#rpg diary

We're nearing the end of my friend's campaign, and we tipped over one of the main antagonists. I'm playing Leutitia Caywood VIII, a veteran Union pilot with a dope eye patch. She's had a rocky relationship with Prince Cassian, a leader in exile of the planet Scylla, only recently returned.

In the back of my throat

Unborn thoughts lie

They linger in my chest

Penultimate session of my friend's Lancer game. We fought a gigantic minotaur inside of a meta vault, and reached through a portal to snatch the perfidious HA creep who's been behind all the trouble.

We have one more session to go, but this puts me in a pickle because I feel more or less done with the character. Despite the complexities of her origin, her drives are simple- keep fighting the good fight for DoJ/HR, wherever that may lead. She's not Horus, being this close to the power of Ra can only be an existential threat.

Or perhaps lack of threat is the issue; it's hard to feel awe in these types of situation, in part because of the abstract nature of the environment, and in part because my character is shielded from that environment by her mech, the doughty Saladin frame "The Chain." There's layers here- Lieutitia pilots the mech, I pilot Lieutitia. The majesty of the metavault is obscured by two windshields.

I've made a few characters like Lieutitia before- people with strong viewpoints on the world, firm beliefs that aren't easy to shift. These beliefs often apply to what we Ought And Ought Not Trifle With, and this kind of paracausal NHP fuckery is definitely in the latter camp. The thing is that I want those positions to be CHALLENGED, and they usually aren't.

Thursday I played some more of the excellent and quirky Grasping Nettles. (https://adamebell.itch.io/grasping-nettles) The game is coming along nicely; we're playing it as world-building for Armour Astir Advent. I've had some difficulties with playing games as setting establishment- it's hard not to lean heavily toward my own desired outcomes- but I've struck a nice balance.

We did a scene with the Order of Branch and Ink, a group of shitty land-owning furry wizards who have recently branched(pun) into demon summoning and contracting. I played Viscount Omen, a big tiger-man who fancies himself the leader. It was a lot of fun to play a big evil guy, and I was channeling a bit of Bill Reis from Gene Wolfe's An Evil Guest.

In the story (of Grasping Nettles, not An Evil Guest) the Order had been shaken by the arrival of the extraplanar invaders, the Concordance. Those in the Order who were planning some kind of counterstrike had been sold out by the Lady Crest (who is a secretary bird fyi). So this new meeting of wizards grumbling about Crest's betrayal are threading the needle- they're ambitious and discontent, but they're not stupid/angry/brave enough to have been caught up in the first plan to strike back against the Concordance. As it was, Omen brought the rest of his fellows around to his plan- take up positions in the Concordance's power structure, bide their time, gather power, and wait for them to make a mistake.

Saturday! Heart! A shortened game due to holiday circumstance. The gang left the Red Market, picked up the delinquent junior incarnadines Dwight and Gamble, and made their way to an outcropping of the Carotid Forest. I got to make up a little woodcutter's crew of the undead, and their foreman Arnest. Very fun to do this raspy skeleton voice. He smoked a pipe!

The whole episode with the Carotid Forest came out of the Delve Draws system from Ichor-Drowned (Sillion L & Brendan McLeod) in such a smooth and seamless way, the cards just spoke to each other in an obvious way. After re-listening to the Sangfielle finale eps, I am going to attempt to keep the delve draws a little more loose and spontaneous, allow for more random encounters. Maybe something that would fit well with the Heartsea concept.

So as of late, I've been GMing for lancer, specifically running through NRFAW, since I haven't done a module for a game in ages, and it seems to be a pretty good one. We have 6ish players, but I've been overclocking the combats to kind of make up for it. My players all LL4, and are:

Dustmite, who had a strange NHP like creature latch onto him during a raid on a Metavault.

Mudskipper, who was trapped in said metavault for ~500 years. (Just enough time to have connections to the original Hercynian Crisis)

Butcher, a mech engineer and designer who joined the team after having his work stolen, and is here to start a new run.

Shadow Dragon, a hotshot ace who seeks to prove themselves to their asshole parents in SSC.

Cavalier, who spent years on the wrong side of the tracks and is trying to finally make it up to his brother "Mauler" with CRT Contingency White.