fly at incredible speeds, fire blasts of disintegrating radiation with pinpoint accuracy, survive in space or the ocean depths, and absorb deadly amounts of damage with her forcefield.

Her cybernetic HUD also gives her access to constant environmental readouts and enhances her senses to help solve crimes. In addition, the suit is self-repairing, even to the point of creating new components should critical systems be destroyed. Naturally, the more extensive the damage, the longer this takes.

Tiw holds several advanced degrees in disciplines the 1940s would consider superscience. She has a keen scientific mind and deductive intellect that, combined with her Sci Cop training, means she's rarely left in a situation where she can't create a device to assist her investigations.

Tiw has managed to scavenge quite a lot of supertech from battling supervillains of the era, although these devices are still painfully backward from her perspective. She has also discovered she can scavenge tech from her uniform and it will repair itself, leaving her with a still functional device for a time.

Though she hasn't been in the era long, Tiw has made several contacts in the scientific community and has become a sought after guest lecturer for many universities. She's taken advantage of these contacts, but it saddens her that she's more useful as a scientist in this era than as a police officer.

Affiliations: Solo d6, Buddy d8, Team d10

Distinctions: Woman out of Time, I Don't Have Time For This, Maverick Cop

Science Police Uniform

Laser Pistols d8      Forcefield d8     Jetpack d10        Cybernetic HUD d8

SFX: Reroute Power! – Shutdown your highest rated Science Police Uniform power to step up another Science Police power by +1. Recover power by activating an opportunity or during a Transition Scene.

SFX: Two Rayguns Blazing – Add a d6 and keep an additional effect die for each additional target.

SFX: Head Bubble – Spend 1PP to ignore Stress, Trauma, or Complications from vacuum, radiation, pressure, or airborne toxins.

Limit: Gear - Shutdown Science Police Uniform power and gain 1 PP. Take an action vs. doom pool to recover.

Specialties: Cosmic Master d10, Crime Expert d8, Medical Expert, Science Expert d8, Tech Master d10, Vehicle Expert d10

Milestones:

Finding My Place In This Time

1XP when you aid a hero for the first time.

3XP when you either ask to join a new team or turn down an offer to join one.

10XP when you either accept leadership of a team or leave your current team.

Where I Come From, We Solve Crimes With SCIENCE!

1XP when you reveal a new stunt associated with your Medical, Science, or Tech Specialties.

3XP when you successfully eliminate a threat by targeting it with your Medical, Science, or Tech Specialties.

10XP when you defeat a villain with all your Science Police Uniform Powers shut down but using two of your Medical, Science, or Tech Specialties.

Getting Out of God’s Business

Despite the fact that I mostly want to write about superheroes and marauding Viking heroes, I also want my writing to mean something to people. Whether that's using fantasy to tell them something deeper about the world or using guys in capes to suggest what real heroism might look like. However, as much as I want that, the only work I can do to make it happen is on the up front. I can plan, I can sweat blood over the words, I can fight/high five editors, but once I hit "publish," it's out of my hands.

It's good to be reminded of that, and running into this quote did that for me. Take it away, Ms. O'Connor!

When a book leaves your hands, it belongs to God. He may use it to save a few souls or to try a few others, but I think that for the writer to worry is to take over God’s business.

Flannery O’Connor

Crabapple

So my beloved and (now) intensely gregarious son, from here on known as Peanut, was nearly two before he spoke more than two words (one of which was not actually a word in any language I've ever heard of). He had recently learned sign language, which led to breakthroughs in communication, albeit not verbally.

Peanut learned many signs, but the first one almost certainly had to be "apple." It's an easy one and looks like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrV1KU3L3ek

Easy isn't the reason he learned it, though. He learned that one because my boy LOVES his apples. One time, a while later, after he was talking well, his grandmother asked if he wanted a brownie for dessert. He said, "No gram, I like apples better. Give me an apple, please."

So I show Sharon, our speech therapist, his enthusiasm over this sign and she basically tells me to stand and deliver for the little produce loving highwayman. If he asked for an apple with that sign, give it to him. Any time, as often as it took for him to realize that these symbols got him things he wanted. And so, for two weeks, I did just that. We went through some apples.

And some apples went through him. He was a prolific fecal producer during this golden age of golden delicious.

After those two weeks, Sharon said it was time to cut off the supply. No more apples for the sign. He had to say apple to get his treat. It didn't have to be perfect. It didn't have to be in the same ballpark as long as it was in the same league. Sign + Voice = Apples. I said no. She assured me it would be fine. I said no again. She said it would be foolish to squander so tantalizing a treat as this and I had to do it. I reluctantly agreed.

Bare moments after Sharon's visit, Peanut toddled up to me.

Me: What's up, kiddo?

P:

Me: Yes, apple! Good! Now say it. Ap...pull.

P:

Me: That's right, you want an apple. Say it with me. Ap...pull.

P:

Me: Kiddo, I can't give you one unless you try and say it. You don't have to be perfect, just try.

P:

Me: Right, I get it. You want an apple. Try and say app-pull.

P:

Me: Ok, I guess no apple this time.

I put the apple back in the fridge. Peanut glowered at me, then turned on his tiny heel, and stormed away as best as he could what with the fact that he tended to fall over every five or six steps. I signed, remembered how hard it had been to get him to use signs, and started mentally preparing for the next altercation.

It didn't happen the rest of the day. He didn't ask for an apple.

Day two, similar silence (ha ha) on the subject.

Day three, I got an apple out and showed it to Peanut. I asked him if he wanted an apple. I expected at least a nod or the sign, but instead I got an angry glare before he went back to playing with his blocks.

Day four, I ate a couple apples in front of him. This time I didn't even get glares. He just ignored me.

Day five and on to day seven, I gave up. I knew my boy was stubborn, but I hadn't realized it would go so far. It was a week without his favorite food. I was starting to feel bad about it. I called Sharon for advice. At first, she didn't believe me, but once I convinced her, she said that if he was going to be that stubborn, I had to stick to my guns.

Day eight, out of nowhere, Peanut toddles up to me. I think I was reading a comic book, because I remember having to put something down to look at him. The glare was back and those tiny, blue eyes shot daggers at me as I said, "What's up?"

He glared at me for a three count, then said, "Apple."

It was his first word that wasn't "mama" or totally made up and it had come out clear as a bell. Clear. As. A. Bell. After more than a week of refusing to even sign apple. I'm sure I stared, probably with my mouth hanging open.

"APPLE," he said again, more forcefully. So I jumped up, ran to the fridge, and I got the kid an apple. I got him a steady stream of apples. And after the second one, we were back to smiling at one another.

If this were a movie, you'd get a montage of the cute little boy suddenly talking like a champ, naming everything correctly, and even speaking in full sentences. It wasn't quite like that. We still had a lot of work to do, and with a kid that stubborn it wasn't always easy. But some kind of dam did break over that apple, because, while we had to work and practice a lot, his vocabulary started to grow leaps and bounds, sometimes it seemed every hour.

By the time he aged out of the program we were using, I was told he didn't need any more speech help. In fact, he was now ahead of the curve on vocabulary, usage, and complexity of sentences. And now, finally, we've got a kid who won't ever shut up and uses words like "heliophysics" because he heard it on a NASA video about the sun.

It's pretty hard to imagine a time when I hoped and prayed he'd start talking. Now I'm more likely to beg him to be quiet for a minute. Apparently, my wife and mother were more inoculated against this kind of behavior. They'd both lived with me for quite a while, after all.

The Quotable Peanut

Tomorrow I'm going to tell how my ridiculously stubborn child finally came to add a word to his vocabulary after months of "mama" and the nonsensical "igilee." But today, I'm going to share with you a few choice quotes from him that will make my tales of his non-talking days seem even more unlikely. What can I say, they're funny enough to undermine my own credibility.

For the first batch, a little context. My son honestly has a way with the ladies, young, old, and in between. Recently, a birthday party invite arrived from a female friend of his who was to turn seven. This invite asked Peanut to attend a slumber party. I called the HMIC (Head Mom In Charge) to see what other boys would be there.

"None," she said. "Your boy will be the only boy."

"What are they going to do at this party?"

"Eat pizza, eat cake, and watch My Little Pony."

I turned to my son. "Hey! Peanut! You want to go to an all girls party and stay the night?"

"No," he replied simply. "Wait, what will I do there?"

"Eat pizza, eat cake, and watch My Little Pony."

His eyes widened with pure joy. "I would love to go to the party!"

And so he went. It was his first sleepover anywhere other than Grandma's, but he was very sure and serious about it. I expected him to lose it when another one of the guests inevitably lost it. Instead, he probably would have gone the distance, except he wasn't playing any of the girl games. While they played princess or dress-up or whatever, he changed into his Batman PJs and snuck around fighting imaginary crime. Finally, the Senior Partner went to get him and, to keep him from getting upset about coming home, fed him a line about how I was missing him at home and so very sad without him. Thankfully, he bought it.

But not before he graced the party with some incredible lines.

When handed a glass of the party punch all the kids were drinking, he exclaimed, "If I drink that, I think I'll fall on the floor!"
The scene of the party is a two-story house with a very stout gate to keep the younger kids from going up and down the stairs. Peanut spent a few minutes yanking on it, but it wouldn't come open. The Birthday Girl came over and deftly popped the latch for him. "What amazing girls," he breathed before tearing upstairs.
We watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic in this house, I don't care if we are both boys. It's a great show. When we first started watching it, Peanut declared Rainbow Dash was his favorite. This kinda surprised me because Rainbow Dash is, frankly, a jerk. Flash forward many months to the birthday party. Rainbow Dash is also the favorite of the Birthday Girl, and we got her one I hoped she didn't already have. As soon as she opened it, Peanut yelled excitedly, "We got you Raindbow Dash! She's a jerk!"
The kids were, for once, all playing in the playroom. Peanut came out and asked his hostess where a cape was so he could be a superhero. The girls apparently have a Snow White cape or something, so she told him to go look harder. A few minutes later, he came back, still without a cape but "flying" around. When questioned, he said, "Don't worry, I found an invisible cape."
While the girls played What Time Is It, Mr. Owl? Peanut insisted, "I don't like owl games. I only like solar system games.
The Hostess had a broken toilet. The breakage made it very difficult to flush. Not realizing there was a problem, Peanut used the facilities. When he couldn't get it to flush, he came downstairs for help. "I'm faster than a speeding bullet, but I'm not strong enough to flush that potty."

Just so you don't think that slumber parties with girls are the only sources of amusement, let me share a tidbit from Saturday night. The Senior Partner and I had a wedding to go to and asked some friends of ours to watch Peanut for a few hours. They were happy to do it, so we dropped him off, and headed toward the wedding.

While sitting there waiting for the ceremony to start, my phone buzzed an alert. I had been mentioned on Twitter! I lurve it when I'm mentioned on Twitter, so I instantly checked it out. And this is what I found, sent from the friends who were watching my only son.

"When asked if he wanted to eat, your son said, 'Something disastrous came out of my body fast. And it hurt my bottom.'"

Hey, I want to be mortified. But that's comedy gold, people! You can't be embarrassed when it's that funny.

Boundless Curiosity

This morning, I was catching up on tweets and news from the Curiosity Martian Rover. I didn't stay up for it or get up for it. I probably should have, but last night, as my eyes grew heavy, it was easy to forget what a momentous thing it was, and to decide that sleep's importance trumped this grand endeavor. I was an idiot, and I've learned my lesson. I'm watching now.

And I'm really excited about it! A big reason is my son's current enthusiasm for all things space and solar system related. He is going to eat this stuff up with a spoon and come back for fourths. This fascination started several months ago and has held on longer than any of his little obsessions...except Spider-Man, but that's shaping up to be a lifelong love.

I can't help but see his mind fixating on the solar system for so long as anything other than Providence now. Since it's been months of studying, reading, and explaining, even his five year old mind began to grasp the vast distances, the harsh conditions, and the sheer difficulty in flinging anything from one orb to another in the cosmos. He's going to actually appreciate what we've done. As a father, that is amazing and illuminating.

Because I was thinking of Elijah's oncoming wide-eyed enthusiasm for all things Curiosity, I was able to get on the same train and shed some of my usual cynicism. Which is when I realized that's exactly what things like this are for. We are a grand and amazing species, capable of feats of imagination, engineering, and exploration. What ought to seem frightening is, instead, seen as a challenge, a gauntlet thrown down for us to pick up and run with...all the way to another planet if necessary.

This is what we're built for, people. We're built to do and be the impossible. We are built to be miraculous.

I thought about the Olympics and what a tremendous celebration of human achievement that is. Even as we're throwing machines across vast, interplanetary distances, we're also pushing our own bodies to do unattainable feats. Because that's what every new record is: A declaration that something once thought unbelievable is entirely within our reach.

I began to imagine a world where international conflicts were decided by Olympic style events. Rather than war, the deciding factor would be human bodies pushed to the absolute limit in a celebration of being powerful, physical beings. Instead of flung bombs and flying bullets reminding us just how frail we are, flung javelins and flying gymnasts would remind us just how strong we can be.

Even in Oklahoma, where sports rivalries can grow bitter and ugly, this is a brighter vision than war could ever be. No matter how supposedly noble your cause, those would be truly ennobling conflicts.

But it is far, far too easy to forget our potential when the news is about homes consumed in fires, crazed gunmen, starving or abused children, rapists, and wars of epic expense in money, lives, and peace. And if those tragedies weren't enough, there's the fog of simple banality laid over our everyday existence. We get lost in the mundane tasks we force ourselves to do. All so that, after far too many hours working for someone else's bottom line, we can come home to "a little comfort." Never mind that our basest comfort  is more than historical kings and god-emperors have enjoyed.

We are cracked mirrors, my friends, incapable of perfectly reflecting the glory for which we are meant. Or, far too often, we don't even reflect it at all. Most tragic, we forget that there's anything glorious we're supposed to be reflecting.

That's what the Tower of Babel story is about. When we work together, humanity is capable of the most incredible accomplishments. We can do nearly anything. But it cuts both ways. When we allow our hubris to win out over our kindheartedness, the victorious becomes the dreadful. Triumph becomes tragedy. Life, and what could have been life to the fullest, becomes murder.

Enter again the Curiosity. I imagined what our lives would be like if Mars landings were the order of the day rather than a pinnacle event. And I mean our actual, everyday lives; not just what we do all day, but our thoughts, hopes, dreams, fears, and all that other ethereal stuff that makes us us. You know, the stuff that really matters, all focused on the dignity of the human race.

We gifted ourselves with a glimpse of that today. In very different ways, I'm blessed with glimpses of that far more often than I deserve in a set of very special people (you all know who you are). Everybody! do yourselves a favor! Get a grip on this moment, on this glimpse! Demand it more often! Not just from idiot politicians and bosses who would buy your complacency with empty promises. Complacency did not get us to Mars. Demand it more often from yourselves.

Because Curiosity has a double meaning. Certainly our boundless curiosity and endless ingenuity allows humanity to do the impossible. But right now, it doesn't happen often enough to be anything other than a curiosity. That's the core of the tragedy that is us. Whether it's curing diseases, feeding the world, declaring peace, or colonizing other planets, I want to live in a world where the extraordinary is commonplace. I want to live in a world where we never forget just how amazing each and every one of us is.

Curiosity led the way, and I'm following. Who's with me?

The Sound of Silence

I realize few of you that know me in real life will believe this. And those of you who know my son in real life will accuse of me fanciful lies and outlandish hoaxes. But it's a tale that must be told despite what it will do to my reputation as a teller of truths. Surely somebody trust worthy will show up and back up this story.

Peanut didn't talk, not really, until he was almost two.

"Unbelievable!" say some. "Ludicrous!" yell others. "Cette incroyable!" scream my French readers (if I have any). But it is the truth. For a very long time, my son only spoke two words.

Mama, because he's an ungrateful wretch of a child and couldn't be bothered to speak the name of the parent that stayed home with him every day.
Igilee. I realize this isn't a word, but he said it clearly and ridiculously often. He said it more than Smurfs say smurf. I don't know what it meant, but he sure did and it applied to EVERYTHING.

Now, for some context for those of you that don't know us IRL, my son never shuts up now. Well, maybe when he's sleeping. But he talks himself to sleep. He talks to anyone who'll listen about Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, his pajamas modeled after these heroes' costumes, the solar system (in a frankly startling level of detail and clarity), whatever. It goes on and on.

And yet, we had to beg this child to talk. It was so bad that when we finally had experts check him out, the first thing they planned to do was test him for autism. I slapped my forehead, and declared that was the problem. He didn't speak, he didn't make eye contact, he sorted things into colors and shapes and such before he was a year old. I wasn't even upset, I was just glad to know what the problem was.

And then he tested entirely negative for autism. So we got a speech therapist named Sharon. Sharon was wonderful. She gave me small games to play with Peanut to get him to start making letter sounds. For instance, when we drove cars they no longer said "vroom vroom." Instead, they said "bub-bub-bub-bub-bub-bub." Sharon taught me dozens of these things and they made a huge difference. She also broke me of one stupid opinion I'd had AND assured me it was a reasonable, though totally wrong, thing to think.

I didn't want to teach Peanut sign language. I thought if I gave him an out from verbal communication, it would just be one more reason to not talk. Sharon assured me that, at this late stage, any communication was good communication and sign might help with his frustration level if nothing else.

Enter my friend in Hawaii, Julie. We also were lucky to have her. Julie's own daughter had some developmental issues and this is one reason Julie became so involved with BabySigns. She sent me a full set of the DVDs (along with macadamia nuts, coffee, and some other Hawaiian goodies).

These things are...well, frankly, I found them difficult to watch. They're baby-focused to the extreme and teach a themed set of signs (bath time, bed time, at the park). But the baby-focus really worked because they are literally the first TV my child ever cared to watch. Before that, no matter what I watched, if he was in the room, he ignored the screen entirely.

But he watched! And he learned! Very shortly, he learned the sign for his favorite food, apples. And the sign for apples led directly to the word apples. But it was a hard path for my deeply and abidingly stubborn son.

But I'll tell you about that next time.

More Sample Chapters!

Okay, this is the last one of these posts until later this month (hopefully) when Myth Reaver comes out. This is the first two chapters of Hob Lesatz for Hire, my first (and currently only, though I plan to do something about that shortly) Arcanoir joint.