Mary Shelley, Suspiria, Mortal Engines, The Little Stranger

Sometimes you find yourself looking forward to movies that might not actually be good because hope springs eternal. Below are four I'm interested in. I have the highest hopes for The Little Stranger; I absolutely love that book--I think it's one of the best modern haunted house stories--so hopefully it follows through on the source material. Mary Shelley looks a little Dawson's Creek. I'm not sure I trust Peter Jackson with Mortal Engines after all those Hobbit movies. And I'm not sure what the point of a Suspiria remake is, but I'm willing to give it a try.

Mary Shelley

Suspiria

Mortal Engines

The Little Stranger

Let's Read Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (Shadar-Kai!)

We've seen dwarves, elves, and some more elves, but where the goths at?

Remember back in 4e when the shadar-kai were emo humans? Well, they're back to being fey-derived as they were in 3e--but now they serve the Raven Queen. Speaking of which, I like this new take on her that makes her creepy as fuck; she's described variously as "a terrible shadow that clawed at their innermost thoughts, a pale and regal elf who exploded into an untold number of ravens, a shambling tangle of slick roots and sticks that overwhelmed them with dread, or an unknown presence that pulled them screaming blindly into the gloom." 

That's hott.

I think the Raven Queen's origins have also been revised: she was an elf queen who sought to become a deity during Corellon and Lolth's spat so she could make them shut up and come to an accord. The shadar-kai were the elves who were feeding her some of their soul-stuff so that she could undergo apotheosis; unfortunately, they were all betrayed by some evil wizards, the Raven Queen used more of the shadar-kai's souls to rain hell down on them, the ritual went wrong, and they all got sucked into the Shadowfell--where the elf queen became the Raven Queen and the elves who followed her became the gothy shadar-kai.

Oh, by the way, the evil wizards survived but were also changed; they became the nagpa, which are basically the skeksis from The Dark Crystal.

The Raven Queen now inhabits the Fortress of Memories, where she collects the memories of dead gods (!!!) and mortals alike. Best. Wunderkammer. Ever.

The Raven Queen might be crazy or she might be a cosmic sin-eater who purges the traumatized of their pain. She's your goth therapist.

Vecna is her stalker. You know he likes all of her pictures on Instagram. Also, maybe my 'ship is coming in: "Some sages posit that she is using people as pawns in an inscrutable game, the rules of which are known only to her and the Lady of Pain." RQ + LoP = OTP.

When they are outside of the Shadowfell, the Shadar-Kai look all gothy and hot, but in the Shadowfell they look tired and busted. Anyone who has been in a goth club at the end of the night when the lights come on will be familiar with this phenomenon.

Let's Read Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (Eladrin and Drow!)

We're back, after covering the Regular Elves and dwarves, so now we're moving on to the Other Elves. First up are the eladrin, which are basically the Most Elvish Elves. Instead of hanging out in the various Prime Material planes of the D&D multiverse, the eldarin put down roots in the Feywild--which apparently is like being on a perpetual ecstasy high in the most-breathtaking natural vista.

The best thing about the eladrin is that they don't give a fuck about Corellon. Rather than holding out hope that Elf God will forgive them someday, they believe that they will go through the cycle of reincarnation until the end up on the Seelie Court, Unseelie Court, or as immortal archfey. That sounds like a much better deal than the Regular Elves get.

Next up, the Bad Elves, the drow. Like the eladrin, the drow found a new home--the Underdark--and it changed them. One thing I like about the drow: their Ride Or Die attitude. Check it: "Drow view
the elves of the surface world as cowardly children who defy their parents when they're not around but cower in the corner when their parents return, terrified of having their bad behavior found out."

Unlike Corellon, who has put the Regular Elves into perpetual Time Out, Lolth is a more hands-on parent when it comes to the drow: "She sometimes tests her most faithful by drawing their spirits to her in the Demonweb to undergo her judgment. Followers never know when or if they are to be tested."

Woah, drow cities are made within giant stalactites or stalagmites? That's pretty dope. The drow practice slavery, which is one of the ways we know that they're villains, but it's interesting that the book points out that slavery is an economic necessity for them because they just don't have the numbers to survive on their own down in the Underdark. But drow are still elves, of course, so they also use slaves as status symbols.

Drow also get a better deal than Regular Elves: when they go into a trance, they remember nothing. No past lives, just the void. That sounds super relaxing, actually. This also means that drow might not reincarnate; instead, Lolth just makes more drow souls as needed. If true, this means that the drow could potentially out-breed regular elves (since there is a finite number of them) and swamp them en mass eventually.

Blah blah #notalldrow blah blah.

Architectural Tour of Dunwall

I love the videos that follow below: they are a deep dive into the visual aesthetics and world-building in the game Dishonored by a smart fellow named Simon with a PhD in architecture. Throughout the series, Simon analyzes the architectural styles, construction materials, and ornamentation to give a really compelling and unique reading of the game. I hope that he digs into Dishonored 2 at some point.

Welcome to Dunwall

Coldridge Prison

Dunwall Sewers

Hound Pits Pub

Distillery District

High Overseer's Office

The Golden Cat

Kaldwin's Bridge

Boyle Estate

Dunwall Tower

Flooded District

Kingsparrow Island

Rothwild Slaughterhouse

Brigmore Manor

Let's Read Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (Elves!)

We started a read-through of Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes by looking at the lore of the neckbeards dwarves, but now we're moving on to the elves. I'm probably going to need two posts to tackle elves; their section feels heavier than the one on dwarves.

Let's talk about the origins of D&D's elves: they're literally the children of a god, rather than the creation of a god. Kind of. Actually, they're Corellon Larethian's blood--literally.

From "his" description, Corellon sounds like a genderfluid Freddie Mercury, prancing throughout the multiverse with swagger, changing gender and shape (seriously, sometimes he's, like, a flock of birds or a swarm of birds or whatever).

Gruumsh, god of the orcs, took exception to Corellon's flamboyant fluidity, which leads to their big fight in which Gruumsh loses an eye. If you look at this slightly sideways, it makes Gruumsh into the avatar of homophobia or transphobia or some other weird prejudice.

Seriously, check me on this. This is what the text actually says: "Corellon's flamboyant, mercurial personality showed through no matter which form the entity took. Corellon loved wholeheartedly, broke oaths without reservation, and took pleasure from every encounter with the other divine beings of the multiverse. Most of the gods accepted Corellon's mutability and passionate behavior, but these traits infuriated Gruumsh, the greatest of the orc gods."

Interestingly, Corellon's rift with Lolth (which leads to the rift between Regular Elves and Drow) is also thrown into strange waters: Lolth's "betrayal" was to urge the elves to adopt stable, mortal, gendered forms instead of following in Corellon's footsteps as ever-shifting fey creatures. This makes the problem with Lolth that she is a gender essentialist. It's noted that Lolth insisted on being a "she."

Modern concerns aside, there is also an element of Edenic myth to the story. Once the elves chose physical forms over changeable fey-ness, Corellon locked them out of Elf Heaven. When elves die, their souls can go to Elf Heaven maybe for a little bit, but they're doomed to reincarnation. At least this explains why there are so few elves despite their long lives: there are only a finite number of elf souls to go around.

But, I also want to point out that Corellon doesn't seem nearly as chaotic good as he's supposed to be. The elves' only hope to get back to Elf Heaven is Corellon changing his mind--which you think a chaotic god might do--but he seems pretty steadfast in punishing the elves' transgression.

Second, he doesn't seem particularly good--he doesn't seem to value forgiveness or really give a fuck about his "children." Particularly when you realize that the "trance" elves go into instead of sleeping is a time when they have to relive all their past lives with the knowledge that they're in a perpetual, unwanted cycle of death and rebirth, it seems a little cruel.

So, if you ever wondered why elves were jerks, it turns out they came by it honestly from their parent.

Let's Read Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (Dwarves!)

I opened Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes up randomly to the chapter about dwarves, so that's where we're starting. In general, I find dwarves to be a pretty uninteresting Tolkienism in D&D. But there is some cool stuff here:

We get details on the duergar, who were originally a clan of dwarves influenced by the mind control powers of the illithids to abandon their usual dwarven nonsense and dig farther down than dwarves are wont to go.

Once they got to Mindflayerville, they were promptly enslaved. Their escape from bondage came when they made a pact with Asmodeus, promising to fight against Lolth's drow.


This means that duergar are fucked up in multiple ways: the mind flayers experimented on them because dwarves are hardy and resist poisons (so they're probably mutated in fun ways *edit* yep, we get stats for derro in the bestiary section and they are the experimented-upon duergar) and they were probably changed by a literal devil's bargain (so they're spiritually and physically corrupt in fun ways that sets them apart from the Gimli clones).
When they got back to their dwarven brethren, they were written off as heretics. Pleas of "But bros, fuckin' mind control" fell on deaf ears. But here's the thing: the duergar are actually right. In a world where de facto agency-stripping Charm Person spells are possible, it feels kinda gross to blame the victim.
Long story short, the duergar pull a "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven" (they literally want to kill Dwarf God and take his throne) resulting in a guerrilla war that doesn't accomplish anything for either side. The rest of the world doesn't really know the scope of the conflict, and maybe dwarves keep it that way because The Petty War is probably pretty embarrassing, just like Edition Wars are on gaming forums.
Campaign seed that occurs to me: a party of duergar hell-bent on finding proof that the mind flayers bent them to their will in hopes of reuniting the dwarven people and calling off their dumb war.

Anyway. Reading more about dwarven natures makes me realize why I've never been that into them:

• Their religious bent seems kind of extreme. Moradin comes with a lot of daddy issues; there is literally a Gordon Gecko "Greed is Good" god.
• They care as much about their crafts as they do living beings, which is fucked.
• They care about communities in that tribal us vs everyone else way that makes my skin crawl.

Basically, dwarves are neckbeards.

Did you know that drunkeness affects dwarves differently?

When in the presence of their comrades, beer evokes communal memories. When a dwarf drinks alone it sends them into a depression spiral of loneliness. (As Anne pointed out, this isn't actually that different from how alcohol works on people in the real world.) When duergar drink too much they have ptsd visions of being tortured by mind flayers, so they don't drink much, understandably.

Did you know that Gruumsh, god of the orcs, operates a tip-line? He lets the orcs know when dwarven fortresses are at their weakest and open to raids. OMG the duergar do that "assigned mates" thing that incels are into. Of cooooourse they do. All the pieces are falling into place.

Best of 2018 (So Far)

Bad Books for Bad People Mini Episode 10: Best of 2018 (So Far)

Jack and Kate are back from vacation! We're just about at the midway point of the year and your hosts are ready to take a look back at some of the things they've enjoyed during 2018 so far. The rules of engagement are simple: the hosts each choose one movie, album, TV show, book and "wild card" from any category that was the best experience of its kind encountered during 2017.

Join us to hear about sinister funeral directors, sexy adventurers, historical melodrama (always historical melodrama), and ninjas.

BBfBP theme song by True Creature 

Find us at BadBooksBadPeople.com, on Twitter @badbooksbadppl, Instagram @badbooksbadpeople and on Facebook. You can discover where to get all the books featured on Bad Books for Bad People on our About Page.

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