Tales from Dramaville (Part 1)

Three main story lines have evolved from my current home campaign for In Nomine, and I thought it might have some entertainment value to post some things about them here.

One of the player characters is an angel of balance in service to Michael, the Arcangel of War. His mission is to bring balance and honor to disputes between the local urban gangs. Good luck, this is a tough one! He established a Role under the name Steve Jackson which, by pure coincidence I'm sure, is the name of the guy who publishes In Nomine. He decided that the best way to approach his goal was to join one of the gangs and lead by example, and he quickly rose to a position of influence in the gang largely because of his well-beyond-human physical capabilities. The gang still didn't buy into his ideas about fighting with honor, largely because they saw honor as a luxury he could afford and they couldn't.

He also hadn't anticipated the intervention of other celestials. A demon with the ability to manipulate emotions turned up with a Role in a rival gang, and on more than one occasion, prodded him into rages that caused him to act far less than honorably. This damaged his credibility badly and has gotten him into more than a little trouble with local law enforcement. A situation eventually occurred that enabled "Steve Jackson" to figure out which of the other gang members was the demon responsible for his recent trouble, and a chase ensued. The demon made a tactical error that allowed Steve to corner him, and by the time the two were actually face-to-face, the demon had him in a such an out-of-control rage that Steve ripped his heart out through his chest with his bare hands. The death of the demon's Vessel (and corresponding Role) triggered the all out gang war that was the exact opposite of what Steve was there to achieve.

One of the other angelic player characters helped him to evade the police, and the pair went to the nearest Tether for Steve to work off some of the dangerous amounts of Dissonance he'd acquired when he'd lost emotional control. He turned himself in to the police (for reasons which are rather a long story), then was released from jail on a technicality after making a deal with a Lilim lawyer. The agreement is that at some point, the Lilim will ask him to kill a demon of her choice, and he is bound by his promise to do that. He didn't specify any other details regarding said demon. This could get messy later.

Now free, he decided to try to end the fighting by reasoning directly with the leadership of the rival gang. Unfortunately for him, the worst possible circumstances occurred, leaving him shot in the head and unconscious but not dead. The gang then tortured him to death (or so they thought), removed his face with a knife, mailed his face to the leadership of the gang he'd joined, then dumped his body in the nearest river. He managed to drag himself out of the river and get helped to the nearest hospital. Now everybody thinks he's dead, and it's going to be very interesting indeed to see how various parties react when they find out that he isn't.

Embracing Necessity

My musical project continues to sputter along, making some progress while still not getting anywhere near what I started out trying to achieve. It reminds me of some of the reasons I stopped playing in bands in the first place, and yet I'm not willing to give up. I have at least three guitar players who have expressed interest, and yet when push comes to shove, it's still just Jason and I who show up, except for the one time when Bob, a singer I know, joined us.

I've played bass for many years, but learned some chords on guitar, primarily to help me read the hand positions of the guitarists I played with so I could improvise along with songs I hadn't actually learned. It served me well for that purpose, but I don't think I bothered to learn more than three complete songs on guitar until recently. Since Jason and I didn't have a regular guitarist, I decided to play guitar as a placeholder in the short term because it sounded better than when we just had bass, drums, and voice. To be honest, I didn't worry a whole lot about doing a good job technically while playing guitar because I was sure someone else much better would be taking over those parts soon, allowing me to return to my more comfortable role as bassist. But that still hasn't happened.

So as of the beginning of this year, I decided to take the role more seriously and started playing at least a few songs on guitar each day, trying to make them sound as though I actually know what I'm doing. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it didn't take long to get some results, primarily because I started with songs I'd been playing with Jason anyway, and we'd chosen them for relative simplicity in the first place. I've got six or seven songs now that I could play solo without embarrassing myself if I had to, and I'll keep building on that, slowly taking on songs that are a bit more challenging as I continue.

My wife is delighted, since she felt I'd already proven myself on bass and thought it was a good idea for me to be taking on something new musically. It's nice to be able to choose songs without having to concern myself with whether or not other people in a band like them. I've had to worry about that in the past because it's just not that interesting to hear someone play bass by themselves unless they're a truly exceptional player. I've always envied guitarists and keyboard players their ability to function musically by themselves. I don't plan on trying to perform anywhere by myself, since I'm nowhere near good enough to pull it off, but it's cool to be able to play for friends or family if I feel like it. I'd still prefer to play bass for my main musical project, but if I'm going to function as the guitar player most of the time with Jason anyway, I may as well do a decent job of it.

Whose Rock and Roll Is This, Anyway?

So Run-D.M.C, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, and Madonna are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, while Deep Purple, Yes, Genesis, Kiss, and Journey aren't.

I don't personally like or dislike either list of artists in entirety, but all issues of taste and quality aside, I know which artists' music I'd rather play in front of an audience expecting a rock and roll band. Just sayin'.

You don't really need a Hall of Fame to know who the greats are, anyway. Great music holds up, and doesn't need to be defined by genre. But if there's going to be a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, shouldn't the people running it put personal taste aside for the sake of properly representing the music?

Weird Dream Stuff

A few nights ago, I dreamt that I was participating in a Live Action Role Playing game involving Norse mythology. The players were dressed absolutely normally, but were supposed to be Norse gods or creatures from Norse mythology. There weren't many players. There were props that were labeled to be major items like Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, but were clearly everyday stuff with nothing more to distinguish them than that label. I distinctly remember coming upon a plank across a ditch you could just jump across if you wanted to, with the word "Bifrost" printed on it in very plain letters in magic marker. I felt vaguely disappointed and amused at the same time.

Last night I dreamt that I woke up in my old bed in the house where I grew up, but I still had the same age and appearance that I do now. My friend Lew was sitting cross legged on the floor nearby, facing the bed, as though he'd been waiting there a long time. He seemed to be finding something funny, though it wasn't apparent what. He asked me what I'd gotten for Christmas, and I told him I'd gotten Guitar Hero. He said he was going to go downstairs and get breakfast ready while I got my head together, then he left the room. I rolled out of bed, and sure enough, there on the floor by the bed was a Guitar Hero box, so I pulled it out of the box and tried to read the instructions, but couldn't make any sense of any of it and put it away again. Then I went downstairs.

Lew was wandering around the kitchen, which was an absolutely horrific mess, far worse than I ever remember it being when I was a kid. We started discussing our plans for the day (which I don't remember at all now), and he continued on into the living room and sprawled out on one end of the couch. I looked away for a second, and when I looked back, he was holding a big bowl of popcorn, which made perfect sense as breakfast for us at the time. I sat down cross legged on the floor nearby, and we ate popcorn for breakfast and discussed our plans.

I have no idea what most of this means (though I have a few theories about a few bits). That's why dreams are sometimes so much fun.

Disturbing Dramaville

After years of writing horror material, I've finally reached the boundary of how far I'm willing to go. I was working on the next session of my local In Nomine campaign this past week and had to work out the motives and methods of a Very Bad Guy Indeed. I found myself getting so upset by the train of thought involved that it's unlikely I'll be touching this subject matter again in the future. I'll keep as much of it as possible "off screen" while actually running the game, and I don't think the players will mind, as long as they have the information they need to solve the mystery involved. I'll be able to show them more if they really want it, but I doubt that's going to happen.

This is an interesting experience in light of the fact that I've been such a horror fan for a long time and rarely run into anything too distressing for me to handle. The really distressing thing is that the subject matter I'm finding so upsetting is day-to-day life for some real people, and that's a hell I wouldn't wish on anyone!

So what exactly is the Disturbing Subject? If you know me personally and really want to know, ask me and I'll tell you, but I'm not going to talk about it any further here.

My Brain Hurts

Found an interesting article from the Boston Globe about how urban environments are bad for your cognitive processes and your temper. I'll have to try to spend some time at work at least looking out a window for a while when the going gets tough.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/01/04/how_the_city_hurts_your_brain