No Nonsense Frank

We're following the life of a City Watchman through the streets of Khaboom at the moment. Frank is 34 and has just got married. He's never been interested in a promotion but now with his thoughts on starting a family, he's horizons are expanding.

His sergeant at Dungbeetle Scrubs, a crusty dwarf named Rumplejaw, is very encouraging, as is friend, the homespun philosopher, Nietzche.

He's having a normal Friday night knees-up at the Sullied Trousers when a messenger for the rich chestnut estate owner, the wizard Warmnutz, comes looking for some likely lads to recover some stolen goods for him. It's urgent.

Two strange fellows with a box, Rosencrantz and Guildernstern, accept the job (50% of the 200 GPs fee up front) but will Frank be hooked by this dangling carrot?

His no nonsense approach to work and life on the city has kept him alive and made him popular but things can change in an instant in the magic-rich Trollworld...

Taverns of Caerthaeph't

Most streets in Caerthaeph't have a tavern. In the 'Control Freak - Spirited Resistance' solo I'm about to release you will get the chance to drink in them all (although the game is not meant to be a pub crawl that would be a reasonable alternative approach).

Here's the list of taverns:

·        The Eviscerated Nun (54) – Heist Street

·        The Liquor Hole (9) - Robin Hood Street

·        The Alibi Rooms (10) - Thieves Boulevard

·        The Bushwhackers Tavern (28) - Snaffle Street

·        Moe’s Tavern (29) - Shark Court

·        Halla’s Underground Den of Amusement (48) - Hostage Hill

·        The Feisty Goat Public House (49) - Purloin Passage

·        The Medusa’s Head (68) - Cutthroat Place

·        The Rover’s Return (88) - Pickpocket Parade

·        The Mermaid’s Tale (108) - Burglar Arcade

·        The Smuggler’s Armpit (128) - Kidnappers’ Close

·        The Emperor’s New Clothes (148) - Gollum Square

·        The Spit & Sawdust (168) - Hit and Run Avenue

·        The Broken Bottle (188) - Heist Street

·        The Habitual Offender (208) - Ruffians Row

·        The Deformed Dwarf (228) - The Robber Road

·        The Lucky Dip Tavern (237) – Filch Street

·        Widow Twanky’s Gin Palace (248) - Hijack Park

·        Raffles (268) - Larceny Lane

·        The Silk Purse (287) – Sneak Lane

      ·        The Winchester Club (288) - Pursesnatch Alley

Here's the standard door policy for troublemakers:

 

Whistling Ned

Here's a very short story Charlie wrote last year as part of a game:

Whistling Ned

Ned was a carpenter. His father had been a carpenter. His entire family as far back as he knew had been carpenters. He loved thinking up new ideas, ever attracted by life’s oddities. But now he could see that his business was about to end. No one seemed to be interested in his furniture anymore. Someone had come to the town with a new way of carpentry, making everything more intricately designed than Ned. This was drawing almost all attention away from his work. Ned knew at least part of the reason why people didn't come to him any more was because he was so forgetful. He would make a cabinet for Frank and give it to Barney. They never really minded him getting mixed up for very long even though they would get annoyed at the time because Ned had such a carefree nature.

He had to go out into the world to find a living. His mother had begged him not to go, but Ned had no choice. She eventually agreed to let him go and said she would stay in her rocking chair and pray for his safe return until he came back. His mother would always sit in her rocking chair and pray when she was worried about something. It was all she really ever did.

Ned had been walking for a couple of hours whistling in the way he did when he had been working on furniture. He was looking around taking in the trees and grass and hills of the country side. Suddenly he saw what looked like a trapdoor fixed into a nearby hill. Ned stopped looking at it feeling very confused. He knew that trapdoors were definitely not usually in hills.

His curiosity aroused, Ned walked over to the trapdoor and looked at it closely. He could see that it had been made very well with metal hinges and an exquisitely made lock. He had never been outside of his home town before and didn't know what to expect. In fact he had barely heard anything about what was beyond the town boundary.

The door felt cold to the touch. It looked like it had rarely been used if at all. Ned hesitantly tried to open it. He had to pull very hard but the trapdoor opened. There was a very wet ladder going down into darkness. After much thought he decided to climb down the ladder to see where it went.

Ned hadn't been going far when he felt his foot slip. He grabbed for the ladder with his free hand, but too late! Ned felt himself falling and he lost his grip on the ladder with his other hand. Oh why had he been so careless on a slippery ladder?! The last that was heard of Ned was a piercing whistle as he fell.

The mother of whistling Ned was praying in her rocking chair for the rest of her life. When Fred and Barney thought of Ned, as they did whenever they needed something different made, they wished Ned had been a little more like his mother and that she had picked up something from her son’s example. “Life just doesn’t deal even hands,” Barney observed to Fred as they raised a glass to Ned in fond memory.

Totopoly

We finally got round to playing the Murder-Horse Race game (well, I insisted in the end).

12 horses, very simple rules. 4 for each player with the task to write orders for each jockey before each turn started. The orders were limited: R for ride hard, A for attack another jockey and D for defend against attack. Each jockey got 2 choices so there could be double R's, double D's and double A's as well as combinations. Impossible to do everything though.

We started each turn by announcing which jockeys had attack orders and then rolling for initiative. A single A got 1d6, double A 2d6 (same for D and R). The attacking jockey rolled the dice and so did the jockey attacked if there was a defence order in play. It just took a victory by more than one point to unseat, maim or murder a rival.

At the start, because all the horses were stationary, anyone could attack anyone. After that, jockeys could only attack rivals they were level with in the race.

After the attacks were done with, we got on to the racing. Each horse was rolled for with 1 and 2 indicating a forward gallop of 1 space, 3 and 4 2 spaces and 5 and 6 3 spaces. Then if the jockey had employed an R order, 1d6 was rolled for each order with 5 or 6 meaning an extra forward move. The most any horse could advance in a turn was therefore 5 spaces.

After a quarter of the race all bar 4 jockeys were down and out! By half way, only 2 were left. The additional rule that came into play after the carnage of the start was that each jockey had one Take That You Fiend to play. This could travel a maximum of 10 spaces so the leaders were always going to be in jeopardy. A TTYF involved a 1d6 roll off to see if it worked, the caster needing to have a higher roll.

Charlie and I ended up side by side in the final furlong after he reeled me in - he had used his TTYF so I didn't have to worry about being a sitting duck in the lead.

Not only did he catch my jockey, he slipped a blade into his back and was the only one to finish the race.

A quick and satisfying game and one open to all sorts of future rule tweaks. Thanks Mr Waddington!

Control Freak - Spirited Resistance

And here's the front cover for my new full solo:

Making A Quantum Universe

A while ago, I made a simple choice giveaway (it's on DriveThru published by Khaghbboommm Press) entitled "Zyrian Attrocities" - it gave the reader the chance to (satirically) play the US president and get a grip on the world.

It would be all too easy to re-write it for the present day but instead I've let a combination of Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein guide my hand.

"A Blank Canvas For The Quantum Artist" works in the same 'no saving rolls, no combat' way - it should hit DriveThru this week.

Retro

I have a lot of music from the 70s and 80s on my iphone. Much of it betrays my punk, new wave and indie leanings.

One of the coolest things right now is letting y 11 year old daughter loose on the track selection on car journeys.

Happily weird to have Rodney Allen and The Men They Couldn't Hang dominating with the dj so young!