Earlier Edition: Space Crazy

More photos from my mother:


Montreal, 1979: Times were hard. I was recruited into the Space Troopers, and sent to beat down AstroSeparatists and Moon Hippies. More seriously - my 5th (or possibly 6th, which would be 1980) birthday. The sword, shield and helmet all glowed in the dark. Have you ever worn a glow-in-the-dark helmet? They rule.


The summer of '79. Montreal's Gay Pride Day, judging by my hot pants and rainbow shirt. More likely, a birthday party or garage sale.


New Brunswick, 1978. Me and my big sister on a family trip to the Bay of Fundy and the Hopewell Rocks.


Hamilton, 1982. Going to church with my sisters. My jacket has a Space Shuttle mission patch. I think I got that either from my grandpa, who liked visiting Kennedy Space Center, or when I wrote to NASA. NASA used to send huge packages of information and photos to kids who wrote them as asked. Look right, you'll see a brick pillar. I hid a time capsule behind one of the loose bricks, and my dad mortared it up.

Consideration of Influences

I think the most successful RPG campaign I've ever run, by several metrics, was The Voyage of the Riddock's Dawn for Ironclaw. This game, if you didn't know, features animal people living in a fictonal world with society and technology vaugely akin to 15/16th century, with magic. And... yes, animal people.

Listening to some music just now got me thinking about the campaign, and future Ironclaw adventures, and the media that inspired elements of how I run the game.

First, Umberto Eco's novel, The Island of the Day Before. This was, undeniably, the largest influence on the game. Several bits were taken directly from the novel, such as the diving bell, the race to find a means to determine latitude, and little throwaway bits about homeopathic magic. It's a very dense book, but well worth reading. The last several chapters grow more and more insane as the narrator succumbs to hunger and thirst, and contain wonderful speculation about the theological implications of the international date line.

The Mission. A 1986 film. Everyone knows the soundtrack, which has been lifted for numerous TV shows, movies, and weddings. It's a beautiful film. A little plodding here and there, but full of incredible vignettes and dramatic pieces. It's one of the few pieces of modern media that actually recognizes the fact that slave trade was always controversial, particularly in the eyes of the church. The game featured the uneasy conflict between the realpolitik concerns of the nobility and more venal clerics with the The interaction between velvetpage's priest and wggthegnoll and redstorm's more earthly characters coincidentally resembled the scenes between Jeremy Irons' Jesuit and De Niro's ex-mercenary on more than one occasion. And, of course, the images of uniformed men slipping through jungles, fighting each other and Native tribes.

Not as clearly sourced in the game, but certainly inspiring some of my writing for the sourcebooks was Franco Zeffirelli's Brother Sun, Sister Moon, a perplexingly earnest, beautiful, silly, boring, twee and charming movie about the life of St. Francis of Assisi. It highlights the conflict with the established temporal and spiritual power, and the actual words of Christ. Interesting clip, by the way, with Alec Guiness as the Pope, willfully returning to his earthly trappings of wealth and power as St. Francis leaves.

Conan Day 5: Loaves and Fishes

_{Darn those updrafts! I feel like Marilyn Monroe!}

Yesterday's journey to Hyboria started as my visits usually do; with a good solid session of evangelism atop the ol' Preachin' Rock. This prominence is located right at the gates of Tortage, allowing me to holler at passing adventurers without distracting them from their questing. Dancing attracts the most attention, I find.


_{You can tell the new players, because they're dressed like gay disco pirates.}

Business was slow, though I did make one short-term convert when I moved a bit away from the gates. My conversation with him actually attracted a little knot of newbies who seemed interested in what I had to say. The player, who is located right in front of me in this screenshot, wasn't terribly eloquent, but he got into the spirit of the thing, and even went back to the Jungle. Later, I saw him in the city and he complimented me on my dress.


_{A face you can trust.}

Following this success, I was heartened enough to make a new attempt on the "Get me Four Fish" quest. This time, I took time to survey the pirate encampment from the water, and noticed a single fish hanging from a pier. I was able to reach it without getting out of the water. I sat there for a few minutes, considering my next line of action.

And then... a miracle occurred.

There was a faint glow of blue light, and a new fish appeared on the rack. I took it as well. And waited... and a third fish appeared! And a fourth! Praise Mitra! I'd found a Drying Rack of Infinite Fishes!

Or, possibly, I just learned how to take advantage of respawning points in quests. I am going to try very hard to pretend it was an in-game miracle, though. I'm working hard to suspend my awareness of the game structure. And frankly, it feels like cheating, somehow. In any case, I hurried my armload of fish back to the starving fisherman who'd begged me to bring him food.


_{He needs to eat a lot to maintain that beard.}

He was suitably grateful, and in return for me dying several times, he presented me with a fish fillet knife. It's worth 5 pieces of tin, or enough to buy 1/5 of a frayed glove. Golly. As I turned to leave, I noticed something odd. My fisherfriend was standing in front of his house, next to a table...


_{The mugs appear to be full of lead.}

... that miserable, duplicitous dog. Starving in the midst of plenty, it seems. If indeed he was starving at all. I believe he is working for the Red Hand, the wicked criminal league who runs Tortage. They are angry with me for warning people away from the city, and are trying to kill me by playing on my sense of charity.

That is the only explanation that makes sense.

After this unpleasant realization, I tool up in rawhide armor and killed a bunch of panthers. Made level 8!