Sci-Fi Sunday (Delak)

Hello and welcome to another Starfinder edition of monster blogging. Don't worry if you think you've seen something like this before. You probably have. At any rate, I hope you enjoy the entirely "original" delak.

[Image not displayed...for reasons]

This construct looks like a metal-studded metallic salt shaker. It spins around on an axis and shouts, “Stop! Do not flee!” while firing its raygun indiscriminately.

DELAK   CR 25

XP 1,638,400

CE Medium construct (technological)

Init +10; Senses blindsight (thermal) 60 ft., darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +41

DEFENSE            HP 120

EAC 42; KAC 44

Fort +23; Ref +23; Will +19

Defensive Abilities delakantium; Immunities acid, cold, construct immunities, electricity, fire, sonic; Resist force 10

Weaknesses bull rush susceptibility

OFFENSE

Speed 30 ft.; fly 30 ft. (Ex, poor)

Melee suction extension +37 (18d10+40 B; critical asphyxiation [DC28])

Ranged delak raygun +40 (13d10+25 F; critical disintegration [DC 30])

Offensive Abilities phrase of fear

STATISTICS

Str +15; Dex +8; Con —; Int +4; Wis +1; Cha +12

Skills Computers +41, Intimidate +46, Sense Motive +41

Languages Delak

ECOLOGY

Environment any

Organization solitary, squad (2–12), devastation (13–200)

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Asphyxiation (Ex) A creature affected by a delak’s asphyxiation is considered grappled (as is the delak) and reduced to 0 Hit Points on a failed Fortitude save. If the delak succeeds on a grapple combat maneuver check to renew the grapple with its suction extension, the target must attempt the DC 28 Fortitude save again.

Bull Rush Susceptibility (Ex) The DC for the melee attack to perform a bull rush combat maneuver against a delak is its KAC + 4. A successful bull rush combat maneuver against a delak pushes it back 10 feet, plus 10 additional feet for every 5 by which the result of attack roll exceeds the DC. The creature performing the bull rush can instead knock the delak prone if it exceeds the DC by at least 5. Standing from prone requires a full action for a delak.

Delakantium (Ex) A delak is covered in nigh-impenetrable plating, which grants it hardness 40. At the GM’s discretion, a delak raygun bypasses this hardness, and the delak's immunity to fire, fully or to a certain degree (typically in increments of 10).

Disintegration (Ex) If a delak scores a critical hit with its delak raygun, the raygun’s damage is rolled four times. Additionally, the target must succeed at a DC 30 Fortitude save or be reduced to ash (this also occurs if the damage from the raygun reduces the target to 0 Hit Points).

Phrase of Fear (Ex) A delak has a particular phrase it shouts ominously as it attacks (examples include “Expunge with impunity!” and “Dismantle forcefully!”). Creatures that can hear the delak must succeed at a DC 28 Will save or become frightened. Creatures with a proper name equating to a profession (such as “Lawyer”) are immune to this effect; and allies of such creatures gain a +4 morale bonus on their Will saves.

A delak can possess other abilities at the GM’s discretion. It can also lose any of the above abilities at the GM’s discretion.

Hurray for Free RPG Day 2014!

Slowly, slowy, I aim to return to regular blogging.  I feel like I've said this before, but my life has not been conducive to blogging on a schedule like I used to the last two years -- and the past year in particular. Early or late, reliable or in starts, in time to do so.

And though it's past four days ago, where better to start?  I'm still in the after glow of the loot showered upon me by the archons of gaming.  Thanks, to the organizers and thanks to everyone who supported it with goodies and all the stores who made it happen.  I've lived without a FLGS of the brick-and-mortar variety, where I've had to drive a more considerable distance to enjoy it, and I am fortunate to live not too far away from the branch of Dragon's Lair in San Antonio.  Both my store and the one in Austin are good, friendly stores full of good, helpful staff.  I've expected to find better stores in Houston, but so far, all those I've visited fall way short of Dragon's Lair in terms of RPG stock.  (And don't even get me started on how DFW has become a game store wasteland.)

Dragon's Lair is a generous store, unlike those "one item per customer" stores.  Go' bless 'em!  So I picked up four lovely items from the goods on offer: Paizo's Risen from the Sands, LotFP's The Doom-Cave of the Crystal Children, and Cosmic Patrol's yearly quick-start rules with mini-adventure.  Check them out in the photo below:

And not just adventures.  What's gaming without fancy dice?  A Q-workshop freebie:

So, here are my thoughts, though nothing like reviews.

• I've never played FATE, but even if I never try it, I can use the die for 1-3 rolls.  It's solid, pretty, and easy-to-read.  (Props for my favorite color, too.)
• I've got the main Cosmic Patrol rulebook and I've collected the yearly QS booklets with mini-adventures.  I'd like to try it some day and get out my Planet Stories/planetary romance needs.  It looks simple and promising.
• The Pathfinder adventure looks good and introduces new classes I've given no thought to.  More and more I wonder when I'd ever have time to GM a system as complicated and sprawling as PF is becoming, but I'd love to be a player in a group where the GM can sustain it.  One certainly can create a unique character suited to one's vision with all those options.
• The Doom-Cave: It's weird and Raggi wants to piss someone off or freak someone out.  He lies abed in the eternal Finnish nights and dreams of it and cackles to himself, until his wife elbows him.  I need to keep in touch with the weird so I can inject it into my game when called for.  It's not my natural forte, and The Doom-Cave is inspirational reading.  Thanks, Jim.  One of these days, I'm going to do a Weird Restoration London game with LotFP.  And a weird Georgian London game.  And a weird Victorian London game.  One of these days.

Next time on MPR: when you get free stuff, spend some money!

Dark Shadows and Prometheus

I have been ridiculously busy since my move: setting up my apartment, my office, and my classroom -- and then summer school started up right away.  I have had little time for anything else, though I have squeezed in two movies when I felt like my brain just had to do something else: Dark Shadows and Prometheus.  These were two movies that I had been looking forward to, and overall I was not disappointed in either.

I have a special place in my heart for the Dark Shadows franchise, partly because my mother and grandmother were fans.  (I wish I knew how they'd take this turn of the original story towards dark comedy.)  If you don't like the Tim Burton-Johnny Deep take on the macabre, skip it, because this is another addition to that duo's establishment.  However, it may be my favorite of their partnerings, and I enjoyed Burton's placing it in 1972 for all the little period touches -- like the mug that Michelle Pfeiffer's character drinks out of at breakfast, which is almost identical to the one I inherited above from the aforementioned grandmother.  The cast works together as a nice ensemble, keeping up with Mr. Depp, the show ends with the promise of a sequel.  As much as I generally decry sequels, yes, I will give you more money, Mr. Burton, if you bring it.

Prometheus has two annoying flaws in my opinion that both involve verisimilitude in action, but it is great in every other way and lives up to the hype and beyond the facile criticisms I've heard.  It's neck-in-neck between Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender for who takes the brass ring in the this one.  As far as the Alien franchise goes, this movie is second only to the original.  Aside from my spoilerific complaints which I'm keeping to myself for now, the film is brilliant.  While I guess I can stretch my imagination to understand those who don't like Burton, I can't quite do the same for those who don't like Sci-Fi of this quality.

One movie is good plain fun with some thoughtfulness about (gasp) outsiders injected, the other is grand visual sweeps and effects with reflection on what it means to be human threaded throughout.  Though very different kind of films, and likely to earn as much disparity in respect as in profit, I think I'd still give both the same grade.  Don't pass on either of these, is my advice, with the one caveat above.  Here's to 2012: a great year for films so far!

DARK SHADOWS: A-

PROMETHEUS: A-

Yay, more Giger!

Required Reading: Planet Stories

Click here to choose a size of Kieran Yanner's wallpaper to download.

I have mentioned Planet Stories in the past on this blog.  Let me not beat around the launch pad.  If you are a reader of this blog, then I say to you that Paizo's PLANET STORIES  line is a must for you.  Just to be sure I am right, consult the check list below.

• I love mythopoesis in good, fast-paced story-telling.
• I know what Appendix N is.
• I love classic Science Fiction or Fantasy.
• I need to learn more about classic Science Fiction or Fantasy.
• I wish I'd lived back in the good old days of pulp.
• I want more inspirational reading to fuel my fantasy or sci-fi gaming.
• I partake of the written word.
• I like pretty pictures.

If you answered yes to any one of these, PS is for you.  If you answered yes to more than one, then what are you waiting for!?  Whether you support the line with a subscription (my fond wish is for a flood of subscribers to keep this literature in print) or merely pick and choose some from the line, you won't be sorry.  I will be happy to add my advice to any of the discussions or reviews of the books, it if will help your selection.  Just published is the third Robert Silverberg collection in a row.  I loved the first two, and so far am loving the newest one.  (Even if you aren't particularly a fan of his later big novels, you may prefer these earlier tales.  I know I fall in this category.)  Honestly, there is hardly a stinker in this line of page-turners, and many are imaginative rip-roarers of the highest level.  For example, if you haven't read the female pioneers C. L. Moore and Leigh Brackett, then you might think they are merely historical must-reads, when these are gems of the genre, not to be missed.  Abraham Merritt and Manly Wade Wellman are some of my other favorites among the PS authors.  I hope you will give the series a look, or treat yourself if you have been holding back.  Let's make today a truly Tomeful Tuesday!

By the way, if you are heading over the Paizo website to check out Planet Stories and you are a gamer, you might stop by and read the organization entries for RPG SuperStar 2012 and vote for your favorite.

Looking for Something to Read?

Fanart of Jake Wyatt after Craig Thompson.  See link below.

Read the NPR fantasy/sci-fi top 100 and its accompanying flowchart?  Didn't find anything new or arresting therein to whet your fiction appetite?  Take a look at Bud Webster's response over on Black Gate for some suggestions.  For that matter, am I actually directing people to Black Gate?  Their blog is a must-read by my lights for anyone interested in the subjects of this blog, and I hope to reward all their great work by subscribing one of these days to the magazine.  If by any chance there is anyone that doesn't check Black Gate's site regularly, I encourage you to do so.  Theirs is one of the sites that I can count on to regularly feed the mythopoet within.  (Yeah, I know, he's not that far down.  But still.)

The Siren's Call recommends some spooky and fantastical circus stories.

The New York Times reviews a book on the other Michelangelo -- Caravaggio.  A dark and fascinating character in every sense of the word, dark.  And yet, brilliancy broke through here and there, even in the darkness of his art.  Not only of interest in and of himself, he'd also make a great inspiration for a mystery story or for a particularly gritty character.

If you are still looking to stock up on reading for Halloween, I recommend taking a look at this Top Gothic Books list. Rarely do I see any contemporary pieces of so-called horror fiction that I think hold a candle to the gothic classics. 

If you are looking for something in the graphic novel department, Craig Thompson's Habibi promises to be a visually striking tale of suffering and love that capitalizes on the beauties of Islamic art.  I've never heard of the author/artist before, but his website sure makes the book look enticing.  As always, I'd love to hear from you any feedback or additional recommendations.  Happy reading!

S is for Sacrifice III: Gaming

Part III: Sacrifice in Role-Playing

In this installment of "S is for sacrifice," I explore two ways in which sacrifice can contribute to your gaming: sacrifice proper and the sacrifice of characters by your players. 

Religious Sacrifice
Before the loss of the Jewish temple and the substitution of the bloodless sacrifice tied to the blood of Christ, religion everywhere was dominated by the immolation of victims as an offering to the numen or numina.  I'm sure this happens in your games, but I bet when it does, it is usually something like this:

Frank Frazetta, Sacrifice, 1980 - Cover for a Conan book

Now, there's nothing wrong with this as far as it goes.  Villains that are unholy are especially villainous, and saving beautiful innocents from their clutches is hitting about eleven fantasy buttons at once instead of just one.  But beyond its cliche, and potentially chauvinistic, use, it ignores the fact that sacrifice is and has been a dominant practice in religions that are not summoning devils or waking Cthulhu.  To give the religions in your game setting some substance, look into adding sacrifice, whether as background world-building, plot elements, or even mechanics.  But the characters sending their sweet-smelling sacrifice of some quality barbeque heavenwards is nothing compared to them offering themselves.

Heroic Self-Sacrifice
Above all, I am thinking of the players sacrificing their characters, and the characters sacrificing themselves in-game.  Note I'm not talking about taking a risk that the player-characters recognize could result in character death: they do that all the time in the game, and they generally do it for character gain.  I mean making a decision for the good of others, which the player-characters enact in the knowledge that death is likely or even certain in the attempt to bring about the altruistic outcome.  Being saviors, rather than simply the greatest achievers, is the height of heroism.

Why would anyone want to do this in a game?  To achieve the pinnacle of heroism is obviously a motive on the player side of he equation, more than the character side.  It could be the denouement of the player's character development.  It could be the attainment of some great goal that they have long been gaming towards.  Experienced gamers know nothing is as dramatic as death, so this will make your game dramatic like nothing else will.  I should say, death that is not stupid--experienced gamers have also seen some pretty lame deaths in their days, as well.  But just imagine the possibilities when the players have been empowered to achieve meaningful deaths for their characters.  In all the creative and exciting things I have done in my (cough, 30) years of  gaming, I've never done this intentionally, and I owe the idea to my college DM, who discussed the idea with me on the phone recently.  (Commendations to you, K.A.)

I hope I don't need to argue that suicide for escape, dramatic effect, or for religious reward is not heroic self-sacrifice, but selfish acts that at best on masquerade as heroic self-sacrifice.  If done well, I'll wager players will never forget their heroes' deaths, and it can then be folded into the world-building so that it is an ongoing part of their new characters' experience.  Just don't make the mistake of role-playing Valhalla.

ST2: The Wrath of Khan.  "The needs of the many..."

Q is for Queenly Quest

No, I'm not just being cute, nor showing off that I can think of more than one Q word, nor kicking up my consonantal alliterating heels, nor suffering from the inability to choose a subject.  I actually have something in mind here: multiple relationships between queens and quests, two classic mythopoeic elements, and if one puts any stock in Jungian theories, two archetypes in and of themselves.  What are these combinations?

1. The Quest to find a Queen.
2. The Quest to become Queen.
3. The Quest on behalf of the Queen.
4. The Queen going on a Quest.

Illustration by Edmund Dulac

The Quest to find a Queen
Every king needs a queen, so goes the traditional assumption.  It seems to be generally desirable that a king be of a providential temper, and so that he exercise forethought to have a queen-to-be at the ready before his ascension to the throne.  Thus all the stories in history, legend, and literature about the prince finding a princess against the day that he takes on the crown and all that pertains thereunto.  According to the global media reporting enthusiastically on upcoming nuptials between a certain William Mountbatten-Windsor and his fiancée Kate Middleton, I am lead to believe that such fairy-tale countries as the United Kingdom still observe this nicety.  If Jane Austen had written fairy-tales, we might have had this:  "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single prince in possession of a good kingdom must be in want of a princess."  So Hans Christian Anderson gives us "The Princess and the Pea."  The concern in this story is the test to identify a real princess.  Is she the genuine article?  Does she have the potential to become the queen?  Perhaps princes are poor judges of such an important matter.  Using the principle "it takes one to know one," the queen mother is the one who can discern the young lady who's got the right stuff, and the critical test of the pea underneath a score of mattresses neatly sorts the gentle lady from the look-a-likes.  Whatever form the quest to find her takes, the queen is a figure highly desired, and finding her is something quest-worthy.

Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland in the Robes of State by Franz Xavier Winterhalter, 1859

The Quest to become Queen
Your mind might first go to the all the historical stories of the strong women who set out to rule, but I have more in mind the young lady who sets out on her quest not knowing that it will end with a queenly crown.  Maybe it's the extent I've been influenced by fairy-tale thinking, maybe it is just a personal preference or something about my own worldview.  Often fairy-tale retellings end with the heart-shaped close-up of the happy couple and a Happily Ever After caption.  This seems to me a practical necessity at best, and a damn shame at worst.  Even if this the moment she becomes or is revealed to be a princess, this is just one initiation before the ultimate one.  The heroine has yet to graduate to queen!  I would like to explore the trials that the noble young woman overcomes to achieve her queenship.

Miniature of George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, the Queen's Champion, by Hilliard, c. 1590.

The Quest on behalf of the Queen
I'd be willing to bet that this what comes to most people's minds first.  My memory is dominated by scenes of favors and jousting, of Sir Lancelot du Lac riding to Guinevere's defense in trial by combat, and of Ivanhoe serving the same for Rebecca the Jewess.  But even when queens don't need saving, they are first and foremost a medieval Lady and therefore have a Knight who goes forth at her bidding (see the code of courtly love).  I'm tempted to speculate about how women could improve their life and the life of their husbands based on exalting the Honey Do list, but I think I shall steer back towards safer waters.  One cool thing about the latest Alice in Wonderland film was seeing Alice appear as the White Queen's Champion.

Queen Amidala of Naboo, property of Lucasfilm Ltd.

The Queen going on a Quest
This would seem to be the rarest of all.  I'd love to hear of examples people may have of the queen going questing, but all I can think of is Amidala in Star Wars Episode I.  First, a queen has to change into a more practical questing outfit, obviously.

As Jungian Archetypes
If the Jungian take is correct, the Queen represents the fully individuated, fully realized female self.  She is the embodiment of the ideals and virtues of female wisdom and power, of female maturity and achievement.  In other words, she is the goal of the ultimate, lifelong quest for a woman.  (Individuation or self-actualization is the quest itself.)  That she is worthy of the quest, whether to find her or become her, that she is worthy to command quests in which she takes various parts, is obvious upon accepting this view of her.  Perhaps the strong tradition of female domesticity counteracts having lots of stories of the queen going questing herself, but I expect that this will change, if it hasn't already.  I mean, who's going to stop her?

Luminous Beings and Crude Matter

"Luminous Beings are we...not this crude matter." Yoda to Luke in The Empire Strikes Back















"It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.'"  Jesus to the devil in Matthew 4:4












It is perhaps not mere coincidence that these two lines resonate for me.  Presuming that the Hero's life follows a common pattern, note that Yoda speaks on the wild planet of Dagoba, where Luke has gone to train under the great Jedi master.  It is here that he is tempted: he fails.  He fails to recognize Yoda; he fails to lift his ship; he fails the trial at the cave; he fails to live with the tempting vision of his friends and leaves with his training incomplete.  In the gospels, Jesus speaks in the wilderness of Judea, where he is fasting and being tempted by the devil.  There is a certain parallel between the journeys of the two heroes.  It's been widely discussed that Lucas was, at some point, strongly influenced by Joseph Campbell. Taking theories like Campbell's, or the earlier attempt by Lord Raglan, one must proceed with caution.  The specific details of a hero's journey are at least as significant as the broad pattern in which any Hero's journey falls.  In the crafting of a heroic journey, one must ask not only about the path, but the destination, whether in the telling of a story or in the living of a life.

More important than Campbell's influence, Campbell was influenced by Jung.  Yoda's retort to Luke when he doubts his ability to use the Force to pull his ship out of the bog is, perhaps, Lucas' objection to a strict materialism that is tempting to many in our time.  This calls to mind the attraction of Jung to gnosticism.  Though always objecting that he was forming his psychology on an empirical basis, Jung clearly valued something metaphysical beyond its physical ties and manifestations: the Self.  Is the Self beyond bodies?  Expressed in bodies?  Or is it hidden and trapped in bodies?

The assertion as it stands gives us a classic case of the false dichotomy: either we are matter or we are not-matter (candidates here are such as spirit, soul, or mind).  If our essence is matter, then we turn to the lower tiers of Maslow's hierarchy: matter calleth unto matter.  If our essence is not-matter, then we must look beyond the material realm for a meta-motivation to satisfy the human heart, as for example Augustine of Hippo does in his Confessions.  But gnosticism tended and tends to make an absolute dichotomy between crude matter and the true essence of humanity, unlike classical forms of Christianity which posit a union between matter and spirit.  So the one that Christians take for the divine Logos incarnate does not say that human beings do not live by bread, but that they do not live by bread alone.  There's a struggle between the two to be sure, but it is not a struggle that is to result in the elimination of matter.  There must be cooperation and even a transformative union between the two for traditional Christian systems to work.  Maybe Lucas moves closer to this position in the later prequel trilogy, where he creates a physical correlate for the Force: the midichlorians.  Maybe he was already struggling in that direction with all his talk of the immanent Force:  "Here, between you...me...the tree...the rock...everywhere!  Yes, even between this land and that ship!"  And yet, are we betrayed back to body-denying gnosticism by the ghostly specters of the dead Jedi at the end of Return of the Jedi?  It is hard to be sure.

The key issue is this: Does the agon of the hero overcome crude matter in favor of the divine spark trapped within it?  Does the hero strive against the illusion of something other than matter?  Or does the hero strive for some kind of synthesis between the divine and the mundane?

Good Night Dune

I've got some great posts in the works, but I just ran across something that I have to share now.  (Thanks to Greyhawk Grognard!)

I'm a huge fan of Frank Herbert's original Dune books, and the movie and made-for-cable movies of them: Herbert was exposed directly to Jung's thought by students of Jung, instead of through Joseph Campbell, a la George Lucas, and he is greatly superior to Lucas as a mythopoet, for my money.  (Lucas may have created the space of my childhood imagination, but Herbert gave space back to my adult imagination as a young adult.)  Here's a fun take-off on Margaret Wise Brown's classic children's book, Good Night Moon, that pays tribute to Herbert's magnum opus:  Good Night Dune.

Hello, Dave.

NPR's When Robots Attack: New Mythologies for a New Age?


Adam Frank nicely poses a question for the mythopoeic crowd in the article linked above.  I guess I'd resist the notion that there's a new mythology and test the claim by trying to push back on it to see if we already have this myth covered.  Are there myths of creations destroying their creator, for example?  Myths of non-sentient things gaining sentience?  It would be interesting to take this on and see where things come out.  Another possibility that comes to mind: Is this just a manifestation of the death wish?  But whether we conclude that the form or substance of the myth is not new or not, we can still appreciate the new cultural guises and search for the meaning of the myth.  What does this say of our culture?


One thing that annoys me (possible massive understatement), is the new tendency for the digital voices we give to things, such as message services and alarm clocks, to say "I."  Do we not see the danger here?  I doubt the possibility of the emergence of consciousness from machines, and further wonder if the surface meaning of the myth could be a deadly distraction: have we so easily and quickly forgotten our tendency to dehumanize others and turn them into things?  Rectification of names, people!  If we confuse things with having selves, we're ready to confuse selves with things.  Once we do that, we will not flinch from snuffing out the "thing" that pleads, "I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over... Just what do you think you're doing...? ...I am afraid."  I wish there would be massive consumer reaction to this, so that companies would stop assigning agency and personhood to our machines.  Maybe the myths will come to our aid here, before it is too late.