Ghost Marriage, Body Snatchers, Cupsouls

Ghost Marriage

Body Snatchers of the 18th Century

Cupsouls (Dark Souls animated like Cuphead)

Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting

A confession: I don't totally understand Critical Role as a phenomenon. I don't think it's a bad show--not by a long stretch--and I think it's awesome how many people it has inspired to enter into the hobby after getting hooked on it. But maybe I'm just a little too old to watch a livestream of people playing D&D; my attention either wanes quickly or I find myself thinking about my own games instead.

But there's no denying that Critical Role is popular and has devoted fans. There are a surprising number of people willing to fork over $125 for a deluxe art book about someone else's campaign, for example. You can also buy a tarot deck based on the characters from the Critical Role campaign, Critical Role dice, and a campaign sourcebook about the campaign world created for the Critical Role livestream. What might you get out of the latter if you don't happen to belong to their fandom?

Reading the Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting book feels exactly like reading a high-production values version of someone's notes for their homebrew vanilla D&D campaign world, which is more or less what the book is as a product. 

The world-building relies on well-established conventions--the elves were the first people of the land, they value the arts, grace, and magic, etc.--and very little is surprising. There are places named with the usual sort of compound wording: Whitestone, Daggerbay, the Frostweald. And others that seem like they could have been pulled from any number of fantasy novels you've already read (and forgotten): Drynna, Tormor Falls, the Shifting Keep. Even that extraneous apostrophe in Tal'Dorei is charmingly homespun. You can sometimes see the seams where the time-honored tradition of taking something wholesale from another campaign, filing the serial numbers off, and inserting it into your own game has been practiced; the deities in Tal'Dorei are obviously the gods of 4th edition Dungeon & Dragon's Dawn War pantheon given a quick renaming: the Raven Queen becomes the the Matron of Ravens, Bahamut becomes the Platinum Dragon, Lolth becomes the Spider Queen, etc.

The mechanical bits also seem like natural extensions of someone's home game. The new Backgrounds aren't mind-blowing wild, but they're well situated within the context and flavor of the setting. Similarly, the new class options that are introduced, such as the Way of the Cobalt Soul monk or the Juggernaut barbarian, evidence a bit of the hesitancy to add things to the game that overshadow the official options you often find in player-facing homebrewed options. None of the classes are strictly bad per se, but they seem to be either overly specific in function or occupying a space on the lower end of the power spectrum so as not to throw anything out of whack.

Similarly, the Optional Campaign Rules are explicitly called out as natural outgrowths of the house rules from their campaign: "For those who have watched along with our adventures, you may see some of these optional rules as familiar. Many of the elements included in this chapter are based on or retooled versions of the house rules we tried within our own campaign" (118). The optional rules do feel "lived in," like they were rulings that came up in response to the baseline system not quite providing what they wanted it to. Potions can be quaffed in combat without that taking up an entire turn, resurrection magic is more challenging, etc. Nothing that radically restructures the game is included here; rather, it all feels like common sense rulings to accommodate the size of their gaming group and the style of play they prefer.

The art is of the quality and style you would expect, and the book's production values are top notch. Ultimately, my take-away is that this is a very solid vanilla D&D setting. And I know some people will scoff at the idea of another vanilla setting, but I'm not joining that chorus. Although I prefer my own bespoke, not-the-usual-fantasy settings, vanilla has its place. If we're honest, we'd probably have to admit that there have been more D&D campaigns set in vanilla fantasy settings than anything else, and that the people who have played in them probably enjoyed them immensely because vanilla fantasy is what they want. 

This is perfectly serviceable vanilla; if you're already into Critical Role, this is probably a preferable alternative to the Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk on the merits of familiarity alone. But you know what I really like about this book, though? It's lack of wild invention makes the idea of homebrewing your own setting look easy. Sure, your work probably won't end up getting the full-color treatment from Green Ronin, but it still looks like something approachable and possible. And maybe even fun. Whether you want to go wildly inventive or French vanilla, this book says "We made this and had fun, so can you."

What We Become

The Walking Dead, Volume 10: What We Become
In the first volume of The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault discusses the Catholic rite of confession as part of a larger societal innovation in the West that manages not the wrongdoing of the lone individual, but rather the maintenance and correction of a "sinful" and errant population. What We Become leans heavily on the notion of confession as a way to forge community and the bonds of "population."

To come to a place of mutual understanding, Rick and Abraham confess their sins to each other. Abraham tells Rick that the men of his previous group raped his wife and daughter; Abraham confesses to Rick that his revenge on the rapists was so extreme and grotesque that his wife and daughter were horrified by what he had done, and eventually parted ways with him. In turn, Rick confesses that he killed Dexter and Martinez at the prison to protect Lori and Carl. Even Carl pipes up to confess that he killed Shane to save his father.

These confessions serve to diffuse the growing tension between Rick and Abraham and ease the corrosive effects that those tensions were having on the rest of the group. Now that they have revealed the parts of themselves they feel ashamed about, they understand something important about each other: if each of them questions their actions, they are capable of striving to do better--and therefore worthy of a place within the "population" of survivors. They have done things that don't sit right with their sense of self, but nothing they confess to renders them unassimilable into the communal order. 

The Walking Dead works by contrast, by providing both positive and negative examples to drive a point home. In this instance, the importance of confession is underlined by a previous scene in which a character does not or cannot confess to her errant ways. Unwilling to speak about her grief at the death of her family, Maggie instead chooses to slip away into the woods and hang herself. She chooses death over confession, and the results are explosive. 

Although Maggie lives, Abraham's belief that it is better to put a bullet in her head now before she returns as a zombie bring him into conflict with Rick; Rick puts a gun to Abraham's head as a threat. Not only does Maggie's refusal to confess her feelings threaten her belief in the group as her larger "family" and her personal connection to Glenn, it spills over into a potentially violent conflict that threatens to tear the "population" apart by pitting the population's leadership against each other.

Previous Installments
Vol. 1: Days Gone Bye
Vol. 2: Miles Behind Us
Vol. 3: Safety Behind Bars
Vol. 4: The Heart's Desire
Vol. 5: The Best Defense
Vol. 6: his Sorrowful Life
Vol. 7: The Calm Before
Vol. 8: Made to Suffer
Vol. 9: Here We Remain

Vol. 10: What We Become

The Monk

Bad Books for Bad People:

Episode 16, The Monk

Matthew G. Lewis's 1796 novel The Monk represents the first sordid blooming of the gothic horror novel. Rockstar Spanish monk Ambrosio faces an increasingly jaw-dropping series of temptations thanks to a novice monk who may not be what he seems, imperiling the virginal young Antonia in the bargain. But that's just the beginning! With more plot developments per scene than most soap operas, this is a ripping yarn that adds a heaping helping of sex, grotesquerie, and hysteria to Ann Radcliffe's successful formula.

What happens when you accidentally elope with a ghost? Why did the Surrealists love this novel? Does this book contain the best character in all of gothic fiction? Who is the unexpected moral center of the story? Find out all this and more in this month's episode of Bad Books for Bad People.

Intro/Outro music: "U.F.D.E.M" by Jacula

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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Here We Remain

The Walking Dead, Volume 9: Here We Remain
At this point in the Walking Dead's run the comic is firmly revolving around the same set of themes, with only minor variations to add to the title's profluence. This volume, taking place after the catastrophic fall of the prison stronghold, finds Rick and Carl dealing with the trauma of losing Lori and Judith. Rick begins to have telephone conversations with the representative of a mysterious group of survivors, but it is eventually revealed that these phone calls are coming from Rick's deceased wife--which means, of course, that the phone calls are symptomatic of Rick's mental breakdown. There is a spectrality to these phone calls; Lori's voice is a present non-presence reminding Rick of how his failures in the past shape the failures yet to come.

Humans are pack animals, and it isn't long before Rick and Carl are reunited with what remains of their group: Glenn, Maggie, Dale, Andrea, Ben, Billy, Sophia, and Michonne. This reunion serves to underline the tension between the need for group survival and the individual's need to deal with trauma. Rick's use of the telephone to continue dredging up the past--as well as Michonne's conversations with her dead boyfriend--are contrasted against Sophia's obliteration of the past. Sophia has simply erased the memory of her birth mother from her personal experience, refusing to believe that such a person ever existed. Neither way of grappling with trauma--keeping the past in too close proximity versus denying the existence of the past--is functional or healing.

The real problem with unresolved trauma is that it weakens the group's chances of survival and threatens the bonds that allow groups to flourish. It's trauma that has yet to be dealt with that gets in the way of the group's growth with the introduction of Abraham, Rosita, and Eugene. Fatality looms in the background during the mistrustful confrontation between Andrea and Abraham, and it applies the whip hand in the power-struggle relationship between Abraham and Rick. 

Though hardly a panacea, what bridges the gaps left by trauma is a sense of purpose. In this case, Eugene's insistence that he knows the cause of the zombie plague and can help stop it if they can get him to Washington D.C. is enough to pull the band together and get them on their feet. Movement, then, is the best medicine, a fact hinted at by the title of the volume. To remain mired in trauma is the suicidal option.

It's obvious o the reader that Eugene does not have any special knowledge of the cause of the zombie epidemic and that the trip to D.C. is a fool's errand. The fact that the comic does so little to present this journey as a sound idea isn't a narrative problem; I think we're supposed to see how hollow a gesture it is, but also recognize that the gesture is important and necessary for the characters within the narrative arc. They're willing to believe in it because they require belief to make survival an option worth effort and exertion. That's what a thin hope looks like, isn't it? People grasp at straws not out of a self-defeating impulse, but rather because it's a viable survival mechanism.

Previous Installments
Days Gone Bye
Miles Behind Us
Safety Behind Bars
The Heart's Desire
The Best Defense
This Sorrowful Life
The Calm Before
Made to Suffer

They Were Nearly Killed by a Percy Shelley Poem

Image by Odobenus

Campaign: Scarabae (open table, Google Hangouts).

Characters: Traviata (human artificer), Crumb (kenku artificer), Khajj (minotaur cleric), Dr. Aleister (human fighter), Viktor (dragonborn sorcerer).

Objective: Enter the jungles of Hygea and rescue Yuriko from the Children of Fimbul cult.

Events: The party arrived at the city of Zarubad via steamship, in hot pursuit of the Fimbul cultists who had abducted Yuriko in the last adventure. Before setting off into the jungle, the party bought provisions, including a barrel of water, additional rations, insect repellent, fishing tackle, and a canoe. 

They also learned as much as they could about the jungle: it is rife with disease and insects, undead servants of a fallen paladin prowl within it, there is a fabled "lost city" somewhere therein that is a likely location for the Children of Fimbul's ritual involving Yuriko. 

Finally, they hired a woman named Salome to be their guide; Salome told them that the other guides were either incompetent or charlatans, and that they she knew paths through the jungle unknown to anyone else.

The group departed Zarubad, choosing to canoe down the westernmost river to navigate their way more quickly through the jungle in hopes of finding the basin where the lost city was said to be located. The first noteworthy site they encountered was a camp at the foot of a massive statue of a man carrying a crocodile on his back. The camp was in ruins; there was evidence of both a fire and claw marks on the shredded tents.

The statue had an entrance built between its feet that was a passageway that led to a stone door within the statue. The group managed to guile their way past a pit trap and a scything blade trap, but when the stone door was pulled open it cause a magical explosion to erupt. The party all managed to flatten themselves against the wall and avoid the explosion...except for Salome, who was thrown through the air and nearly killed.

There were piles of large bones inside the revealed chamber that seemed to belong to giant lizards, as well as a carved central pillar with a set of stone stairs wrapping around it. Fearing that the bones would animate, Viktor conducted a magical detection ritual; the bones were not magical, but several of the stairs were enchanted with abjuration spells. Those stairs were avoided, and the safer stairs were traversed. 

At the top of the pillar was an enchanted earthenware jug. When Viktor removed the jug, pieces of the statue began to rain down upon the party; the statute was crumbling with the adventurers within it! A mad scramble to escape ensued, and it was a particularly fraught exit as several members of the party were knocked unconscious by the falling debris. Khajj's healing magic and everybody still ambulatory dragging their knocked-out compatriots to safety managed to avoid fatalities by a hair's breadth. As the unconscious party members were revived by Traviata's healing draughts, Khajj's holy magic, and Aleister's medical training, the statue was reduced to nothing but a pair of feet upon a rocky dais. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!

The party made camp and explored the rest of the surrounding carnage. Crumb was lowered into a horrible latrine because the corpse of a mercenary was discovered down in the pit; he retrieved a bag of gemstones from the body. A hatchling axe beak was found in the camp's animal pens; it was made friendly with some fish and kind treatment--now the party has a (dangerous) pet named Halberd.

After resting and recuperating in the remains of the camp, the party once again began traveling by canoe. The "river" they were on emptied out into a swampy basin rumored to be the home of lobsterfolk. (In truth, Salome had made a wrong turn down a tributary of the river instead of the main branch.) Beyond the basin was a plateau with a sheer cliff-face that rose above the jungle canopy. Using his magical slippers, Viktor was able to walk up the cliff with ease. He discovered rotten doors set into the cliff with a ledge running along it like a porch. Viktor attempted to use magic to open the doors, but they crumbled...and aroused someone from their slumber within.

A wizened, hunchbacked, and blind-looking old woman emerged asking who was at her door. Viktor introduced himself and the old woman wondered if this was the Viktor who used to deliver the bread. The old woman couldn't remember her own name and preferred to be called "Nanny." The rest of the party had arrived by this point, and Nanny was ranting about the "god-damn birdmen" in a nest on the cliff that were bothering her (she said this within earshot of Crumb, a kenku) and may have dropped some not-so-nice comments about "beasts" in front of Khajj (a minotaur). But she's blind and couldn't possibly be racist on purpose, right?

Well. 

Nanny also talked about her days as a young hellion practicing "dark magic," and when the group asked for any help she could provide finding the missing child she began to lick her lips hungrily. She offered to give the party a map to the where Yuriko was being kept if they agreed to bring her back some of the child to eat. The party agreed, Nanny went back into her cliff-side home to scry, and Traviata hatched a plan to poison her after she handed over the map.

Nanny eagerly drank the vial that Traviata claimed was wine and was duly poisoned...but the poison didn't kill her. It soon became apparent that Nanny could see just fine, as she attacked the party. It also turned out that her wizened old hide was as tough as iron; even Aleister had trouble piercing her flesh with his singing spear. Khajj leaned that she was incredibly strong; she easily broke the minotaur's attempt to catch her in a bear hug. Nanny put up a tough fight, but ultimately it was Salome, the guide the party had largely discounted, who executed a perfect spinning slash that sent Nanny's head tumbling down the cliff. "And that's how the sausage gets made," she said, feeling that she had proved her worth to these naive city-folk. 

The party decided to make camp and heal up from the hideous wounds inflicted by the hag. Next time they may ransack her home and get on with the map Nanny had drawn for them.

Treasure: One 10 gp eye agate each. Alchemy jug.

XP: 1033 each.

Mechanics/Story is Base/Superstructure

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