Success!

Eric finished reading my story about Cromm, which I always call The Last Blade. It took him like two and a half days to get through the 87k words, on a computer screen. Eric gets three Dogdamn stars of awesomesauce for that. He enjoyed it as well, and while that is not exactly a thorough critique of the document, its still a good-fuck-thing.

It's About Damn Time...

Iron Warrior number seven is done. He did not turn out ideally. He looks ok, I just ran into some problems. I have no problem with chainsword and bolt pistol arms. They are simple, adjust to get angle you want and glue to your heart's content. Bolter/flamer/meltagun type arms are a bit different. I like to match arms, so I have to find two spike/skull/etc arms, one trigger hand and one cradling the bolter hand. The difficulty is that you have four points to glue, the arms to the shoulders, the hand to the barrel of the bolter, and the other hand to the grip part of the bolter. I find it difficult to arrange this with just glue, so I use poster tack to hold the mess of hands to bolter together till I can get glue to dry on the shoulders. Then I remove the bolter and tack and dab on some glue and replace the bolter. I had some trouble this time and had to re-glue the grip hand to the bolter a few times and this left a bit of a mess of dried glue between bolter and grip hand. Not pretty, but not really noticeable unless you get up close. The next problem was the head. I've always like the chaos space marine head in question, but it does not look good on the Iron Warriors metal chest pieces. Once I get the army built up enough, this guy will probably be one I strip and rebuild. I also found out Iyaden Darksun is too dark a yellow for my hazard stripes. Oh well, it is a learning process.

Seven Iron Warriors down, three more to go. I have the icon bearer, the flamer guy, and the aspiring champion. I just have to figure out how my scorched barrel mix went when I used it on the meltagun guy, who I think is pretty slick looking. I used a pistol arm but hacked off the pistol portion and put a meltagun in its place. The scorched barrel turned out pretty well, as did the helmet, which is another one I really like. Most chaos space marine helmets look pretty awesome. I cannot stand their goofy topknot ones, the half-helm and topknot ones are just plain dumb looking to me.

Once I get these guys done I intend on going back to my Lamenters and finishing up the squad with a flamer, missile launcher, and sergeant. Then back to more Iron Warriors, hopefully with some bionics and whatnot. Mmmm, bionics are delicious. I wasn't planning on it, but I think I may end up stripping my chaos terminators and playing around with them to see if I can come up with a decent obliterator counts as. Terminators are definitely bulky enough to be oblits and they lack the "I am taking an enormous warp fueled shit" look.

I've got six 40kradio podcasts on my laptop here, I think I might listen to one or two this week. They're usually entertaining and kind of serve to get me juiced up a bit about the hobby, so it might be nice. It also looks like they'll be (or already are) going over the chaos space marine codex, which should produce some handy tips and tricks for me.

At the end of this month I'll have saved a hundred bucks up since the last time I internet ordered 40k stuff. I think I'm going to at the very least get a loyalist techmarine, some Iron Warrior conversion bitz, another Iron Warriors warsmith (good model, and I want to monkey with it a bit to make it into another aspiring champion for a different squad than the one I'm working on now), and a hobby drill. I have a little pinning drill, but it only fits two drill bits of the dozen or so I have because it only has two size option for fitting bits into it. The one bit that came with it that I still have is also a bit rusty and bent from drilling out a barrel on a metal gun. The GW hobby drill looks like it can be loosened and tightened to accommodate different sized bits, and it has a nice looking handle so it seems like it will be a decent tool to have.

Work got rid of the heavy metal drug and IV boxes they use and I heard they'll be giving them away, so I might try to snag one and see if it would be a good place to stash all my hobby tool type stuff in. They supposedly have a tray that sits in them, so there should be ample room in it for the tools and such that I have collected, and maybe a bit more for some paint pots and bottles I have just sitting out. If that works out I can clean out the tray on my tackle box I have my tools in now and use that to separate my bitz, which would be nice because I think I only have like one tactical squad's worth of loyalist marine bitz and if I'm going to do 1500 points of Lamenters, it seems like I might need a wee bit more room for the bitz.

Someday I want to do ork and imperial guard armies, so ample room in my bitz box will be a good thing for future projects. Although, by the time I get around to those armies Eric will have finally admitted he has no intention of doing a full army, Shawn will have started a brewery, and Tony will have died in some manner of BBQ sauce related disaster. With them dead I'll have no one to play with so I'll have four armies in my basement and be playing against myself. Or I'll have to make new friends.

Because I can: Awesomesauce, robust, turgid...zebra cum.

Music: 1, 2, 3, 4 Guitars - The Blood Brothers

Awesomesauce

I can't stop saying that word. I need help.

This is why DnD and Wizards of the Coast equals awesomesauce in my book. Some guys in Iraq were returning from a patrol, they and their humvee get hit by a roadside bomb, injuries and such ensue. Their gaming materials are destroyed in the explosion. They get a hold of Wizards customer service at a later date asking about some rules that were removed from their manuals via shrapnel, Wizards sends them a set of gaming material so they can continue gaming during their tour. Fuck yes.

Rebellions

So, you want to start a rebellion do you? Simple enough, the soulless are enslaved (to a certain extent) by the Fallen, goblins and their cousins the hobs and bugbears are enslaved by the Fell-Humans, The New Empire has enslaved a bunch of magicians. You don't want to wander across the expanse of The Known World? Ok, fine, go two inches west and you can aid the goblins. Half of you are Fell-Humans and one of you hates goblins...oh. Hmmm. Oh, I've got it, you can liberate the indigenous people of Hell from their conquerors! ...Oh, one of you hates Fell-Humans as much as the one hates goblins and you have no desire to liberate them.

Fuck it. They're liberating Hell. It has been decided.

Hell is a rough place full of as much magic as Kusseth is is with technology. The wardens stop at the first district and don't do much in the deeper places, and they're all wardens and senior wardens here. No junior wardens training in this place, they die. This is not to say the place is more dangerous than Kusseth City, its just that the dangers are different. In Kusseth a youth gang could lure you into an alley with a crying child (that is so happening) and then the two dozen hiding in shadows mob you and steal your marks and spill a fair bit of blood while they're at it, depending on their mood. In Hell something slimy with way too many mouths and eyes will crawl up out of a sewer grate and bite a piece of you off. It will then impregnate you with some form of tentacle or inverse orifice built out of non-Euclidean geometry. That sentence makes about as much sense as anything else Lovecraft wrote.

Its a spooky place that has a bit to do with the Necropolis in the east. The Necropolis is a place of strange, cold, black stones. There are tons of mist-shrouded tunnels and crypts in the bowels of the place, one of which is where The Bleak Tyrant was found. These dark crypts are the center of The Bleak Tyrant's power. Each of the cities of the Fell-Humans, including Hell, were founded on black slabs of stone mined from the depths of the Necropolis. The stones are just as fucked up and fell as everything else with The Bleak Tyrant's stamp on it.

I think I have an idea how I'm going to run Hell. The next scenario takes place over three days and is basically travel time to Kusseth City and a chance for them to ditch Spineplate and pick up a hook for going to Hell. I think I'm going to do a sandbox in Kusseth. Not the entire city, that would take years. But I plan to create a series of events and quests and encounters, I just won't link them to any specific location. So as the guys are wandering around Kusseth City I can plop in inns and stores and various things and just take copious notes about what I put where in this scenario for future expeditions to Kusseth. I might have to add lib a bit, and certain areas will be blocked off to a mob of no account ill-kempt thugs, but I think that will work. I know enough about this place to rattle off factoids effectively, I think. Maybe they'll just drop Spineplate off at home and the quests and events and sights can occur as they're doing that. I'll have to remember to go back to my Traith story and keep track of precisely where Traith originally found Spineplate.

I'm starting to get pysched about this idea now. Hell is probably my second favorite city in The Known World. Its history incorporates a series of events that I am fond of, mainly Cenn the Reaver taking the city for Kusseth and the beginning of the events that lead Smiling Jack, Hell's Own Happy Butcher, to become the master of the bardic colleges. I have an idea for a monument in the center of the first district of Hell. Like a heap of the twisted black gates that guarded the place, still smoldering with malicious energy, and like a bit of text from Cenn's own hand swearing that he'll rip this city away from anyone who dares undo his work blah blah blah. I'll think I'll try and sandbox this place as well. Its not a small city, but it is kind of vertically oriented. I imagine it as some black ziggurat with houses and walls built of mundane stone sort of added on to it and the PCs have the main set of districts and then they can go up or down as they so choose. I intend on having the shit in the deeper places be nastier and deadlier the further down they go. So they can go places, but the going gets rough, unless they wait till they gain more levels.

(Days pass)

I feel this scenario slipping away from me. Literally a room and a half need to be written out, a "we're badasses" description needs to be done, and it is done. Or it would have been. An NPC needs to be re-written, a battle description needs to be redone to make something resembling sense. It is really the NPC that is giving me trouble. First he was going to be a Paladin, then a Paladin multi-classing as a Warlock, then a Warlock wearing heavy armor, then I thought about hybrid character rules and Paladin/Warlock mix. Now I'm back to Paladin. It could be done any of the above ways and still fit the image of "I am a plate mail wearing knight of Hellfire and brim-fucking-stone." The one thing I've learned recently is something I've dubbed as re-skinning stuff. I am too new to this edition to just make shit up, so when I need a dwarf for a level 1 fight I don't know how to make it and ensure there is some element of balance. I know it needs to be on the weak side with low hit points, but that's about it. What I did is go on to the Monster Manual, find a level 1 monster (Human Rabble in this case) and reskin it. Instead of rags it gets "chain mail" instead of a 4 damage dealing club it gets a "warhammer" and istead of "they are humans dressed in rags" the guys get "they look like young dwarves with inadequate beards". The stats and everything are used as is, the descriptions are just altered. Eric does the same thing with his Artificer.

Anyway. I'll be sticking with Paladin for Nakmander the Fell-Human. Instead of doing radiant damage he'll be dealing fire or necrotic with most of his powers, which was what I'd intended to do with Divine classes in the first place. Most prayers for Divine characters deal radiant damage, because of the stronger link between these characters and their patrons in my campaign radiant damage is changed to whatever damage type I feel is relevant to the patron. Guys serving The Bleak Tyrant primarily deal necrotic damage while characters enslaved to the will of King "Bob" (can't remember his name, I think it is Rudolph II, maybe) of the New Empire deal mainly psychic damage. All of Nakmander's powers will likely be the Charisma based ones available to the Paladin class and I will try and focus on rays and blasts and the like to kind of up his mystical street cred with the guys. The hard thing about these NPCs is that I make them because I think they're neat and that presents the possibility that I will start to favor them and make them the focus of the campaign and not the guys. I think I'll be ok as long as Eric adheres to the tenants of our deal (I pump out scenarios as long as you do) and I can get my fix with Junkpile.

Now that I've finally settled on the nature of the NPC I think I will have an easier time of finishing up the scenario. This guy is supposed to make his appearance, hint at shit going on in Hell, then disappear until the guys find their way to Hell. He will be their quest giver and possible bonny companion (although I intend on him being kind of an ass until the "half-breeds" prove they're not mentally defective). He is kind of a big deal in La Revolutione'.

I think I've figured out the whole rebellion plan, and how to make it appeal to those in the group that profess to hate their Fell-Human heritage. The Fell-Peaks are divided up into three main groups. The first are the rulers, they care about power and prestige and keeping shit in their country under control and capable of defending their borders. They do not give two shits about goblins or the heritage of their (the faction) ancestors. The second group is the goblin clans, they want to be free. They don't remember much about their ancient empire (because the Fell-Humans burned most of it down and Jedi mind tricked their ancestors into forgetting it), but they know it was big and tough and they want it and their freedom back. The third, and smallest, faction is those concerned with Hell and their bloodline. These crazies believe that the true potential of the Fell-Human bloodline can only be unlocked if they take Hell back and return it to its rightful place as the capital of the Fell Peaks. How this appeals to D'Alton and Xain is as follows: A fragmented Fell Peaks means Kusseth has a greater chance to finally take a crack at conquering it for real. Right now the Fell Peaks is a impenetrable bastion like Whurent, most of it is underground and the true rulers can basically just lob a million hobs and bugbears into any cave system or mountaintop fortress Kusseth cares to take a crack at. The third faction and the goblins are working together for two goals. The first is to free Hell from Kusseth and the second is to free the goblin clans. The goblin clans and this third faction (must think of a badass demonic name, something like Descendants of the Blood but more badass or something) will then ally to kick the first faction down from their high horse to kind of ensure all goblins are free, then everyone carves out what they can of the surface area of the Fell Peaks and goes back to war with one another over previously non-existent borders.

There are a few wild cards though. The third faction could find a way to uncork the stopper on the power of the bloodline and unleash all kinds of demonic power into the Fell-Human race. Bugbears could finally get inspired and once more become the driven, mildly bloodthirsy, warrior kings they once were. Cenn the Reaver could get word from his spies in Hell and decide he's going to level the place. Eldumans and Abraxens could get wind of the whole thing and say "This does not fit the plan." and immediately activate contingency plans that are centuries old. Finally, The Bleak Tyrant could suddenly go "yoink" with his power and make the Fell-Humans ugly looking humans. Or could he?

The real difficulty I am finding all of a sudden is making it appeal to John and Gideon. One is a Sereth elf and the other is an Elduman-descended human that speaks Uncout as his primary language. If John (the player) ever decides to make a background I will be interested to find out why an Elduman-descended human ended up being born in the Wild Lands. John (the player) will pretty much go along with the group, but I'm not sure what Jeff will do with Gideon. I want this quest line to appeal to everyone and their character, not just be something they're doing because it was what everyone agreed on and everyone else wants to do.

Ah well, I'll figure it out I suppose.

Music: Little Acorns - The White Stripes

Retcon

Is the definition of retcon a commonly known definition? They always talk about retconning in 40k forums because of Games Workshop's liberal hack and slash use of the retcon machete and I've kind of just started using it (word, not machete) on a regular basis.

In my Q&A I sort of muddy the waters about magic and psionics. I feel the need to elaborate. Fundamentally, they are powered by the same source, the cosmic energy produced by the universe. Each force is guided by the perceptions and willpower of its wielder. The main difference is that magic is wild and can go screwy and psionics are completely stable. This is true partially because people believe magic = wild and that psionics = stable. It also occurs because of the method of use. Wielders of magic use funky words and illegible scribbles and nonsense symbology (don't start, I am well aware it is not a word) from dead languages to channel their power, whereas psionicists route it through the pathways of their minds. Essentially the psionicsts have a greater control over their power because it is channeled through the very fiber of their being, rather than a wooden stick and some pictographs that they believe might hold the mighty forces at their command in check. Psionic characters are just far more intimately involved with the power they command than arcane characters are and that allows them greater control over the energies gifted to them by a broken Cosmic Engine. The real question is, how does Glamour relate to all of this?

Also, just as an FYI, when I say "great" or any other word like twelve times in one paragraph, it is intentional. I am aware of the whole "don't repeat yourself all the time" rule about writing.

Music: Planet Caravan - Black Sabbath

D...Do They Look Like They Deserved It?

After talking with Josh today I have decided that Jeff gets a gold star of awesomesauce for that line. Jeremy gets his own star of awesomesauce for role-playing and for handling the warden. Heather gets a star of awesomesauce as well for being supportive of the gaming and keeping a straight face while listening to us (me) take geeky shit way too seriously.

We gamed Saturday from the hours of 5:30 PM to 3:00 AM on the dot. By the end we were hot and tired and just exhausted from the sheer amount of tangents. It was still glorious.

I've really got to say, I am having a metric shit ton of fun this time around. I am juiced up for the whole day when I know I am going to be gaming later. I mean, I am almost giddy with fucking nerdy delight. Then we game and it totally lives up to the expectation. Gaming has always been fun, but it has never delivered like this before. There was always something that left me in a funk afterwards. A fight not being what I thought it'd be, a plot element going totally unnoticed, a riddle that the guys literally try to shoot their way through, etc. But, gaming is totally delivering this time around. The guys are great. The tangents are great (mostly). The edition is great. Everything is just great and that is making it a joy to work on scenarios for the guys. I want to write more of them. In the past it has been like pulling teeth to produce scenarios and there has been a lot of Copy & Pasting in Word to get them done on time. Not this time. I'm bringing my fucking A game and challenging myself to do a good job and be creative and think outside the box. I am a Dogdamn raconteur and I will craft epic fucking shit for these guys to go through. Fuck. Yes.

Ok, maybe that was excessive, but I am really enjoying gaming and DMing.

There were only four fights in the scenario I ran the other day and everyone seemed to really have a good time with it. Never before has the group responded to a primarily non-combat scenario that way. I had to pull violence and insanity out of my ass and juice it up with steroids to get a response from some of our previous iterations of the group. In one scenario the group was hired to clean out some bandit caves, they did so. Then they collected the gear of the fallen, hired new guys and made the caves their raiding outpost. The final time we played The Black Claw Clan the group infiltrated and slaughtered a city of dwarves.

The third scenario sits waiting for me with two rooms to be finished. After that...Kusseth. I need to make that place Epic. I think I'll read some old Planescape stuff about Sigil for inspiration. Kusseth City really is my homage to Sigil. I mean, no city can top Sigil of course. 4th Edtion can try and make shit like the City of Brass and that one place in the Shadowfell relevant, but they're not. Call me a Grognard if you want, but Sigil = awesomesauce and nothing can compare to that place.

Kusseth City. The heart of Kusseth. Ramshackle buildings that rise story after story into the smoggy skyline. The stench of gaslights, the flicker of electrical lights, foul steam that's expelled from sewer grates, songs of bards as they kill and plunder in the night, streets whose name and direction change by the week or month, lawmen with honor as smudged and oily as the streets they tread, but no less dedicated to keeping the peace and staving off chaos. A place so packed with bodies and buildings that everything is smudged and dirty and sweaty. (Dear Readers: I went on in this vein for another paragraph or so but I realized I was making a In My Campaign, Kusseth Edition: Part 2 about Kusseth City and decided I would do that rather than continue my meandering in this post).

Back to my scenario meanderings. What I need to do is give them a brief and delicious taste of Kusseth. I want to leave them wanting more but not entice them to the point that they want to stay there instead of pursuing their professed goals of aiding/beginning an unnamed revolution on the west coast. (Protip: It has to do with goblins.) A quick taste of Kusseth and then maybe a jaunt to Hell herself for a bit. Could be a nice starting point for adventures set in the Fell Peaks. Or it could be a place they go to die.

Music: Forces of Victory - Gogol Bordello

A Q&A With The Guy Who Makes Shit

The following really serves no purpose, I'm basically going to be asking myself random questions about my world to help flesh it out for the purposes of writing and DMing in it. Be warned if you are a casual reader, it is long and developed over the course of like five or six days. Here goes.

A thousand year war? Seriously?

-Kind of a stretch, I know. But is it really a thousand years or was it just agreed upon that it was a long period of warfare and a lot of records were lost (Kusseth City itself lost three analytical engines and documentation storage facilities). Who says it lasted a thousand years anyways? Kusseth? The New Empire? What about the elves of Volungsheim? They are immortal after all.

Are there dragons in the world?

-Yes. They are neither metallic nor chromatic or crystalline. This goofy ass color related shit DnD has pulled is weird and has always bugged me. My dragons are much like komodo dragons, just bigger and more dragon-like. Their "fire" breath is actually a pair of venoms that when combined in oxygen begin to burn. Its kind of swirling around in the back of my brain, but I'm picturing a Council of Wyrms-esque setting (Which only means something if you know your AD&D settings.) on a continent to the south of The Known World. Maybe.

If the continent the Empire of Kaleshmar was built on exploded in the unnamed magical catastrophe, why is the Old Empire about three feet off the shore of The Known World?

-Kaleshmar was big, Pangaea big, likely bigger. Every continent (including The Known World) in the hemispehere was a piece of Kaleshmar. If you go a couple of inches beyond the paper borders of my drawn map you find other continents. One is a barren island composed of the remnants of the huge crystalline towers the Kaleshmarians dwelled in. Might be fun to explore that one.

How advanced are the Abraxen Orcs?

-Early 1900s era technology.

Why is Kusseth so lawless?

-Everything in Kusseth is taxed, including corruption and breaking the law. Fines are the most common form of punishment in Kusseth with only a rare few crimes are punishable by death (mainly those involve pissing off wardens). It is more productive to use a warden to extort a crime lord and take a percentage of the warden's take than it is to shut the crime lord down outright. If the people of Kusseth really truly wanted law and order, they'd murder the crime lords and bards and petty criminals themselves and save the officials the red tape of documenting and tracking all the bribes and kickbacks and fines. Kusseth bleeds every mark it can from its people, and this allows the nation to be the powerhouse of the Known World, rivaled only by the Fallen Empire, and New Empire.

What about the Dwarves and the Children of Volung, aren't they pretty tough?

-Dwarves are completely non-aggressive, mostly they just respond to attacks on them. Even then, the attacks on them are pretty fruitless. They outnumber every other nation in the Known World, but their cities are so deep they really don't need to bother with the above ground world. The Children of Volung are the least populous race (excluding the Fallen) in The Known World, without support from the Dwarves they would quickly fall to the superior numbers of the surrounding country, but only in a full scale war situation. The warriors of Volungsheim are quite literally the most competent and deadly (excluding Cenn the Reaver) found in The Known World and only when outnumbered could they be conquered.

What caused the long ass war?

-A rogue faction of the empire of Kaleshmar that did not become the Eldumans living in the Old Empire.

What?

-Kaleshmar was big and had lots of wicked powerful sorcerer types living in it. Plus they had colonized the whole world by the time their empire shattered. They didn't all land on the little rock that became the Old Empire, nor did all the tribes of that empire experience their own little dark age. The world is scattered with uprooted Kaleshmarians and their various plots and empires. It was a big empire and lots of people means lots of schisms among the population.

How and why?

-They wanted to destabilize The Known World and prevent the Eldumans of the Old Empire from having a support base should this rogue faction find itself needing to fight them.

How do Cromm Cruach and the Fey relate to Kaleshmar?

-They don't. The empire of Cromm Cruach and the Grey Wastes rose up after Kaleshmar was destroyed.

Ok, what about Balor and the Firbolgs and Fomorians, they predate Cromm and the Fey don't they?

-No, they don't.

But Cromm discovered them and they were full-fledged civilizations that were locked in a war with each other.

-Not a question, but I'll explain. The Grey Wastes and the Fomorians and Firbolgs and Balor himself are/were figments of Cromm's imagination. Just like Herne was a figment of Mab's imagination. The Glamour of Rulers, and Cromm Cruach especially, is godawful powerful and Glamour turns the will of its wielder into reality.

What are the sea-folk exactly?

-A tribe of Kaleshmarians that live in massive underwater cities. They did experience their own dark age when their magic failed and most of them died.

How far out are you man?

-I'm pretty far out man.

Why is magic screwy in this world?

-It isn't screwy on the world, just on the continent called The Known World. This is because there are certain objects that regulate the ebb and flow of the cosmic energies that power creation. These objects are scattered across the world and one in particular lies somewhere in the Known World and it is malfunctioning. It is not the only one.

Why call the continent The Known World if you admit that it is not the only continent on the Known World?

-Because the people dwelling there (aside from the Abraxens and Eldumans) are as self-centered and self-involved and pompous as early human civilizations were. Most think that they are the center of the universe, so that arrogance would of course lead to stupid shit like calling a relatively tiny chunk of land The Known World. The pirates of Haven have another name for The Known World.

What is it?

-The Ass End of the Southern Seas.

Why are Abraxens so savy with technology?

-They were enslaved long ago in their desert homeland by an invading force of Kaleshmarians. At this time they were primitive and didn't know shit (much like the orcish cliche' found in the Monster Manuals of the past). The Kaleshmarians were utterly corrupt and lazy and totally hedonistic. They did not care about their slaves, but they expected them to be competent, so Abraxen society and culture was eroded and replaced by Kaleshmar learning, except that the orcs had no talent for sorcery. They still made good slaves though. Now they were smart and they realized they were outgunned, so they used their newfound learning to fashion devices to mimic the powers of their enslavers. Then they gutted those sons of bitches.

Why is every race so long-lived and/or immortal in your campaign?

-Hard to say. There is logic behind it though. The Fallen are immortal because the Bleak Tyrant won't let them die. The Children of Volung are immortal because Volung is a Ljosalf (sp?) and they ate other Ljosalves who ate Jotuns, who ate the fuck out of the gods of the north (who were actually a faction of Kaleshmarians that managed to survive the destruction of their empire with most of their arcane gadgetry, but not the magic that made it, intact.), that power is quite thin after all these years so the Children of Volung can't do the awesome shit he can, but it can still sustain their lives. Eldumans are immortal because their bodies are crafted from living crystal and their mental prowess fuels them. The Vyanth elves are immortal because their master the...D'ayO'hE'en (I have it written down somewhere but that is the gist of the name) infuses them with life and vitality. The Sereth are long-lived but not immortal because their creator the Fair One and his power are no longer living among them, eventually they won't live much longer than a normal human. Unless the Fair One is found.

Why are the Children of Volung so bat shit crazy and violent?

-The Hunger, as detailed by Maggot in my Norse Story. They just don't know it though.

Why no gods?

-Because I don't like the idea of being totally subservient to some creature that can't understand the daily trials and tribulations of life. Plus, it means your character is a totally useless individual that is only competent because he has a divine creature paying attention to him once in a while. Seriously, what does a Cleric have without divine power backing him? A high Religion check, scale mail, and some weapon proficiencies. Maybe a flashy holy symbol he can sell for a few gold as well.

Why put in stuff to take the place of gods for divine characters then?

-Because it isn't fair to just say "Nope, can't do it. Be a Bard if you want to be a leader role." I also think my definition of extremely potent individuals like the Bleak Tyrant and Cenn the Reaver granting others pieces of their power is a decent analog.

How are they different from gods then? (Thanks for this one Eric)

-A god exists on an alternate plane and has armies of angels and archons and shit to serve its whims and put the hurt down on those that piss it off. The "gods" in my world have homes and kingdoms they and their followers must defend and if they want to hurt someone they need to do it themselves. My "gods" can have their heads hacked off, it wouldn't be easy, but it can be done and it would be final and would allow their killer(s) to absorb its power if they so desired. Gods automatically grant you power for your prayers, regardless of what you are doing at the time. The "gods" in my campaign turn off your juice if you go against their will. Maybe its not quite as different as I would have liked, mechanically speaking in game terms, but when/if I write about it, it will be different.

This is Bowie to Bowie, do you hear me out there man?

-This is Bowie back to Bowie, I read you loud and clear man.

How can Traith survive having a boiler and turbine assembly installed in his chest cavity?

-He's not fully human, and by the time the boiler and turbine get put in, he's mostly running on electricity anyways. I don't have hard science for it, because it likely doesn't exist, but the turbine juices up his spine and brain, the brain directs it like it would any electrical impulse and that is how Traith continues to exist. If I can't figure out a way to eliminate the need, I have Doc supplying him with IV foodstuff to combat the fact that his stomach is gone.

The Fallen have the Bleak Tyrant, the Children of Volung have Volung, etc, etc. Who or what do the people of Kusseth and the Dwarves have?

-The Dwarves have Maggot. The people of Kusseth have Law or Chaos.

How can Law or Chaos grant power?

-The same way sorcerers and wizards can use "magic" and the Eldumans can use psionics.

So its all the same thing, magic and psionics?

-It is and it isn't. Consensus reality, to a certain extent. Magic is magic, but it is no different than the power divine characters receive from their patron, or psionicists use. Its is all energy redirected by the will of those that use it. The wielders just perceive it differently and their perceptions dictate its nature, thus psionic powers are stable and magic is not. If a warden who is a Paladin believes in Law and Order and that he serves those forces, he will be granted power. Just as with the other patrons, requests for aid and power will be denied if he works against the cause of Law.

So where does "magic" come from?

-Those objects that regulate the ebb and flow of cosmic energies are called Cosmic Engines and they help refine and channel the animating forces of the universe. Some were built to allow living creatures access to those forces.

Who built the engines?

-The Eldarine.

Who are the Eldarine?

-The Conteog, Saevoi, Lacerat, and Everseon. I suppose the Vacusu are Eldarine as well, but they are trying to eat the universe whereas the others are trying to preserve it. They built the Cosmic Engines so that they could wield the energies of creation to fight the Vacusu. They could already wield the energies of creation, because they were part of the birth of the universe, but the Engines allowed them to fine tune their powers and provide more juice for them.

Why so many different afterlives for the Fey?

-Because they are immortal energy vampires. Energy/matter cannot be destroyed, only transformed.

What are their afterlives exactly?

-Fading is when they allow themselves to dissipate into nothingness, they haven't the will left to keep themselves solid (though they don't really understand that that is what happens). Oblivion is when a Ruler or some similarly strong force unmakes them and reabsorbs their essence, this is about as close to utter and complete death that they can get, although technically they still exist. Death's Halls are where they go to basically sleep for eternity kind of endlessly reliving their lives. Rebirth as one of the Sluagh is when their bodies still exists but their brains get hollowed out and emptied of all their memories, since they must die to become Sluagh their bodies are usually in pretty rough shape.

Bloody Head/Cromm Cruach, how does that work exactly? Does he have multiple personality disorder?

-No. Cromm is a complex individual. He loves violence and mayhem and slaughter, but he also has something resembling a code of honor and conduct. There are certain things he will not do and certain non-murderous things he enjoys. There is something of the scholar in him in that he enjoys the knowing of things and educating others. He is basically a scholar and a warrior, but he finds his natures at odds with each other. For a Fey to deny his nature is the path to Fading. If they have an identity crisis and are confused about who and what they are, they can lose touch with themselves and Fade. For Cromm to exist the aspects of his personality must be forced into extremes. Bloody Head became insanely violent and hungry for blood while Cromm ended up a pacifist.

Ok. What caused the initial rift?

-Danu and her talk of honor. When she came on the scene she filled Cromm's head with the notion that mindless slaying was unwise, even if there wasn't any true malice in it and the Tuatha De' Danann didn't truly die (they became Sluagh). Cromm trusted her and paid attention to her as he did any warrior sworn to his service, but he still love the slaughter, just as his people did. This put his thoughts at odds with his impulses. Driving a wedge between his personalities and dividing his nature, which led to him beginning to Fade and the creation of the Bloody Head personality.

Why is Oberon such an asshat?

-Because that is his nature, to be self-centered and narcissistic. That is why he is a giant beacon of Glamour that can challenge the might of the Sluagh. He is a thoughtless creature of almost pure impulse and that is why he is so powerful.

D20 Shadow Chasers became this world of Kaleshmarians and Fey and shit, how did that happen?

-The final scenarios of Shadow Chaser would have resulted in the breaking of one of the aforementioned Cosmic Engines, by way of nearly killing one of its caretakers (the skull of brass and bronze was his skull in fact). This coupled with celestial events occurring above the planet totally altered the lines of power blanketing the planet and the empire of Kaleshmar. This caused all their carefully managed energies and various magical powers to go haywire very briefly and send their empire into utter chaos and mayhem.

Celestial events?

-The Elder War ended and the creation that the Eldarine had used to end it had to be dismantled but it was too powerful and instead they had to wipe its mind of knowledge. If it was allowed to survive the war intact it posed too great a threat to the universe should something go awry with its internal workings. They could not kill it so they erased its knowledge and personality and cast it down to be imprisoned on the planet below them in hopes that it would find something resembling peace and happiness. They loved it and respected it and owed their lives to it, but they could not allow it to jeopardize the life of the universe.

What was the creation?

-A remnant of a previous universe. Kind of like Marvel's Galactus, I think.

What?

-This universe was not the first one, nor would it likely be the last. The thing the Eldarine used to end their war was an artifact left over from a previous existence. They don't know much more about it other than the fact that it predates the Saevoi and the cosmic seas of chaos that birthed them. They also discovered that is has some similarities to their Cosmic Engines.

So what exactly do to it that makes it their creation?

-They sort of went Six Million Dollar Man on it. It resembled their Cosmic Engines enough that they were able to remake it better, faster, and stronger so it became sort of an uber-Cosmic Engine.

What else?

-They gave it weapons that further empowered it.

Sounds pretty powerful.

-Yes, stars and even whole solar systems lived and died at its command. It could remake reality within certain parameters, but that is what it took to beat back the ever hungry Vacusu.

Why are all the names in your world taken from Earth myth?

-Earth and this world are separate realities, but some things are what they are regardless of your reality. Iron is iron in both worlds, and water is water. In Earth's reality science and technology are ascendant, in my world myth and magic are ascendant. So, Thor was a real dude with fancy gadgets here, not a myth. If someone starts talking about electricity or some obscure scientific discipline in my world they would take about it with the same manner of awe and disbelief that someone in our reality would talk about magic or monsters.

Are you saying your world is an alternate reality and has an alternate Earth, Jupiter, Venus, etc?

-I am in fact saying that.

Does that really affect anything though?
-Not especially.

What's the deal with the big animals in the Beast Lands?
-They are big. One of those things that regulates the flow of cosmic energies and whatnot lies in the Beast Lands and over the millenia it has affected the nature of the creatures dwelling in close proximity to it.

Anything else?
-Plenty.

Music 1.0: American Wedding - Gogol Bordello
Music 2.0: Alcohol - Gogol Bordello
Music 3.0: Inner City Pressure - Flight of the Conchords