A trio of funny ones this time

I should probably present these without commentary, but it's haaaaard!  I thought these three were funny.  I must have gotten a real snootful of e. e. cummings before writing the first one. The second one is really silly, but there's a self-awareness there that I like.  The last one is, well.... I think it's probably the best of the three.  Anyway!  I promise I will stop the hijacking after this week.  Probably only do like one or two more of these posts, and then go back to your regularly scheduled broadcast!

Blank comes now into

Blank falls

sidewise and weirdways

from the sunpush nightgrunt

birthvacuum and into be

and here.

Be is a strange thing,

all nosemoutheyesearshands

for drinking herenow.

(Somehow someone somewhere comes to fullstop)

Noone is such fine company

in nine-month nothing

that Blank is forced to

sing a wasn't

loud as

a daunt to everywhere

and gasplife

redundantly to please

be (and to daunt resume)

while don't and musn't

tell him hush

and croon lullilies

to futurewho.

Conversations with Foliage

So, Self-important,

did you talk

to the tree?

Did they tell you

how ridiculous you are,

woodenly arguing

your anger

with a rough bark

of laughter?

          "Yeah, wild cowboy flowers

           pulled pistils from holsters

           and ran my ignorance right outta Dodge."

Hey, Self Important,

did you discuss

the roots of

your impotence

with Mr.

Stan D.

Coniferous?

Did he branch

into mockery

when you saw

how solid

his trunk?

          "Yeah, he told me

           that on the contrary,

           the inability to move frees me

           from the obligation to act."

Say, Self Important,

did you debate

your sadness

with Miss Cherry

Deciduous?

Did she threaten

to leaf you,

candid chlorophyll,

'cause you

didn't eat her

cherries no more?

          "Yeah, I stammered as stamens

           spat golden pollen on my depression

           and spilled blossoms and petals on my hate."

Okay, Self Important,

so awkward and mortal,

did you explain

your perspective

and all of your

problems

to Mayor

Merle Maple?

Yes?  Good,

he's a capable

being.  Now

what did he say?

          "He said there is only sap

           and syrup to the trees.

           Called me full of sap

           and poured syrup on me."

sandbox menendez

this is where i
want to rule
the world from.

in my pajamas.

let the churchills

and the nixons

and popes come here to me.

i've got my batphone

and alfred.

(i'm mad a mommy.

mommy and daddy

     are banished

to their rooms.

indefinitely.)

Two more ancient poems

Dr Rascher's Heavenly Chariot

It was a secret

within a secret

It made even

Himmler sick,

the tall box on wheels

behind block 5

in Dachau.

It could simulate

a vertical dive

from 32,000 feet

with or without oxygen.

Dr Rascher

had a deadline to meet

October 25

the great

Luftwaffe Conference

on Freezing

and Nuremburg

is so lovely in the fall, Fraulein,

we could walk together on the bank

of the River Regnitz

under the tall lindens

and I could give you nylons

and a tin of potted meat perhaps

after the Scientific Sessions

if

     you would only, 

if you

        would

                                        warm

He was worried

They brought him

a 37 year old Jew

in good general condition

They brought him

four Gypsy women

from another camp

He gave them all a ride

in his heavenly chariot

recording his

meticulous observations

in a careful hand

male subject at 12 Km

no supplemental oxygen

subject breathed

for 30 minutes

diaphoresis

and myoclonus

appeared at four

tetany at five

tachypnea at six

unconsciousness by ten

and then a gradual

slowing of the breath

to three per minute

with deepening cyanosis

and foam at the lips

until breathing ceased at thirty;

electrocardiographic activity

continued for another twenty

and at autopsy

the atria still quivered

even after the spine was severed

and the brain pulled

from its heavy, subarachnoid

oedema

(applause)

He was worried about

          the warming with body heat experiments

Himmler was insisting

But, damn it, he'd so meticulously documented

          the results of cooling!

The excitation, the progressive rigors,

         the flexion contractures, the tonic-clonic activity

and how when he cooled them

          to 26.5 C rectally

it was the submersive chilling of the occiput

          that would invariably result in fatality -

paresis of the thermoregulatory

          centers of the brainstem

he'd speculate learnedly

(applause)

...then arm in arm, Fraulein,

flush in a lovely season

the Regnitz flowing

beneath our balcony

thanks to our gracious

Reichsfuehrer

it could mean a University

appointment after the war

crimson leaves upturned

spinning downstream

I will run a finger

under the silk

of your gown

at the shoulder

                              in the shadows

But warming with body heat.

Oh, let's dial in

a fall from 10 Km,

and then

two hours in the ice pool

at 2C,

yes, yes the helmet

and kapok vest,

and this time keep

the damned occiput up

for heaven's sake

and the rectal thermometer secured

for my meticulous observations

maybe this one will live

     long enough to re-

                                        warm

...O Savior of the noble

Luftwaffe: Dr. Sigmund Rascher,

Professor Untersturnfuerher Rasscher, in the

shadows above the lovely river,

along the shoulder of the lovely Fraulein

I slowly run my finger

along the supraclavicular hollow

down the costochondral ridge

to xiphoid, rectus, navel, pubes

thanks to our gracious

Reichsfuerer Himmler

if only he

                    lives

if only he

                    will           warm

if only he

Prepare the bed!

Get the Gypsy whores

from Station RF, bastard!

And drag the shivering bastard from the pool!

That's it, oh it'll take two at least,

throw them on, that's right,

right on top of him,

now warm him, you bitches, you whores,

warm him

                    warm him

                                        WARM HIM!

99 hells

she talkin bout an

eye thru a needle

sky thru a vein

pain don't reign no more

she say jazz sick

junk stomach

watch the neon

suicide every nite

at the same time, it's

gonna be alright.

he ask quarter to six

monkey city inter

zone baby

what happenin with that

'55 Caddy lady?

dragon girl she say get in

chase me kiss me

fuck me got that

taste me tight salty

we gonna chase it

together

she gonna blow

veins blues purple blood

tiger vinegar mist

red mirror smoke

leopard arson jazz

glass needle rock me

shake me to the core.

she want she got

a viper or three

for me tonite,

tonite be my baby

rag rage rig glow needle jazz.

daily he thinkin

factory death soul

skeleton key

oh yeah, we froggy,

normal don't shine.

he got eight smokin

nites of blue motel

barbiturate jazz

conjure prostitute

baby just spit your arms

around me, it's

gonna be alright.

he get outta me

outta car serpent

mantis widow outfit

impossible breath

street corner hungry

crew maggot my skin

is death.

ninety-nine hells.

ninety-nine hells to go.

Facility Designate 339-19

Some time ago I wrote up an adventure I have been referring to as "Facility Designate 339-19" - you will find a link below to a Google docs folder containing all the material I put together for this thing.  There are two main parts to this adventure; a short prelude involving an African village in an alternate history Earth, and a main portion that is a somewhat more classic delve into a demon-haunted scientific facility.  I really feel I should do some additional research and probably a full re-write of the section on the village.  I live in fear that Enziramire will read that part and rip me a new one (quite rightfully) for my shabby appropriations of Africa.  I think the facility part stands up pretty well, but what do I know.  There are definitely a few things in here that are specific to my game and players, and which you should feel free to discard or change if you would like to use it.  If I ever sought to publish this professionally, I would clean that stuff up, but it's free, and my hope is that even if you don't use it wholesale, you find a part of it you like, maybe a single encounter or a magic item, or a monster.  Or the art.  God only knows how I talked Julian Feylona into letting me use his art for the equivalent of a few cups of coffee, but he was really gracious about it.  It won't be the layout, which is pretty much nonexistent.  Around this time I looked at a few layout tools (Affinity for one) and found out that layout is HARD.  But part of punk is working with the tools, ideas, and skills you have - if the guitar only has a low E and an A string, you can still make power chords - so that's what I did, and pardon me if it's a little out of tune.

This was written for 5e, but honestly, that stuff is mostly just stats, which you should feel free to change and re-arrange in any way you please.  I didn't follow the script when I ran this thing (introducing an encounter with a T-Rex to kick things off and get players moving, for example) and you shouldn't either.

This worked for me and my players when I ran it, but I took a slightly insane approach - I split the four players up pretty early and then ran four remote game sessions a week (instead of a single game session for all four players).  In some ways this might be easier to run remotely than it would be to run face to face.  I spent some time before I ran this feeling out schedules to determine if splitting the party up in that way would actually work from a commitment standpoint, and was happy when my players bought in.  I put together a chart (found towards the end of the main document) to track which players had been through which experiences in the maze so that I could re-use an experience if I wanted (or note if something was changed).  There's a corruption system here as well, but you certainly don't have to use it if your players would rather you did not.  Once I split my players up I gave each one a proposal at some point or another to be a secret villain, and I may have rather purposely let it slip that it was ok if they decided not to join the dark side, I could just ask someone else.  I don't think they trusted each other very much when they finally re-united near the end of the adventure.

I refer to the ultimate prize should the PCs successfully defeat the demon (or be rewarded for releasing it into the world) as a MacGuffin, but I only use that term in the sense that it is a prize used to drive action.  In fact, as a powerful reality-reshaping instrument it could easily be the kind of reward that totally changes the nature of the world and the campaign itself, depending on what the PCs do with it and what the DM agrees to, and there are plenty of other reasons the PCs may want to explore the maze.

One other note - there are some assumptions about other works the DM should refer to - the most important of these is probably Veins of the Earth.  There is a full list near the beginning.  You can certainly make this work without access to that stuff, but it helps.

The reason I share this thing now is because it's Halloween, and the goal of this thing was to see if I could turn D&D into an effective vehicle for horror.  It worked for me and my players and I hope it does for you, should you decide to use it.

Happy Halloween!

Facility Designate 339-19

There Are Only Good People Here: Musings on Alignment and Sin in D&D, Fiction, and Life

I know this isn’t a new thought, but as I have aged, I have begun to have a hard time with the D&D alignment system. I’ve been trying to think of alternatives. One idea was a graph where you had evil/good and law/chaos axes and you plotted out a graph to determine current and median alignments. I like this idea and the idea that PCs start unaligned – this idea was implemented wonderfully in Planescape: Torment, and I was initially thinking about something like that. But that’s a lot of work. In some ways I’m tempted to ignore alignment altogether but it’s so heavily built into the framework of D&D that it is incredibly difficult to get rid of.

One of the problems that comes up is the use of magic in “detecting” alignments. Of course, you could simply do away with such spells. But this brings me to another thought. What about the pervasive use of detect evil used by communities to keep evil people out? Detect evil is a fairly low level spell in most systems. I tend to like low-magic settings, but even in those, it isn’t impossible that a place might set up some system where they use Detect Evil to determine who is allowed in, who is not, who is exiled, etc. The question then becomes “what constitutes evil?” Are beings inherently evil? Are they born that way? If so, would “evil” babies be left in the wilderness to die ala the Spartans casting children into the chasm at the foot of Mount Taygetus?

Or is it acts that make one evil? And if so, how does the practice of leaving babies to die of exposure impact the alignment of the person that does so? Would such an action make the perpetrators evil? If so, would they be expelled to die in the wilderness as well? What about actions that are unintentional? You intended to rob someone to get just enough food to eat, but as you approached with your dagger, you were so keyed up and scared you weren’t looking where you were putting your feet. You trip over a root and plunge your dagger into someone’s heart. Congrats, you are now a murderer! I have been binge watching true crime shows, and it turns out most murders are totally idiotic. Many of them are exactly this kind of thing, where someone has so much anxiety about what they are about to do that they wind up screwing up and shooting the person they are about to mug, often running away afterwards without actually achieving their aim of taking their victim’s money! Having done such a thing, are you now evil?

How would such a society function, knowing that everyone was good? Would unlimited credit be extended because all knew that the person being extended the credit would do anything they could to pay it back? What if that person wound up stealing (perhaps from someone “evil”) to pay back their debts?

I’ve come to the conclusion that true evil in real life is pretty rare. I think one of the reasons I have always kind of liked Vonnegut's work is because none of his characters are evil. There are no “bad guys.” Even Dwane Hoover in Breakfast of Champions is simply ill, not evil. The human need for archetypes and narrative often makes us think in terms of enemies who are evil. You have but to look around you to see how that has been exploited to drive people apart (I’m in the US and it is especially apparent here right now, but it happens everywhere) so it's interesting to me to read fiction where this need for a "bad guy" is ignored. This leaves us at the mercy of the universe, which is an uncomfortable place to be, and I think it's this which drives that need in the first place.

I think what I may do the next time I run a campaign is use the idea that alignment is acquired, but instead of setting up an axis and gradually plotting alignment to create a spectrum, I’ll do it this way – true good or evil is RARE. I really like this quote (very slightly altered by yours truly from the original, but faithful to the meaning I think) from Arthur Machen’s The White People as a way to explain what I mean:

“...the essence of sin is in… the taking of Heaven by storm… an attempt to penetrate into another and higher sphere in a forbidden manner. There are few, indeed, who wish to penetrate into other spheres, higher or lower, in ways allowed or forbidden. Men, in the mass, are amply content with life as they find it. Therefore there are few saints, and sinners (in the proper sense) are fewer still, and men of genius, who partake sometimes of each character, are rare also. Yes; on the whole, it is, perhaps, harder to be a great sinner than a great saint. The saint endeavors to recover a gift which he has lost; the sinner tries to obtain something which was never his. In brief, he repeats the Fall.”

PCs start unaligned. Most creatures, in fact, have no alignment. It is possible, though rare, to acquire an evil alignment through “repeating the Fall.” This way of doing things feels right to me – something like a lich has “attempted to penetrate into another and higher sphere in a forbidden manner.” In giving himself immortality, something that belongs to the divine and which he never had a right to, he has attempted to take Heaven by force. THIS is the kind of act that could give a creature an alignment. Similarly, you can acquire a good alignment by endeavoring to recover a gift which you have lost. The gift here is not some tawdry physical thing, but rather the kind of innocence in which you are willing to sacrifice yourself for something greater. That is the gift that people lose. Thus, though I don’t think martyrdom is the only way to achieve sainthood, such a thing IS generally reserved for the martyr. I realize that this is a very Christian way to look at evil and sin, but it would be easy enough to modify for a polytheistic society - the main point is that sin is an attempt to take divinity by force.

You could make an argument that the aforementioned hypothetical in which someone goes to rob another person and winds up killing them, or even the very act of robbery, the assertion of one will over another, is taking of something by force, and if you believe that human beings have a spark of the divine, that this in some way repeats "the Fall." However, I’m reminded of another quote, this one from Terry Pratchett’s character Granny Weatherwax, on the nature of sin. From Carpe Jugulum. I love Pratchett because for all the silly humor, there’s a lot of really profound things he says through his characters.

“...Sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”

The character she is talking to begins to answer that he is sure there are worse things, and Granny answers,

“But they starts with thinking about people as things.”

This definition of sin has a lot to recommend it – I think it is one of the best I have ever heard. Certainly I think the confusion of people and things leads to a lot of unhappiness! But in the same passage, Granny (much like Kurt Vonnegut) indicates that there are no bad guys, as such. The priest she is talking to tells her that the issue of sin (and therefore evil) is not as black and white as she makes it out to be, and that there are shades of grey, to which she responds:

“There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby.”

Most of us live somewhere in this state of “grubbiness,” I think, or as Machen puts it, “Men, in the mass, are amply content with life as they find it.” And I think most beings inhabiting a D&D world would live in that state as well. This brings me back to the rarity of the true sinner or saint. “Grubbiness” can be cleaned up. Perhaps through forgiveness, perhaps through acts of atonement, but there are sins with a small s that can be washed away. What Machen is talking about is Sin with a capital S – the truly unforgiveable, which is incredibly rare, something so foul and monstrous that it transforms the being who commits it in the same way that a man is transformed into a saint through the embodiment of pure and good that is as far beyond the mundane as its evil counterpart. An affront to a god rather than a human being.

I rather think that most players who “acquire” an alignment of either the good or evil variety in this world would probably have to be retired... IF they still lived!