Ten Monsters of a Dubious Fascination

Jumping on the monster band wagon here; I'm probably missing a few, since I don't actually have my Monster Manuals around to flip through.

1. Yak Folk. Shapes-shifting sorcerers who can summon genies and like to capture slaves? Sign me up. Motive, modus operandi, and a sense of style. Pity I never got to actually use one in a game -- I had plans, but the campaign ended.

2. Yuan-ti. Used them once, in the same campaign that was going to host Yak Folk. I'd dropped hints that there was this psionic Yuan-ti empire off in the distance, scheming schemes and causing trouble, but then the campaign ended, as previously mentioned. At any rate, I've got this thing for the darkest reaches of the jungle, and ancient temples built by degenerate civilizations, and Yuan-ti fit that bill nicely.

3. Ochre Jelly. I almost used these, once, in the session that became Gnome Town. That was originally going to be sort of a horror scenario, and I thought it'd be great if they started dropping from the ceiling and dissolving people. Someday.

4. Gelatinous Cube. Never used this one in a game, either. Noticing a pattern, yet? My D&D games in high school were never long on monsters, I guess. But gelatinous cubes are just cool. I don't know how you can't like a gelatinous cube. If I ever run 3rd edition again, I'm going to be sorely tempted to engage in some template foolishness -- you can give one an Int score high enough to take a class with the Fiendish Creature template, and then you're only a few levels of Monk away from a cube with a speed of +35 ft. and the ability to deflect arrows.

5. Naga. Mostly because of Nagathas, from the Monster Manual IV -- humanoids that spirit nagas have kidnapped, to twist into dark servants. (I always thought it'd be neat for that to happen to some NPCs the party knew.) But the whole guardians-of-ancient-magic thing rocks pretty hard, just on its own.

6. Werewolf. Mostly for the classic monster mojo; who doesn't like to play "guess the werewolf?" as peasants get slaughtered? I've also had some fun with them in campaigns past, using tribes of them as the "semi-hostile humanoids living uncomfortably close to town." They're a good mix of civilized and crazy monster, which makes them very versatile.

7. Golems. I've always loved robots and created beings in general, and I like the particular aesthetics that golems have. Unfortunately, I've never had a group get high enough level to really deal with a golem -- but next time I run D&D, I'm not going to let that stop me.

8. Blue Dragon. Why I didn't use these in the desert game I ran (the one that was going to have Yuan-ti and Yak Folk) I'll never know. Never got around to it, I guess. These are my dragon of choice, because I like the idea of dragons who think of themselves as lords of their domain, but are still more interested in dragon-y things -- eating sheep, collecting treasure -- than actual politics.

9. Storm Giant. Giants in general are a big list of creatures I never used because I never ran a high enough level game. At some point, I'm going to run a very giant-centered game, where most of the known world is ruled by different clans of giants. The players would be the members of the oppressed tiny folk small enough to fit into those weird catacombs that the giants don't know about.

10. Constrictor Snake, Giant. Um. Yes. Every campaign I've run for the past, oh, five years, all except the first two, have featured, at some point, a giant snake that tried to crush and eat the party. I don't quite know why, except that it's fun. Who doesn't like it when a giant snake tries to crush and eat the party?

Superior Scribbler

So Sirlarkins, author of the most excellent blog The RPG Corner, has gone and given me the Superior Scribbler Award, which is pretty neat. A bit mind-boggling, perhaps, but very nice of him. He writes:

To me, Odyssey is a living example of the "go play" attitude--seems she's always plotting or scheming about a new campaign to map out or a new system to take a creative monkey wrench to. I can definitely sympathize. Yet, here's the thing folks--she manages to run games too! Too many would-be GMs, I think, fall victim to what I like to call the "Stanley Kubrick syndrome," getting caught up in the perfectionistic quest to perfect every set, shot, part, and line of dialogue. Sometimes you just have to grab your camera and start shooting. Odyssey shows us you can have your cake and eat it too.

Which, to me at least, is illuminating. I don't give a whole lot of thought to what this blog is "about." It tends to be "about" whatever dang fool thing popped into my head most recently. So the suggestion that there is, in fact, something resembling topical coherence in there--well, it's interesting to me, at least.

But the point of the Superior Scribbler award is that those who receive it get to pass it on to five other blogs who they think deserve it. I happen (as others have noted) to think that there are a lot more than five blogs out there that count as "exceptional," since I read a lot more than five. On the other hand, a lot of those are gaming blogs, and considering the speed this thing is already sweeping through the game blog-o-sphere, most of the good ones should get picked up by someone. So I figured I'd pick out the five best blogs that aren't part of our little cross-linked universe that still ought to have some interest to gaming folks.

Fraggmented: John Seavey writes about a lot of things, most of them geeky. Of particular interest to me is his series on storytelling engines--their creation and maintenance, as well as the various things that can go wrong with them. He starts out mostly writing about comics, but has since expanded to just about everything; movies, TV shows, books, you name it. Even beyond the purely academic (or even writerly) interest I'd have in such a topic, there's a lot of points to consider when setting up a campaign, since those are often built on long term story-generating status quo's themselves.

Square Mans: Mathew Colville is another eclectic blogger -- but he does a fair amount about gaming, of both the tabletop and digital varieties. And he doesn't just write about them--he analyzes them, writing long, intellectual posts whose intensity just about makes up for their infrequence.

I Waste the Buddha With My Crossbow: Dr. Rotwang writes about GMing! And the eighties! He's the guy who got me in to Traveller, and he writes a lot about not taking this GMing stuff so dang seriously, which is a good antidote for the kind of compulsive perfectionism all those GMing advice websites, great as they are, can engender. I know I've kind of broken my "no blogs that other people I read will probably hit" rule, but dang it, this was one of the very first blogs I started reading back when I first started getting into this crazy sub-hobby, and it's great.

Zompist's E-Z rant page: Now, what's really amazing is Mark Rosenfelder's main website, where Virtual Verduria and The Language Construction Kit reside, but it's not a blog, and his rant page is pretty spiffy too. He's a conlanger and world-builder par excellence, so there's a fair amount of advice and information regarding those two topics. No comments allowed, sadly, but he does write about economics and politics so it's probably just as well.

A Villain's Life: Not in any way gaming related (unless you're running a superhero game, I guess) Doctor Cataclysm's personal weblog is just fun. Cataclysm makes for an entertaining narrator, and where else are you going to see catfish men trying to destroy the earth with crystal resonance and an android from the future with a baked goods subroutine gone awry.

And, finally, the rules:

• Each Superior Scribbler must in turn pass The Award on to 5 most-deserving Bloggy Friends.
  
• Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author & the name of the blog from whom he/she has received The Award.
  
• Each Superior Scribbler must display The Award on his/her blog, and link to This Post, which explains The Award.
  
• Each Blogger who wins The Superior Scribbler Award must visit this post and add his/her name to the Mr. Linky List. That way, we'll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who receives This Prestigious Honor!
  
• Each Superior Scribbler must post these rules on his/her blog.
  

Challenge: Media Influences

I'm a little late to the party, but here's the deal: James Edward, from Lamentations of the Flame Princess, has challenged the members of the role-playing blogosphere to list at least five media influences on their campaigns, and explain them. Check the links back to the challenge itself to see the power and majesty of the thing. Mine include:

Dune
Not the first book I fell in love with, but one of the earliest, and the deepest. It was one of the first science fiction books I read after discovering the genre through a book report on Asimov and--wow. It's the book I re-read every couple of years, often during NaNoWriMo. It's probably responsible for the amount and intricacy of the politics that tends to work its way into my campaigns, as have its particular vision of transhumanism (both the Bene Gesserit and Tleilaxu varieties) and image of an unconquerable wasteland.

A Wizard of Earthsea
One of the few fantasy novels I've read; my tastes and habits have always run towards the science side of speculative fiction, though that's beginning to change. It's got a cultural depth that I've never quite been able to imitate, beyond working some non-medieval details into my worlds. It's also probably the reason that every time I really think about how magic works in my world, it ends up related to words in some way, though for me it's usually writing rather than speech.

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
Flawed heroes! Magic rings! Epic quests! The other fantasy novels I've read, besides Earthsea and Lord of the Rings. Magic tied to the land, wise and seafaring giants, the whole "white gold wielder" thing, prophecy--these things speak to me.

Animorphs
The whole teenagers with superpowers thing was a big deal to me, at the time, and probably still is. Especially teenagers whole honestly like having their superpowers; the Animorphs never complained about having their powers, they complained that they had to deal with evil aliens, and couldn't get any help because they might be anywhere. Being a long-running, ensemble based series, it's a good model for team dynamics, the right mix of tension and co-operation, and how to give each character the right amount of spotlight time. It's also very talky, which is more noticeable in my writing than my DMing, but my ideal games do have a fair bit of chatter, both between PCs and with NPCs.

The Elder Scrolls
By which I mean Morrowind and Oblivion, not having played any of the earlier games. Morrowind, particularly, defines my ideal fantasy tone, a blend of mostly normal medieval/roman and bizarre bug creatures wandering around in the desert. I've tried, with varying degrees of success, to create fantastic ecologies for me games, and especially to use weird domesticated beasts, mostly because there aren't any normal animals in Morrowind, and how cool this is in the game.

Oblivion's influence is the most obvious of any of the items on this list, because I lifted the core of the plot to provide a backbone for the Is This Fair campaign. It worked out very differently, and I had changed enough things originally to make it distinct from the video game, but having a guideline was handy. I did, unfortunately, end up having the plot revolve around an NPC -- which is how it works in the game, but I should have known better. Especially since thinking about Oblivion and its major NPCs helped me work out some basic principles on how to make them important without upstaging the players.

On a less embarrassing note, it's also had an influence on the kinds of game I want to run. A great deal of my interest in sandboxes, with ancient ruins and collectible locations, is due to enjoying exploring Cyrodiil. And I'd like to use a something similar to the Imperial Cult in a future setting.

The Lord of the Rings
Well, duh, right? For the most part, though, I'm not into any specific setting details -- none of the non-human races are crazy enough for my tastes -- except maybe the long-lived line of kings descended from ancient glory days bit. I like the setting in the book, but I don't have a whole lot of interest in emulating it in my games. What I do like is the comradery and courage of the fellowship and the people around them. It doesn't work in every game I run, but I like to encourage it, when appropriate.

Special Bonus Non-Influence: Anime
There's nothing particularly wrong with it, and I've probably incorporated a specific idea from a specific show I've seen a couple episodes of here and there. But a lot of my friends are really into it -- which is why I've seen most of what I've seen -- and I've just never particularly cared. Except for when I was seriously into DragonballZ, but I claim extenuating circumstances.

There are probably some other influences and non-influences I missed, but that's a pretty decent list of the things I'm aware of. Except for "history," I guess, which seemed a little vague to give it's own spot, but I really do love settings and stories based on ancient culture and myth.

I sang to a llama because that’s how I roll

Got this awesome blog meme from Jeff's Gameblog. It's just crazy enough to work!

Fwd: I smelled a noodle because I'm sexy and I do what I want.
Fwd: I yelled at my science teacher because I'm sexy and I do what I want.
Subject: I ran over a stuffed animal because Big Bird said to and he's my leader

Work the 3 tables below, then: type out the sentence you end up with in the subject line of a blog post and copy this text. Also, link back to the blog you read it on. DON'T LEAVE ME HANGING ALONE!

Pick the month you were born:
January-------I kicked
February-----I loved
March--------I karate chopped
April----------I licked
May---------- I jumped on
June---------- I smelled
July-----------I did the Macarena With
August-------I had lunch with
September---I danced with
October------I sang to
November----I yelled at
December----I ran over

Pick the day (number) you were born on:

1-------a birdbath
2-------a monster
3-------a phone
4-------a fork
5-------a snowman
6-------a gangster
7-------my cell phone
8-------my dog
9-------my best friends' boyfriend
10-------my neighbor
11---- ---my science teacher
12-------a banana
13-------a fireman
14-------a stuffe d animal
15-------a goat
16-------a pickle
17-------your mom
18---- ---a spoon
19------- a smurf
20-------a baseball bat
21-------a ninja
22-------Chuck Norris
23-------a noodle
24-------a squirrel
25-------a football player
26-------my sister
27-------my brother
28-------an ipod
29-------a surfer
30-------a llama
31-------A homeless guy

Pick the color of shirt you are wearing:
White---------because I'm cool like that
Black---------because that's how I roll.
Pink----------because I'm NOT crazy.
Red-----------because the voices told me to
Blue----------because I'm sexy and I do what I want.
Green---------because I think I need some serious help.
Purple--------because I'm AWESOME!
Gray----------because Big Bird said to and he's my leader.
Yellow--------because someone offered me 1 ,000,000 dollars
Orange --------because my family thinks I'm stupid anyway.
Brown ---------because I can.
Other---------because I'm a Ninja !
None----------because I can't control myself.

Now type out the sentence you made and put in your subject line and copy the text of this post.

Don't forget to link back to the person that tagged you!