Dark Fantasy X Race Deep Dive: The Kemlings

Many fantasy settings have outlines, or even full treatises, that explain the history of the setting going back thousands—or even tens of thousands—of years. A quick glance at two settings that I happen to have nearby: the original 3.5 iterations of Golarion and Eberron, show that they have outlines going back at least 5,000 years and 10,000+ respectively.

Part of the problem is that Tolkien did this, to some degree. And for Tolkien it was somewhat justified, as he had elves that had lifespans of at least thousands of years still kicking around, with living memory of times that should have been so far back that they were mythological rather than verified history anyway. As has often been the case, people following in Tolkien's footsteps have slavishly tried to imitate him without necessarily really understanding why Tolkien did something, or why he was able to make it work. The past works best when it's kind of mysterious—like it is in the real world. Although a number of smug academics firmly believe that they understand the past, I'm not convinced. In part, because I see how callously most of them treat primary sources, and how dogmatic they are about narratives constructed second-hand many years after the fact to try and explain history. But that's neither here nor there, except to point out that in Dark Fantasy X, I have no intention of explaining really any history of any kind that's older than a couple hundred years, and even then, only infrequently. (The same is mostly true for Space Opera X, to be honest with you. I actually think it's a feature of good design, unless you have extraordinary circumstances, to leave the past alone unless something in the past is a major plot point, and even then, treat it only as much as you must.)

So, the kemlings. Where did they come from, and how long ago? There are many indications that they are actually a young race, and may only have existed for ~400-500 years or so. However, because they appeared in a savage area of the setting where records were not really kept, and most people didn't even read or write, and because there are a lot of propagandistic and jingoistic narratives that the kemlings have told about themselves and others have told about them in retaliation, the truth is probably impossible to divine without maybe asking one of the older Heresiarchs about it. Which would be an absolutely terrible idea, by the way. Like most of the non-human races, the kemlings are demihumans; their ancestors were human, but some kind of event happened to their genetics; either the introduction of some supernatural bloodline, or a curse, or something else that changed them into something that's mostly human-like, but not exactly human anymore. In the case of the kemlings, they have charcoal like skin that ranges in hue from that of medium ashy gray to jet black obsidian. At the lightest, they still don't really converge with the darkest of Hyperboreans, but many have wondered at the generally colorlessness of both races, and attempted to tie them together somehow. This seems fundamentally unlikely; the base human stock that the kemlings come from is probably the Drylander barbarians that live in the Baal Hamazi area where the kemlings first appeared.

In addition to their dark skin and black hair, the kemlings tend to have intense yellow or red irises, and most iconically, their heads are ringed with a number of small horns, often forming a crown-like pattern. According to the beliefs of the ruling class of Baal Hamazi before its collapse, this was in direct imitation of their mythological supernatural ancestor, the Daemon-Lord Chernavog, and his direct descendant, the half-daemon Hutran Kutir, the first Emperor of Baal Hamazi. Kutir is often claimed as the first kemling, and he had hundreds of sons and a like number of daughters, all pureblood kemlings, and from them the race propagated, as their descendants, even when mingled with humans, came out as pureblood kemlings. Whether this is literally true or not hardly matters; many kemlings themselves no longer believe it, and think that Chernavog and possibly even Hutran Kutir himself are merely mythical figures who's tangible existence should be doubted. They also often express some degree of embarrassment to be a bloodline saddled with what may well be a daemonic taint, not to mention the stigma of having ruled an empire that is now seen by most as the epitome of evil and degeneracy. Many feel that they have more to live down rather than live up to with regards to their dark heritage (the original source of the name, I might add). 

A pretty typical kemling adventuring fellow from Baal Hamazi. Many kemlings have left the city-states and now live in the wilderness, often in tribes, where they often mingle heavily with Drylander savages.

Many kemlings, perhaps as a result of their dark heritage, seem to be drawn to careers that they should avoid. The consorting with daemons and witchcraft and dark cults that was a hallmark of the Empire still lingers here and there, but it has often translated in to a more mundane focus on organized crime. This infiltrator is an expert assassin, spy and cat burglar, who probably works as a free agent across the city-states for various crime lords.

This kemling lord is one who's family managed to weather the falling of the empire and retain a privileged position in the new order that replaced it, although that makes him an exceptional individual indeed.

Like among the Hyperboreans, the shadow sword career is one that seems to have a long history in Baal Hamazi, and kemling shadow swords—while not common—are at least common enough to be a folk tale told around the Three Realms.

Like the Hyperboreans, and like most demihuman races, the kemlings have a curse that manifests in their bloodline from time to time. They do not speak of this curse to outsiders, and many do not know of its existence, or do not believe it if they have heard of it. In terms of the game (as opposed to the setting as a place for potential fiction) I'd suggest that unless a player wants to roleplay out the effects of this curse, that it be seen as not affecting PC characters.  I suggest, in fact, that they not affect major NPCs either, unless it's a theme or something that you want to explore deliberately.  I'd additionally suggest that if you needed a statistical number for how likely it is to occur, that number is quite a bit less than 0.1%.  However... there are considerably more than a thousand kemling individuals so if this is something that you want to use for whatever reason, you can.  

The kemling curse is inextricably tangled in their mythological origin. In spite of the skepticism that many kemlings and non-kemlings exhibit towards the story of Chernavog and Hutran Kutir, their curse is a circumstantial proof, if you will, of genuine daemonic ancestry in the kemlings, even if not necessarily exactly as told in the myths.  It is possible that their ancestor was a Daemon-Lord named Chernavog, who lived for a time among mortals and fathered seed who's daemonic traits are now watered down to represent their own race.  It is also possible that Chernavog's son Hutran Kutir, the Hex-King, is the founder of Baal Hamazi, their glorious empire of the past, although any other detail about is life other than that is vague and to be distrusted.  The kemlings are more likely than any other race to fall victim to the Black Choler, a kind of violent madness.  Such victims are usually quietly locked away or even put down entirely for the good of the community.  In fact, the latter is often preferred, although family members sometimes object. In the worst case scenario, someone afflicted by the Black Choler may burst open when the condition is fully ripe, and a daemon (usually merely an imp or servitor daemon, but sometimes more powerful ones are able to latch on to the bloodline and follow it to the mortal world) will claw its way out of the bloody corpse to afflict everyone around.

In the past, it was seen as a glorious evidence of being touched by Chernavog, and victims of the Black Choler were given pampered existences in peacetime, and turned on their enemies as berserker shock troops in times of war. The inherent unreliability of this strategy, as well as the burden of maintaining them in peacetime, even when there were very few of them, made this practice fall out of favor before the ending of the Empire and its dissolution into various city-states, and someone falling victim to the Black Choler in this time of post-Empire is seen as a disaster and tragedy for the individual involved, as well as his family and community.

The scholars of Simashki have a more grounded theory for the origin of the kemling race and its curse, and teach that Hutran Kutir, if he actually existed at all, was probably born a kemling the same as all of the rest of them. Because this was a time when the kemling race wasn't common or true breeding, but rather an atavistic or recessive trait for humans with a touch of daemon blood in them, this was usually seen as a great curse on the family that birthed a kemling, but Kutir was born in a position of some power and influence as the chief's son and heir of the Awan tribe of Old Drylanders. He probably learned complex architecture, social structure and writing from some of the early neighbors of the region, and most scholars actually favor time spent in Tarush Noptii, the predecessor kingdom of Timischburg. Possibly Kutir returning to the region with a vampiric advisor, even. Kutir was able to quickly conquer and marshal the resources of the Awan tribe, as well as many neighbors, forging them into the force that would found the Baal Hamazi empire, and using imported or captured slave labor to build the first city in the region, Baal Hamazi, deep in the Gorgelands.

From its newly constructed heartland in the Gorgelands, his rule spread throughout the old drylander tribes, founding other outposts which grew into major urban centers: Nashur, Baal Hishutash, Tahrah, Simashki, Ishkur, Baal Ngirsu, Shushun and Isin. Between these urban centers, much of the wilderness that separated them was also pacified: the legendary Pax Hamazi.  As the empire grew, so too did the population of the kemlings. It became fashionable to remove all hair from the head to show off these horns at one point, and that style remains in some of the successor states where kemling heritage is still seen as prestigious. 

Ultimately, some believe that the growth of the kemling population in such a cluster was what foundered the empire. After nearly four hundred years of relative peace and growth, there grew to be too many kemlings living in indolence, and the resources of the empire started to become strained. The old drylander slaves and serfs of the region were forced to live in poverty supporting their kemling overlords. Rebellions were becoming commonplace, and the bloody reactions to them only led to further seething tension and hatred. Nomadic drylander braves and the dark Atlanteans became a major thorn in the side of the administration, waging guerilla warfare from the desert that consumed the coffers of the empire at an accelerated rate. Diabolists of various types had also always been tolerated, and sorcery was not illegal (at least not for kemlings). Their rule was, as a result, often somewhat chaotic as having those with significant power go dangerously insane from time to time; not to mention the consorting with daemons, meant that the stability of their society was limited. This, combined with massive unrest created a situation ripe for collapse.

The sequence of events about 150 years ago that caused the fall of Baal Hamazi is confused and fraught with a number of obviously false theories, conspiracy theories, and wild speculation, but fall it did, and in the process, the land was wracked with arcane storms, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other earth-shattering impacts that left much of it uninhabited and temporarily uninhabitable. The capital city of Baal Hamazi itself was buried under a sandstorm.  The rest of the area erupted into full-scale revolt. Nearly every major city was under siege, much of the army had deserted, and even the heir to the king was unable to muster enough support to unite more than a small area under his banner. The capital city was abandoned, and the heir moved his court to nearby Nashur, where his descendants still claim sovereignty over the entire region, and they still claim to rule in "the Old Ways" as Baal Hamazi did in the golden age. This is just posturing, though, and the kings and queens of Nashur have seen a gradual erosion of their power to mere figure-head status. Today, a militaristic warlord rules openly, and is the fourth such warlord to openly run the government.

A few of the rest of the major urban centers eventually emerged intact, although independent. Few kings or chiefs of any stripe have managed to hold onto any power that wasn't local for long. Today, most urban centers are effectively city-states; ruling within their walls, and the surrounding fields and lands, but no further. Most of the territory between the city-states is desolate land, thinly inhabited by tribes who scorn any claims of sovereignty pressed by the city-states. Throughout most of the area, the kemlings have been forced to integrate more with the human castes as well; no longer can they be supported by humans kept in slavery. That was the one nearly universal outcome of the many rebellions. Only Nashur in the far north has managed to keep its old drylander population firmly under the thumb of the kemlings. Given the disaster that befell the capital itself, many kemlings have also consciously reverted to the "uncivilized" state, living as their ancestors in hunter-gatherer tribes. Some  of them have relocated to the inhospitable Gorgelands, where they guard the ruins of Baal Hamazi as cursed and forbid anyone to enter. It's a hard life, but they are trying to reconnect with the ways of their ancestors in the hope that they can win back the favor of their daemonic patron.

Many others live in smaller villages, attempting to put the past behind them. They are, in fact, somewhat embarrassed or even openly ashamed of the daemonic and sorcerous excesses of their forebears, like they have something to live down. They are not very centralized, but live in fortified towns and villages in the more fertile parts of the steppes, hunting semi-domesticated antelope, deer, buffalo, and horses as well as growing what crops they can; often shrubby little things like huckleberries and very hardy grains. Those close enough to the coast also fish and hunt seals and walruses as well as the occasional whale. The reality is, though, that the kemling population has suffered a massive diaspora, and while they still make up a significant plurality in the region, they no longer control it. They barely even control themselves, and there are many individuals who quietly pick up and leave the town life either to join one of the barbarian tribes, if they can make themselves be accepted, or just leave the area altogether, looking for greener pastures elsewhere. And the call of their daemonic blood occasionally means that an entire village, town or even larger area falls prey to the sway of some charismatic cult leader who leads them into strange evil practices.

A kemling making a new life for herself by being as unfeminine as possible and trying to learn knife-fighting.

An expatriate kemling adventurer who trawls the Three Realms as a combination mercenary and treasure hunter.

Another expatriate kemling who's fallen victim to the temptation of sorcery to make her way through the world.

An ancient lingering kemling lich from the days of Empire

The Chersky Mafia is the name that outsiders give to what was once called Наший Вешъ (Nashii Vyesh), "Our Thing." The roots of the kemling mafia go back to the fall of the grand empire of Baal Hamazi itself. When the empire fractured into several independent and quarrelsome city-states and smaller statelets, most kemlings incurred a significant loss of quality of life. Their life of indolence as the privileged overlords of drylander slaves was over, and they now had to work or fight for a standard of living very much below what it had been. While many kemlings shrugged and moved on, and several philosophically minded kemlings even saw the development as inevitable and to be welcomed, most harbored a lingering regret for the glory days of Baal Hamazi.

For most kemlings, this was channeled into trying to either build their more local utopias as best they could within the boundaries of their new city-states, or they fled the area entirely, foregoing their heritage as much as possible, in an attempt to make new lives for themselves in new lands, free of the violence and anarchy that gripped much of their former homelands. But some saw it as their divine mission to restore the kemlings to a place of power and prestige no less glorious than that of the past, and hopefully even much more than before. These individuals in some cases formed organizations dedicated to this mission. Most of them were little more than fanatical race-based supremacy cults, and many fell victim to infighting. One, however, became a powerhouse. Kašku Sarruma was a former military man, hard of personality and competent, not one of the more indolent civilians, and when he called the now leaderless soldiers that fought with him to his side, they answered.

These violent and pitiless men, seeing their society fall to pieces all around them still lacked the resources and manpower to impose order, stability and the type of government that they desired over the mobs, the revolting slaves, the incalcitrant natives, and others. In a bold yet desperate move, Sarruma engaged in a number of actions at once, all designed to forge the organization he needed to attempt multiple coups over the regional independent governments that were springing up all through the territory of the former Baal Hamazi. First, he needed troops. Aggressive yet very selective recruitment drives coupled with indoctrination gave him a core of elite fighters, perhaps more suited to subterfuge, assassination and other "black ops" type activities than to the more overt military action that they were used to. In addition, Sarruma kidnapped young kemling women and girls—never too many from one location, and never any that were important enough to be aggressively missed—and enslaved them, forcing them to serve as little more than brood mares for a new generation of indoctrinated warriors. While treated as well as they could be, these poor women and girls lived a life almost constantly pregnant, in an attempt to grow an army the old-fashioned way as quickly as possible for his fledgling organization.

But all of this distracted Nashii Vyesh's attention away from its original goals, and Sarruma had to admit that he would not be able to establish his glorious kemling rebirth in his lifetime, or probably even for several generations. It also required capital. For that, Sarruma picked some of his most trusted lieutenants to go into other lands and raise money through organized crime, and funnel it back to Nashii Vyesh coffers.

Now, several generations after the fall of Baal Hamazi and the formation of Nashii Vyesh, most of its leadership has forgotten or ignored the mandate of Kašku Sarruma, abandoning even the very name and adopting the title Chersky Mafia that outsiders have given it. The organized crime gig is simply too profitable to put it aside for empire building, and the crime lords covet their positions too much to sacrifice them for patriotic ends. The only interest the Mafia has in politics now is in corrupting politicians to turn a blind eye towards their activities, or giving them heads-up of lucrative opportunities that they can exploit. The leadership remains strictly kemling, but they also don't have any qualms about hiring, exploiting, or even partnering with other gangs, as long as they remain in control. In fact, throughout much of the cities outside of Baal Hamazi proper, the Chersky Mafia—the black mob, referring to the obsidian-like skin color of the kemlings—are notoriously partnered up with the small populations of urban woodwoses to the point that it's almost safe to assume that half of the urban woodwoses that you see are gangsters affiliated with the Chersky Mafia in some cities.

A prosperous Chersky Mafia crime boss

A Cherski Mafia criminal watching a safehouse

And finally, the rules for a kemling from the rulebook. As with my earlier entry, this may need some adjustment to account for the world-building that this post did; although in the case of the kemlings, much of my world-building is of older vintage than it was for the Hyperboreans, and little of it is genuinely new, much of it adapted from Dark•Heritage Mks. IV and V.

Kemling: Like the jann, the kemlings are demihumans, in this case with a daemonic twist to their ancestry.  In the past, they had powerful Imperial polities in the mountains to the West.  Those days are past, and the old kemling empire, Baal Hamazi, is now a Balkanized land of warring city-states and primitive villages and tribes.  In many of these societies, the kemlings no longer hold social and political sway as much as they did in the past, as the formerly oppressed human underclasses have wrested power from them.  Many kemlings have fled the turmoil in their homeland and now live elsewhere as part of a massive kemling diaspora.  Kemlings have soot-dark skin, tiny horns poking up through their hair, and yellow "predator" eyes (think of Nightcrawler from the X-men with Darth Maul horns poking through his hair).  Kemlings gain +1 to DEX, a racial affinity for Stealth, and the ability to see in the dark with a biological equivalent to night vision goggles.

A relatively normal prosperous kemling women in a relatively normal situation. I sometimes don't feel like I do enough "regular everyday" images in my samples sometimes.

 

Post election

Mostly, I'm going to quote a Z-man post, and edit it. I may not even offer much commentary, because I'm not sure that I need to.

The votes are in and they have been counted. The great red wave that everyone expected never materialized. The expectation going into the election was that the Republicans would score an easy victory, picking up about forty seats in the House and enough Senate seats to gain the majority. Because America is a haplessly corrupt society, we may never know the final results, but someone will assign final numbers and it will be a slim victory for the GOP.

The main question out of this election is about the legitimacy. Should we believe that the brain damaged hobo was the people’s choice in Pennsylvania? This is a good bellwether for this election, because John Fetterman is as close as we have come to putting a horse in the Senate. His opponent is ridiculous by normal standards, but in comparison to Fetterman he is Cicero. We are now required to pretend that a brain damaged hobo won the Pennsylvania Senate race.

The reason this particular race is key to the legitimacy question is that there is no answer that supports the democratic system. If everything was above board and the people did vote for a brain damaged hobo, then this is proof that the public should never be trusted with such decisions. The openness to voting for a brain damaged hobo should be a disqualification to voting. On the other hand, if the vote is rigged again, then there is no reason for people to bother voting.

Of course, you can shift the question further up stream. What kind of political system produces a brain damaged hobo and a Turkish carny as the two options? Before you even get to the question of election integrity, you have to see that the system has problems far deeper than vote rigging. This turns up all over the ballot. In Georgia, the choice for Senate was between a brain damaged former football player and guy who used to hustle old black ladies for donations.

In Massachusetts, they are celebrating the first openly lesbian governor. Before Maura Healy was famously gay, she was famously stupid. Given the centrality of Massachusetts in the American empire, it is a good representation for how our democracy actually works. Politics in that state have been dominated by drunkards, perverts and degenerates for generations. The system they have imposed on the country selects for increasingly ridiculous candidates.

If we accept wholesale vote rigging is now a feature in many states, there is a limit to how much can be done. Historically, the Democratic machines used to be worth about five percent in the areas they controlled. That is enough in reasonably close elections, but not enough to overcome a wave election. All of the polling and history said this should have been a historic blowout of the Democrats, even when adjusting for the shenanigans that are now a feature of our democracy.

In other words, the results speak to something more than shenanigans. Either people skipped the election, seeing no point in it, or we are now locked into a partisan divide that makes elections pointless. Going back to Pennsylvania, either Oz lost because people thought he was just as ridiculous as Fetterman or partisanship has made elections in the state meaningless. After all, elections pivot on the ability of people to change their minds from election to election.

Put another way, the polling shows that people are angry about the economy and the culture, but they did not see hope in either party. They were not even moved to strike out at the ruling party. Harry Truman famously said “If it’s a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time.” In this age, given the choice between a uniparty zombie and uniparty opportunist, people will choose the zombie.

The people endlessly yapping about democracy will no doubt claim that democracy won this time, but the turnout numbers suggest otherwise. The uniparty offered up a series of ridiculous choices and 30% of the voters stayed home. They refuse to follow the script because the directors showed no interest in the drama. Neither party offered a compelling reason for anyone to vote, so they were left with the partisan zombies and civic nationalist dead enders.

 

Possible expansion of the Dark Fantasy X setting

Let me give some context. Where did the Dark Fantasy X setting come from, and what are its direct antecedents? This is a brief summary of my history, which I've documented here, if you want a more long-winded version.

Back in 2002 I was already tired (again) of the D&Disms and started experimenting with settings that were obviously sword & sorcery fantasy settings, but not D&D-like settings, with elves, dwarves, dragons, etc. featuring prominently. Bloodlines was the first setting that I worked on that diverged significantly from D&D basic. The setting was a kind of analog to prehistoric Lake Bonneville with Rancholabrean fauna, and the non-human races were the aasimar, tieflings and the four genasi as they were presented in the 3e era of the game. This fairly early moved into a version of Dark•Heritage that was a kind of "steampunk Barsoom" overlay on the same idea. The giant lake disappeared in favor of more desert features, and the genasi and other planetouched races evolved into races that were superficially similar, but had a very different genesis. 

By 2004-5 or so, I'd gotten rid of the desert and resurrected an old floating islands idea that I'd had (which isn't unique; I've seen plenty of other people dabble with this concept) and I abandoned much of the steampunk aesthetic. This was now Dark•Heritage Mk. II. Although I actually ran this version of the setting for a while,  it was Mk. III that had the most development (up to this point) when I ditched the floating islands and went more with a Medieval Tarim Basin geography model. This version of the setting was fairly well developed, and I even had novel outlines for it. I did find, however, that I was a little too prone to moving in to esoteric purity spirals of certain setting elements that really didn't need as much development as I was giving them. In fact, the development was starting to hurt the setting rather than help it.

Meanwhile, I was doing some other stuff outside of the direct line of Dark•Heritage. I toyed with a big ole Jupiter-sized setting  (obviously I didn't develop that much surface area, but that was the idea) that used some ideas I had that probably fit a little better with a more traditional D&D-like setting, rather than the more esoteric desert environment that DH had become. I later reskinned some of these elements and the basic geography for another D&D-like game that I ran called Pirates of the Mezzovian Main, around a fantasy Mediterranean of sorts, but with Golden Age of Piracy like stuff from the Caribbean. And, noticing that I was re-using a lot of setting elements from my Jupiter-sized Leng Calling setting, I created a Modular DND Setting wikispaces.  What were originally meant to be drag and drop modules eventually started to coalesce into a setting that would deliberately be based around them being in more or less fixed geographical areas.

All of these threads combined; using Modular elements hung on a Mezzovian Main geography eventually became DH Mk. IV. I developed this quite a lot too; a lot of that development is still here on this blog, for instance. I drew a big map of the setting on a poster board (which I still have stuck behind my dresser and the bedroom wall; I occasionally pull it out and look at it even now.) Mks. III and IV got a lot of development compared to I and II, but ultimately, they weren't exactly what I wanted. Also, things were changing in the pop culture landscape, as well as my reaction to the pop culture landscape. While in the early 00s I was probably tired of traditional fantasy and experimenting with using another cultural baseline (14th and 15th century Crown of Aragon thalassocracy being a notable influence) and steampunk and whatnot all playing big roles for a time—until I decided that I didn't want to do exotica for its own sake anymore. In addition, I feel that maybe I was inadvertently getting caught up in movements that I didn't agree with; while maybe I was ready to  move on from overly traditional Anglo-Saxon, Norse or Celtic influenced fantasy after having been steeped in it for so many years, the fantasy zeitgeist was doing the same thing, but for different reasons. Not because they were caught up in novelty, like I was, but because they hated Western Civilization and deliberately wanted to avoid it. In other words, the seeds of what would become blatant wokeism were starting to infect the genre, and I guess maybe I was a little bit on the early side of detecting it and getting turned off.

So I started tinkering with stuff that would combine Old Country England and Viking nations (mostly) with either colonial or frontier American geography. These were separate activities from Mk. IV, but I gradually started to believe that I needed to leave behind the Crown of Aragon Mk. IV with its pseudo-Spanish "protagonist" nation and replace it with one that was more in line with the majority of my heritage; British-American. I settled on the protagonist nations being essentially calques of Robin Hood like Anglo-Saxons, except in an American Old West like frontier setting. Then, I jammed some other settings that I'd developed into it, notably the Timischburg "fantasy Transylvania" setting that I'd developed for my CULT OF UNDEATH project, and Mk. V was born.

But Mk. V actually was stuck at a fairly high level without much real development for quite a long time. I had a sketchy map and talked a bit about stuff, but mostly I was still referring to Mk. IV stuff in a new geographical setting. By the time I really buckled down and drew a good map, started updating the rules for the game that it was meant to support, and really doing some unique new setting development, I was on the verge of converting Mk. V to DH5, which quickly evolved into Dark Fantasy X. Dark Fantasy X could therefore be seen as either a second draft of Mk. V, which only got minimalist unique development in its first draft, or possible Mk. VI of Dark•Heritage. But it's instead been rebranded as it's own new thing, Dark Fantasy X. Dark•Heritage, while it remains the name of this blog, is now officially a dead brand otherwise in my mind; the setting has now moved on and turned in to something fairly different than what Dark•Heritage in any iteration had ever been. 

It's still probably kind of weird and esoteric in terms of fantasy, but also it represents a focus on my own heritage coming through instead of being de-valued, and as such, is probably in part a reaction to all of the wokeness in our entertainment. I've decided that I'm now more tired of looking for something that's not "lily white" than I ever was of fantasy that is clearly based on the Northwestern European Medieval baseline that was the foundation of most of the fantasy I read from the 80s and earlier. The experiment with experimentation, if you will, was played out and I found I didn't like it as much as I thought I would when I started it years earlier.

Anyway, the Dark Fantasy X setting is mostly made up of three large constituent areas; not by coincidence, the three campaign 5x5s that I'm proposing are each centered on one of these, giving me the full coverage of all three areas when they're all done. It was my original intention to have a lot of discipline about not going beyond these, and for a long time that's exactly what I did. I'm kinda sorta rethinking that premise... but let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet. These three Realms are:

• The Hill Country; the most Anglo-Saxon frontier America part of the setting.
• Timischburg, the Austrian Empire hinterlands that is fantasy Transylvania.
• Baal Hamazi, the most exotic of them, where the kemlings are from. Although it's also heavily based on my love of the geography of the American West.

While I'd made vague references to areas beyond these three realms, I'd never intended to do any real development of them. However, I may want to make some smaller "satellite" mini-settings that are associated with the main setting. These won't receive the same level of detail as the main Three Realms—at least that's not what I'm planning now—but we'll see how much development they do or don't get. These elements include:

• Nizrekh, a kind of island nation that's the stub of ancient, sunken Atlantis, which has a combination Yog-Sothothery snake cult and ancient Egypt vibe to it. The people living there aren't the descendants of Atlanteans; there's already a race for that, but rather some group that arrived and developed in isolation.
• The wreckage of old Hyperborea; a kind of Ice Age glacier and snow-socked analog to Kadath.
• Lower Kurushat, which actually does appear on my map, but which I haven't given much thought to yet.

Of course, I doubt I'll do any of these until I finish my racial deep dives and my 5x5s, because that will lay the seeds for this to be done by really expanding the material on the races and the main three areas before I start haring after the afterthought areas.  This makes some sense; although Nizrekh has been floating around on the periphery of the setting for a long time, Hyperborea was never meant to make any appearance at all until I did the Hyperborean Racial Deep Dive and "discovered" that there was potentially interesting material still lingering in Hyperborea. (It probably doesn't hurt that I got back into SWTOR again and did some stuff wandering around on Hoth, and that I've been very slowly going through a youtube zoom playthrough that some guys did of the Icewind Dale campaign of D&D.)

Liberal Democracy and Narrative

A small quote from the Z-man:

We see this in the current election cycle. Gavin Newsome, the governor of California, says his party is in trouble because they are “getting crushed on narrative.” It is not the economy or culture; their problem is they have not presented a “compelling alternative narrative” to the Republicans. No one can tell you what the Republican narrative is, but he is sure it must be better. How else can one explain why voters appear to be moving against the Democrats next week?

This incredible op-ed in the Financial Times lays the blame for inflation at the feet of the storytellers, rather than economic policy. You see, corporations are taking advantage of inflation to raise prices higher than necessary. They can do this because “the power of storytelling has conditioned consumers to accept price rises.” You see, “consumers seem to be buying stories that seem to justify price increases, but which really serve as cover for profit margin expansion.”

What those two examples suggest is that the great promoters of liberal democracy think the tenets of liberal democracy are nonsense. The politicians think people are morons who will fall for a good story, rather than vote their interests. The economists think consumers are not swayed by prices but by irrational beliefs. The premise of liberal democracy is that people understand their interests. If given the chance in a democratic system or a market economy, they will express those interests.

Amazingly, his conclusion after this is that good storytellers can convince people to go against their interests. While this is probably true to some degree, the current political landscape on the eve (almost) of the midterm elections is a refutation rather than a confirmation of that conclusion. 

Rather, I'd suggest that people do express their interests, to the extent that they understand them. The biggest problem with regular economic theory as I learned it (as an economics major) in college  is that it presumes that people know and understand what their interests are. In reality, people's interests are at best often vaguely defined, and not always quantifiable, or economic in nature. Higher level economic theory at least nods at this concept, if it does a relatively poor job of accounting for it, but people certainly often have interests that are more compelling to them than financial/economic interests, and sometimes defining those interests is difficult.

People have an interest in the general prosperity of their nation, people and communities, yet they also have an interest in cheaper goods outsourced to Third World crapholes; even if that means  medium and long term costs to the prosperity of their nation, people and communities. Is access to (relatively) cheap iPhones more important to them than the economic health of some community in West Virginia? Again, I don't think people necessarily understand their interest as well as the premise of liberal democracy would have you believe. 

Of course, this was understood a long time ago. Shakespeare famously wrote about it in Julius Caesar and the Founding Fathers specifically created a representative republic rather than a democracy because they knew that "mob rule" was based on fickle, in the moment decisions based on people who didn't understand their interests, or pursue them with the long term in mind.

Still, the point remains that I quoted that section for; the Establishment feels nothing but undisguised contempt for both the people that it claims to represent, and the system that is supposed to limit them. They are the ultimate busybody Karens, who are convinced that the world would be better if everyone else would just allow them to control their lives. If they could be in charge, unfettered by the freedom of others, and essentially enslave everyone to their will, then everything would be great.

This was, of course, the crux of the model proposed by Lucifer who became Satan, and which stood in defiance of God's plan for his children. Lucifer wanted the glory, he promised that all would be saved, but all would be completely and totally enslaved to his will. 

When a political movement mirrors the spiritual movement of Satan himself, that should tell you something about its merits.

SWTOR Character Class Stories ranking

As part of my "Mother of All SWTOR Reviews" I forced ranked the class stories. As I've played around with them more, I've revised that ranking. The reasons for this are twofold; one of them is that as I've been less concerned with picking the "correct" dialogue option that clearly the writers expect you to pick, and which your "girlfriend" character approves of the most, then some of the stuff that was painfully cringy are taken away. A more flippant and slightly (but not too badly) mean-spirited—or at least much less willing to take crap from anyone—smuggler is significantly better than one who meekly acts super simpy and beta around everyone, for instance. I had in particular been disappointed in the smuggler, which I had hoped to like nearly the best, because I like the concept the best, but was really unhappy with the reality of it on my first playthrough. I'm finding on my subsequent playthroughs that I like it better. Quite a bit so, in fact. 

The second thing that has impacted my ordering of the classes is my experience with more mechanics. I had only played each class with one of the two options, obviously, when I did it the first time. The double-bladed lightsaber assassin and shadow both ended up being disappointing. And I've also done all kinds of mix and match tech class alternatives. Some are just playing the other class that I didn't play the first time with the original class story that it was paired with; I have a mercenary bounty hunter, a scoundrel smuggler and an operative agent in play right now, for instance. But some of it was being able to take a totally different mechanical set and apply it to a story. I also have a mercenary smuggler, a powertech agent, a powertech smuggler, a sniper trooper, a sniper bounty hunter, a vanguard bounty hunter, and a gunslinger trooper.

And it's not just the tech classes; I alternated on my force classes too and I have two sentinel knights, a sorcerer consular, a sorcerer inquisitor (also my only woman character) and a juggernaut sith warrior. I may yet even do another marauder sith warrior; my original sith warrior romanced (sorta) Jaesa light side and my current one is romancing Vette light side. I might want a romance Jaesa dark side alternative too.)

Anyhoo, this much more varied experience has me now re-ordering the order, at least in some smaller ways. Some of what I said before is still highly relevant, but a few things have changed.

8) The consular is still my least favorite. I actually already played him as a bit cocky and less simpy and stupid, but the cocky dialogue options come across as kind of douchey, to be honest rather than merely "not beta". I still don't think he's a very compelling character, and it was a major waste of Nolan North's obvious voice talents. Why couldn't the consular have been a bit more like Nathan Drake? And I don't really like his companions any better than I did either; although playing as a sorcerer and blasting flesh raiders all around Tython with lightning is kind of fun. To be fair, I seem to see a lot of people doing that.

7) The inquisitor is still in the same place as before too, although I do like 1) the sorcerer better than the assassin (I only use assassin as a second class for force users, in case I need to sneak by trash mobs with his stealth ability) and I think I like 2) the female version better than the male. Usually I don't, and its not a dig on the voice actor who did the male inquisitor; I just think that the inherent borderline farce elements work a little better with a female character. Her attitude comes across as more cute, whereas on the male, it falls a bit flat. Sexism, I guess. Misandry, even. But it's true nonetheless; people are not interchangeable widgets, and some stories work better with a male vs female character, and some vice versa. In general, I obviously think the heroes of swashbuckling space opera action stories are better as men, since that's almost exclusively what I play in this game, but this one is the exception. Plus, the romance options, for what it's worth, are marginally better for the female character. The bratty alien Jedi that makes up the romance option for the male inquisitor is just lame. So lame that it's worth just waiting until you can romance Lana Beniko in the expansions, I think.

6) I'm dropping the trooper down one slot, although that's less because of my impression of the trooper has changed, and more because the smuggler went up. I'm playing the two troopers that I'm doing as kinda mouthy and cocky and disrespectful of authority; I imagine them more as auxiliaries rather than regular troops who are used to doing the sir yes sir obnoxious soldier stuff. It just doesn't make for good storytelling; a more independent type is necessary for it to work. It's entirely possible that the trooper just wasn't even the right concept for BioWare to tackle (especially as they're clearly anti-military liberals), but I still think they did better than I expected with it in a lot of ways.

5) I'm actually dropping the Jedi Knight down to 5 here. I should note that the white space between all of the stories in the top five is extremely small, which is why they can move around quickly. The problem is actually farther back than the story itself, though—SWTOR fairly faithfully represented the Jedi Order the same way Lucas did, especially in the prequels and the Clone Wars show. Of course, that sucks, because the Jedi are almost the villains as much as the Sith are. They really make Tython irritating to play in particular, although the story does improve substantially as you get more in to it. The plank of wood main character played by David "I hate white people" Hayter is a major liability to the Jedi Knight too. But these problems aren't unique to The Old Republic; SWTOR faithfully adapts these problems from the greater Star Wars franchise, you could say.

4) Although I still really love the agent character, the really, really stupid companion characters have really grated on my nerves in subsequent playthroughs, including my Mirialan operative and my new human powertech playing the agent story. I have really come to love the sniper mechanics, though—I've got both a trooper and a bounty hunter using those mechanics. I'm also not a huge fan of the operative. Sneaking around and ambushing is great, but then once you've done that, the combat mechanics aren't super fun. Best plot, great main character, but super-super annoying ensemble cast of characters, make this one of the better classes, but it strikes me more and more as a missed opportunity to be easily the top story. Kaliyo and Vector as the main culprits, but nobody else in the line-up really steps up to improve it until Raina Temple. And even then, I have to switch out her image to feel like she's sufficiently charming to do the job.

3) The Sith Warrior is just a lot of fun, and his laconic sarcasm is better every day. I'm still a bit disappointed that the romance options aren't wonderful. Vette is charming, but she's a weird funky colored alien without any hair. Jaesa is pretty—especially if you stick the blonde or red-head option on her, but the regular darker Mediterranean-looking Jaesa ain't bad either) but is too frosty to be a good romance partner. Although I do think that if you're patient enough, the reunion at the end of Onslaught is a great romance moment for the game. I've seen enough of the dark side Jaesa to think that she's much more interesting here, although ultimately only a crazy person would ever entertain a relationship with a woman like that. But the Sith Warrior is meant to be strong and alpha enough to do it, especially if played dark side. Because my first playthrough ignored Vette and "romanced" light-side Jaesa, which you can't technically do successfully, I found his chaste monk-approach was a bit flat. Because romancing a green (in my case) alien with tentacles instead of hair isn't super great with me, neither is playing around with a psycho, I didn't go for either option the first time. Doing it anyway makes this class a bit more fun than it was my first time out. And it's still very iconic, whether he's light or dark. And honestly, you can still do a fairly light-side Sith Warrior who turns Jaesa dark.

2) As much as my feelings on the smuggler seem ambiguous and I have a complicated relationship, like with a bad girlfriend, I find that I have more smugglers and bounty hunters than any other class story in the works, and not by a small amount either. If that isn't a clear indication that those are my favorite two stories, I don't know what is. And why shouldn't they be? Both are my favorite concepts; I'm a little over the Gary Stu power fantasies that too often make up the Jedi (even in the original movies) and Sith, and find the writing and performances of the Jedi in particular to be really cringe. The smuggler and bounty hunters, as free agents who only nominally answer to anyone in the Republic or Imperial hierarchy, and certainly don't bow and scrape to them just do it right. 

And honestly, a lot of the problems I have with the smuggler aren't really with the smuggler per se; some of the exploration and planetary garbage on various planets apply to all of the Republic classes. For some reason, it always seemed to fit with the smuggler the most poorly, though. Especially in areas where the smuggler acts like its shocking to suggest that people break the law. Especially when the smuggler acts like its shocking that people might want to smuggle things that are illegal, like one particularly stupid exploration mission on Coruscant. But we're supposed to be automatically enraged because they are slave collar chips and slavery is the worstest thing ever. In spite of the fact that people who believe that are literally willing and in fact eager to voluntarily enter into slavery in Western Civilization, and then insist that anyone else who doesn't want to be enslaved by hateful tyrants is "a threat to our democracy." Sigh. R-selection is the worst. 

But if you could somehow get the XP for the planetary faction stories and exploration missions without doing them, or do them but ignore them, then the smuggler character works much better. Especially if you play him as a bit of a hard-ass who only somewhat reluctantly shows his heart of gold underneath. The Risha romance is a bit simpy too, but that can be minimized somewhat. Do this, and the  smuggler jumps from being a little bit disappointing to being nearly my favorite.

1) Regardless of what they are mechanically, the smuggler and the bounty hunter are mirror images of each other in terms of concept; the independent gunfighter wandering around space, consorting with the criminal element as much as with the official element, etc. While I find the Great Hunt concept itself kind of gimmicky, they did the best that they probably could with it, and then the second half of the game is after it's over anyway. 

I know, I know—this wasn't feasible, and still isn't even now, but the bounty hunter and smuggler in particular make me really think about why table-top RPGs are inherently superior—or at least have the potential to be—to computer RPGs, because all of the things that they force you to do, or don't even give you a reasonable option to deal with, can be handled however you'd like to. But I just feel like the format leaves something to be desired; you invest in your character, and you want it to do what is the most obvious choice, but you aren't given the options to. It's not the same as reading someone else's novel, but it also kind of is, and the writer of that novel just didn't quite give you the character that best fit the plot he was trying to sell. It just doesn't quite work. But it probably comes closest if you play the smuggler and the bounty hunter, and make them basically good guys, but a little on the hard side, like a good Western hero.

Scott Adams on suicide watch?

https://archive.ph/j1lKK

Read the whole thing. I don't recommend watching the whole thing; it's too long for too little benefit. Scott Adams is a very weird guy. He's obviously intelligent, but he's been lying to himself and to his audience for the sake of the Establishment for many years. He really went all in on the covid vaccinations, for instance, and made bizarre claims about them that were obviously not true. 

His biggest problem is that he's a gamma. He is unable to rationalize the notion that he was actually wrong about something, so he's tearing himself up psychologically to try and justify how if he was wrong, at least everyone else was wrong too, because he's always the smartest guy he knows, or at least his identity in his own mind is being the smartest guy he knows. 

However, the problem with that kind of identity is: it's a lie. He's sharp, but he's not that sharp, and he's also clearly been wrong on this issue, and he's clearly come to an understanding that cleared up his cognitive dissonance and forced him to face reality. And because he's built an identity for himself that is all about being right, being smarter and more important than everyone else around him, he can't seem to handle his identity crumbling around him. 

I'm really surprised to see him openly talking about creating a delusion for himself to believe in because he can't face what is actually real. That's incredibly dysfunctional, and is related in some way to his cargo cult belief in the irrationality of people, including himself. Because he wasn't able to rationally get to the right answer, because he shouted down and belittled the people around him who were able to rationally get to the right answer and who told him so two years or more ago, he's doubling down on his belief that they were just lucky to have been emotionally attached to the ideas that happened to be true.

What a bizarre person he's turned out to be. I do feel kind of sorry for his situation, I guess, but then again, the majority of it is based on his own ridiculous attitudes, behaviors, and dysfunctional emotional identity, which he isn't able to grow up and let go of. Granted, at this point, just admitting that he was wrong probably won't do diddly squat to whatever heart damage the "vaccine" caused him, but it would do wonders for his psychological condition. I've never understood that particular gamma affectation of being unable to admit that you're wrong. Everybody's wrong, often about all kinds of things. It is wise to not be too dogmatic about things, especially if your knowledge about them isn't super great, because then it won't be so traumatic when you're wrong, but even about important things, just being willing to accept it is part of being grown up.

It's been clear that he's not grown up for many years now. Watching him spiral into doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on what are literally cargo cult beliefs, and then completely falling apart when his cargo cult turns out to be nothing more than... well, than a cargo cult, has been fascinating in a dark rubbernecking kind of fashion, but not cheerful. I can't even manage to feel any schadenfreude for him. Even though his problems are (largely) of his own making and only exist in his own mind. But because he can't give up on them, he's created much more serious problems for himself, like his divorce and his health.

Presuming, of course, that his health that he's kind of coy about really is covid "vaccine" related, which seems very likely to be the case.

Planetary armor sets

I haven't really payed attention to the specialty vendors on the planets all that often. Very few of them have anything that I'm interested in, with the exception of Tatooine, who has a handful of unique weapons that were worth adapting for a few outfits or companions. Imagine my surprise, then, when I found out that with one of the relatively recent updates; 7.1 itself probably, although maybe 7.1.1—because I'd been to the vendors not that long ago—they've added a set of world drop armor associated with the classes to this vendor, and you can buy them, and they're legacy bound and just like the adaptive sets; i.e., not just anyone can necessarily buy them (although in most cases you can) but it looks like anyone can wear most of them without them changing. I've got my non-recording Mirialan agent running around in what used to be a Belsavis smuggler world drop set, or at least part of it. 

While not all of these sets are great; I'd say that like the Alliance Crate sets, they're pretty hit and miss, there are certainly some absolutely great elements that I always saved when I could get them, and used quite a bit, so I'm very happy to have this development. They're not cheap; 200,000 per piece, or 1,400,000 for a whole set if you're so inclined, but then again, in today's SWTOR economy, maybe that's not really all that expensive anymore after all.

I've made a fair number of new outfits for a fair number of characters, with probably more to come as a result of this development. I always finally tossed some of my iffy Alliance Crate pieces that I was still holding on to "just in case" so I could make more room in my legacy bank. I wish, honestly, that I could just keep buying more tabs for it.

I also discovered, kind of by accident, that the legacy vendor armor is no longer locked to just the class it was originally meant for. Say what? I just spent a ton of tech fragments getting some shrewd privateer class armor, only to find that the pieces of the smuggler's exalted could already have been used as is anyway? Sigh.

Anyway, that's a curious surprise and delight unexpected development, on both cases. I know that to many, those are "common" armor pieces and therefore not that exciting, but I don't care (or sometimes even know) how common stuff us, I only know if I look at it and I like it. I've always liked certain pieces of world drop armor, so seeing it become available—at 1st level no less, if you have another character who can broker it for you!—to anyone is really cool.

On Twitter and Conservatives

From the Z-man

The one sour note will be seeing so many of our guys rush back to Twitter so they can once again perform for the enemy. Generations of conditioning have trained them to think they need the attention of lefty in order to live. They will abandon the various alternative platforms just so they can carry on like precocious children for their masters on the other side. It is the slave’s mentality.

It gets at the heart of being a conservative. The whole point of the enterprise was to get the attention of lefty and one day get him to agree. It is what Robert Lewis Dabney was getting at with this famous quote. Going back long before anyone alive can recall, the people we call the left have been training their opposition to grovel for the hope of some positive recognition by lefty.

The people racing back to Twitter will deny this. They will say they are doing it because they seek a broader audience for our ideas. Conservatives used to say this long before the internet existed. They would crawl on their belly to get on lefty talk shows, only to be humiliated. They would mew about the unfairness of it all, but then crawl right back at the first opportunity. It was shameful then and it is shameful now.

It is a reminder that even though someone crosses the great divide to this side, they bring with them the habits of mind of the other side. Good salesmen know that you have to keep reselling your accounts in order to reduce attrition. Dissidents have to accept that crossing the great divide is just the first step. The initiates need to be reconditioned to have a positive identity, rather than a negative one.

And the Dabney quote he refers to. All the way back to 1897, which is depressing:

It may be inferred again that the present movement for women’s rights will certainly prevail from the history of its only opponent: Northern conservatism. This is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. . . . Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom. It always when about to enter a protest very blandly informs the wild beast whose path it essays to stop, that its “bark is worse than its bite,” and that it only means to save its manners by enacting its decent role of resistance: The only practical purpose which it now serves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Radicalism to keep it “in wind,” and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy, from having nothing to whip. No doubt, after a few years, when women’s suffrage shall have become an accomplished fact, conservatism will tacitly admit it into its creed, and thenceforward plume itself upon its wise firmness in opposing with similar weapons the extreme of baby suffrage; and when that too shall have been won, it will be heard declaring that the integrity of the American Constitution requires at least the refusal of suffrage to asses. There it will assume, with great dignity, its final position.

Untapped potential

It's unfortunate when Joe Blow on the Internet (no offense intended to the channel I'll be linking to) can see the untapped potential of a major franchise like Star Wars significantly better than the owners of that franchise. As has been pointed out by more than a few people now, the fact that Andor is a better show than just about anything else Disney has done with the Star Wars brand, and yet nobody is watching it means that they've killed it with their mismanagement and poor offerings. Now, even with good content, people have already tuned out and lost interest. The brand has become nearly worthless. They'll have to provide non-woke, or even anti-woke content that is actually entertainment for some time as atonement before they can win back their audience. To paraphrase Mr. Darcy from Pride & Prejudice, the fans good opinion, once lost, is lost forever. But forever isn't literal. It just will take a long time to regain any sense of trust from the actual fans of the franchise to bring them back.

But it could be done. Actually, a major change in the leadership at Lucasfilm and a public declaration of commitment to the fans instead of an anti-fan, anti-white, anti-American screeds would go a long way towards making that possible in a single day. But then, they'll have to deliver. And they could. The franchise still has a lot of potential. Here's a sampling of what it could be, made by fans from footage cut from the Old Republic.

 For some reason, this guy didn't make a tribute to the Jedi Knight, the most iconic Star Warsy of the stories in the game. But the bounty hunter and smuggler feel a bit more iconic after The Mandalorian, at least, even if they don't have any lightsabers or idiotic "heroes' journy" beats.

Too many projects...

I have too many projects! I've mentioned a few that are hobby related here; my SWTOR recording of all my new characters that I created specifically to record, so I'd have a record of their stories when the game inevitably and eventually folds. And this is a big job;  I've got twelve characters that I'm doing this with, after all! And its not just the playing and recording, because then I have to edit the videos. That's a major undertaking, involving what will eventually (if it hasn't already been) hundreds of man-hours of work. Fun work, to be sure, but still—the hours are real. I've spent more time this last week on this than any other hobby endeavor, but I've got quite a few new videos (on YouTube too) to show for it.

I've also talked about my plans for Dark Fantasy X, including finishing the CHAOS IN WAYCHESTER 5x5, and then eventually doing the next two 5x5s. I'm only about half done with that; maybe less. I've done three of the five, but there are then the character specific columns that I want to do for every member  of my iconic "sample" four-member PC group. And I might rejigger slightly the groups; rather than having two groups with two core members and two not quite as core members, maybe I'll start with all of the core members together and then propose that they eventually split into two groups who both pick up new members. Either way, I envision that the work I have to do after creating all five of the columns of the 5x5 will still be significant.

I've also had a revamping of the monsters list from Dark Fantasy X on my to-do list for a while, although that's a back burner project that I'm honestly not really thinking about yet. And my Space Opera X doesn't have a monster/foe list at all yet (although I presume NPCs will be much more important than monsters there anyway. Maybe an appendix with a bunch of statblocks makes more sense for that game. Although it'd be really useful for Dark Fantasy X too, and honestly, I prefer to run either game as more humano-centric rather than with a monster focus.  The monsters are meant to be major set-pieces.)

Of course, monster is a bit of a misnomer. I have low level NPCs in my monster list, as well as a large variety of fairly mundane yet potentially either dangerous or useful animals on the list too. I've got some rather radical ideas here and there on how to structure the document, so there may be bigger changes coming besides just a thorough review of the stats in light of the changes in chargen, but either way...not in the short term. That's a medium to long term project. Closely tied to it are major updates needed for Space Opera X  and even Hack Fantasy X, the game that I don't really spend any time on at all. (I doubt that I'll start spending lots of time on it, but at least one update to really get me from Fantasy Hack m20 to Hack Fantasy X is probably warranted, at which point I can put that game "in storage" as usable and complete as is.)

And I've still only done one race deep dive; the Hyperboreans. I still have Atlanteans, kemlings, orcs and goblins (which I'll treat together since they are two morphs of the same race and really only have one shared history), woodwoses, jann, and seraphim or seraphs, and I probably ought to discuss the various human cultures in more detail too.

Of course, on top of all of this, I've just started a new job. I'm still getting all of my benefits set up and transferred from my last job, but I need to roll my 401(k), figure out how much to contribute, and turn off my severance health insurance now that I just got my new health insurance set up (actually, maybe  I'll wait until my new insurance cards show up before doing that, just in case.) So the personal front has been pretty busy too. On top of that, I have a daughter getting married at the end of the year. I'm not super involved in the planning for that (just the paying for it), but it's not nothing.

And my oldest grandson, who just turned two this summer, asks my son (his dad) to talk to Bapa and Ma! a lot, so he calls to let us video call him every other day or so, for a good half hour to forty five minutes. Although I am sometimes in the middle of something when that happens, I usually drop it to talk to him. Bapa is, of course, his best pronunciation of Grandpa, and Ma! is a funny story. My wife was a little bit sad that he would say Bapa, but she was just "Dat" for "that" when referring to her; what he says when it's not motivated to try and pronounce the word or name of something. So she was trying to really emphasize the word grandMA, saying it like that to differentiate it from grandpa.  Since she emphasized the MA part so much, he started calling her Ma! the way that she emphasized that last syllable. Which made my wife very happy, as she now has a unique name, and she thinks the genesis of it is kinda cute.

On top of that, there's of course all kinds of other things. We're active at church, so we have stuff going on there from time to time. We're in the middle of the fall harvest season, and although I live in a suburb of a city famous for its manufacturing, there are a lot of countryside apple orchards and cider mills and other fall stuff to do that you don't want to miss, because fall is my favorite season, and honestly it doesn't last long enough as it is. I have friends that we hang out with, we have other things to do with my daughter while she's still at home (we're going to go see Black Adam tomorrow night, for instance.)

Anyway, the point is that I'm not grinding out blog posts, and there may be delays on these announced projects. If there's anything that I've been grinding, it's the stuff on SWTOR that I wanted to do. Galactic Season 3 launched last week. But it was a delayed, late launch due to some issue or other, so I couldn't start grinding until Thursday.  So, in typical fashion, when I'd already mentally committed myself to grinding stuff on SWTOR, I grinded something else: I still had two craft skills that were stuck in the high 600s and not at the maximum of 700 which I needed to finish (and due to a stupid oversight on my part, I was stuck on and couldn't figure out for a few days.) I finally finished the reputation track on the three reputations that I had at Champion and wanted to get to Legend; Section X, Yavin 4 and Makeb. And because I had two new characters that needed gear, I built up a bunch of stuff for them so that they can rock fine hand-crafted (by my other experienced characters) stuff underneath their outfit designer custom appearance weapons. I actually did that with several of them as I was going through the game for the first time, and building up my craft skills in the first place (although that was before weapons were in outfit designer, so you actually saw the crafted weapons). But crafting a full set of 10-75 level weapons and off-hand gear for two characters by two characters (because one needed Armstech and the other needed Artifice) is a little bit tedious and time-consuming. Grindy. I'm finished with it now, but I spent more time over the weekend doing that then I thought I might.

Named rapier characters

In my "named characters" folder, I had a few that held rapiers. With the new, vastly improved rapier models, I thought it worth updating them, and maybe giving a quick character summary, at least as far as I've developed them so far.

Audley Hardwicke is to be part of a character specific "5x5". I don't imagine him ever appearing in a game, unless someone decided to use my pregen iconics as a character, as he's the specific villain associated with Stefan Clevenger. Part of Stefan's backstory is that he was an official Ranger Shadow before going freelance, and he clashed with corrupt leadership, which sparked his exit from that organization. He "won"; the leader went down, but because he still had some loyal followers in the organization, Stefan decided that it were best if he left. Audley Hardwicke is that deposed leader. Was he just run-of-the mill corrupt, embezzling money, and stuff like that, or was he corrupt in the Shadow side of things? I don't know yet. But he's a rather dashing and charismatic villain nonetheless. 

Captain Borus is a character designed to be part of the "newly" developed Orcling pirate column of the 5x5, where he's a minor supporting character with a ship that the PCs will most likely sail on. He's destined to come to a bad end, as Captain Taurak will attack and board him. If he PCs and Borus beat off the orcling pirates, Borus and his ship are marked to be made an example of, and he probably won't survive that. If Borus ends up surrendering, he's financially screwed by the raid and will struggle for a long time to get back on track.

Marshal Hathawaye is the leader of the Lady's Guard, a paramilitary elite organization loyal to the Grand Duchess of Waychester. We find him in the first column of the original 5x5, where he and his organization are living as bandits outside of town looking for opportunities to restore or rescue the Duchess from the tower. Although he's not a great guy, given that he's become a bandit prince and all, I see him more as a naïve dupe rather than an overt and corrupt villain. There might yet be the possibility of redemption for Marshal Hathawaye.

Hero Forge

While waiting for SWTOR to update (actually it finished a while ago; I'm just waiting for the servers to come back online) so I can see what the new Seasons will look like, I checked out the Tuesday update for Hero Forge. A few weeks ago we got the really cool Mad Max outfit and gear, but then we got a few sticks and stumps and stuff; hardly thrilling material. Today, we got a musketeer-like swashbuckler outfit, and rapiers that actually look like rapiers instead of super heavy parodies of a rapier. 

I may actually have to go in and update a lot of models. The new outfit is really good too; one of the top tier ones, so there may be other updates for models who's look is just out of date and clunky compared to what I can make with them now.

Sigh. Always something.

Here's a few samples of my updates, plus one new character who uses a few of the new elements.

Next steps

It's been a quiet week, since I spent much of my time at my new job this week, and had busier than normal weekend and evenings. I do, however, hope to get the blogging moving again, and I have three projects in particular that I'm focusing on in the short term.

1) SWTOR. I'm playing a fair bit again after setting it aside for a good six weeks or more. I've got a decent-sized backlog of raw video to convert, and plus I think the new Season 3 is supposed to start tomorrow. I guess I won't necessarily blog about this with a regular cadence or anything, but when stuff comes up that I want to talk about, I'll probably do so and because I'm playing a lot right now, it may be a bit more than normal. As usual when I play SWTOR a lot, it tends to draw my attention to Space Opera X and its setting too. I wouldn't be surprised if some of that comes up here and there, although I do put a lot of that kind of stuff on the other gaming blog, honestly.

2) I want to do the remaining work on my 5x5 for CHAOS IN WAYCHESTER. I might actually even run this sooner than I thought; my oldest son, who hadn't ever been particularly interested in D&D before, says that his two brother-in-laws (his wife's brothers) are interested in playing, and he was talking about trying to do something with them. I told him that I would be happy to run for them, if they add my daughter's fiancé to the group too; I know he's interested. But even if I don't run, I still want to finish the development work anyway. Personal issues have obviously caused a delay, but I honestly thought I'd have been done with this by now.

This will include, by the way, a redrawing of a part of my map, so I'll have some more mapmaking posts when I get to that phase of the project too.

3) I want to finish my more detailed posts about the races. My material in the rulebook itself is pretty sparse, and while I talk plenty about kemlings and jann and Hyperboreans and whatnot here and there, I really haven't put it down in a succinct yet "one stop shop" kind of format before. My Hyperborean post from a couple of weeks ago will be the format that I'll probably follow for the other races, although I may think of improvements to its presentation yet. I'm finding that doing this causes me to develop as I post, because details will come up that I hadn't thought of before, so it's a good setting development exercise too.

Some other stuff outside of those three pillars that I have on the backburner include a possible revamping of the monster list from Dark Fantasy X and actually turning Space Opera X into a document in the same format as Dark Fantasy X. Those are longer term projects that I always meant to do but hadn't gotten around to yet; I'll just note them here in case I get started on them by some miracle.

mRNA global testing

The narrative is starting to change! The Truth is starting to push through the months and months of lies and reach the mainstream, because you can't keep the truth down.

https://floridahealthcovid19.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/20221007-guidance-mrna-covid19-vaccines-doc.pdf

UPDATE: A handful of other timely links on other topics.

On Russia, our relationship with her, and the neocons:

https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=28447

I've seen a bunch of stuff in the news today about Columbus Day and "Indigenous Peoples Day" which is a fake holiday. Anyway, they're a little early; October 12 is Columbus Day. But here's the real scoop on the "indigenous" peoples of the Americas.

https://www.unz.com/pub/jhr__life-styles-native-and-imposed/

SWTOR Tracker 10/7/2022

I haven't done much with SWTOR since going out of town for my first wave of vacations this summer, to Boise to see my son and his kids, and then to Bear Lake for a family reunion, and then hiking in the Cloud Peak Wilderness of central Wyoming. After that lengthy vacation, I'd obviously lost loads of momentum with SWTOR.

Of course, not long after getting back and getting caught up with work, I got laid off from work, which made me feel unmotivated to play computer games when I needed to be finding a job. I also went back to Boise for two weeks as my oldest son (well... his wife, anyway) had another baby. I was already planning on doing this before getting laid off; it wasn't really vacation, it was working remotely so I could be around when needed. The baby came early, so it wasn't really exactly what we envisioned; neither my wife nor I watched the other kids while they were in the hospital, because we haven't even showed up in town yet. And, of course, I spent a fair bit of that time chasing around; the first week I was there, I had on average two interviews a day, and by the time the second week was halfway through, I had four offers to sort through. I had to accept one before coming home, or it would have expired, which I did, and now I'm scheduled to start on Monday.

Of course, this means less time to play video games again. Although my evenings will be relatively as free as they had been, I think, I'll be a lot busier during the day, and will—at least for now—be in an actual office, not working from home, so that means no firing up the game during my lunch break or anything like that. That said, due to timing, even though I haven't played much the last couple of months, I hadn't actually had my subscription run out either (I buy one-off two month blocks of subscription at a time). It was about to in a week or so, so I actually just bought another two month block. I'm feeling a bit motivated to play some more again, and let Hero Forge take a little bit of a back-seat. Not that I want to stop doing that, and my Dark Fantasy X posts—in fact, I envision a fairly substantial revision to the monster list of Dark Fantasy X in the nearish future—but I also want to get back on the bandwagon with my SWTOR videos and playthrough.

So, here's my latest version of the tracker; basically the same as the one I posted in June. A few updates, not because I've done much of anything, but because I've made some decisions that I hadn't back then.

Anstal Tane. Level 44 Scoundrel playing the smuggler story. Sith Pureblood, male. Recording all missions. Just finished the Taris bonus series. Although he's the farthest along, I may well play more of him, so as to spread the pack out just a bit and not have everyone bunch up on just the second and third planets.

Elemer Kell. Level 36 Sentinel playing the Jedi Knight story. Imperial Zabrak, male. Just arrived on Taris and walked out of the spaceport, but otherwise have to start all of the missions. After moving to Nar Shaddaa and recording just a bit with Anstal, I'll probably do him next. In fact, I'm trying to reorder the list of characters in the order I expect to play them. Recording all missions.

Vant Galaide. Level 35 Mercenary playing the bounty hunter story. Human male. Just arrived on Balmorra. I actually skipped the phone call from Crysta so I could go shop for a Mako customization on Balmorra and make her blonde, but then I fast-traveled back to my ship. Recording all missions.

Revecca Arden. Level 34 Sorceress playing the Sith Inquisitor story. Human female. Just about to go to Balmorra.

Haul Romund. Level 33 Mercenary playing the Smuggler story. Human male. On Coruscant.

Codon Veile. Level 21 Sniper playing the trooper story. Chiss male. On the Republic fleet; needs to take the Esseles to Coruscant.

Vash Galaide. Level 35 Powertech playing the agent story. Human male. Just arrived on Dromund Kaas

Phovos Maledict. Level 28 Juggernaut playing the Sith Warrior story. Human male. Just arrived on Dromund Kaas.

Mirabeau Tane. Level 20 Gunslinger playing the trooper story. Cyborg male. Just arrived on the fleet from Ord Mantell.

Wulf Hengest. Level 30 Vanguard playing the bounty hunter story. Human male. Just arrived on Dromund Kaas.

Embric Stane. Level 19 Mercenary playing the bounty hunter story. Cyborg male. Just finished Hutta. I actually decided to bench Embric and not worry about recording him. I may still play him from time to time, just like I do my other benched characters, Taul Kajak and Hutran Thanatos. (Who by coincidence are both Mirialan.) In fact, that's what I've been doing since getting back in town and playing a bit again; crafting and selling with John and playing a bit of Hutran Thanatos on Tatooine. 

I've got a fair number of videos to edit, but I'm deliberately not going to worry too much about that for now. In the past, I'd sometimes psyched myself out not to play, because I didn't want to record more video, because playing is more fun than video editing, and I didn't want to mess with the latter. For now, I'll do whichever of the two I feel like and not allow myself to get worked up over the backlog.

UPDATE: I was looking through my raw videos, and I've got a lot of Anstal Tane on Taris coming up, and then some other stuff, including the launch of Codon Veile and Mirabeau Tane. However, the last several have, for some reason, no sound. I screwed up when recording them and probably forgot to adjust my settings on OBS, so it was looking for sound coming from my Xiberia headset, which I wasn't using, or something like that. Luckily, most are of Embric Stane, who I'm not going to worry about... but not all of them. Sigh. Maybe I should just use someone else's archived play if I ever want to watch this again when it's gone. That's discouraging.

UPDATE II: Well, I played Phovos Maledict through to getting his ship. I actually think, because I have so many "young" characters that don't have their ships yet, that I want to get everyone their ships before moving on. The galaxy really comes alive once you have a ship; not before. That means, I'll be doing a bunch of Coruscant and Dromund Kaas, I suppose. I had six characters, three and three on the two factions, that needed it. Since I just did a Sith Warrior, I'll need to switch to a Republic character next to break up the rainy jungle monotony. And maybe I should do one of the trooper stories so that I can space them out a bit too. I'll probably do Codon Veile next.

UPDATE III: Before I do that, though, I'm finishing off a few things that have lingered for too long. Luke, my OG smuggler is on Makeb, and I want to both just finish that, and also finish leveling up the Makeb reputation which has been on Champion for months. I actually just finished the max for the week, and I'm only a couple of hundred shy. But in addition to the Makeb reputation track, which has been almost but not quite finished for months, I've got the Section X on Belsavis and the Yavin 4 reputation tracks in basically the same place. I won't actually be able to finish any of them this week, but I want to max out my reputation this week so that I can easily and quickly finish them next week because I've only got a couple hundred rep points left to do. Then I'll record the next part of the next character, which will be Codon Veile doing the Esseles and Coruscant. Let me reorder the characters in the order I plan to do them, starting with Phovos Maledict, who I just recorded a bunch of earlier this week.

Phovos Maledict (check)

Codon Veile

Wulf Hengist

Haul Romund

Vash Galaide (the agent)

Mirabeau Tane

Vant Galaide (the bounty hunter)

Anstal Tane

Revecca Arden

Elemer Kell

From now on when I make updates to this, I'll use that order.

Sextus Vedius, Lord Mayor of Lomar

The Lord Mayor of Lomar, sitting in state in his Grand Hall, where he meets with the Council of Lomar. The chair that he sits on was made from stone brought back at great risk and expense from Old Hyperborea; in creed at least, if not always in practice, to remind the Lord Mayor of where his people came from and keep true to their heritage. 

These aren't my own work, but I really like them, so I'll add them for the heckuvit.

Bloody Mary coming through the bathroom mirror

A great rendition of Frankenstein's monster