“Sorry, lads, but you are going to have to walk next to the cart.” Hermes sitting next to his wife, occasionally cracking his reins.
Asteria looked like he was about to complain, but Aldrich interrupted, “That is fine. We are used to walking.”
Orroark just jogged back from scouting, “I seen some bees just up ahead. One looks aggressive. What should we do?”
“Stop the cart, are there any different types of giant bees or just workers?” Aldrich turned to look at Hermes.
Enes nodded, “We have noticed some soldier bees occasionally roaming the fields.”
“Let us move forward, wait until….” Staring up at the sun, it was about mid-morning, “An hour then follow.”
Orroark pulled his book of slicing and chucked it on the back of the cart, and then pulled out his Big Book, “Time to ask for late fees!”
Asteria cocked a well-shaped eyebrow, “Late fees?”
“Well, you know, late fees for late books. Um, library…. Bah, let us smash the bees.” Orroark stammered.
“What does the area look like?” Aldrich asked Orroark.
“Just outside the forest we are heading for, we might be able to scare off the workers, but as soon as we are seen, that soldier one will attack.”
“Fine, I’ll head off and flank them. You Orroark head straight in, and Asteria wait then throw some magic.” Aldrich instructed.
“Time to get those returns!” Orroark roared.
With that, Aldrich went into a crouch and move off. Orroark swung his Big Book of Bashing to loosen up while Asteria started to have electricity spark between his fingers.
Coming over the small hill, they saw the crop of trees and three bees. Two were flying from each flowering branch, each strained as the bee taking the pollen. The lone bee made sweeping patrol between two, but this one was at least 6 feet long, and the stinger was massive.
Orroark moved ahead of Asteria, his weapon ready. Asteria flung out a spark of lighting, just a tiny jot but hit one of the workers. Suddenly the warrior bee flew aggressively towards Orroark.
“Why did you attack the worker!” Orroark roared as he charged to intercept the two massive bees.
“I missed, or maybe didn’t know which one was the right one.” Again another spell started to form in Asteria’s hands.
With a substantial two-handed arc, Orroark clobbered the lead bee. “No colour spray; they are immune!”
“What?” The coloured sand effect faded from his hand, “Fine!” so Asteria let off another jolt towards the worker bee and missed.
Swinging again, Orroark smashed his Big Bash into the ground, missing. Dirt erupted from the attack. The warrior bee returned to stick Orroark with his big stinger, piercing his left side flooding his body with poison.
“Damn it!” Orroark bellowed as he attacks with gusto, smashing into the side of the bee knocking it down onto the ground.
Just as he did that, Aldrich appeared and jumped upon the back of the warrior bee, striking the base of the wing. Asteria blasted the worker bee again with magic, its body spasming from the second dose of electricity.
Orroark swung his Big Book above his head and brought it down on the soldier’s head, “You forgot your book return!”
Aldrich leapt off the back of the warrior and rushed towards the other bee, slashing with his dagger, slicing off two of its legs. Asteria threw another bolt, and with a bit of flutter, the second bee dropped to the ground.
Orroark held his side, “Weak poison, at least that is one thing.”
Asteria walked up, “Hold still,” A light burst from his hands, and he touched Orroark’s side. “This should help, still a bit weak for a healing spell.”
The bleeding slowed then stopped after six seconds. Orroark smiled a tusky grin. “Did you hear my finishing move statement?”
“Book return?” Aldrich asked.
“Yeah, I smashed him with my Big Book of Bashing…. It works; I returned the book to his head!” Orroark tried to explain.
Asteria stood next to his brothers, “Don’t worry, it works. At least you hit the right bee.”
They stood there and watched the last bee fly away. Maybe this might not be as hard as the brothers thought.
Tag: Role-playing
Blood Brothers: Part Six
Waking up the following day, Asteria could see both his brothers already ready to go. Orroark pointed to the bowl on the table. “They brought in breakfast; I’m going out back to do my exercises.” Turning to Aldrich, “Want to spar?”
Giving a huge yawn, Aldrich shook his head. “I am a little tired this morning, when you lot ‘helped’ with the dishes, I went to talk to the farmers Enes and Hermes. They have been working on a scaled-up hive for the bees; if we can capture the queen, they are willing to give us fifty gold pieces.” It was really 150 gold, but Aldrich kept that to himself, “But I need you two to cut down some trees so they can finish off the hive.”
Asteria sat up straight. “You promised that we will cut down trees. Why can’t you help?”
Aldrich shrugged, “I did get us ten smokesitcks and a net as well with the payment of 50 gold. Also, I am tired and need to rest if we want to go after the hive this afternoon.”
Orroark asked, “Were these the people that knew the comings and goings of the bees?” Aldrich nodded, “Damn you, Aldrich, I wanted to ask them questions.”
“They didn’t know much than you knew, so come on and eat Asteria; you have a big day ahead of you.” Aldrich smiled at his scowling brother.
They all ate and geared up. Heading out the bunkhouse, Asteria spied Teresa. “We have finished with our bowls, sorry we can’t help this morning, bees to deal with.”
“Not like you helped that much last night either, Asteria.” Teresa teased.
“That is true, but I was good company, though.” Asteria winked at Teresa then strutted off.
Orroark watched the interchange, shaking his head at his brother, Asteria. When will he just not go after every skirt available? Still, I learned a lot about different types of wood for cutlery. He then followed Asteria.
Aldrich nodded at Teresa, then jogged up with his brothers. “Okay, we head north, then take the first right path. Not far from there.”
“What tree are we using?” Orroark asked.
“Um, Trees?” Aldrich replied.
Orroark hid his sigh by checking the harness for his Big Book of Bashing. “I mean, certain types of wood would be better for a humid condition, like in a beehive.”
Asteria laughed at Orroak and Aldrich. “Aldrich, you did say that these farmers raise bees?” Aldrich nodded, “So, Orroark, you just have to chop down the trees they point out.”
“What do you mean, I will be chopping the trees down? By myself?” Orroark remarked.
Asteria shook his head, “No, no, you won’t be doing it alone.” He bluffed his younger brother.
Then the three brothers walked in silence, even though they are used to a larger town, both people and size, but this one is quite quaint. Following the cobblestone road, they took the right path, which is just packed gravel.
Orroark pointed at the road, “You know the gravel would help with drainage, so wagons….”
“We don’t care, Orroark. I know you like to know stuff, but it is a road.” Aldrich interrupted.
Muttering under his breath, Orroark grumbled. “Well, I think it is interesting.”
Asteria slapped his large brother’s back. “Don’t worry what grumpy is saying, but I do find it interesting that they invested in this type of road for a farmer’s track.”
“My yes, Asteria,” Orroark excitingly exclaimed, “Not even the farms around our town have this level of care for the roads.”
Aldrich started to walk faster, as he didn’t want to be dragged into talking about roads. Ten minutes later, the brothers reached the farm; the central part of the farm is filled with sunflowers, while the backfield is filled with fifteen boxes and behind that is a half-built barn.
Seeing the two gnomes doing everyday chores around their household, feeding the chickens, feeding the ponies and drawing water from the well. Seeing the three brothers, a gnome with a straw brimmed hat with a mesh veil covering his face.
“Ah, Aldrich, right?” Aldrich nodded as he approached the farmer. The farmer flipped his mesh veil up. “And these are your brothers?”
It wasn’t new that people doubted that these three were blood-related, but that is what happens when you are born from a half-orc and a half-elf.
“Yes, this is Asteria and Orroark.” Aldrich introduced his two brothers. “And this is Hayes, over there is his wife, Enes.”
Hayes waves, “Okay then, just finishing up with hitching up my ponies. Then we are off to chop down some cedar trees.” He looked at the three, “Where are your axes and saws?”
Orroark grabbed another book weapon, this one has a beaten metal edge attached to the spine of the book, and again it is bolted into a length of wood.
“This can do the job, but we don’t have a saw,” Orroark said.
Looking sceptical at the ‘tool’, “Sure, come on, I’ll chuck mine on, but it is sized to me.” Looking at Orroark bludging arms. “But I think we don’t need to worry about that. You chop, and I will say. Then we will finish building my giant hive for the bees.”
Becoming a Plot Snob.
The thing about becoming more experienced in writing is that you start to notice things in other books or media. Some authors can spot grammatical errors from a mile away or be very forward in pointing out spelling mistakes. I have been finding, that I am not a Grammar ‘Nazis’ but a Plot Snob.
Most of my life, I have been a roleplayer, either pen and paper or computer games and I love watching movies and exciting television programs. Lately, I started to see plot holes in the premise of said work, and when beta-reading, I can see a loose thread quite quickly. Which brings me to my next dilemma, how to ignore it.
When I realised that I was becoming this snob of plots, was when someone in my gaming group was pitching ideas for upcoming games. I can understand that it is just the foundation but wow they were all boring, and I could see the direction the ‘story’ would have gone. Of course, I said no, I am not interested, but I like hanging out with my mates.
My issue is that I start to think, how can I improve this story or can I tell it differently to make it enjoyable. I haven’t found too many writers that I have that opinion, some are not my cup of tea while others are marvellous. Seeing substantial plot holes in a television show, especially police or crime shows. I use to love watching these shows, but now they are just so by the formula.
So at beginning of the show, crime happens, police or investigators question people to the point that they might push their civil rights, but as long as they find the ‘bad’ guy, it is all good. Then some very obvious clue takes them to a bad guy, and then the interrogation happens. After a few threats/questions with no lawyer present, they confess to everything! Boring!
If you keep walking down that well-trodden road, you’ll find that people become bored. I’m not saying I am perfect, but due to this train of thought, I will always try to improve my storylines to make sure they are not formulaic.
Unexpected Discoveries: First Session of Enter the Dreamscape
Up again in the middle of the night being excited about playing in Shannon’s and his co-creator Kristopher’s fledgeling system, Enter the Dreamscape. This playtesting session was marvellous, with the creativity, the wonder and the ability to be anything you want to be. All that stops you is your imagination. As this is my first dive into the game, I could see lots of positives but like most systems there are some flaws and without spoiling the system I will try and go through them.
Joined by five of my friends in Shannon’s game. Each one had the different level of role-playing experience and skill. Some were more on the technical side of role-playing while others have a love of just diving in head first into their creativity. I feel that I would be of the latter as I like to have fun in role-playing games and tell fantastic stories. I have still blown away with the quickness of creating characters in this system, and the freedom that you have envisaged a new character. The game is about being a ‘Dreamer’ in the Dreamscape to interact with a vast number of genres. As the Dreamer, you have tremendous control over the environment of the Dreamscape, but like all role-playing games there are levels, and you are not as powerful in the beginning but as a team of Dreamers you can achieve remarkable things in this system. We all ended up with the weirdest avatars in our Dream-state, I was a bodiless entity that had the ability to project imageries into others minds, another player had a hybrid abomination which looked like a gelatinous blob with one arm a crocodile head and the other a dragon head that breathed fire. While another was a half human snow fairy (only a few inches tall) with dragonfly wings that looked like snowflakes that drove around in a robotic suit that was an enormous size. The other three were a Primal wolf spirit encased in bone and fur with a primal howl, an infected human who is in an alien robotic suit/insect carapace armour that had an anti-gravity sphere bestowing him flight and a ghostly gentleman with magical powers. As you can see these are not standard archetypes like in other gaming systems.
Then Shannon opened up to the realm in the Dreamscape. We found ourselves on a garlic bread ship set adrift in a spaghetti and meatball sea, with Calzone whales ‘Whalzones’ and other Italian food base aquatic animals. In the distance, we see a plume of smoke. We have to think of ways outside the box to direct the ship towards the plume, e.g. lassoing a whalzone to pull the ship. As it very apparent that ‘we aren’t in Kansas anymore’, before we could become accustomed to this idea, all the inanimate objects all around the ship morphed into giant lava cake golems. Here was our first fight, with all the positives of creation and creativity. The system itself does have a some minor pitfalls when it comes the statistical part of combat, as there was a high probability chance of complete failure. Being ‘ghosted’ or knocked unconscious quickly by the elemental minions. Causing some issues in playing the game. Straight away Shannon could see the unbalance, but then he changed it so the chance of failure had a lesser impact. Even with that I can see a little more fine-tuning is needed. While the combat is not perfect the concept of how the ‘enemies’ interact with you is good. Instead of a couple of tough enemies, they were a large mob where every hit can drop one. Allowing your attacks to be more descriptive and to break outside the fundamental thinking ‘roll dice to hit, then roll for damage’ mentality from other gaming systems. This variety within combat grants Dreamscape to become more immersive.
I immensely enjoyed playing in ‘Enter the Dreamscape’, from the quick creation of characters to the easy to follow character sheets and easily grasped system to the pure imagination of the world of the Dream. Because of the personal mark, you have on your character you have more of a deeper connection to it. Even with the small imperfections in the combat system, it does not detract from the pleasure I had playing in the game. This is the reason why these systems are playtested, to help see the glitches and to move towards perfecting it. I am looking forward to the next chapter in my series ‘Unexpected Discoveries’ for Shannon’s and Kristopher’s ‘Enter the Dreamscape’.
Update: I talk to Shannon this morning and he has addressed the issues about the high chance of failure in combat. This is showing that the playtest is working, and he is considering every angle.
Unexpected Discoveries
A couple of Saturdays ago, my friend Stephen and I were holding our first lecture; World-building: for Fictional Writers and Campaign settings. After five weeks of work and promotion; this is a lot of hard yakka! The night before I went down, rearranged seats, tables and brought chocolates with notepads for our participants. Even something small always seems to make a little difference. I woke up at four thirty am and apparently so did Stephen, my offsider. When your mind racing with anticipation, it will beat any old alarm clock. Didn’t think a suit was needed as I was wearing smart casual, but Stephen didn’t think so; typical planners, always over preparing. As this was our first lecture, anxiety seems reasonable but that question niggles your mind. How many people will rock up? My guess was between five to ten.. There we waited. Ten am rolled around, nobody. Ten past ten, still not a living soul. At this point, one walks in… And he was the only one.
Now you see this and think, great here goes another rant about ranting or he will give some speech on ‘I put myself out there and nothing! Why even try?!’. If you think that is going to happen, read the title, Unexpected Discoveries. Shannon Wright was such a discovery.
After introducing ourselves, we asked what about his background is and wow, he was a beta tester for role playing games and had knowledge of many gaming systems. He stated why that our lecture would give some insight into the creating of worlds. First question there, what are you working on so we have some idea on how we could help. He asked me something about my world; I talked about the speed of travelling on a road in Favinonia. Then he asks a question which I couldn’t answer ‘How does know the knowing the speed of the trip impact on your story?’, after mumbling over some pathetic replies, I didn’t know.
Then he recounted a story about doing a game in a traditional system; the first kid wanted to be a typical archetype class, straight from the players handbook and that was it. The boy’s younger sister wanted to play too, and her character was a princess who can talk to animals. As there was no class representing this concept, he chooses something close to it then make up the rest. Then the next youngest wanted to play as the animal companion of the Princess that was no problem. Now it time to roll up the stats and read what all this means. As older players, that is all good but with kids, it is pretty annoying. Then he had an epiphany and this why he was here about world creation, Shannon was creating his role-playing system.
The System is called ‘Enter the Dreamscape’ and the best way to describe it is if you can think it up, you can do it. After hearing this, both myself and Stephen were excited to create characters, as we are used to other systems which could take hours. We were surprised at how quickly it was to create a character and a concept. My concept was Blood Avatar in an exo-suit and Stephen was a Shadow Imperial Chinese Dragon. Both ideas were acceptable and much more. Say if I wanted to be a clay sculpture of a Hercules that had come to life, I could. This concept is similar to the Hero System as you think it can happen. The difference between Heroes and Dreamscape is time and understanding. Took me half a day to read, choose and understand in creating a character. And that is not even understanding on how to play the game. Within ten minutes, I created a character and came up with my concept, then how to play it was instinctual. You have a Mental and Physical attributes, seven general skills, traits and powers which have a connection with these two characteristics. That is it, as they choosen at random, all that stops you is your imagination. Then Shannon levelled us up, and that took no time at all. And if we wanted to we had the option of changing our concepts or evolving them. I choose to develop, so it became Blood Avatar with Rune Exosuit as I was very Physical but lacked in Mental attribute, so the runes part change that and made me more balanced.
I spent nearly six hours with Shannon, most of that was talking about world creation and role-playing, then being excited about play testing his system. I can tell you that I have never once had this complete understanding of a system in mere minutes. As this will be a unique in the role-playing games of today. I know from Shannon that he will be kick-starting this later in the year and I will be not only one of his beta-testers but a supporter of the project. From the young, inexperienced player to the most veteran gamer, this will be a great game to play in. Keep an eye out for following up blogs on my experience with this system.
Samuel Colbran 