Toy Update

 Apparently we can get away with posting our toys on here as "content" and since I am only part-way through reading the Pathfinder Bestiary 2, here is a record of what I have been up to on my weekends.

I just love Slaanesh man, I suppose this is my only chance to be fabulous. This is the earliest model that I think is any good, manly due to the conversion, (push-fit Primaris Captain, elf-head, tzaangor sword, old lead chaos marine lord backpack, deathwatch combi-plasma, collected bitz and plasticard on the base and a Blood Bow snotling to cap it off. Behold Lord Fabulous of the Emperors Children.

My Kitbash Noise Marine squad leader. Primaris Apothecary body, elf head, pink space wolf combi-bolter aaand random other stuff I can't remember. Squig was an adaption, Primaris Marines have one foot on a rock so often I think they must have servitors or something carrying rocks around so they can stand on them overseeing the battle. 

GW's remade classic Glam Rock Noise Marine Champion. Not perfect, but not bad either. This guy has a crop-top and abs which you don't get to see much of in the finished mini but thanks GW for making that choice.

I have developed this fascination with the interrelationship of colour and mass, which as it turns out is basically an infinitely deep and mysterious topic.

Dazzle. Noise marine conversion with a stormcast base and god knows what added on top. A somewhat frustrating photo as all my experiments with patterning were originally inspired by WWI disruptive camouflage Dazzle Patterns for ships and of all my minis this one came out closest to that ideal. She looks great IRL but this was my attempt at using a lightbox instead of daylight and even with a lot of fiddling with the image its not great.

Tooth-Marine! Brush your teeth everyone! Push-Fit Stormcast, old Marine sniper scout gun, hand reader from a Primaris kit, and the big Tooth from the Chaso Spawn kit - still a very fertile source of bits from a time when GW tended a little more towards the lego-interpretation of modelling. 

What if your Noise Marine gun was literally a Banshee or something you pulled from the Warp? Well here you go; push-fit stormcast, chaos backpack, an old metal Drachny'en and Abaddon head which I found in a little shop that was only open and selling bitz for a short while, old warhammer banshee and a bent paperclip as her eldritch bindings.

"Bugfucker" - a dude who joined chaos largely so he could bang Tyranids. A noble goal. Push-fit stormcast, filed-down genestealer cultist head, Abaddons old Claw of Horus, weapon bits from I think one part was the Chaos marine Havoc seat and another was some tyrranid thing.

Pretty simple Stormcast Conversion with Chaos Marine Chainsword, no idea where the Bolt Pistol is from and one of Abaddons metal trophy-racks turned sideways and stuck to a chaos backpack.

Nice wee group shot of the 'boys', (two of whom are girls).

Everyone's favourite Space-Mengele Fabulous Bill with a funky chaos-spawn mobility scooter made from a foot from the new Warhammer Gargant, bits of a Tzeetch screamers kit, still more of the seemingly endless resource of the Chaos Spawn kit and an arm from a Keeper of Secrets.

Yes I gave all the hands medical gloves.

A big project! A Keeper of Secrets I did for a friend. Kept me up for a weekend and a day, and that was just for the painting after the assembly and undercoat. Finally got the skin looking ok right before the end but it was questionable right before then.

My other project that produced ok-looking results - a Fallen/Moon Cult/random cultists force which evolved from a bunch of Kitbashes I made for an Inquisitor game more than a year ago.

A Dark Angels Inquisitor I got because I just really loved that model. I found I do better painting when I either Kitbash something or just really want that particular piece without any real context. he has a power maul from the Havoc kit but he does look a little Loony Tunes with that heavy mass held up there. He is meant to be Fallen/Nihilus Marine so perhaps he is going to bonk a loyalist on the head.

These were all painted with a trinary zenithal highlight of blue, green and yellow, and then all kinds of inks and whatever on top. The tank was an experiment in weathering that didn't quite work but ended up looking ok as part of a force. If you can see any of the text on there it has the book of Job scrawled all over it beneath the weathered overcoat.

There are moon-steeds accompanying the tank because, well I had the parts. One is a very old knights horse I got from a friend with a face and tail from the cornucopia of the chaos spawn kit, the other a Stormcast Gryph hound with a skill from the warhammer skull kit as a face. 

The lady shooting a bow from the top of the tank is an old archer body with a necromunda head (though her paint job isn't that great up close) and there is a converted Lord of the Rings goblin dude with a Cadian bottom half kitbashed onto him riding along.

These particular troops are largely penal soldiers from Victoria Miniatures with lots of warhammer and 40 bits and pieces, at least one has an old fanatic body. The Grimdark Bagpiper is the only pure Victoria Minis piece in there. Hope I did him justice.

I have an Instagram where I post this stuff if anyone's really into it.

Amber Golem (& Galaxy-Brained Update)

 First, if you haven't read the Ghost Post, take a look, you might like it, or even this one by Semiurge.

Now on to the Amber Golem

And no, I could not do any better than this concept by Warren D

Amber Golem

Magisterial and ancient artefacts. Sometimes found in museums or the dusty collections of dusty book-lads. Maybe uncovered after a flood when a riverbank erodes, the gleam of amber poking from the soggy shale, turned up in a field beneath a questing plough, dragged out of a mine, found, half-buried on a beach after a mighty storm, as if spewed from the bowels of the sea.

Great Amber statues! Primal animal shapes. Almost cubist, brutto and contained, like chess pieces. Treasure, surely. This much Amber being incredibly valuable.

Then...

The voice.

A thin, wheedling, whining piercing voice, coming from somewhere deep within. A tiny, ancient-accented sound, counterpointed by this huge, beautiful, gleaming thing.
The statue Moves!

"If they are Pre-Historic why do they have animal shapes?"

Shut up.

ORIGINS

Prehistoric evil mosquito sorcerers who froze themselves in huge palaces of amber and had their thralls carve them into forms of majesty and bury them, till they could rise and take over the world!
But now, as they half-awaken, they found 

THE INSECT DREAMS

The Undead Sorcerer Lords are only half-awake, they dream of Mosquito paradise, where they reign as LIVING GODS, but they drift in slumber, only part-aware of the nightmare reality into which they have been thrust, for in this Nightmare Reality giant animals have become intelligent,  insects had sunk into barbarism and the world is ruled by the descendants of the brutish dinosaurs.

Even in dreams the Mosquito Lich-Lords recognise the Goose as True Ruler of the Gooseworld. Long ago the Dinosaurs, brute and unthinking beasts, bestrode the world, and the Goose is obviously the natural descendant of those might beings. Smaller, (not that the difference in scale matters much to a mosquito), but more savage, worshipped and protected by all, surrounded by lesser beings who sacrifice their own welfare and resources for the comfort of the Goose.

If this world is ever to be ruled by Mosquito-kind again, the Geese must fall! So the half-waking war of the undead bugs is not with mankind, but with the Geese themselves!!!

The Mosquitos do not realise that by the fact that the Geese are pretty dumb really and don't know what's going on, so its like a battle between someone half-asleep who keeps randomly sparking static electricity, and a violent idiot. Here at False Machine towers we call that Pinteresque.

POWERS OF THE GOLEMS

Smashing Stuff - they can pretty much stumble through anything.

Uncomfortable Static Shocks - Being Amber, they can build up quite a lot of static electricity while wandering around, which can discharge in a field of crackling lightning 

Sleepy Sorcery - all the powers of a Master of Undeath, but focused mainly on the insect scale. Can raise terrible hordes of skeletons (insect skeletons), create vampire insects and ghost insects and can kill insects with but a single word or gesture. They do often forget what they are doing half way though or get confused, but that leads us onto weaknesses really.

WEAKNESSES OF THE GOLEMS

Stumbling around falling asleep, getting lost, pausing, losing their track of thought. Asking whats going on. Asking why everyone is so big. Going on long tangents about pre-history. Long stories about the time they met a Bee that have no point (the story not the Bee, the Bee had a point), why is it so cold, what happened to all the oxygen etc etc.

ROLE IN THE GOOSEWORLD

Depending on how awake they are, or how much dementia they don't have. The Amber Golem could be a random heavy who abducts the Goose to rant at it about ruling the world.

They could be tricked or manipulated by other creatures, send off to smash and rampage as a distraction or a living weapon.

Or if they are unusually together, they may be a primary antagonist themselves, creating plots and schemes to foil the Geese (and by necessity doing harm to the Goose's support system (the PCs), employing other creatures as part of a Master Plan for world domination.

Ghost (standard)

Ghosts!

If you move at all, or stick your feet outside the bedclothes, Ghosts WILL get you = FACT.

You meet someone sad and distracted on the road, or in the forest, at a quiet time or in a silent place. Not a ripple on the water or a bird in the air. When you describe them to a local; they are dead! Disappeared these twenty years and no-one knows how or why. 

Or an old woman you find reading silently in a room, but if you ask too many questions she starts screaming "MY HOUSE MY HOUSE THERE IS SOMEONE IN MY HOUSE MURDERERS NO! NO! NO!"

A Ghost generally means interpersonal drama. There is often a murderer to uncover, or at least a guilty party of some kind. Usually a wrong to right. Bones to bury, a body to find.

GHOST TYPES

Murdered Ghost; gotta reveal the murderer, see justice is done.

Lost Ghost; died without doing something very important. They have memory problems so may not know what it is. Have to sort out what they failed and fix it.

Evil Ghost; Doesn't want to be settled, actively likes hurting people. Has to be exorcised, its power broken (may turn out to be one of the other types, a ghost that can be reasoned with). Either find their bones, their murder weapon, or the bones of their victims, and consecrate them, or unveil the truth about them.

Ancient Culture Ghost; Is upset for some weird foreign and or ancient reason, probably a purloined relic or some ancient wrong. Hard to understand what its on about. Often connected to an artifact or injustice, can be settled once you work out what that was.

GHOST FORMS

Depending on how genuinely aggressive and scary a ghost is, you may or may not see its basic form, could be anywhere from a Harry Potter ghost, like a cheery local, to a Horror Movie Ghost, that only appears through signs and inference.

From broadly least-scary to more-scary;

Scare Level One

- Verbose Types

• Friendly animal like a ghost dog
• Historical, cartoonish wounds (like their head tips off).
• Sheet Ghost WOOooOOO!
• Historical, no visible wounds.
• Child, no wounds.
• Modern or near-modern, no wounds.

Scare Level Two

- Unaware of own nature, forgetful, obsessed, indifferent

• Historical - non cartoonish wounds
• Modern - non cartoonish wounds
• Child - visible wounds

Scare Level Three

- Hunting, stalking behaviours, deliberate mental torture and gaslighting.

• Apparent total normality, can't tell it from a real person.
• Reality warping and hallucinatory effects.
• Monstrous, nightmare or impossible animal.
• Distorted, horrific or mutilated individual.

HAUNTINGS - SCARY STUFF

Main difficulty here is telling the difference between ghost action and hidden Goblins (nearly all of these could be down to one kind of Goblin or another).

1. Small items moving when no-one around.
2. Taps left on.
3. Doors slamming in an empty house.
4. Small objects hurled with frightening effect.
5. Sounds of an argument from empty room
6. Steps in the corridor.
7. Lamps going out or lighting when no-one is there.
8. The shadows of feet waiting outside your door.
9. Very very slow scratching at your door, the doorknob catching.
10. The yowling of cats when there are no cats.
11. At night, someone standing beneath a lamp in the street outside, watching the house.
12. Clocks all fucked up and showing the wrong time.
13. Milk curdling, god damn it (free cheese though).
14. A face pressed against the window at night.
15. Some kind of rodent or creature in the attic or cellar (tbh this is probably Goblins).
16. Massive temperature drops, rimes of ice, bathwater freezing, tea gone cold!!
17. Food going off overnight, mouldy bread, rotten meat, stinking eggs, though sometimes only one item with the rest left as they were.
18. Yard or garden full of cats, birds or rabbits which stand still staring at the house.
19. Coughing or heaving as of someone very sick.
20. Spinning wheel spinning and clacking in an empty room.
21. Someone extra in the mirror..
22. Strong sense of someone behind you in the room.
23. Someone standing in the corner of the room silently.
24. Vile stains where they should not be.
25. Horrid smells with no discernible source.
26. Someone calling your name in the distance.
27. Insanely angry pounding at the front door in the middle of the night.

APPEASING BEHAVIOURS

(Largely for the more non-evil ghosts)

1. Always serve an extra seat at dinner.
2. That room must be cleaned but never used.
3. The garden must be kept a certain way.
4. Serve leeks with every meal.
5. Keep their spooky portrait up and say hello it it when you go past.
6. Keep an uncomfortable level of pot purri around the place.
7. Sing it to sleep each night.
8. Feed all cats that present themselves.
9. Keep place spic and span.
10. Always keep a light burning.
11. Don't touch the wedding dress in the closet.
12. Feed the snake which seems to live in the basement, and do not interrupt its movements when it goes about.
13. Make sure no draughts in house with those door gap draught blockers and keep a fire on at all times.
14. Put a biscuit under the settee every night.
15. Toast the King with each meal.
16. Leave particular process-action always partially undone (like a cloth half-woven, a picture half- completed, a book half-read, presumably the ghost completes these in the night).
17. Keep everything at an odd angle (no straight pictures, tables etc).

PROTECTION FROM GHOSTS

• Stay under the sheets and don't let your feet poke out.
• Don't look at them.
• Sing loudly (works as a group, not so much as an individual).
• Lights on everywhere.
• STAY AWAKE FOREVER.

WHERE ARE THE BONES?

1. Tangled in roots of evergreen tree.
2. Buried in the flower beds.
3. Behind a bricked-up cavity.
4. In a cavity in the chimney.
5. Buried beneath the cellar.
6. In a huge chest in the attic.
7. Spread between several large plant pots.
8. Trapped in the mill race beneath the wheel of the mill.
9. In the well (the Well-Dweller may be the ghost).
10. In an air duct.
11. In a secret passage between rooms.
12. In a hollow tree.
13. Under the old compost pile.
14. In the pumpkin patch.
15. In the scare-crow!
16. Under the hearth.
17. Hidden in a statue.
18. Under the wood-pile.
19. At the bottom of the lake.
20. Down an abandoned mine shaft.
21. Given to a villainous creature as a gift or toy.
22. out in the fields where a patch of crops grow extra-green (more visible as the seasons change).
23. Built into the beehive!
24. In the den of a dangerous beast.

MURDERER CLUES

If you are trying to find the identity of a Murderer so you can lay a victim to rest, then the ghost might be helping.

But if you have an *evil* ghost, and are trying to find out who they are, or proof of their dark deeds, then the ghost may be enraged by your efforts.

1. Old diary, possibly in code, or at least a foreign language.
2. Forgotten, hidden or torn will.
3. Distant relative got surprisingly rich after the death.
4. Witches charms found in old room.
5. Old bloodstained boots, but who do they fit?
6. Hidden bottle of poison.
7. Hidden bottle of antidote.
8. Flawed Alibi - (everyone there was actually drunk).
9. Flawed Alibi - (was a masked ball).
10. Flawed Alibi - (the piano they were heard playing is secretly a clockwork piano).
11. Flawed Alibi - (the time on the clocks can be secretly re-set from a hidden location).
12. "This was no accident" - Wooden support partially sawn through.
13. "This was no accident"  - Bell-charm makes a subsonic sound which enrages cattle.
14. "This was no accident"  - Scratches show stone Gargoyle or statue was moved before it fell.
15. Hidden book on bookshelf called "Evil Doings".
16. Book on Toxicology and an interest in mushrooms.
17. Flowers in Greenhouse are actually deadly.
18. Hair Dye and/or a Wig - the killer had one hair colour, the suspect another.
19. Old-Person costume and back brace - 'mysterious old lady seen around murder', one person claimed she was hanging about previously, but that person is the suspect.
20. Materials and fragments for sending cut-up 'threatening letters' suggesting an illusory other suspect.
21. Hidden message scratched under table or bookshelf, or behind painting "So-and-so is trying to kill me!"
22. Actually ambidextrous. Killer was left-handed, suspect is right-handed, but they catch an orange with their left hand!
23. Handwriting comparison, text of threatening letter matches that of someone else.
24. Treasure hidden in plain sight, like jewel or statue painted over and disguised as something else, either the murderer shouldn't have it but does, or they want it and are looking for it while trying to seem that they are not.

The Sinister Pig

 SINISTER PIG

Witness

A sinister pig might be able to lift small things with its gaze, make have hands hidden beneath its hooves, may be able to speak, in fact it is a ventriloquist, but won't tell you that.

A core element of a Sinister Pig is its apparent simplicity and decency, just a simple pig, trying to get along, maybe looking for a friend.

A pig you see alone. Alone in a field, at a quiet time, no-one else around. Just you and the Pig. You think it far away, singular, in the middle of nothing. Turning its head slightly to look at you. 

You turn away and BAM. There it is. Right by the fence.

Did you make a mistake? Are there two pigs? did you turn away for longer than you thought?

You wake up, maybe groggy from the night before. Maybe you only half-remember, you are uncertain, uncertain about the pig.

Then you walk downstairs to eat breakfast and BAM.

There is the pig, sitting at the breakfast table, buttering some toast. Talking to the family.

"Why.. you invited me? Don't you remember?"

"No, no no. I'm sorry, it's my fault. I know better than to stay where I am not wanted."

"Oh, what a mortification."

The pig laboriously puts on its boots.

(It has boots now?)

And seems like it might weep.

Of course, everyone asks it to stay. "Stay for breakfast", they say. You feel terrible of course.

"Well... if you insist"

You walk through the village. People seem to stare at you. They seem angry with you.

"shameful..." you hear mutters.

The Pig explains; "Oh isn't it terrible? Someone has been spreading rumours.."

"Oh you know, about what happened at breakfast."

"They all have simply the wrong idea. Don't worry, I'll put it right."

And the Pig does put it right, with an uproarious performance in the market. Has everyone simply wheezing with laughter.

"Ahhh, that Pig, they're all right you know. Lord what a card." They say.

The Pig thinks you are "Wonderful! Utterly wonderful. So talented, really, and.. (glances around).. I might even say, a little underappreciated."

Its strange though because sometimes the Pig seems bored with you. Distracted even. Its almost as if they don't like you at all. Sometimes they look at you and for a moment their eyes seem blank. 

Things go missing.

People get hurt.

INGOT BEASTS

Big semi-intelligent Platypus with big strong tongues who just lick away metal. Their saliva dissolves it and their abrasive file-like tongue wears it away.

They are super-excited to do it too, making little grunting and squeaking noises, and a soft grinding with each lick.

If its something light, not fixed down, they will trap it between their paws and lick it that way, even rolling around on their back with whatever it is clenched on their tummy, stopping between licks to shivver and chirp.

The bad thing is; they can get everywhere. They will sneak into places, they swim up rivers and hide in wells, hide under beds, hide in cupboards, sneak around the place. They can flatten themselves like cats, able to get under anything. Only the snuffling sound as they sniff out the ore gives them away. Snuffling and whuffling.

Its true they are very rarely encountered. Its much easier for them to live in rivers or in secret places deep underground and eat ores from inside the rocks, climbing around caves and following veins of metal, they don't end up above ground very much and are rarely encountered in 'normal wilderness'.

But the bad thing is that they can kind of fly. Well, not really. They can whirl those big platypus tails around like propellers, even that doesn't get them off the ground but but the lift does make them light enough to climb up walls, even across ceilings, though they are somewhat plump creatures to be doing that. And they are not exactly stealthy at this point, you can hear their tails going "WHIRRRRRR WUB WUB WUB"

You can possibly keep one as a pet. They can be persuaded to curl up in boxes or barrels, like cats, but sometimes dangerous strangers can use them as guards, (making sure no-one can bring tools or metal tricks into their lairs) and big cities have carefully controlled pet versions for detecting metal, (the license is very expensive and you are legally responsible for all the metal they eat).

But the only really bad thing is that they like water and often insist on being bathed, but if you let them into the bath they eat the taps and then the room floods.

MEN-OF-BONES

You must not dance with men of bones,

Do not go with them to their homes.

At night they rise to leap and play,

And will not dance in light of day.

Of bones they are and bones they keep,

They'll dance with yours to make them leap!

Of bones they are and bones they want,

Don't ask to stop, because they won't!

Of bones they are and yours will move,

They wriggle out and start to groove!

Of bones they are, so pale and thin,

They leave you as a bag of skin!

You must not dance with boney men,

So grab your bones and keep them in!

Where do the Skeletons come from?

From within. The ultimate conspiracy.

The great threat of the Men-Of-Bones is their music and their dance, (also that they can't drown or starve). They all move together, as if they are always dancing, and the music they are moving to is the music of the stars, and of the darkness between the stars, the darkness behind your eyes, so they don't dance, or even move, in daylight.

The way they are dangerous is that they make your bones want to dance. If they can form a circle around you, they can make your bones dance right out of your skin, leaving you alive. but just a bag person, like a floppy leech. To fix that you need to get your bones back, and get a surgeon or a docter to shove them back up inside you.

To get the bones back you have to find them when they are sleeping. You have to find the SKELTON BED, (A big bed they all climb into), and get the bones and either put pins where their ears would be, or put ear muffs on them, or just wrap them in cotton wool.

They move about like slapstick comedians. Their love of music is also their weakness, if you can play them a dancing tune you can often get them dancing your way, (they will dance you right out of your skin otherwise).

They also toot horns.

They can get more men of bones by having big dance parties on graveyards and calling up all the buried skeletons to dance.

They become really dangerous when you have a whole bunch of them, like a big carnival of bones. Then they can parade through the night, open doors and dance people out of their homes, dancing away with their bones.

Luckily there are not that many skeletons about.

Lots of questionable wizardly types have a handful of Men-Of-Bones as servants. The magic music needed to animate them is not too difficult to grasp at a basic level, and even comes intuitively to some. Once you have them up and capering about, they will usually perform any simple task you request, so long as they can dance and caper while doing it.

Descent into Weebery

 Media review. 

Behold, the long dark reaches ever-on, the deep moans round with many voices. Made numb by the closing trap of day I have done fuck all work but at least I can still consume media. And lo, media has been consumed, and I shall tell thee of it.....

LONESOME DOVE

The book not the series.

ITS A TRICK - it looked like it was going to be an adventure and turned out to be a fretwork of tragic romances. A titanic yet silent collision of irresolvable and unwise desires, overwhelming need, fear and invisible savagery. (And also the more-visible kind).

Holy Christ this is a sad book. Just a long, deep tragedy. A love story in which people don't know they are in love, or are in love with the wrong person, or were in love with the right person but they died.

Oh my god everyone is so lonely in this.

(Its still mildly trippy to me that cowboy times are also Sherlock Holmes times.)

McMurty manages a remarkable kaleidoscope of internal states; p.o.v flowing from mind to mind inhabiting each one as smoothly as pulling on jeans. Then we get our radiating perspective trick of character actions and central events being perceived through fractured time from different eyes. 

He does have a particular genius for drawing one into sympathy with almost every possible character.

He cannot handle evil, not really I think, which is not really a bug, but a flaw common to humanist writers. In Lonesome Dove, harm is usually propagated by people who act poorly because they can see and feel less, and in McMurtys world, the damage from trauma, poverty, isolation and sometimes individual failure largely shows up in how poorly people perceive and understand each other.

So, paradox; in order to tell a story in which a main driver of tragedy is peoples failure to understand each other you need a creator who is really good at understanding people, to create a social world subtle and complex enough so that its failures can be perceived.

He pulls off a slightly high-level literary trick in which we almost always know more about the object of someone’s attention than we do about their own internal state and deep character. We are always finding out about people from the outside, seeing people though each others eyes, and this goes well with a story about the relationships between men in which the greatest emotions and attachments are almost always tacit and built upon shared action, at which they can often work well despite differences in viewpoint and personality, or work poorly despite apparent similarities.

Escape, or 'winning' in Lonesome Dove, (which no-one actually does but they might reach it for a while), is some combination of material safety, emotional and personal recognition and a shared future, all of these being compromised. The material safety by the fact that everything is built on blood spilt so recently the walls haven't solidified, the recognition by pure fear and grief and the shared future by the fact anyone can just get snakebit or fall off their horse at any time.

The loneliness of these people facing such fundamental instability and endless movement is a very strange distant mirror of the loneliness of modernity. We have all the stuff and safety they might want but the engines we use to create it have teased us apart and frozen us in shifting glass, we see each other moving past on different tracks, as if on  night trains.

FARSCAPE

Peaks in the middle. (A rule for sci fi shows), still remains pleasingly weird though and holy fuck is there a lot of mindfucking in this series.

Probably the most interesting parts were the early to mid episodes, before the bonds of loyalty between the crew had yet to fully cohere and it was still possible that one or move of them might just leave, or stab someone in the back.

Feel like I could have more to say about this but its been a while since I finished it and though it remains watchable, the final parts did drain a little energy.

MUPPETS ARE FUCKING GREAT

Thanks for the aliens dudes.

DESCENT INTO WEEBERY

Since watching Vinland Saga and being generally disappointed and uninterested in whatever television has currently decayed into, I have been investigating the Anime available through Amazon Prime, of which, I have only finished a handful, but they were pretty good

DORORO

Basically Camus's 'The Plague' if it was actually fun to watch.

Fighty-time-era Japan; war, plague and famine everywhere.

Somewhat evil Lord goes to a temple called 'The House of Hell', (and why the fuck is there a temple solely to super-evil demons just hanging around locally, is this a Japanese thing I didn't know about or a genre thing?).

Lord makes a deal with the demons, he wants the safety of his people AND (side request) the power to conquer Japan, in exchange the demons can have 'whatever they ask', (there is a reason why the unwise bequest is a motif of dingbats), anyway;

His sons about to be born and just after the kid _is_ born EVIL LIGHTNING strikes and takes all the kids body-parts, his corpus, except, one bit of evil lightning is deflected by a combination of mothers love and a handy goddess of mercy - so instead of just being.. nothing the kid is left an utterly horrific nubbin of flesh, no arms, legs, eyes or ears or spine, but with a fierce will to live nonetheless.

In the second unwise motif, the Lord tells an old woman to dump the kid in the river, in fact she leaves the nubbin on a leaky boat and punts it into the stream.

And then we cut to maybe 17 years later, turns out the kid bumped into a creator of prosthetics with basically near-magical alchemic powers, who raised the child and progressively built him prosthetic legs, arms, eyes (they can't see), a prosthetic mask-face .

Kid keeps getting attacked by minor demons who follow him about, (they want the last bit of flesh), so the guy teaches the kid to fight and gives him weapons to defend himself. Kid manages this via magical strength and speed imbued by a combination of demon contact earlier and his prosthetics, and though he cannot see normally, he can see 'souls'.

What is this about?

about Fascism in Japan - I THINK.

And trauma. The interlacement of good and evil. The human response to despair and overwhelming power. Why not join the sharks after all? Or feed the demons?

Common thread is mutual humanity, and mixed motives. Everyone does things for comprehensible reasons, considering their circumstances.

(Interesting that a lot of media I like seem to be really into shares this obsession with 'tragic choice' morality and the impossibility of doing anything purely good in a damaged world. Genetic Catholicism I suppose.)

The demons are basically going about doing evil stuff, but you can sometimes talk to them and depending on what they are like, even form relationships with them. And there are very good reasons to form relationships with them.

Nothing is stable or safe. Nothing can be built or maintained - every small kingdom suffers unless it makes war against its neighbours and takes their resources, making them suffer in turn.

The only real route to safety or peace seems to me, one way or another, through the Demons. Though overwhelming, destructive, amoral, really actually, evil and corruptive power.

These develop as the series goes on, from standard monster-fic 'bear' type monsters to creatures with some kind of parasitic or symbiotic relationship with those humans or human cultures near them, and when people form useful relationships with the demons, there can be peace.

The demons still predate and take their toll, but in a controlled fashion (somewhat, but how long can that go on?).

One thing the story gets very right is the kind of inner despair and vacancy on the part of people who have suffered and the willingness, even the joy, taken in aligning themselves with savage and amoral power, simply because it is power, and is victorious. One man imagines himself a hero, but freezes when encountering the Demon and watches his mother be consumed. So he ends up deliberately luring others to the Demon so they can face their own weakness the same way he did. Another is ostracised and grows up wild and alone, but forms a bond with some supernatural sharks, as separate as he is, but powerful, and ultimately ends up feeding people to them, even loves them.

Hyakkimaru

When the Son meets those Demons who took part of his body, he fights them, and usually wins, and each time he wins he gets a bit of his body back. It grows back magically, and the prosthetics pop out.

There are two large problems with this.

Every time a body element comes back, Hyakkimaru  becomes more human, in some ways flawed, more sensitive. To begin with, he can't feel at all, and so has no pain, his prosthetic limbs can be replaced or repaired, so it doesn't matter that much if he loses one in a fight, he can't 'hear', so when he gets that sense back, the world deafens him and he becomes vulnerable. When his sense of pain comes back, he is no longer as invulnerable as he was, and these changes connect him more and more to the world around him, and he gets angrier, and more vulnerable to corruption. More demon-like.

To begin with, he barely knows what he has lost, proceeding largely on instinct, without pain, flesh, language, hearing or sight, the world has almost no purchase on him, but as these things return, the depth of his suffering can actually grow, rather than fade, at least for a while, for he gains the senses, experience and contextual understanding to actually grasp how much he has been hurt.

So each victory requires difficult moral growth alongside physical restoration, and risks dangerous moral decay.

Second problem

As well as that, the deal his father made with the Demons is still in effect. The realm of the Father is safe, healthy and prosperous, its home to many, many people who live in safety and without the chaos engulfing much of the rest of Japan.

So every demon the defeats and every part of his own body he gets back,, the more the deal fractures and that Realm becomes vulnerable to sickness, famine and invasion. By fighting the demons and getting his body back he is retarding the ambitions of his father but also plunging many people into doom, chaos and death, which they only escaped due to an evil deal.
So what do you do? what is right to do?

DORORO

The actual main character is the cheeky ragamiffin scamp that the Son runs into in the first episode, a Dickensian orphan thief called 'Dororo'.

Dororo is basically humanity. 

The most human of the characters, maybe the most human of all the characters in all the meeja I'm talking about here. (Lonesome Dove would give him a run for his money). He teams up with Hyakkimaru and becomes his guide, at first literally, and then as Hyakkimaru faces more and more complex challenges, in a wider sense. He's surprisingly anti-Samurai, very much a child of the lower classes.

Dororo felt the most to me as if he represented Teuzkas own viewpoint.

Re:CREATORS

Damn this is a better-than-average written piece of media.

A villain arises with the power to collapse the boundaries between our world and the fictional worlds created by us, like comics etc. In particular this villain brings through into our reality, a bunch of heroes and villains from various manga and anime.

These people, realising that our world created theirs and that we essentially created their suffering, which is often titanic, divide on what to do, with some deciding to try to take control of their creators and force them to remake their worlds, and others opposing them.

To them our reality is the 'world of the gods' and there is a lot of fascinating tacit theology in this series, it it’s never mentioned out loud but the questions it brings up are only ever a single leap of thought away from the depicted action. Lots of arguments between created and creator. 

Its also a nice 'insider' look at the personalities, structures and economics of manga, anime and media creation.

SHUT UP THIS IS BETTER THAN IT SOUNDS

also has my favourite villain from this whole group of meeja

And it has a likeable 'clips episode' in the middle where the narrating character goes completely metatextual.

INUYASHIKI LAST HERO

Basically the opposite/partial counter to 'Chronicle'. 

About power, alienation, with a classic power corrupts/power reveals investigation to it.

This is just a really nice story tbh. Main character is an older salaryman, totally overlooked everywhere, irrelevant at work, almost totally silent and ignored by wife and kids, gets a dog, feels slightly happy for the first time in years. Takes dog to park.

Interdimensional aliens accidentally smash into the park and kill him. They quickly reverse the truck while doing the legal minimum which in his case means transporting (or re-creating?) his memories and consciousness in a new body, made as much as possible to be as much like the old body as they can do.

But the only spares they have are from some weapons trading they’ve just been doing, so now this old man has what seems like a normal human form but is actually a near-indestructible robot which can fold out to reveal a plethora of insane weapons and a jet pack, also he learns he can do other stuff, like repairing tissue and healing diseases.

So now this old fellow is a terminator/iron man hybrid and all he wants to do is help people, because for the first time in his life he gets to do something meaningful for others, so he sets about being like an old fella superman.

BUT - there was someone else in the park that day, and that person is not nearly as nice as our boy. Instead he, well he turns out a lot more like Chronicle.

Look you will probably have a cry where he jetpacks for the first time while singing the theme to Astroboy. And I don't even know shit about Astroboy. 

Thieflings

 "A salute to the moon, gentlemen..."

Nobody knows what Thieflings are, all anyone can say is that they wear black masks and striped white shirts, that they carry things away in sacks, that they steal for the joy if it and that they revere, and perhaps serve, The Master Thief.

................................


'The Thieflings' is a kind of club made up largely of Foxes, Racoons, Magpies, Chimney Sweeps, Tinkers and various others. It is a league dedicated to extraordinary crimes.

(Not Dogs. Dogs are never Thieflings).

When the moon is gibbous, the Thieflings gather in a secret place.

First they put on their finest gear and their magical masks. Then in a place different each time, perhaps often the cellar beneath a pub, a wizards basement or a Draculas attic, they come together and  toast each other in cups of dew and dandelion wine, giving each other grave nods and sly winks above the rims of their drinks.

Here there is always a window through which the moon might be seen, a long table at which the Thieflings sit, a portrait of The Master Thief with a brass plaque reading Our Patron and outside the area is hung a wooden sign bearing the words The Thieflings, and a long cord with a bell.

This is done to bawd the enemies of the Thieflings. If the bell is ever rung it means their meeting place is discovered and whomever enters next may be a mortal foe, or a very superior thief.

Each Thiefling tells the story of their theft and, if successful, presents the purloined loot, to cries of 'huzzah!' and 'neatly done!', placing it on the stage or table, visible to all, and balancing an empty champagne glass atop.

Before moon disappears in the sky, all the Thieflings vote by flicking pebbles across the room into the glass atop the loot produced by their favourite crime. Pebbles that miss and glasses which are unbalanced or knocked over are discounted, so it behoves the Thief in question to impress not the greatest number of thieflings, but the most skilled amongst them. An unskilled vote is hardly a vote at all.

The matter at question is only partly the value of the stolen loot, (though more valuable things are likely to be more fiercely guarded), but the originality, courage, boldness and audacity of the theft. Stealing from the poor is little regarded, not because it is wrong but because the poor have few resources with which to defend their property.

The winner is then acclaimed as one of the 'Chief Thief' and one of the 'Thieves of the Year' (the same individual cannot win more than once a year so there are always twelve, one for each month), and all Thieflings gather to 'salute the moon', after which they each hurl a cup of butterscotch or ginger beer into the shadows 'for the patron!'.

................................

The masks of the Theiflings are curious items. Anyone wearing one can speak, even if they are a fox, or even a spider, and is impossible to identify or name except using the most general of physical characteristics.

So one might point to "The Many-Limbed Lady" or "The Bush-Tailed Gentleman" but one would not be able to say for certain if the individual being described was a Fox or a Spider. Even if it was explained later all that would remain in memory would be the idea of a very civil fellow with a bushy tail.

The reason the Thieflings all wear a striped jersey when carrying out their crimes is so that if they are seen, no-one will be able to identify them as anything other than; "the fellow in the striped jersey". But they will know, amongst themselves, that a Thiefling has carried out the crime. 

by Tillinghast

Obviously, the addition of language skills to simple animals, and the inability to correctly identify them, either as animals or even individuals, opens a wide range of possibilities for thieflings so far as crime goes. A spider could pretend to be a governess, a Fox engage in financial fraud, a Raccoon might become a pirate or a magpie rob a bank.

There are no specific rules about the use of force, but 'icing rubes' is considered poor sport, unless the theft is extremely audacious, or more preferably, if the use of force is threatened through illusion, or used to distract from a deeper theft.

Holding up a bank with a Banana for instance, is "a very neat hand, very neat", but holding up a bank with a Banana, having the place besieged by the Law and then escaping through the sewers to rob the confectioners across the street is "A Master Stroke".


................................


One never knows if a particular animal is a thiefling or not. Membership is secret and they do not discuss such matters amongst themselves. One may see one animal giving another 'the eye', or a lady with a long nose greeting a gentleman in a red fur coat curious nod, but can you really be certain?
As to their relationship to their patron, The Master Thief, even less is known. It seems likely that he, (or she, or them), would approve of the Theiflings motivations at least. It also seems likely that they are the source of the Theiflings masks

................................

Getting your stuff back from the Theiflings;

What do they even do with it?

The final destination of the Loot varies a great deal. Technically this months 'Chief Thief' wins all the loot which all contesting Thieflings presented that night.

Its customary for them to agree for various items to be auctioned off, ransomed back or sold in order to cover the costs of all the ginger beer, fresh dew, continually moving the clubhouse etc, so you might get it back that way. Of course your goods might also end up being sold to a powerful being..

The 'Chief Thief' might also just keep whatever it was.


Becoming a Theifling

Of course animals all know about the Thieflings, but when’s the last time you spoke to one?

Still, if one carries out a few truly remarkable crimes, you might be invited to join the Thieflings (the sign is a black mask being left on your pillow).

You could also try tracing the Thieflings to their den for this month (if you think you know who some might be), and actively stealing your own goods back from right under their noses. Should you achieve that act it shall be you who is acclaimed 'Chief Thief' and a 'Thief of the Year' and invited with the other eleven Great Thieves to the Midsummer Ball where one will take part in the great contest of the 'Thief of Thieves', and perhaps the winner will be great enough to out-steal The Master Thief themselves?

VILLAINS

Is it time for another 'Library Post'? Perhaps it is. Don't worry, content after the links

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CONCEPTS

Intro

A World Without Violence

Goose-Gold & Goblins 

MECHANICS

Looking for a Mechanic

Char Gen 

THE VILLIAGE

Crappy 1st attempt at Shinto

Shinto in Cumbria

Eight Houses

Village Shops

DANGEROUS STRANGERS ("Monsters")

Monster Brainstorm

Ratmaster

Gelly Cube

Dragons 

Men-of-Bones 

Owlbears 'BomblenOwls 

Trap-Dogs (Kobolds) 

Mind-Flayers 

Goblins 

More Goblins 

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Alright, I have a whole bunch of low-level threats, the ones that get sent out to steal your Goose and mess with you, what I need more of is the MasterMinds behind the operation, the 'Big Bad'.

Lets see what I can rapidly brainstorm...

CREATURE FROM THE UNKNOWN

From the 'Herbie' Comic Book

Base concepts; tear in space, surreal frankenmonster, Morrisons Doom Patrol, formless being, Mr Mytzelpyk, Fairytale wish-delivering creature with nebulous but dangerous powerset, a strange motivation and a Highly Specific defeat clause.

I imagine a Creature from the Unknown to be quite lonely and existential, as its from the Unknown and doesn't know what it is. Very possibly childlike and wishing to know who, what and why it is.

In this case, the main challenge for the PCs would be surviving the Creatures strange moods and either performing some kind of detective thing to work out what it is or, more interesting, performing a kind of counterpoint detective adventure/persuasion performance to give the Creature from the Unknown an identity and place.

That could be something as simple as being a Baker or something. Or a Cow.

I suppose this is the GG&G version of a 'Demon', something from totally outside this reality. But what it, instead of being inimical or destructive to our reality, beings from beyond it were just neutral, or anxious, or terribly incomprehensibly strange.

That might mean that the Creature from the Unknown could be effected by others perceptions and views on it. PCs might think the local Goblins are working for a giant super-goblin or Horned Goblin, but in fact they just encountered a Creature from the Unknown and, since they both fear and desire a villainous dominant ruler, that's what they got. But in reality the creature itself is simply playing a role.

There is opportunity there for some sort of potential didactic lesson about identity and assumptions, which usually I loathe but it might actually work.

Since the Goblins will talk up the power horror and cunning of the 'Horned Goblin' when they speak to PCs, when they PCs meet it, if they believed the goblins, the Creature will become more like that, more powerful and monstrous. But if they don't believe them, or encounter the Creature by chance, or in different circumstances, they might appear to be quite different.

Needs more activity really. 

A lot of non-evil outsiders are tricksters so maybe some of that could be added in.

The Creature being a supreme version of whatever encounters it, or a nightmare enemy of whatever first encounters it, has potential.

Concept to be worked on I suppose.

Maybe it always has something horned or ridiculous about it, like very googly eyes or something.

Maybe they are always BLUE?

CRIME BIRD

Still a classic

No I am absolutely not going to leave this idea alone

What was the original??

" The Crime bird.  Its beak is prized as a lock pick, it picks pockets, pillages houses and roosts on stolen jewellery, trading up whenever it can, the lesser stuff stashed in obscure nooks. Why is it not long dead? For one , it voids itself on its stolen goods, imparting a stink near impossible to remove, and secondly its beak, originally evolved to pluck deep borrowing rock worms, will take a eye out faster than you would believe. Lastly and most importantly ; it is a complete and utter cunning shit of a bird."

I mean this is pretty much perfect as it is but we already have a trillion stealing-creatures and I kind of need this to be a boss Sooo

Instead of a Thief it’s now a boss of reluctant thieves. Now it’s retired and a bit plumper and fatter, more ragged feathers, just as cunning and nasty, but now boastful and braggardly with its cowed underlings. Like a much more abusive Fagan figure.

Can definitely have a buff waistcoat now, possibly a pipe.

Crossing a crow with a shoebill with a living lockpick with a regency 'John Bull you sah? Me sah? Well I'll be demned for a dashed daigo do ye take me for a milkmaid sah? For a pauperish pennysniffle? Eh? Why that eye sir, is mine, and I mean to have it demn you sir, demn your toes! - type figure.

Just much more abusive, bullies and terrorises its underlings, shits on all wealth, rules over a stinking black roost, LOVES crime, always up for a sneaky deal and always ready for a backstab. Sends Goblins out to get it stuff so it can shit on it, will probably try to shit on your Goose. Maybe the only creature terrible enough that it would ever dare to think of such a thing.

A DRACULA

Classic Ravenloft Strahd

Does much need to be said? Lives in a castle. Possibly has a double-identity. has a SHITLOAD of built-in powers. Wants to take over the world and will drink the blood of a Goose to do so.

Definitely tragically in love with some dead person who happens to look exactly like someone the PCs have happen to met in the Village or somewhere.

Moons around really, but in a cool looking goth way. More stalks around. Keeps its underlings in line with hypnotic powers, personal charisma, fear and the fact that apart from the Blood-Drinking the Dracula is actually a pretty OK boss. Doesn’t want to destroy the world, just rule it.

Kind of a cultured and interesting person to talk to, probably likes the PCs because they have spunk. Shows up a lot to bawd and toy with them before disappearing and turning into gas or a bat or something.

Weak in sunlight, dies in *double-sunlight* (you need something as bright as the sun, like the worlds yellowest cheese or most beautiful flower or a shard of fallen lightning. But even when they die, they just turn to ash and of course, they will rettuuuuuurn whOOOooOO.

By https://www.instagram.com/delfis_art/

I will not miss the opportunity to put goth girls on this blog

Probably not that arsed about being killed. Doesn't really hold a grudge but definitely wants that Goose. And will not make the same mistakes twice.

May be the Pawnbroker, who wears dark glasses and sits way at the back of the shop with smokey windows.

GHOST QUEEN

By Grace

Obviously this should be a Queen of Ghosts, but there is no reason that they shouldn't also be the Ghost OF a Queen.

Probably what happens is if a Queen is killed by her King, whether that’s her Husband, Father or some kind of complex regency situation has taken place, then she is double-Queened, just like in chess. Made a Queen once while alive and then Queened AGAIN by being killed by a King who was also HER King.

Or maybe she has to be killed by a Royal Ghost, meaning double-ghost, double queen??? That would be interesting since to de-ghost her you would need to find the ghost that killed her and de-ghost that so that’s a nice chain of problems, and since that ghost was a royal ghost, likely it will involve you in some pretty crazy politics.

Since mortals and Ghosts have separate and different hierarchal structures (the Ghost one is complex, based on memory, age, tragedy etc) and the Ghost Queen now occupied both roles (sort of), she is now obeyed by all Ghosts (apart from the Ghost of a Sinister Pig). (As well as causing trouble for anyone who became Queen after her as many of her old living subjects (or their descendants) will still obey her if she spooks through a room or something.

This would be something like a 'King across the water' situation where there is this whole other line of descent that people valorise because they were backstabbed but also because they aren't really around to annoy them right now. Except in this case, it isn't a line of living people but one Ghost.

The Ghost Queen would be beautiful and imperious, tragic and quite mad. Ghosting around in her Ghost Palace (?). Maybe a palace of glass or mist or something that forms in fog from a still lake or exists in the reflection of the world in a drop of dew hanging eternally from one particular leaf in one particular tree but you don't know which one.

She wants the Goose because it is a fundamentally royal creature and should obviously be with her as the most royal and important person there is. Now in the ghost-world its eggs will lay Ghost Geese and she will fly on these to the Castle and retake her throne.

Dealing with her would have all the difficulty of dealing with a super ghost, a bunch of lesser ghosts AND all the living people who still kind of think that really she kind of is the Queen after all maybe just let her have the Goose.

OGRE

You know what’s with this guy? He's really fucking big and kinda dumb and pretty nasty and will just beat the shit out of anyone. I mean he will flip the fuck out man.

Look at the folds

A lovely 3D model, available here 

There is really nothing good about the Ogre. He isn't even really rich like the Rude Orcs, he's just a fucking prick.

His servant creatures serve him totally out of fear (apart from a few fucked up ones who seem to be into it). 

He has no taste, no complex motivations, no twisted background. He just wants stuff because he wants stuff and he will punch and scream at his peons until they get him the stuff that he wants. You can't really argue with him because he’s too stupid and aggressive. I WANT IT BECAUSE I FUCKIN' WANT IT JESUSFUKINKRYST DO I HAVTADOEVERYTHINRHANDERE!!!!???? I KHANTFUKINBELEEVIT JUST GET ME DAFUKINGOOOSE!!!!!

He is totally planning to try eating the Goose. Will it work? Who knows? He's not even really planning it he's just gonna do it.

Less manipulative clever and inherently scary than the Crime Bird. Won't lie intelligently, turn you against each other, tell you he has your own best interests at heart and that of course you can trust him JUSTGETMEHTHAFUKIN GOOOOOOSE!!

Also too lazy to actually go out and do stuff themselves, just rolls around in a dirty bed surrounded by bottles and takeaway food and threatens their underlings to go down the shops and rob them.

Presumably the Ogre is ensconced in some place, or sitting on something of great value and needfulness to its underlings, or there is some other reason that they can't just move away from him.

SKY WITCH

We already have something for her don't we? What do we have?

"So - if her house is in the Sky, and her power comes from the Sky, then presumably if you are *under* things, like roofs and trees and under the earth or under your bed, then her power is limited.

How does the Sky Witch come down from the sky? Presumably with a Sky Ladder, so if you can find that ladder (and its glass, to keep it secret, and so heavy people can't get up it) then you can find the Witches Sky-House.

She wears and very heavy hat, which squashes her down, and heavy shoes, to keep her on the ground so you can spot her in disguise that way, and if you can trick her into taking off the hat and shoes then she will float away, up into the sky again. (But she will hold a grudge). Also she might grab someone on the way up so you will have to go and rescue them."


Ok a Witch who lives in the Clouds and who might be watching you from them is pretty good.

Witch powers already give her a wide variety of ways to manipulate and affect the local populations of Goblins etc. She can give them things they want, like magic spells and special foods, manipulate them with lies and tricks and just straight up fucking terrify them.

And because she lives in the sky even they don't know really and entirely where she is. Finding her servants won't necessarily mean you find her.

Inversion here is that typically underground creatures, who might be trouble the rest of the time, are pretty good at hiding from the Sky Witch and could be useful allies against her. The Sky Witch would not like going underground too far from the sky.

She has a bird-legged house but instead of walking around on chicken feet the house flies around and has eagle claws which it uses to swoop down and grab people, and in fact, whole houses, and carries them away and possibly feasts on them somewhere, or just drops them for fun. If she does that to your house you would need to climb up on your own roof, climb up the claws into her house and find some way to make her put your house back.

Also there could be the mystery of the disappearing houses. the village wakes up to find one just gone... Maybe they moved away?

Why does she want the Goose? For its feathers presumably, and she will place its golden egg atop her hat to keep her weighted down when she strides about the earth.

KING SLIME 

Yes I am stealing from that Isikai and no I haven't watched it.

Look, just google 'slime isekai', its pretty popular

It’s just a slime, but it is a natural leader, a hero even, but a hero for MONSTERS! You've got a goddamn monster revolutionary on your hands, building a lair, unifying the local creatures, planning on taking over!

And King Slime doesn't collect followers or motivate them through fear (except for maybe very occasionally when he absolutely has to) but instead by being a Responsible Leader who does things in the Interests of his Community. Yes just like the Clone Wars, there are 'heroes on both sides'.

Soon there will be a whole Monster Village.. actually this is too fun not to do or allow to happen. Its still going to be a massive problem though since these creatures do not recognise your Goose Rights, or any rights really, they are a revolutionary culture!

What does it mean when the monsters also have a society, and a noble heroic leader who is an innocent Slime? Can you really argue with their desire for a world of their own?

Probably the PCs are going to want to join the growing monster nation. Ok this is going to be a complex one to see play out. What happens if the Slime absorbs someone you know and kinda like? 

What happens to the slime? What happens when I am sued by Crunchyroll???

The King Slime is just going to keep getting more and more powerful and gaining more and more powers. Surely this is going to be a serious problem at some point.

GHOST OF A SINISTER PIG

By M. Broom / HatisWorst

That pig was evil as shit to begin with, and now it has the spooky powers of an undead??

Basically a Chaos-Terrorist in the form of a Spectral Pig. Likely the most truly-evil of all the possibly Top Monsters as it really has no desires apart from Chaos and Horror itself. Joker Stuff baby! Heath Ledger Joker rather than the others.

Actually in a game for children that might be a mistake. Ok depending on the Age range of the players could be anywhere from Ceasar Romero Joker to Jack Nicholson to low-key Heath Ledger Joker.

And it doesn’t dress up like the Joker or even look like him I'm just describing the aims, strategies, tactics and moral outlook here.

Really the Ghost of the Sinister Pig should looks spectral, looming, awful, somehow hollow inside while retaining the foul massy roundness of a Pig. Its grin and human expressions add to the horror.

Probably it has plans to drive everyone mad.

I may have made an error here as I already have The Worlds Most Evil Dog as a potential supervillain-level threat. I guess maybe the Dog can be a Lone Operator, one dog against the world, while the Ghost of the Sinister Pig will actually try to put together some kind of terror group, gathering servants, radicalising Goblins to its cause, turning them against each other until only the most crazed and frightening remain. 

This is not to mention the Ghost of the Sinister Pig retaining all its Ghostly Powers, like floating around, spooking people, maybe turning them old and white with fear. Together with an innate control over pig products like gammon, sausages, pork pies etc, these being the flesh of its kind. Huge sausage-golems.. Also has control over sausage dogs due to a technicality, seven black sausage dogs are the heralds of its apocalypse.

Really, in a sense, we might be talking about a vegetarian message here. The Pig *is* evil but we do eat them, so if it forms a nightmare world of grease and black pudding to terrorise us, do we really have grounds to complain?

EDIT - oh my fucking god Pig Products make Glycerin for explosives, violin strings and brushes, violins that play themselves and brushes painting by themselves, American Footballs that bounce themselves and drums that bang themselves.

The Master Thief

Nope, that was not the Master Thief

This is a complex and difficult one. Hard to integrate into an adventure.

Pretty much everything in GG&G is a potential thief, the ability and willingness to steal your Goose, and ability to do so is a key element for inclusion. So what difference does it make if there is a Master Thief?

A Thief that never gets caught, that's so good they can't be caught.

Would they even have a gang, or a lair. Well they would have to have a lair to store all their ill-gotten gains. Their gang might be Thieflings, whatever those are. (Little black fox-men?)

Another supervillain character, this one more like Phantomas, mainly into pulling heists, largely for the pleasure of it rather than pure greed. (Though they will still keep the stuff in their lair of wonders).

The Master Thief would be as happy to steal from the Village, the Wilds, or from you.

This might be the opportunity for a kind of sherlock holmes detective adventure in which its more of a game of puzzles and tricks rather than like a real crime.

I feel certain there should be The Master Thief in the Game, and maybe they should even be someone in the village in disguise. But probably not a main villain for the players to oppose. They would be more like an element of the world, ghosting through it, effecting things, causing drama, guards chasing them across rooftops etc. Playing a part in a larger drama beyond the intrigues of this small village. Not necessarily an ally of the players but not an inherent enemy either. Just a black-clad figure on a rooftop, in an ally, tipping their hat as a clue is found or a discovery made, and perhaps while the players were getting their Goose back, the Master Thief was about their own scheme, in which the PCs played an unwitting part.