Letterblade

We can haz Intercon game!

So this isn't the game I was originally planning to premiere at this con, because The Border War or whatever I was going to call it had extensive set requirements, and I just. No fucking spoons to deal with fucking sets. Not happening.

Instead we're premiering something else, something so new that we haven't mentioned it to anyone ever. Not even on our website, which needs to be updated but I'm having fucking server problems.

Towering in the mountains over an endless desert, the last and greatest city on earth stands tall and proud. In the glittering heights, the rich and powerful hobnob and toast. Elizabeth Faulker herself, C.E.O. of Faulker Power Limited, is hosting a press conference and reception celebrating several events of note. An important scientific discovery in a small country town, a new breakthrough in research into human augmentation. The third anniversary of the landmark victory over and annexation of Taiyuan, led by the celebrated General Andreasson, who will be speaking tonight. And, of course, it is her dear son Cantwell's sixteenth birthday.

Below those towers, well...that's a different story. But who has time to worry about poverty, crime, and epidemics when they have a world to rule? Evenings like this have happened before, and the world has kept turning towards destruction. But perhaps not this time...

Folding the River is a futuristic science-fantasy game of power, passion, and desperation, which may or may not involve time travel. This game contains sexual content, war crimes, and other dark subjects, and is recommended for mature players. This is a Paranoid and Crotchety production.

Friday night at Intercoooooooon! Now with more fucking swearing.

PARANOID & CROTCHETY WEBSITE UPDATE

For the first time in fucking forever. Go. Bask in our cleverness. :D

But that is far preferable to the LARP situation being absurd.

I HAVE A GM FOR CROWNS. Thank you all so much for your help. :D

Also, as I was writing today, pookit came over and made some amazing props for this game. Seriously, they are gorgeous. Will post photos when I have a chance (read: after Festival.)

I have seven more character sheets to finish up tomorrow, and then a batch of miscellaneous stuff to write for Crowns and two games to format and print and stuff. But life is good.

Speaking of stuffing, I am semi-officially having a game-stuffing party. Which is to say, if you are okay being potentially minorly spoiled for A Crown of Hearts and/or Stars Over Atlantis, come over to my place on Friday during the day and I will feed you and give you shit to do.

Not that I expect much of anybody to see this, what with LJ pooping out on us constantly. Need to remember where that LJ backup utility is. After Festival. Before Festival, there is no time.

I just got to use the phrase "the quiddities of enchanted headgear" in a character sheet.

Much progress today, even with time lost to usernamenumber's birthday party. (He had karoake. My Achilles heel of party attendance.) I will treat myself to a nap.

We need a player for Stars Over Atlantis on Saturday afternoon at LARPercalia. Specifically, we need a player who's comfortable playing a MtF trans character who presents quite femme. So if that sounds interesting, go sign up!

Filled! :D

Wanted: GMs for A Crown of Hearts

Hi! Are you doing anything on Friday night at LARPercalia? Do you have an interesting in GMing a LARP?

If so, then please contact me here or at arkady [dot] lizard [at] gmail [dot] com. I am desperately in need of one or two assistant GMs to run this game (but I don't want to deprive interested parties of a chance to play in a future run.)

GMing for this game is going to be heavy on the storytelling and NPC-playing, and relatively light on the mechanics, though extra combat adjudication will always be welcome. This game is pretty big with the quests and NPCs, as it has a large sand-box world, so you'd probably spend most of your GM time describing things dramatically and roleplaying with PCs.

This game is getting written in a last-minute sort of rush, because I'm a chronic procrastinator, so I cannot guarantee a complete GM bible, but I will do my best to provide documentation of everything you need to know. (I'm taking notes as I work to compile into a list of "if character X does Y, Z happens" and other such contingencies, and have already written up some general GM info; the former is in an online file that I can share with you, and the latter I can send you.) Ideally, you'd also be available to meet for a few hours at some point earlier that week, so that I can infodump on you and answer any questions you might have.

LARPercalia is not a paid con, so I can't offer you comps or somesuch. I might be able to provide rides/transportation (con is in Waltham), and perhaps crash space if logistically viable. I will totally take you out to dinner either before or after, whichever works for you.

Thanks,
Tory

So: Intercon.

Thursday night: Buzz over to the hotel to attend the Race In LARP panel, which I really wanted to go to, which was pretty awesome. Back home to work on game and barely sleep.

Friday afternoon: Attend three panels. The one on sets, because there's a game in my long-term plans which may require set work; and hey, the more immersive I can make our current games, the better. The one on pacing in LARPs, because that's one of those things that makes me flail. (Which also led to the Most Terrifying Moment of Friday; see below.) And the one on mental illness in LARPs, because that's a topic near and dear to my heart. Get talked into filling a last-minute drop in Stars of Al-Ashtara, which I really wanted to play in (as I had no Friday night game due to signing up for Interesting Times only thirty seconds after signups opened -.-;;;). Accept due to game squee, despite knowing that it would probably mean getting practically no sleep Friday night.

Friday evening: After frantically finishing game (go mllelaurel's mad last-minute writing skillz!), get to con late and find that my role in other-Stars (so-called to distinguish it from my-Stars) was filled by somebody else due to some weird-ass miscommunication. Evidently the gods have decreed that I shall sleep. Stuff game in hotel room; never thought I'd sink that low. Party just a little bit.

Friday night: The gods rescinded their decree. Due to the hotel's miserly failure to provide me with extra blankets for my airbed despite the RIDICULOUS rates (insert rant about Intercon website not informing us about early deadline for getting room block rate), I woke up every hour or so freezing cold to miserably scour the room for more things to pile on top of me. Finally got a bit of solid sleep after transforming myself into a horizontal coat-rack.

Saturday morning: GhostFu: The Jade Emperor's Celestial Tournament, as Scholar Crow Ren. First-off, this was a seriously awesome, incredibly involved game, with a bigger and more detailed economy than I've seen in any weekend-long I've played in, a giant mess of NPCs to enhance the world, and a fucking training montage mechanic. A game I was really looking forward to, but increasingly suspecting that I would not have the energy to pull off. And I was pretty much right in that. My character's function was sort of free-floating chaos, one of those with a ridiculous goal list that could not possibly be fulfilled in game, but trying would have interesting effects. I was quite stretch-cast (upon my request.) So I kind of fumbled around for most of the game, but managed to have some nifty roleplaying moments regardless. Also, so...many...ace...bandages. Was playing a eunuch, so I was trying extra-hard to not read female. Did get to righteously zorch an uppity Mongolian who insulted my manhood, and then even more righteously zorch the guy who killed me. Yay!

Saturday afternoon: The Stand, as Clarissa Dunn. This was a damn solid game, once things got into gear, and I got to be best friends with lightgamer, spent a goodly amount of time being mindfucked, and then was able to walk off having accomplished my main goal, taken a marvelous souvenir, and been on the receiving end of a wonderfully dramatic heroic sacrifice. There was a timeline quirk which prevented me from getting one of my many surprises, but that will be fixed in future runs. Also, horse wrangling mechanic. This seemed to be my con for games with nifty specialized mechanics. Had to bung out early on wrap due to badly, badly needing a nap. Must harass _dragonwolf_ for details I missed later, as I was very much on one end of the plot and not involved in other things.

Saturday night: Premiering Stars Over Atlantis, which was sort of a huge leap into the abyss for me, as I had no fucking clue how this game would run, how well it would run, and whether I'd get lynched by players for a very atypical structure that contained virtually no traditional LARP plot. (I'm pretty sure one or two people did get plot-screwed, part of which was in the writing, part of which was because two GMs are too few to keep up with this game; most plot is GM-dispensed.) The run tested, bent, but did not break the game, so it went far better than the worst-case scenario looming in my head. We managed to pretty much break one character, and severely dent some others, which was one of our goals (hey, it's a serious Paranoid & Crotchety game, we want to make people cry!) I heard a LOT of people raving about it afterwards. I think with some careful revisions, three or four GMs, and ideally a six-hour runtime slot, it will be a much more solid game, but it's clearly got potential, and both mllelaurel and I were totally high on game-squee afterwards.

Late Saturday night: Despite having a splitting headache that did not respond to painkillers, being completely exhausted, barely able to walk, and barely able to form coherent sentences, it was Saturday night at Intercon and I wanted to PARTY. Which mostly translated to flopping around the con suite snuggling people and burbling incoherently about my-Stars. Also, Nat Budin and I have a pact that some day I shall run my-Stars when he can actually play, and he shall run Resonance when I can actually play. Perhaps sometime at Brandeis there shall be the Day of Envelopes.

Sunday: No games, because I've realized by now that Sunday morning games at Intercon are a bad idea for me. Sleep, pack up, hug all the LARPers, got home, and SLEEP MORE. *insert resounding THUD here*

The Most Terrifying Moment of Friday: Realizing that there are players out there who open all their contingency/recognition envelopes before start of game, to read them in advance. Terrifying because this would completely fucking break Stars Over Atlantis, especially if we'd handled things slightly differently than we did.

The Most Terrifying Moment of Saturday: captainecchi and Greg L. having a quiet conversation in a corner. (In character, that is. Out of character, they're both perfectly decent people, and I have no reason to expect either to plot world domination via unpleasant methods.)

The Most Terrifying Moment of Sunday: Realizing that I was so sleep-deprived I could barely talk or write in real English.

Short-term priorities: Relax for a bit, update the Paranoid & Crotchety website (long overdue), get the Festival run of Stars Over Atlantis cast, and whip up a player survey for folks who were in the Intercon run to get feedback for revisions. (Not that we'll be able to do any major revisions or change runtime, which was widely requested, until after Festival, but we can slate them while the game is fresh in players' minds.)

Long-term priorities: Do what revisions we want to do on Stars Over Atlantis. Get out sheets pleasantly before con. Write A Crown of Hearts, which is a solo project of mine, so oh god oh god I'm all gonna die. But I should be able to get it cast and get out costuming notes pretty quickly, at least.

Things I need to do before Intercon (which is to say, in the next five days)...

- Finish writing Stars Over Atlantis with mllelaurel, and then format, print, and stuff the game. (Ten character sheets to finish, as well as a fuckton of non-sheet material. At least the sheets are short.)

- Do character prep and costuming for two other games, one of which I know I'm going to need a lot of prep for. (If you see me running around yelling "oh god oh god ghost fu," that's that. I've been entrusted with a character who's fascinating and probably pretty plot-centric and a huge stretch for me in some good ways, and I'm kind of freaking out, though not in the bad way.)

- Pack clothing and stuff for the hotel.

- Finally accept the fact that I am not in Interesting Times. DDDD: Missed the chance to sign up for something else in advance. I guess I'll just derp about Friday night and see if there's anything interesting open. And if not, well, socializing, whee. Getting to bed early before Saturday, also good.

- Also accept the fact that I'm not going to be able to have a vending table at the con because I know nobody who can sit at it while I'm gaming (because everybody who's not at Intercon is at shadesong's.)

Things I want to do right now...

- Work on the brand-new LARP bunny that's eating my brain, which I won't be able to write for at least three or four months, probably longer.

- Update the fucking Paranoid & Crotchety website already. Way overdue for an update, but I don't really have the time now, and it'll need to be updated after Intercon anyway, so I'll consolidate those updates.

- Knit. A lot.

- Sign up for this. Which, seriously, Tory, you're crazy. Not because of the jumping out of a plane thing, but because you are so unable to raise the $1000 minimum.

Generally...yeah. I'm not going to exist until next week. INTERCON!!!

So I had already been fond of Muslims Wearing Things (a dryly awesome photoblog started in response to somebody being an asshat about muslims), but this post won the internet. All arguments are invalid.

In other news...writing, writing, and more writing.

- mllelaurel and I are nearly done, overall, with the revision pass on The Sound of Drums. Well, except for one case...

- We're also putting together the last few pieces of the casting, and it's become pretty clear that we're going to have to genderswap one character to accommodate for the high male sign-ups, which players are falling in where, and which guys are okay being cross-cast. So there's that.

- At some point soon, we shall write The All Crotchety Old Men With Shotguns Game. Some point before the con. Drunkenly.

- NANO STARTS TOMORROW. Hoboy. My project has names for most of the characters, a fairly solidified plot, and no title whatsoever. So for the meantime, its working title is Oh, Look, A Demon. I may post a few public teasers as I go, but my plan is to be writing it largely in private, except for sending chunks to one or two draft readers. Because if I can't show my work to somebody, my attention whore attention span gets antsy.

In the non-writing category, I go to court in four days. Aiiiii.

IIIIT'S LARP PIMPING TIME!!

So y'all may have heard about this already, but the lovely nyren and his associates have organized a weekend of FREE LARPing at WPI in Worcester. It's November 19th to 21st, and did I mention that it's FREE?

mllelaurel and I are running two games there, back to back, on Saturday. First, from noon to 1 pm, we have...

There's a neighborhood where the police don't go. Where gunshots sometimes ring in the streets. No, it ain't some run-down ghetto or nest of teenaged gangsters. It's a little winding suburban development, lawns and shrubbery, arbors and porches, with the soft meows echoing from that crazy cat lady down the street. But it's also a place full of old folks, and they're old folks that didn't go down easy. No nursing homes for them. Independent living for men and women old enough that they've paid all their dues and no longer give a damn about what other people think. And, one and all, they're armed and dangerous...

The All Crotchety Old Folks With Shotguns Game: does exactly what it says on the tin!

This is a brand-new game! World premiere! Game hasn't even been written yet. Will probably be written a week before the con while we're drunk, because this is exactly the kind of game that you can do that with. Crack!

Then, after lunch to sober up, from 2 pm to 6 pm...

In the distant, shadowy past of myths and legends, deep in a lonely mountainous forest, where magic still pulses and saber-tooth tigers still roam the land, lives a small, isolated tribe of hunters and warriors, reclusive folk with strange ways and powerful gods. It is a full moon night, when the tribe holds council, and there is a full feast of argument and debate to come. The medicine woman has yet to choose a successor; the chief has taken a questionable lover. And four foreigners, strange outsiders, have taken sanctuary with the tribe, lived among them, and there are many who rankle at the thought.

Time for secrets to be spoken and paths to be decided. Will the outsiders stay past the dawn? Who will lead the tribe and keep its traditions? It is council night, the time of voices and change and strange, little-told tales, and as these passionate people struggle for unity, their hidden wood will ring with the sound of drums...

The Sound of Drums is a character-driven game for eighteen to twenty-four players, full of passion, politics, drumming, and storytelling. Players are encouraged to bring hand drums or other primitive percussion instruments, and/or play if instruments are available, but it is not a requirement for anybody, and no musical ability is necessary to enjoy this game. This game contains pervasive themes of bisexuality and polyamory, and is recommended for mature players.

This will be the second run of The Sound of Drums, which premiered to rave reviews at the most recent Intercon. Seriously, we heard multiple "best game of the con" from people, partially due to the fantastic energy our players had. It'll be interesting to see how the second run goes!

Sign-ups open at 7 pm tonight. Hard to tell how fast these games will fill up, so you might want to hop to it. And did I mention that they're FREE?