Gov’t:
Constitutional Monarchy
Current Ruler: Arch-Magistrix Ida Brassille
Culture: Human Capital: Hardgreen
Population: 8,800,000
A brief history of the past five centuries…
5068
– Empress Lena Víborg's family is killed when she is a child, and she swears
vengeance upon their assassins, the elves. Over the next century, they will be
exiled from Ulver.
5080 – The Arcane Council announces land grants to settlers in Ulver's remotest
shrubland. Halfling immigration surges.
5127
– Emperor Thorvald Víborg-Amsel survives a series of assassination attempts,
ultimately turning to necromancy to prolong is life.
5184 – Ulver beomes a democracy after the destruction of lich-king Thorvald.
5281 – The Senate commissions hundreds of miles of defensive earthworks at Ulver's
borders in preparation for war with Doltria. 5283 – The Second Ulver-Doltria War begins. Before its end in 5289, over one
hundred thousand soldiers will die, and the economic fallout of this event will
be felt for the next century.
5306
– The hero who would come to be known as Thelrin is born in Dendemir village.
5313 – Thelrin the Justicar loses an eye to a night hag.
5313 – King Warmund Gorney claims the gods have bequeathed the divine right of
rulership to his family and his family alone, and establishes a monarchy.
5328 – Thelrin the Justicar is written of no more in Ulver.
5444 – Thomais's fortunes change when he finds a great treasure, long thought lost.
5446 – Thomais Tomlinson’s philanthropic gifts fund the sky bridge and the New
College of Sorcery in Aggleston.
5556 – Using a trade dispute as an excuse, Ulver invades and annexes Doltria in a
fast-paced campaign called The War of Seven Weeks.
5580
– Doltria declares independence from Ulver. War ensues. 5586 – Current Year
The Free Kingdom of New Doltria
Gov’t:
Monarchy
Ruler: King Josef Mucklemelon
Culture: Halfling
Capital: Elvingstone
Population: 2,434,000
A brief history…
5580 – New Doltria declares independence from Ulver
5581 – The King commissions cyclopean gold-plated statues to commemorate the birth of
the Queen’s child, Alys Mucklemelon, and places them along the old bulwarks
built during the Second War. The statues are highly enchanted, and cause crops
they gaze upon to fail. The area becomes known as the Golden Badlands.
Interesting Locations
Littlesock. An ancient halfling city in the savannah, Littlesock is currently suffering from depredations by hungry giants. Livestock has been vanishing at an alarming pace, and the town elders are desperately calling for aid.
The Wastes of Solace. Once a place of worship and reflection dedicated to the myraid small gods of the desert, the Wastes have since become a highly commercialized tourist trap. Its major attraction is the village-sized colossal statue of Paldor Kruum, the titan of mystery, tipped on its side after standing for untold aeons and being slowly scoured clean by sun and sand.
The Pools of Incense. Here, geysers spew fire from the ground at regular intervals, and the resulting chemical clouds can be mined for rare arcana by those with the knack.
Frostchapel. A holy city so-named for the enchanted crystals which sometimes grow amid the plains and radiate an aura of supernatural cold. Frostchapel is currently suffering raids by the so-called Faceless One, a demonic entity from the Witch Wastes who charges into battle alongside a rabble of berserk minotaurs.
Hardgreen. Ulver's capital city and home to the Emerald Palace. Hardgreen's population fluctuates, as treaties with the lands to the south have encroached upon its ancestral sprawl significantly, so that some residents of Hardgreen are no longer technically part of Ulver proper. Even so, it is home to 160,000 souls, and the largest city in Ulver by a significant margin.
Beosigskill. This small, unremarkable town would remain so were it not for the recent arrival of a grove of living saguaros. They have taken over the town and are forcing the humans there to live a more plant-like existence. Some have taken to it with aplomb; many of the town elders have not, and are urgently pleading for help.
Step One: Roll some dice. 4d6, drop the lowest, six times. Assign those numbers to your Abilities.
Step Two: Choose a Race and a Class. Adjust as needed. You have maximum HP at level 1.
Step Three: Get some gear!
Step Four: Name thyself.
Step Five: Profit!
RACE
Human
Class based HD
+10% XP gained
2 Skillpoints to spend at Level 1
Elf
d6 HD
1-in-6 to be Surprised (instead of 2-in-6)
2-in-6 Search skill
Low-light vision (can see twice as far as a human in low-light conditions)
Dwarf
d10 HD
3-in-6 Architecture skill
+1 to CON modifier
+5 items before Encumberance
Goblin
d6 HD
+1 to DEX modifier
3-in-6 Bushcraft
5-in-6 Stealth
Cannot use Large weapons
Must use Medium weapons 2-handed
CLASS
Fighter
d8 HD
Add Level to attack rolls
Parry & Press combat options
Magic-User
d4 HD
Begin with ‘Read Magic’ & 3 Spells
Must have 2 free
hands (or be holding a wand or staff), be able to speak,
and be no more than lightly encumbered to cast spells.
Cleric
d6 HD
Begin with any lv. 1 Cleric Spell
Must wield a holy
symbol and be able to speak in order to cast spells.
Specialist
d6 HD
4 Skill points at level 1; +2 thereafter.
STARTING GEAR
Adventure Packs (Pick one)
All packs come with: Backpack, common clothes (2 sets), two small sacks, bedroll, water skin, tinderbox, one week of iron rations, 2d4+2 silver pieces.
Pack A (10 oil flasks, lantern, shovel, two caltrops, whistle)
Pack B (10 torches, 10 pieces of chalk/charcoal, blank scroll, mirror, crowbar)
Pack C (five torches, five oil flasks, 60 ft. rope, grappling hook, wooden pole)
If you're a Fighter,
+ one weapon of your choice
+ leather armor and a shield, or chain mail
If you're a Magic-User,
+ well-worn staff or concealed dagger
+ inkwell, journal, looseleaf paper, candles, flint-and-tinder, quill, and a penknife
If you're a Cleric,
+ trusty mace or a whip
+ holy symbol
+ leather armor
If you're a Specialist,
+ garotte or short sword or light crossbow and 10 bolts
+ small mirror
+ crowbar
Approximately 10600; primarily human, some dwarves, some goblins.
Government:
Greengriffin is governed by Mayor Caiaphas Brumewald, a minor noble of Yorish descent, though a council of merchants (unofficially, the Guilder's Council) has significant influence and power.
Notable Places:
The Warrior's Rest: A modest inn, built within what was once an elvish sailing ship. It has declined in recent years, but beardy townsfolk tell tales of what it was like twenty years ago and laugh at their inside-jokes.
Josephus Blandershyde Memorial Guild Hall: An impressive timber and brick building, once a minor temple. It contains a large meeting hall and several smaller rooms, and is shared among several local merchant guilds.
The Silver Maiden: A wondrous statue of bright silver, said to protect the town against wererats and other lycanthropes.
A few NPCs:
Arin: Female Dwarf Servant. Arin has long gray hair and gray eyes, and wears glasses with silver rims. She wears well-made clothing and a pewter amulet depicting a skull. Arin compulsively plays with an iron ring.
Franco: Male Human Scholar. Franco has long gray hair and narrow amber eyes, and proudly displays distinctive marks on his left leg where he was bitten by a shark. He wears ostentatious garments and a leopard fur cape.
Fredegar: Male Dwarf Wizard. Fredegar is rugged in appearance, with straight brown hair and sharp brown eyes. He wears plain clothing and wields a quarterstaff. Fredegar has a reputation for being generous and trustworthy.
Ashmoor Ward
Notable Places:
Greengriffin Forge: A cluttered blacksmith's workshop, built atop an outcrop of volcanic rock. It is a busy place, where most of the town's smithing takes place. Greengriffin Forge is co-owned by several members of the Guilder's Council.
Sacha's Arch: A broken arch of weathered stone, said to entomb a the ashes of Sacha, a long-forgotten elvish Goddess of Fire. Local superstitions abound.
The Cyclopean Basilisk: A modest commoner's tavern, decorated with monstrous skulls. The dwarf Fredegar is the owner and proprietor, though he is rarely found here.
A few NPCs:
Bertio: Male Human Fighter. Bertio is grizzled and masculine, yet well-kept, with flowing white hair and green eyes. He wears a custom-made suit of splint mail and wields a flail and heater shield. Bertio seeks revenge on a tribe of ogres in the Penny Forest.
Richye: Male Human Illusionist. Richye is youthful, with slicked-back blonde hair and bright blue eyes. He wears expensive yet ugly clothing, favoring silver and orange in gaudy patterns, and wields an expensive dagger, showing it off at inappropriate times.
Citadel District
Notable Places:
The Shale Gate: A ring of rune-carved stone monoliths, within which lies a magical portal to the distant town of Shale.
The Crooked Wand: A neglected adventurer's tavern, which serves up "magical potions" in addition to beers and ales. Its proprietor is a stone golem called Gronn, who cannot actually get drunk but enjoys pretending.
A few NPCs:
Berny: Androgynous Human Rogue. Berny has messy black hair and large hazel eyes and pointed ears. Berny compulsively plays with a silver ring.
Ryany Everstrong: Male Human Ranger. Ryany has tangled white hair and dark green eyes. He wields a poisoned club. Ryany has an animal companion, a giant spider named Ames, whom the locals tolerate only grudgingly.
Hilia: Female Human Cleric of Lashoon. Hilia has auburn hair and narrow gray eyes, and a birth-mark over her left eye resembling a tree. She wears a suit of soot-blackened chain mail and wields an elf-crafted mace. Hilia is searching for the lost Temple of Angels, which she believes is somewhere in the Titan's Spine.
Berga: Female Goblin Wizard. Berga is endearingly short, with thinning red hair and scary blue eyes. She wears skimpy robes and flaunts her curves shamelessly. Berga seeks only fame and glory.
Roger: Male Goblin Craftsman. Roger has a round face and amber eyes. He wears travel-stained clothing and a wide-brimmed hat. Roger has a mixed reputation: he is jealous and mean-tempered, yet brutally honest.
Gronn: Gronn is a stone golem and the proprietor of The Crooked Wand. His creator died forty years ago, and he has found a new purpose in sharing his creator's recipes with the world. Gronn cannot actually get drunk, but he enjoys acting drunk after a few beers in order to sell the idea that his liquor is very potent.
Orwidth: Male Human Peddler. Orwidth has white hair and gray eyes. He wears sturdy clothing and happily displays a wooden holy symbol of Lashoon as an amulet. Orwidth specializes in clockworks and animated toys.
Tane: Male Human Thief. Tane is short, with red hair and light blue eyes. He always wears dirty leather armor and a bandoleer of throwing daggers. Tane seems to know a secret about everyone.
Cyne: Male Goblin Poulter. Cyne has a narrow face, with white hair and bright hazel eyes. He wears travel-stained clothing and a pewter amulet. Cyne specializes in butchered perytons and other chimeric fowl. He has thespian ambitions.
Scholar's Village
Notable Places:
An ancient temple to the elf-goddess Sacha, now in ruins, said to lie atop catacombs filled with long-forgotten treasures.
A few NPCs:
Vielan Strodewell: Male Human Aristocrat. Vielan has long copper hair and dark gray eyes, and a "magical scar" on his right arm. He wears fine raiment and jewelry, and is overly fond of sauteed goose. He carries an enchanted rapier and his favorite red cloak is rumored to be magical, also.
Aednold Goreghost: Male Human Paladin of Lashoon. Aednold has green hair and green eyes, and a beaked nose. He wears banded mail and wields a military fork. Aednold seeks to destroy the race of trolls. If you ask him about it point-blank, he gets defensive. He just wants them all dead. He doesn't want to talk about feelings.
Ellys: Female Human Craftsman. Ellys has auburn hair and light blue eyes. She wears simple clothing and a wide-brimmed hat.
Zerrata: Female Human Paladin of Lashoon. Zerrata is willowy, with tangled black hair and blue eyes. She wears plate mail and wields a two-handed sword.
Aben: Female Human Druid. Aben has a long face, with tangled gray hair and soft brown eyes. She wears leather armor and wields a scimitar and dagger.
Tiberius Winter, the mild-mannered priest at the temple of Lashoon, is secretly an assassin.
Magic is altered in strange ways within the Penny Forest. Straaaaaaaange ways. How? I don't know, I'm not a wizard. But if I were a wizard, I'd look out. Wouldn't want to cast a spell to find my way and suddenly turn my companions into roosters, now, would I?
There's a nasty demon-thing calling itself the Warlord of the Tides that lives near the coast about a mile from Shipman's Rock, lurking, waiting, doing all sorts of demony things in the dark below the waves. It ate a couple of kids last year. Supposedly it looks like a big starfish-headed ogre with blue skin, and it can command dolphins.
Agents of the Archmage Zordol are coming to shut down the town's commercial districts and replace every honest businessman with a conjured imp. The mayor is even encouraging this!
Anyone who takes a stone from Sascha's Arch without leaving an offering of a lit candle will be cursed with premature old age.
The Archmage Zordol holds a demon lord imprisoned beneath his tower, and he's tricked it into gifting him unlimited wealth.
The Duke of Solstheim's military relies upon conjured elemental warriors. Or that's what they say down in Dimbleford, anyway. Lots of wizardy crap going on in Solstheim these days.
That entitled little snot Vielan Strodewell really wants to be mayor, and is plotting something nasty to get poor old Caiaphas Brumewald out of office.
Briar Island is roughly 870 square miles of hilly, temperate woodland, resting comfortably somewhere in the Thistle Sea. It is peopled by humans from Solstheim and the Northern Provinces, a dozen clans of goblins, and a smattering of other folk and monsters. Folk not born on Briar Island think little of it, when they think of it at all.
Made with Inkarnate
For many years, Briar Island has been just another small county to be taxed by the duchy of Solstheim twice a year and then forgotten. However, the Archmage Zordol, a long-time resident and embittered tax dissident, has recently discovered that the Island lay at the center of a nexus of leylines. With the right prompting and arcane know-how, impossible spells can be cast here, and where impossible things can be done, there is profit to be had!
How this all pertains to you, and your lives thus far in Greengriffin Fort, will be the subject of our story. We'll be playing Lamentations of the Flame Princess with some homebrew rules for character creation, and I'll update this page with session recaps, setting lore, and all kinds of other fun stuff.
Until then, here's one of several Random Encounter tables to pique your interest. It might be worth your characters' time to invest in bronze futures.
Random Encounters (d20)
1-12 – No Encounter
13 – 2d10 thugs, out crusin’ for easy
silver pieces at the PCs expense.
14 – A wandering mercenary, looking for work. (S)he’ll hire on to the PCs
expedition for a fair rate, or if they’re jerks, (s)he’ll go find a group of
2d4 thugs and come back to get some satisfaction.
15 – 1d2 bounty hunters out searching for
wanted thugs.
16 – 1d3 ultramarine oozes, near the
outskirts of a deserted camp
17 – Peacock-crab. The locals call it a paonymph.
18 – A slow-moving but inevitably deadly
chartreuse ooze.
19 – 2d10 thugs. The woods are full of
these losers.
20 – 1d8 feral hogs.
Thug. AC 12, 1 HD (5 h.p.), 1d6 slashing (short sword) or 1d4
piercing (thrown dagger). Morale 6.
Mercenary. AC 15, 1 HD (8 h.p.), 1d6+1 slashing (short sword) or 1d6
piercing (shortbow). Morale 9.
Bounty Hunter. AC 16, 5 HD (30 h.p.), 1d8 slashing
(silvered longsword) or 1d8 piercing (longbow). Stealth 3 in 6. Bushcraft 4 in
6. Can brew a special tea which will recover 1d4 h.p. if drunk. Morale 12.
Ultramarine Ooze. AC 12, 2 HD (10 h.p.), 1d6 acid damage. Mv 20', Morale Fearless. Damaged only by silver weapons. Destroys wood on contact. Any creature killed
by an ultramarine ooze is devoured over the course of 1d4 rounds (assuming it
is man-sized; larger or smaller creatures are left to the DM’s discretion). The
devoured creature’s hit points are added to the ultramarine ooze’s total hit
points, and it heals 1d8 hit points per Hit Die of creature devoured.
Peacock-Crab. AC 15, 3 HD (14 h.p.), 1d6 piercing
(beak). Hypnotic shell – save vs. paralysis or be fascinated until the
beginning of the next combat round. (Fascinated creatures can’t take actions –
they can only stare in awe until they are attacked). Morale 10.
Chartreuse Ooze. AC 12, 2 HD (10 h.p.), 1d6 acid damage. Mv 20', Morale Fearless. Damaged only by bronze weapons. Destroys flesh and leather on contact. Any
creature killed by a chartreuse ooze becomes a chartreuse ooze within 1d6+1
combat rounds.
Feral Hogs. AC 13, 4 HD (16 h.p.), 1d6+1 piercing (tusks).
Morale 7.
We all do this a little differently, so I figured it might be helpful if I shared what goes on inside my brain when I sit behind a GM screen.
For me, D&D is first-and-foremost a game. That means there are game elements at work: Puzzles, mysteries, tactical combats, hidden timelines, all that. It’s a fair game. Your enemies play by the same rules as you do. Yes, there may be some unpredictable stuff, things that occasionally blind-side you, or epic level NPCs who can do things that aren’t specifically spelled out in the rules. With time and effort and a little luck, you can learn to do all those epic and wonderful things too.
D&D is an odd game in that its win condition is a little nebulous – When I’m playing a Character, a win occurs whenever I accomplish a goal with style. It’s more about accumulating a mass of small wins than one really big one, but with a bit of time and cleverness and luck, a big win can definitely happen. When I’m GMing, a win is any truly memorable session. If you’re laughing about the time the ranger knocked the high priestess out cold by hiding around a corner and smacking her in the face with a shovel, two years after the session wrapped, that’s a win.
You can definitely lose at D&D, though. These, to me, are all-too-common losses—
•The table isn’t communicating effectively
•One player repeatedly alienates the group, usually by stubbornly clinging to their narrow interpretation of something (a rule, an alignment, a tactic, etc)
•Players forget that the GM is a player, too, and take for granted all the extra time, creativity, and prep work that GMing requires.
•Players are still mentally playing the last game, and aren’t paying attention to the one they’re in right now. This can be as innocent as the Rogue taking a bunch of trap damage because he forgot to search (which isn’t really a loss, just sloppy play), or as insidious as sabotaging the party’s best efforts because you’d rather be playing another system (and if this campaign wrapped early because of a TPK…)
These losses don’t have to be fatal, but they do need to be addressed when they happen. D&D is a hugely social game, and pretending like the only important game elements are the ones written down on your character sheet is silly. Role-playing isn’t just about creating a character, it’s about learning how to communicate effectively. No matter how good we think we are at that, each and every one of us can find new ways to improve.
Teamwork makes the dream work.
Back to the game: I use die rolls to determine the outcome when there’s uncertainty about the outcome. If you try to bully the king, it doesn’t matter if you nat 20 on your Charisma roll. You’re getting thrown in the dungeon. Good dice won’t undo a bad idea, and talking smack to the king is always a bad idea. Likewise, NPCs remember how you treated them the last time, and they’ll treat you accordingly the next time you meet.
When appropriate, I use Morale tests and Reaction rolls to determine NPC motivations behind-the-scenes. It’s a hold-over from Basic D&D, but I keep using it because it keeps working.
Essentially, every NPC has a morale score (usually determined by rolling 2d6, or sometimes just assigning a common number—wild animals are 4-6, most people are 7-8, trained soldiers are 10, etc). When something morale-breaking happens (loss of 50% hit points, asked to drink acid, etc), they test morale by rolling 2d6. If they roll over, they break, and quit the task in-character. Otherwise, they keep at it.
Reaction rolls are used to determine how an NPC (usually a minor one) reacts to you when the social script takes a turn. You’re talking to the bartender and you casually mention that you’ve just killed seven people. This bartender is a random commoner who might not even have a stat-line, and now he’s got a hard choice. The GM rolls 3d6 and adds your character’s Charisma modifier, either positive or negative. If the roll is 10+, the NPC reacts favorably to you (“Only seven, eh? Guy in yesterday said he killed nine.”) If it’s 6+, the NPC reacts neutrally (“Oh? Well, um, sounds like thirsty work. Can I get you a beer?” And thinks, “This guy’s probably lying, but I need to call the city guard just to be safe.”) Less than 6, and it won’t be great (“You bastard! My aunt was stabbed this morning by a man in a tan coat! Draw steel!”).
Lastly, I tend to interpret things in the PCs favor. My rationale is that, as the GM, I have access to everything. I can always make the game harder. PCs only get so much to work with, so why not let them have their fun? This sometimes leads to people getting shocked by difficult traps / puzzles / monsters / social encounters down the road, because I’ve been pretty lenient early on. So we’re clear: Giving you the benefit of the doubt doesn’t mean, “I’ll take it easy on you.” So, there you go. You’ve been warned.
How to be an awesome PC in one of my games:
• Know the rules well enough to play your character. It’s fine to ask clarifying questions, and to ask for rulings, and all of that, but you should at least know what dice to roll and what numbers to add to them in order to make an attack.
• Try to strike a balance between roleplaying your character and doing things that are useful for your team. Don’t insist on rolling a Halfling ranger who only uses a longbow (attacking with disadvantage all the time because it’s some ancestral blah blah blah); don’t be an alpha-gamer who micro-manages everyone else’s movement phase or wastes time looting EVERY GODDAMN THING like he’s playing modded Skyrim without encumbrance rules. Make good, interesting decisions while in-character. It sounds simple, but that simple tenet is the Coca-Cola secret flavor formula for playing D&D.
• Help other players when they have rules questions. Or lore questions. Or any question at all that doesn’t need to be answered by the GM. There’s only one of me but there are several of you.
• Pay attention to the lore of the setting, and make a character who interacts with it. My settings are always filled with weird in-jokes and hidden references and if you actually pick up on them, damn, I love you for it. Plus, there are always hidden clues on how to beat bad guys and solve puzzles, so there’s something in it for you, too.
Right, then. I've gotten excited about Dark Age of Sigmar, and because I'm going to be pushing into new territory, I'm going to share some photos of my current mini collection. Some of this stuff goes back about 10 years, some of it's about 3-4 years old. I haven't taken photos of anything current, mostly 'cause there hasn't been much new going on. I haven't really done anything with regard to minis for the past 2 or 3 years. But, the bug's bit again, and while I figure out what that entails, here's a bookmark.
Lormond, pop 21,000. Not so much a town as the largest major city in the
Badlands. Lots of stuff to see and do, and plenty of trouble to get into. More later.
Scarletton, pop 2,500. Famous
for its hospitality. Lots of great inns and restaurants, including—
·The Barbarian’s Alehouse (14
g.p./night), famous for herb-encrusted goat shanks
·The Screeching Carp (12
g.p./night), famous for its fish beer and bacon-wrapped-bacon
·Newt’s Nest, a bawdy tavern
where men of rank or privilege go slumming
·Skull Market, where orc-tribes
come to trade openly with the human population
Scarletton is centrally
located between Lormond and several smaller communities, so it’s a natural
trade center.
Hurstmouth, pop 5,800.
Originally built to exploit easy access to a freshwater stream, Hurstmouth is
now a gateway to the Underworld. Law enforcement hasn’t kept up with the influx
of new faces, and Hurstmouth is a dangerous place where unwary people lose
their fortunes and their lives with startling regularity.
·Donna Portia’s Magick
Emporium, selling high-priced treasures to Underworld expeditions and wealthy
tourists from Nyctopolis*
·A lawfully-inclined constable
named Rossdell Post, leader of a recently-formed town militia, has begun
imposing fatal punishments for a variety of poorly-defined crimes.
·The Paladin’s Rest has a
reputation for being the best whorehouse in the Badlands.
Central Bluff, pop 740. Built
around the tower of the mysterious Crystal Maiden, this little community is
largely isolated from the outside world. Its people are whispered to be “wild
eyed” and unpredictable. Its major industries are mining and the harvesting,
preparation, and sale of rare gems.
·The Crystal Maiden is an
unpredictable creature who wields magical authority over ice and snow. She
appears in different guises to those who seek her, but most say there is
something “insect-like” about her form. If she has a name besides the Crystal
Maiden, none in Central Bluff will share it with outsiders.
Wild Nevada [S4:E1]
Verdant Grove, pop ?? (est. 80-120).
Due to some long-held custom of belief, the people of Verdant Grove wear only
green clothes. It’s otherwise an unremarkable backwater full of loggers,
skinners, trappers, and leatherworkers, who [some say] practice odd religious
rites under the full moon.
Vandarbarton, pop ?? (est.
80-100). Poor farmland, a misty forest full of scrawny predators, some
ramshackle huts, and a medium-sized herd of cattle. Also, a bar: Barren
Crossing, where you can buy whiskey or beer, and the locals throw in suspicious
glares for free.
Slattenby, pop ?? (est. 20-60).
A flooded, miserable little hovel of a village, built in the shadow of
Deathfrost Mountain** amid the Howling Forest on the shores of Barnacle Lake.
Badlands at the Blue Gate, Utah [Wikimedia Commons]
*,**: Names borrowed from the works of Zak Sabbath, James Raggi, and/or Patrick Stuart.
"People are always ruining things for you." -Holden Caulfield
This is the tale of how I experienced the indie adventure game Life is Strange.
It started as a dare. A few of us were talking shit about video games, mostly belittling one anothers' abysmal tastes, and a few choice words spiked our collective blood pressure high enough that the Dark Souls / Life is Strange Throwdown of 2017 was set in motion. And executed.
Poorly.
My friend Jon played Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin for a good 14 hours. I commend his efforts, as he was pretty cynical about the whole From Software mystique and I think he's at least started to see why I like the Dark Souls vibe as much as I do. However, the game I recommended was Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition, which he has yet to play.
I played Life is Strange for 1 hour, which was 45 minutes longer than I wanted to play. Once I realized the game mechanics were essentially going to be cut scenes and dialogue trees, I became frustratingly bored and the game itself felt like a chore. The bit with the paint bucket and the sprinklers and bitchy Veronica or Victoria or whoever, the girl you can't just fucking walk past and get into the dorms, was the first time I told the game out loud to go fuck itself. I got to the end of Chapter 1 and decided I was done.
For perspective, these are five games (off the top of my head) that I really like, and have played in the last couple years:
Darkest Dungeon Master of Orion 2 Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition The Binding of Isaac Overwatch All of which are a million miles away from Life is Strange in terms of theme, mechanics, and ... well, basically everything. Dark Souls, Binding, and Overwatch are all dexterity based, revealing their vague-yet-intriguing worlds through masterful use of context. MOO2 and Darkest Dungeon are not dexterity based, instead requiring the player to build their own world within the game's rules and setting. All have very few cut scenes, very little dialogue, lots of significant choices, lots of variable challenges, and tons of player agency.
Life is Strange, on the other hand...
Ok, before I go off-road into the pseudoscientific quagmire of "what makes a game fun to play," let me abruptly switch gears: I'm not trying to bare my amygdala, or even assert that one type of game is better than another. Merely, I'm offering an explanation for why I found Life is Strange so frustrating to play.
As a game, I can only say two things about it with any sincerity: "I found it horribly dull" and "It's not my kind of game."
That said, I wasn't willing to let my prejudices get in the way of a good experience, and besides, I was still curious about what made people recommend it. The more I consciously dismissed it, the more curious I became in my unguarded moments. I was starting to obsess over it, honestly. I tried watching an 8 hour long video on YouTube which was essentially a Let's Play without any talking, but I found my attention drifting and abandoned it.
Then I found this:
And then I was all, "Ok, let's do this." And I did. And I laughed. And I re-watched critical scenes without Adam's commentary later so I could make up my mind for myself. And you know what? Despite the mountain of odds which were stacked against both myself and the game, I actually really liked Life is Strange.
Adam hated it for predictable reasons (which, I must digress, is one of the reasons I like his movie review channel - even though my tastes diverge from his fairly often, his critical voice is consistent). But I enjoyed the story once it got going. Yes, the game is a pastiche hacked together from a bunch of other, better-executed ideas, but buried somewhere beneath the horrible dialogue and cringey cliches, there's something sort of sublime that's worth experiencing.
Rather than wax on about all the things that were wrong with it, I'm going to discuss what I liked.
The Soundtrack
Whether or not one likes the original score + licensed tracks is a matter of taste, but you've got to admit, the music fits the mood of the game so well. Not really a whole lot else to say about this, other than, "Damn fine job!" Obstacles has been stuck in my head for two days now.
The Dialogue
It's utterly atrocious, but in a way that's so bad it's good. Saying hella is fun. I missed that phase in the mid-2000s because I went to college in the rural Midwest, so it never showed up organically in my dialogue. Now that I'm in my thirties and much too far from cool to care, it's great. Hella great, in fact.
The Architecture
This is it. This is the thing that got to me and won me over. It requires a shift in perception - you can't take the game literally for this to work. You gotta let your right-brain take over, shut off your left-brain logic, and try to enjoy the interplay of symbols and overlapping meanings within the narrative.
Life is Strange (and the story it tells) is a dream-like meditation on the fear of success. Max's desire to be an artist (but her hesitation at handing in her photos in Episode 1) is the narrative-in-brief, or the fugue, or the mantra, which will be repeated over and over and over. The mysterious storm bearing down on Arcadia Bay represents The Unknown - all possible outcomes, good and bad, but mostly the bad ones as far as Max can imagine them, and Chloe represents Max's comfort zone. Max wants to be as close to her comfort zone as possible, but she knows it can't last. Chloe is so much fun but, in the long-term, she will be toxic. She's like drugs, refined sugar, or never leaving home. If Max chooses to stay with her, she commits a kind of suicide - in one sequence, this plays out with Max literally needing to kill Chloe in order to escape from her past. In another, Max is successful and living in San Francisco, but Chloe herself is dead.
Chloe gives Max all kinds of great and memorable experiences, and Max wants to hold on to her forever. But Chloe can't last - She is inevitably slain by Mr. Jefferson (who represents Death in the physical, metaphysical and spiritual sense; he brings the inevitable loss of innocence which Max is hoping to delay forever). Max's battle with Jefferson is telling in that she needs outside assistance in the form of David Madsen in order to defeat him, cooperating with her former (perceived) enemy in order to overcome her real one.
Madsen represents everything Max finds distasteful about the world. War, narrow-mindedness, intolerance, violence, patriarchy, etc. Despite all of Madsen's negative traits, Max knows she must align herself with him, if only for a moment, in order to beat back her true adversary, Death. By choosing to do so, even if it's only to save herself, Max regains a measure of control over the loss of her innocence. The loss still happens. Death is still confronted. But when the struggle is over, Madsen frees her and she can stand again, on her own. The story could very well end here and be a cautionary tale, but Max has magic powers, so why would she want to end her tale in this bleakest of timelines?
She goes to a timeline where everything is great and Chloe is alive and they can be together, only... There's that storm. The Unknown. The Future is coming to take away Max's past, and Max has a choice: She can act to preserve the innocence of others, or she can act to preserve herself. Only, no matter what she does in this moment, she must be selfish. She is creating the world she wants to live in. She is choosing to be the person she will be for the rest of her life. All of this power is now, finally, inescapably, being released via her agency, and she will be responsible for everything that happens next.
Chloe, her comfort zone, tries to convince Max that it's all right to sacrifice her. And that's the beautiful ending, the meaningful ending, the ending that we wish we could choose because it means we're good people and willing to make sacrifices for the greater good. We are worthy of our future. We have chosen to discard our innocence. Our character has been tested and we've come out ahead. We can sleep at night, even though we will always carry a Chloe-shaped scar, and there will be dreams which we kiss our secret lovers even as we know we must, inevitably, wake up, and leave them all over again.
There's also the ending that I chose. The bitter end. The one where Max says, "Fuck this place, fuck your narrative, fuck your apotheosis. I want what I want and I will take it no matter the cost." Because that's how I saw Max, and on some level, that's how I see myself. We both fuck up important things, things which should be clear and unambiguous but which we can't seem to let go of and move beyond. We cling to our comfort zones despite knowing better. We dream, and occasionally even act, but we are weak people and the world pays a cost for our weakness. We think we are acting out of love but, in the dark, at night, alone, we know we are acting for our benefit alone.
This revelation makes us numb and guilty and ruins our lives and the lives of those we care about, but we were weak when it mattered the most, and this is what we have, now. Our reward is ruin, but at least we held on to our beautiful, blue-haired delusions. Comfort is our final bulwark against despair.
***
Of course, there's a silver lining: This is all just a game. You can always go back and choose the other ending. If being selfless and beautiful has proven to be too much of a burden, you can always choose to put your own happiness first. If ignoring your own failures while you focus inward has begun to lose its luster, you can always choose to be a better person and correct your past mistakes.
Metaphorically, we make Max's "hard choice" every day. If you're past the age of innocence, if you've confronted the reality of your own death, and if that confrontation has led you to make any sort of real decision about your life, then you've already killed and saved Chloe a thousand times. Big decisions - whether to go to college, or move to Rome, or ask out a crush - act as obvious anchor points for this metaphor, but so do the small ones.
On a personal level, in my struggle with weight loss, I destroy Arcadia Bay every time I choose donuts over salad. I fuck up every time I sleep in instead of going for that morning walk. I inevitably pay for it, and will keep paying for it, because my decision can't be undone. But I can choose the right ending the next time. It will never be enjoyable to sacrifice Chloe. My eyes will never light up in sadistic glee as I leave her to die on that windy hilltop. I will never teleport away cackling.
But I can still choose to do it.
Conclusion
It's only through acknowledging her unspoken desires and choosing to act on them, one way or the other, that Max is able to move forward with her life.
Likewise, I really wanted to play more Dark Souls and not some indie game marketed to teenage girls. I needed to turn Life is Strange into a meta version of Dark Souls in order to access it. I needed to find my own path, to fail, to meditate, to try again. I needed to get frustrated and quit. I needed to be miserable with it. Then, and only then, could I approach it with enough emotional jet fuel to blast through it and see what the experience was all about. And really, I'm glad I did, because it showed me a real truth about myself, and despite everything, in the end, it was good.
Game System: Lamentations of the Flame Princess. The gist: It's old-school D&D (Basic/Expert base rules) with a twist: It's got weird magic, it's got a ton of metal influences, and it's set up to play in an "early Modern period" instead of the default "pseudo-Medieval" of Dungeons & Dragons. What I like is that it's a fairly straightforward, simple rule set in which you can easily make a character in 10 minutes. And that's great, because all characters are fragile and the world is a bizarre and brutal place.
The Setting:
It is June 1, 1618. Atlantis has re-appeared in the North Atlantic after a two-hundred and twelve year absence. She is still inhabited by descendants of the brave French and Spanish settlers who risked all to settle her shores between her discovery by Admiral Diego de Camiña on August 4, 1450 and May 14, 1506, when the entire island disappeared without a trace. The first continental power to re-establish communication (and thereby dominance) over the Atlanteans stands to profit substantially. Atlantis is rich in natural resources, as well as exotic creatures and rare metals found nowhere else in all the world. Whichever crown calls Atlantis her ally (or, better yet, her vassal) will stand tall above her enemies - and in these uncertain times, friends are few, and enemies are everywhere.
As a group, you'll need to choose a patron:
France. You are part of the entourage of Roul Pasquier, a Parisian diplomat. Your duty is to guard Pasquier as he conducts affairs in Soluna, Atlantis' capital, as well as to perform any 'unsavory' duties he assigns to you. Pasquier is a wealthy man, and his family owns several iron mines. He wants you to discover new sources of mineral wealth on Atlantis, and to buy, cajole, bully, coerce, and otherwise take the rights to that wealth. For the glory of France, of course.
Rome. You're part of the Vatican's expedition to Atlantis. Officially, you're there to act as guards for the esteemed Cardinal Francisco Bertello as he conducts affairs in Soluna, Atlantis' capital. Unofficially, you are relic hunters, acquiring magic, art, and treasure for the Catholic church. You are also tasked with endeavoring to understand how an island could disappear and re-appear in such an inexplicable fashion, and to root out and destroy heresy and darkness wherever it might appear.
Independent. You're mercenaries, adventurers, and privateers. Although you're under-funded and don't have any crowns backing you up, you're also completely unfettered by their expectations. Your story begins in Soluna, Atlantis' capital, shortly after you part ways with the Spanish merchant vessel which brought you here from Europe.
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And if you're a GM wondering about influences and such: The Default Setting. Essentially the skeleton I'm hanging the rest of the game on, at least as far as adventures in Atlantis go. The Inspiration. Turtledove's prose is overly verbose and repetitive, but his ideas can be pretty neat sometimes.
The Free Kingdom of New Doltria
