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“Bad Motivator,” An Interview With R5-D4 About Returning to Star Wars
Spoilers Alert
This parody interview contains minor spoilers for Episode 3, Season 2 of “The Mandalorian.”
“Bad Motivator”
written by The Most Interesting Fan in the World
“The SAO (“Sentient Artifical Organism”) actor knows as “Red” famously portrayed the role of heroic droid “R5-D4” in Star Wars: A New Hope. Now with their return to the role in the most recent episode of the Disney/Lucasfilm series “The Mandalorian,” Red’s agreed to join us for a short interview.
“First, Red, thanks so much for joining us. We’re a huge fan of your work, and thrilled to have you with us.”
Beep-toot whiiiiir boop.
“Ha! I bet it is. So, let’s start with some background. You’re best known for your role as R5-D4 in the original Star Wars movie. Was that your start in acting?”
Boop-whoooooooo. Tweetoot beeple pop-whir wheeee. Tootle-doot boop beedple beep.
“That’s fascinating. So after those roles in college and community theater, what took you to Hollywood?”
Weeeee-do dappa deep whuuuuuu dot dep dop doot.
“Really? I’ve gone over your online credits a lot, and neither Dark Star nor Death Race 2000 are ever mentioned. Was the work uncredited?”
Boop-whoo. Deet doot rooooo boople.
“Sure, that makes sense. Have you done a lot of that kind of foley and sound effect work?”
Dwooo-woot woop boop woot.
“Of course, we all have to pay the bills. So, it’s the mid 1970s, you’re doing sound effects for scifi films, and…”
Boop-dootle-beep.
“Sorry, of course. So, to be accurate, sound effects for a range of films and television. And then you get the call to audition for Star Wars. What was that process like?”
Whooop-dooo. Dweeboot deeple whot-whir dweeee. Dootle-doot beep boodple deed. Twooo-dwoot woop roop woot. Deedweee-do boppa dweep dhuuu whot peep duup woot.
“And have you and Mark Hamill kept in touch since then?”
Dwoo-woot dupe.
“That’s always great to hear. Do in A New Hope, you’re in one scene, where you are about to be bought by the Lars family, and then you shoot out sparks and stop moving, and Luke says you have a bad motivator, so R2D2 is taken instead. What was your thought process when preparing for that scene?”
Whirr-hum, beep boop beep boop, whuzz-whirrlpop chirp-doop, beep. Hum squawk pops. Whee-whoo whoosh, oop, fweep-fwop-fwop-fwop.
“Oh, that’s really interesting, So, to you, the Bad Motivator wasn’t about being able to roll around, but entirely about R5 being not being motivated to leave its Jawa home and work?”
Dwee-dwoo dwoosh, fwop-fwop.
“That’s great, and it really shows you got deep into that character, even though you only had the one scene. Do you feel that lack of motivation has been a key part of R5’s personality in the years since.”
Zoop-zoop-zoopity-zoop, zzzzzzzzoooooooooooom.
“Well, sure, the Expanded Universe got pretty weird.”
Plip-plop-plip, chugga chugga woop.
“Oh, I had no idea you were consulted for those comics!”
Whooop-doo. Dwip-dee-doo. Doot-deet beep bop. Throop.
“Wow, nice. It’s a shame that never got past the storyboard stage. So, let’s talk about playing the character again, after so long, You had a few scenes in the first and seasons of the Mandalorian, as well as the Book of Boba Fett. How did that come about?”
Deedle-dop-deep bop bleep duup wop. Zing.
“Yes, it’s clear Jon Favreau is a fan of deep continuity.”
Whizz-whoop-bop. Zwoop… beedle-bop-deet.
“What was it like, being on a Star Wars set again?”
Woop-dwoop-beep-bop. Shwip boop. Dwee-dwee-dwee. Whoop.
“Yes, I imagine is IS a great deal more comfortable than Tunisia, especially for an SAO.
“So you had your cameos, got a few lines, but not much more than that. Did those three seasons of acting do anything to reinvigorate your career?”
Dwoot toot bleed-beep Dalek.
“Oh, wow! I’ve seen all the recent Doctor Who episodes, and I didn’t recognize you in any of them.
“Whooooooooooooo. Bleep deep skeeeeee-tot.
“And was that your first time wearing that much make-up?”
Wee-dleep boppa beep. Twoot zeeple pop-whir beboop.
“It absolutely is nice to be able to expand your range and experience like that. Okay, so you’re seeing some more interest, going to more conventions…who called you to talk about doing a bigger role in The Mines of Mandalore episode for this season?
Wooo-wheeeee. Bleep-boop, whirtle dweep dep booo.
“Oh, I had no idea she’d gone into producing after Return of the Jedi. Did she have any acting roles after 9D9?”
Beep boop dwee tweet toot.
“Yes, I can absolutely see how the skill translates over into producing. So, she gives you the call, and asks if you’ll do another episode. Did she let you know it’d be a much bigger part, larger even than your original scene from A New Hope?”
Beep dweep who-hu-ooo.
“So ‘adventure droid’ got mentioned really early, huh? And what was it like, getting back into this iconic character for multiple scenes, including have some shots where you’re the only character on-screen?”
Dweep-bee-beep. Beedoot beeple zot-zhir dwoooooooo. Boole-boot bot.
“I did notice that. And was that all an expansion of your original interpretation of having a ‘bad motivator’? Or was that in the script when you got it?”
Wheet boop beep-bot-tweeee be-beep. De-do-da-deetle deet, dwoop beboo zoot whee.
‘It’s great to hear you got to be part of that creative process. Any final thoughts you’d like to share with us?”
De-deep wheeple wot beeee-whu huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu… beep.
“Sure. Everyone else seems to be getting a spin-off!”
Methods of Support
A lot of people have offered a lot of support in light of my various recent health issues, and I deeply, deeply appreciate it. There are plans moving forward to try to help cover medical bills and loss of income, and when they’re ready, I’ll announce them here. I may end up needing to turn to extraordinary measures, such as a GoFundMe, but I won’t be doing that until I know for certain I have to.
However, if you DO want to offer immediate support, I won’t refuse it. You can join or increase your membership tier at my Patreon, or if you prefer do one-time support through my Ko-Fi.
Thanks, folks.
Owen
Short Fiction: “Plan Z”
Introduction: The Tao of Jim
If you’re readying this, there’s a good chance you already know more about how Plan Z worked out than I do now while writing it. I don’t know if it’s more likely that you’re a bored schoolkid reading a dog-earned third edition of a book made from my writing, or another survivor holding a blood-stained copy you pulled out from under my corpse while wondering what hubris lead to my demise, but either way you’re seeing the end result of our efforts, and I’m still uncomfortably near what still feels like the beginning.
But either way, you’re likely wondering how this manuscript, and the place I’m writing it in, came about. And that means you need to understand Plan Z. To understand how Plan Z came about, you have to understand our friend Jim. Which, I mean… it’s not like any of us really understand Jim…
Okay, let me try to explain.
So, first, Jim doesn’t process information like anyone else I know. He has a deep, subconscious need to connect any information he has to a potential explanation for it. It doesn’t matter if that explanation is silly, iffy, or obviously wrong–he has to have some rationale to link to anything he sees, hears, thinks of, or watches. If he can’t, if he runs into anything that doesn’t make sense to him, it eats him up inside until he finds a way to attach a rationale, any rationale, to the unexplained.
If a movie has a huge plot hole, Jim is bothered by it until he (or often someone else) can provide reasoning–no matter how far-fetched–on how it could have happened. If he hears about an unsolved mystery, he has to study and research it until he has a potential solution figured out. If someone does something stupid, he has to theorize about it until he can come up with a theoretical example of what the hell they were thinking that made them do it. It doesn’t matter if he’s learning about a crime of passion, a b-movie full of plot holes, or archeological artifacts found with no context. If he comes across something that doesn’t have a clear, well-laid-out history of how and why it happened, he needs to make one up for himself.
To be clear, Jim knows this isn’t rational, but it’s just part of who he is. It’s actually one reason he got into the University of West Colorado’s Tabletop Game League, where we all met him. Games make sense to Jim — you do things because there were rules, and if a rule is unclear or contradictory everyone agrees it has to be fixed. When he joined the League was mostly focused on wargames and roleplaying games (especially Atomic Age, Glaive 4000AD, NapoleonPunk, and Wyverns & Woodlands), and Jim prefers trading card games and boardgames (due to cleaner and tighter rules I suspect), but he played whatever was most popular… even if he didn’t enjoy it.
By the way, if I’m making Jim sound stupid, I have done him a disservice. Jim is among the smartest people I have ever met. He never forgets a fact, sees how things are interconnected and impact one another, can plan, iterate, theorize, and design at levels few can match. His mind tends more towards concrete systems — math, engineering, things where he can be sure that event x inevitably leads to result y — but in that arena he’s a genius.
Which, sadly, sometimes caused him problems.
Often, Jim will mentally envision complex patterns of events he blames for apparently random events. Someone didn’t just get hit by a car and killed because life sucks. No, if someone was hit by a car, then they weren’t wearing reflective enough clothing. Or they had to walk because they didn’t have a bike. Or the reason the driver didn’t see them was that the car didn’t have tinted directional fog lights. To stay sane, Jim has to blame everything bad on some failure to plan or prepare.
As a result, Jim has spent his entire life building up a mental list of things he needs to be ready for. Whether those things are likely enough that it’s rational to be prepared for them isn’t what matters to Jim. Instead, he preps for whatever he’s spent time agonizing to make sense of, and what steps he can take to prevent a similar “nonoptimal outcome.” Even when I first met him, Jim’s truck was practically a roving emergency shelter and mini-pharmacy for like, 12 people. Jim didn’t just want to keep himself safe from his long list of potential disasters, he needed to be able to protect his friends as well.
And that brings us to point two about him.
Jim is desperate for a close social circle, and doesn’t trust his own personality, choices, or preferences to build it for him. A gaming club was perfect for him, because we’d invite anyone who wanted to play to game days, and if he showed up he was part of the group. I’m embarrassed to admit how long it took us to realize Jim was willing to be unhappy in order to be included, but in our defense we were young, stupid, and often drunk. But as long as we didn’t actively tell Jim to go away, he was always happy to hang out. And, as a core group of us became fast friends, we befriended Jim–at least as best we could. Some of us left college to begin careers while Jim got a Master’s Degree… and a second Master’s Degree, and started on a third Master’s Degree. But most of the Monday Night Heroes stayed close enough to campus that we could get together for Monday Game Night most weeks.
And as we dated, married, had fights and falling outs and make-ups and parties, Jim was just always there. For the Monday Nighter’s, Jim became part of the background of our lives. He was invited to celebrations, movie nights, road trips, and he never said no. I suspect Jim was actually really lonely, since we weren’t smart enough to ever think about what he wanted to do. He invited us to do a few things that interested him: camping, hunting, canning, quilting, pressing flowers, Historical Martial Arts practice… but we almost never accepted. And, for whatever reason, he didn’t click with the communities that were interested in those things. So if we did anything, or needed anything, or wanted anything, Jim was there. In short, Jim was a good friend.
The rest of us, maybe not so much.
Finally, and this is crucial to how things panned out, while none of us realized it, Jim was rich. I’m not surprised we had no idea, since he wore the same clothes until they fell apart, drove a 30-year old suv, ate store-brand canned food, lived in a 450-square-foot apartment that was once a garage, and had no interest in expensive things. But his family had owned multiple ranches, and he’d inherited them all. Some had oil wells paying him royalties. Many were leased to other ranchers, or loggers, and one had ended up having a suburb develop around it, so Jim had houses built and rented out an entire small neighborhood. He had a personal banker, a personal lawyer… and I guess we all knew that, but we just chalked it up to his family having lots of professional friends.
But, no. Jim had money. Lots of money.
In a way, I’m glad no one seemed to realize that. I’m not convinced I could have kept myself from taking advantage of Jim wanting friends and being rich, and he doesn’t deserve to be treated that way. I’m only alive today because Jim decided I was a friend, and to be honest I haven’t really done anything to deserve that. But without Jim’s psychological quirks, interest in nerdy things, membership in our social circles, genius intellect, and surprisingly deep pockets, Plan Z never would have happened. And even with all that, it only happened because of a power outage.
It’s true. This all started on a cold, dark night. I’ll explain.
While Monday nights were always for gaming, we often had what we called the “Cheese and Cheese Gathering” on Saturdays. The event was specifically designed to watch a cheesy scifi or fantasy movie, and eat a cheese-based dinner and snacks. Yes, it’s stupid, but we had fun, and Jim loved it. He knew what to expect. He could bring anything with cheese flavor, and it was welcomed as appropriate to the event. Sliced cheese? Sure, gimme a slice. Cheeseburgers from the McClown drivethru? Classic. Novelty cheddar soda? What the heck, we need something to get us through watching Cyborg Cannibal Clowns 3 – the Clownening, pop me open a can.
The night Plan Z was born, we were watching Dusk of the Living Dead and enjoying pizza-topping-nachos and cheddar-crusted chicken nuggets, when the power went out. There was a snowstorm, which honestly was worse than we’d been prepared for, and when everything went dark in the whole neighborhood all at once, we realized no one was going home that night. We had enough candles, and Jim had 4 camping lanterns, a backup generator, weather radio, sleeping bags, and MREs in his truck, so we weren’t worried. But, as we set up a faux-camp in Dana and Dale’s living room and sat up through the night, we got bored.
I wouldn’t have remembered exactly who was there that night, but Jim wrote it down on page 1 of what became the Plan Z Survival Guide. There was Jim, me (I’m Casey), Dana and Dale (it was at their house), Jayden, Liam, Mia, and Sanjay. That was pretty much a full house in those days–Jordan had stopped coming around after Mia quite-rightly slapped him, Nevaeh hadn’t really joined the clique yet, and Roger never came to Cheese and Cheese because he and Dale never got along. So we managed to entertain ourselves for a bit by talking about what we’d each done that week, arguing about politics, religion, and pizza styles, and telling bad jokes. But, eventually, conversation lulled.
Then, Jim asked us why the characters in Dusk of the Living Dead had decided to take shelter in a Giganto-Mart when everyone started turning into zombies. While it had lots of useful stuff, he pointed out that it would be a target for any survivalist groups still around, the front of it was all breakable glass windows, and (as the movie was showing when the power cut out), once zombies got inside, there’d be no good way to keep them from roaming over the whole store.
And so, for lack of any better topic, we began figuring out the best plan for surviving the Zombie Apocalypse.
It was a surprisingly Socratic event. Someone would postulate something, like claiming the best place to hole up would be in a cabin in the mountains, and the rest of us would ask questions to test that claim. Were the woods really the best place? Was a cabin the best option? What about an old-style prison, with stone walls and guard towers? But would the prisoners be a high risk factor? Well, not if it was a decommissioned prison. Would such a place be in good repair? It could be, if it was bought in advance and maintained and updated for survival. What kind of updates and supplies? Well, food, weapons, survival gear, maps, a library of how-to books, at least. Farm equipment? Maybe, how many people are going to shelter here? Well, 7-8 is supposed to be the ideal size for survivalist groups. What about repopulation? Okay, you’d need a bigger group for that, but if you start with 7-8 and they form the leadership of a community made up of survivors who find them…
We spent all night doing it, Our smartphones still had reception, so we could look up facts, locations, pricing, storage, shelf life of foods, the most common ammo type in the state, what crops would be best, what skills you’d want people to have, and how would you arrange in advance for people with those skills to join you? Of course we didn’t think there was any chance there’d be a zombie apocalypse, and we certainly couldn’t have predicted what actually killed the world. We were just goofing around.
But Jim?
Jim was taking notes.
PATREON!
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#MoviePitch: The Vampire (A Universal Monster Shared Universe Concept)
How do you get a Universal Pictures Monsters shared universe off the ground? By focusing on making one awesome story that stands on its own, but does so in a way that picks up threats from the most popular such movies in recent memory, is inclusive and modernized, and hints at a larger world without taking time away from the things important to your first film. Here’s my pitch:
It is 1950. In communist Romania, Alex O’Connell (early30s white, British, he/him), son of Lord Rick O’Connell and Lady Evelyn O’Connell, manages to gain permission for an archaeological team to catalog and record items being removed from an ancient abbey in the Carpathian Mountains prior to its demolition as part of a plan to build a massive road to access the Transylvanian Plain. The Romanian official warns Alex he is only doing this as a favor to Alex’s parents, who were allies during the War and in the troubled years afterward.
Alex brings the good news to Jonsey Johnson (early 30s, black, French/American dual citizen with links to Paris and Harlem), the head of expedition security, and Doctor Mary Jessica Van Helsing (early 30s, white, Dutch, she/her), the expedition’s leader. The three talk about the archaeological value of such a mission, as well as the political and regional dangers, and all three hint their parents raised them to be… cautious. Alex has a cat. Jonsey has a German shepherd. Mary has a fancy white rat. The three animals get along surprisingly well.
Meanwhile at the Abbey, looters are holding local workers at gunpoint, forcing them to use their digging tools to break through the back of the abbey’s basement wall. The looters have an old map that claims the “Eyes of the Dragon” have been locked away in a secret chamber. The looters think these are gems.
But the Eyes of the Dragon actually refers to Dracula, who leaks out of a tomb under the Abby in a mist form when the wall is cracked, and one by one turns the looters and workers into his ghoul minions. Only one manages to flee out of the abbey, into the sunlight.
Alex, Jonsey, and Mary (and their expedition) reach the base camp at one end of the Carpathian pass, but find the nearby Abbey abandoned. All three become very suspicious, and eventually find the survivor from the Abbey dig, who explains what he saw. Alex asks if there were hieroglyphics, or Chinese or Aztec symbols. Confused, the worker says no. Jonsey asks if there were vials, chemical agents, or signs of drug making. More confused, the worker says no. Mary asks if there were symbols of dragons and inverted crosses. The survivor says there were… maybe. He wasn’t paying much attention.
The expedition decides to send the laborer back to the big city with half the expedition’s Romanian guards, to report the attack to the government. Alex, Joney, and Mary all three slip him letters to send to their respective parents, each without the others knowing. They establish a base camp.
That night, the base camp is attacked by ghouls. The main character’s pets all send up warnings, allowing Alex, Jonsey, and Mary to gear up with their respective monster hunting equipment. (Alex’s are in the false bottom of a steamer trunk. Jonsey’s are stashed in musical instrument cases. Mary’s are secreted away in a hidden drawer of her traveling work desk.) During the fight, they run into each other, and realize they all have anti-monster experience.
Mary: “You’ve fought vampires before?”
Alex: “Vampires? Those are real?! No, mummies. Mostly. And one dragon.”
Jonsey: “Mummies are real? I’ve fought vampires and a dragons, yeah. Never a mummy.”
Mary: “Dragons? Like, fire-breathing flying lizards? Those are real?!”
Curious as to how his ghoul’s attack was repulsed, Dracula visits the camp the next day. He asks one of their team-members if he can enter the camp, and is told yes, causing Dracula to give a big smile. He goes up to Alex, Jonsey, and Mary, and asks if they were the ones to treat his pets so harshly the night before. Alex begins to draw down on Dracula, but Jonsey stops him, asking the vampire if he was invited into the camp. He affirms he was, and Jonsey rolls her eyes. Mary then tells Alex a vampire can’t attack them while he is their guest, and if he is attacked they’ll be cursed.
Alex notes he thought vampires couldn’t move about in daylight. Dracula asks where he got that idea, and Mary confirms it’s true for some vampires, but not Carpathians. Jonseynotes it doesn’t apply to a lot of Non-western bloodsuckers.
Dracula says he is unsurprised they were able to send his servants fleeing, because Alex reminds him of his most beloved servant and general. Almost as if the spirit of Dracula’s dear friend was reincarnated in Alex.
Mary asks Alex if he could be a reincarnation of Dracula’s beloved friend. Alex shrugs, and says it runs in the family. Jonsey, meanwhile, tells Mary that Jonsey quits, and walks away. Alex is flustered Jonsey would quit NOW, but Jonsey points out her name is on the papers the Romanian government signed too, so she can set up her own camp if she wants to. Mary tells him not to worry, she trusts Jonsey.
Dracula suggests Alex leave the expedition and join him. Jonsey is seen getting people to take down her tent, and draws a line in the dirt, loudly telling Alex and Mary that anything on her side of the line is now HER camp, and screw them. Dracula seems amused, and begins to talk about how hard help is to get these days, when Mary distracts him by noting Dracula still has some scars from where he was injured last century, and wonders how long it took him to heal from that near-death. He is angered and suspicious, and asks her how she knows about his last conflict. She tells him her family name, and he looses some of his cool and nearly attacks her.
In the background, Jonsey has gotten all the expedition members to set her tent BACK up. Alex asks if she is leaving, or not, and she tells him if he has a question for her, he can come over where she is and ask her. Alex has his father’s confused-and-annoyed expression, but Mary grabs his arm and hauls him across the line Jonsey drew in the dirt. All the remaining expedition workers are around Jonsey’s tent. Dracula goes to follow, but stops up short at the line, as if hitting a barrier.
Jonsey says she didn’t invite him into HER camp. Alex grins, and he and Jonsey and Mary unload at Dracula, who is taken by surprise and flees.
The plot can proceed from there along pretty typical adventure/horror lines — Alex, Jonsey, and Mary decide Dracula is growing stronger by the day, and they can’t wait to stop him, so they go after him in the tomb complex. The three have different and complimentary skills, and make a good team. They hunt down Dracula and seem to destroy him, but when he “dies,” a gem that looks like a snake eye falls to the ground. Mary realizes this is one of the two legendary Eyes of the Dragon, relic of the Order of Dracul, and it’s how Dracula survived her grandfather’s assault in the late 1800s. Alex smashes it, and asks how many such gems there are. Mary says two, and three agree they need to find and destroy the other one.
Searching through in notes found in the camp of the Looters who released Dracula, they find that there were two places the Looters thought the Eyes of the Dragon might be. One was here. The other was Castle Frankenstein, and there is a map to a Lost Lab of Frankenstein’s, which might hold the secret location of his original Castle.
End movie.
Castle Frankenstein then becomes the next movie. In that story, Alex, Jonsey, and Mary seek to find Castle Frankenstein, but find they are competing with a man who can become invisible, who apparently is part of an evil occult organization…. and a little mad. During the source of that movie, it’s revealed some of Doctor Frankenstein’s reagents for creating life came from a lost Black Lagoon, and Frankenstein had sent Igor on an expedition there to gather more materials just days before the villagers stormed his castle, which is why Igor wasn’t around when that happened. There’s no note saying if Igor ever came back…
As the Shared Universe expands, I can get Wolfman, the Phantom of the Opera, and even the Hunchback into this if the first few are successful. The original characters from The Mummy (1999) as occasional support characters. Like, if the Invisible Man’s formula turns out to need blood of an ifrit of the djinn, who are naturally invisible, one of the movies can include a backup appearance by Oded Fehr as Ardeth Bay. And, of course, we can bring in elements from Mary and (rightholders willing) Jonsey’s families as well.
Both heroes and villains expand their plans, form allies, and build toward the end of the first story arc, a final showdown with Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, and the Woflman. But even that is only the FIRST story arc…
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Axes & Arcana, a Fiction Intro Snippet
I wrote this more than a decade ago. This is all there is of it– no outline, no list of names or plot points. Just the beginning of an introductory scene, likely to be incomplete forever, hanging as insecurely as the character in it.
ONE
The sound of rain splattering on the floor of the chamber was rudely interrupted by the loud clang of a three-tined metal hook bouncing through a hole in the ceiling. The hook swung on the end of a knotted rope, dancing mid-air as the rope jerked and swayed. Then the rope disappeared back up through the hole, the hook traveling with it. The hook rang like a bell as it popped back past the edge of the gap it had come through, and disappeared up into the rainy night beyond. For long moment, the chamber was again filled only with the sounds of rain falling down through the same rough opening in the stone roof, to patter against the worn tiled floor. The water pooled, then meandered like a snake in a thin, dirty stream that weaved past rusting helmets and yellowed bones strewn across the old tile floor, until it flowed with a quiet gurgle down a rock ramp corridor that exited the chamber. Even when lightning flashed its harsh brightness through the hole in the ceiling, followed seconds later by thunder, the light did nothing to illuminate the dark corridor, or show the stream’s final destination.
The metal hook banged across the rock at the top of the hole, without falling in, and was again dragged away. A muffled curse, invoking gods too dead or imaginary to be offended, echoed into the chamber and then the hook came flying into the old stone room once more. This time when the knotted rope was pulled back, a single tine of the hook caught on the lower edge of the ceiling’s hole, and the rope was tightened against it. And then, the chamber was again filled with only the gentle patter and gurgle of the rainwater.
Before long, cursing could again be distantly heard thought the ceiling’s opening. Though closer and louder than before it was no more imaginative, mostly focusing on improbably sexual positions and the dubious heritage of the architects who had chosen to build the chamber, and the complex it served as entrance to, so high in the mountains. Had the architects been around to hear such speculation they would have been filled with rage, and likely summoned demons and spectral horrors to strike down the blasphemers. But not only were they all long dead, the moldering remains of several of them actually lay in the damp room, their impotent bones scattered and once-rich garments turned to tattered rags. The architects had claimed that even in death they would defend the chamber, but their complete lack of action gave lie to the ancient pledge.
More than half an hour after the hook had first banged its way into the chamber, a second knotted rope was slowly lowered through the rain-filled air from the gap in the massive stone slab that served as the room’s ceiling, its lower end coiling neatly on the wet floor. A thin, nimble figure was silhouetted in the gap of the ceiling as lighting and thunder flashed across the sky above, and then his pale, exposed body slid down the second rope. He was breathing heavily and might have been sweating, though the rains lightly pelting him made it impossible to know for certain. He had a strip of cloth wrapped around his groin and another above his eyes, and leather straps protecting his palms and feet, but was otherwise unclad. He slipped easily down the rope, letting his feet and hands slide nimbly over the rope’s knots. While still a score of feet above the ground, he paused on the rope and spoke softly. The words were sibilant, soft, and yet seemed filled with great value, as if he was whispering something terrible and important.
“Feis’ithifv.”
As the sounds — never designed for human lips — slipped away in a hush, a blue mote of light formed in the air beside the thin man. The mote drifted down below him, to bounce gently off the pooling water on the floor – though it created no ripples. The man watched it roll for a few feet, then come to a stop. It was little more than a single candle’s worth of light, and he had to peer through the rainfall still all around him, but he rushed nothing. Every inch of the corridor he examined from his perch on the rope, taking note of the water trickling out the only exit, the bones and armor, the cracked altar against one wall, and the smashed statue against another.
PATREON
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They Killed Me, Again, Today
They killed me again, today.
I suppose I should be used to it by now. I mean, anytime anyone comes to the old carnival grounds, or the camp and lake next door, it always ends up with me getting killed again.
I mean, yes, the first time was legitimately surprising. I put on the dead firefighter’s gas mask and coat to help get those campers out of the burning building, not hurt them. But I guess when you catch on fire, roll around in plastic tarps to put it out, and get covered in patchy molten tarp cloth, you look a little scary.
Especially when you have a 4-foot long flaming bill hook hedge cutter in your hand.
So, sure. I get that they thought I was a vengeful spirit come to drag them to hell. I don’t think they needed to wrap a chain around me, hook it to a pickup truck, drive to the lake and jump out just as it went off the dock, so I was pulled underwater and drowned in brackish muck, but at least I get it.
And I guess if you are dumb enough to run an illegal underground carnival and blare intentionally Satanic lyric over the loudspeakers, and that actually DOES raise a vengeful spirit in the form of one wet dude with a patchy coat, mask, and flaming bill hook, you might decide to “douse its hellfire” before discovering I was vengeful about poor OSHA compliance from the original carnival’s corporate owners. I still think dumping the illegally-stored tanks of liquid nitrogen on me was taking it a bit far, though.
So I confess, when one of the things stored in the liquid nitrogen turned out to be a human regeneration formula that brought me back as an infectious zombie… rotting flesh visible through the broken gas mask (but still with the same patchwork coat and flaming bill hook — Black and Decker, man, it’s a quality brand), I was pretty sure it was going to go badly for me. So, yes, I lurked a bit as the urban explorers took pictures of my stomping grounds. I didn’t want to get frozen or drowned again! But when I saw they had mobile phones, I did try to ask them to call for help!
Turns out, enunciation is tricky with a rotting, burned, flash-dried tongue.
No drowning, at least. Getting fed into a wood chipper, mixed with mulch, and spread over the baseball field was hellishly painful, especially since as a regenerating mutant undead spirit of vengeance I was still aware the whole time, but at least I was outside. Some nights it was quite nice.
I DO feel bad for terrorizing people when that freak storm dropped a phone line onto the field and I was sucked into cyberspace and tried to kill people using the internet. But what can I say, it was the 1990s, and netiquette for horror monsters wasn’t really codified yet.
And then there was the seance, being reverse-possessed by the brother of my first “victim,” the attempt to recreate the regeneration serum by cloning me, turning out not have been killed but just in hibernation for 7 years while digesting a guy’s liver, the SECOND clone of me, the group of multi-denominational priests who summoned me just so they could destroy me “once and for all,” the alien parasite…
I gotta be honest, even I am not sure I didn’t hallucinate that last one.
So when I reformed from a single drop of my original burning blood and found a mock-up of my original mask and coat in the roadside attraction based on my exploits (but with the SAME bill hook — *man* those people can make gardening tools!), I should have know that moving away from everyone and everything wasn’t going to be enough.
At least someone ought to be able to make a cool movie out of all that cell phone footage those kids got of me and themselves before the fungus that grows on my mutant undead body turned them all into homicidal killers and they did each other in.
And chained me to a bigger truck, and drove me into a bigger lake.
The Next Last Stand
The “Next Last Stand” is a campaign idea, which spawned a bit of fiction. Both are presented below.
Campaign Idea: “The Next Last Stand”
You build a character explicitly to begin with a scene where you died heroically, delaying enemy forces in a last stand that achieves greatness, even though your death is inevitable.
Encounter 2 is with the rogue Valkyrie who recruits you, in death, to join the Verloren, the “Lost Troops” who are the only hope for staving off a planar apocalypse.
Fiction: Last Stand of Knight’s Bridge
“Stay calm! If you can’t carry it, set it aside. Do not block the path! Move, quickly.”
Valaina’s voice was ragged, the warning harsher in her throat the fiftieth time than it had been when she first shouted it an hour ago. There were still refugees streaming past her, rushing out of Arches Square and the roads that ran into Oldstep and the Tanner’s Town. But the numbers were far fewer, and she realized with a shock most of those running toward the Knight’s Bridge now were truly carrying only small bundles, and several showed smoke stains on their clothes.
And a few had wounds.
She turned to her cohort and waved to indicate they should keep directing people to move over the bridge, toward the relative safety of Aldenear Citadel.
Her eyes scanned for, and quickly spotted, a lanky blue-skinned lad in a hauberk, carrying a massive plate of wood and steal over his shoulder and guarding the closest avenue from Oldstep.
“Sinjin!”He turned at the sound of her voice. “How close is the main force?”
The lean orc armiger set his bulwark shield against the corner of the lesser Knight Bridge tower, and nimbly climbed up its tightly-fit stone side as if it was a ladder, the weight of his armor and toolkits slowing him down not one bit. Once he reached the peaked roof he braced a leg and swing out like the lookout in a ship’s rigging, barely hanging on to the tower with one hand and using the other to shade his eyes from the flashing light of magebolts streaking back and forth across the skies.
His face looked paler than usual, but his voice was calm and strong.
“They’re marching through Oldstep now, lady. They could rush us in ten minutes, or a tad less, if they rushed us. But are clearing every arch and building.” He paused, then looked down at her. “There won’t be many more fleeing to use from there, m’lady.”
Valaina nodded and waved him down—his keen eyesight, and it’s ability to cut through smoke and haze, were worth the risk of running him up high once, but she’d not leave him there to be a target for mage or sling-stone.
Besides, she was going to need him soon.
She marched calmly to where the Tower Guard were holding the line onto the bridge proper, and maneuvered herself next to Guard Kinnon, the watch commander, and Elder Berett, though the “elder” was no more than twenty summers old, and the bands of mastery on his robe cuffs had been roughly stitched in place just hours earlier.
“Liegemen, it’s time to prepare the withdrawal. The enemy is nearly upon us. We’ll want to give people every change to make it to Aldenear, but once the enemy is here it’ll be too late to begin to fall back. We need ordered lines, and warn the yeomen some folk aren’t going to make it. We can’t let that break the formation.”
Kinnon nodded and turned to begin giving orders, but Berett put a hand on the guard’s shoulder.
“Can’t we redirect refugees to go around the moat and killing field? Rush through the city to the farther gates? The enemy is just coming up this one direction, so far, so surely some of them could enter Aldenear from the harbor-side? I know they won’t all make it, but…”
Before Valiana could speak, Kinnon shook his head and cut Berett off.
“Once the enemy forces take the Knight’s Bridge, the citadel will have to close the curtainwall gates. And the bridges—ALL the bridges—will be brought down by sappers. Those fleeing from the far side will be cut off as well, with little warning. Otherwise the moat and killing field won’t serve their purpose.” Kinnon waited a moment, staring into Berett’s eyes to see that the young Elder had understood, the turned and walked to his men, leaving Berett’s hand hovering mid-air.”
Berett turned to Valaina, his eyes wide.
“M’Lady, most of the city will be fleeing through the far gates. There are far more neighborhoods with access to the Queen’s Gate and Harbor Gate. If those are closed and their bridges destroyed as the enemy takes Knight’s Tower…”
Valaina nodded, grimly.
“You’re right Elder, but there’s nothing to be done for it. It’d take hours to evacuate the city, and it’s not time we have. Once the bridges come down, any remaining cityfolk will have to flee into the fields. They’ll have no walls, but the invaders can’t sweep the surrounding lands thoroughly until the citadel is taken.”
A hint of desperation came into Berett’s voice.
“My lady, they have necrothurges! Every death will swell their ranks. Which means every minute we buy here not only saves our own, it robs them of more troops. If we hold the Knight’s Bridge Towers, even briefly, we buy the city more time to flee through the far gates.”
Valaina shook her head. She nodded to the assembled guard, who were nearly in formation preparing to move slowly back from the two Knight’s Gate Towers. Only a trickle of refugees fled past them now.
“If we hold, all who stay here are lost. There will be no relief for us, and the oncoming forced will overwhelm us. I cannot ask the yeoman guard to die here, they will be needed on the citadel’s walls soon. And my cohort alone cannot stave off this advance As you note, they have necrothurges. Without a warder…”
“I’m a warder.” Berett voice was calm, for this first time since he had arrived at the towers.”
“Elder…” Valaina began gently.
Berett shook his head. “I don’t mean I am a warder because I am an Elder. I know these” he waved vaguely at the bands on the end of robe’s sleeves, “are a measure of desperation. But I am a trained warder, lady. I came up through the Siege and Fortifications college of the House of Abjuration. Put me in a tower,” he nodded at the greater Knight’s Bridge Tower, “and I can screen a unit of two score or more against all hexes and maledictions. I swear it.”
Valaina looked at her cohort. Nine squires, each lacking only patrons and experience from being full knights. Ten armigers, each with a massive bulwark shield. They could span the gap between towers, but…
“We haven’t the support, Berett. We’d need lancers, crossbows in the towers…”
Berett, very much looking an Elder for the first time, turned to the assembled guard formation.
“Who among you yeoman have family on the far side of the city?”
Half the assembled guards raised their weapons, spears and crossbows held high.
“How many will give their lives to buy those families more time to flee to Aldenear?”
Not a single weapon lowered.
Berett turned back to Valaina. “Thirty, maybe forty defenders lost here. To prevent hundreds or thousands from becoming soldiers for the Adversary. Tactically, a good trade.”
Sinjin had come up beside Valaina, and when she glanced at him, he nodded, almost imperceptibly.
A distant scream echoed up from the streets of Oldstep, but was cut short.
Valaina nodded.
“We are guided by your wisdom Elder. Kinnon!” The guard commander turned from his formation. “Ten lancers, ten crossbowyers, volunteers only. Those without families and older than thirty take precedence. Then get across that bridge immediately, and beyond the curtainwall. No lingering, not for anything!”
Kinnon began selecting men and women with their weapons raised, and dressing the line to fill the gaps.
“Sinjin, set the armigers. Bulwarks down, one swordsman behind each, one lancer behind that. Also one at each tower door. Elder?”
Sinjin rushed off, and Berett looked at her.
“Take the crossbowyers. Six to your tower, and they guard you above all else. Four to the other tower. As long as you ward us, we’ll hold.”
Eyes wet, Elder Berett nodded, and hurried over the the gathered crossbow-armed guards. Kinnon’s remaining unit was already falling back, and a single old man with a ragged bundle–fat cat sitting atop it–was scurrying up to rush with them across the bridge.
Valaina marched over to her position, the center of the line of defenders, behind Sinjin.
“WE HOLD.”
From the streets into Oldstep, a shambling figure staggered forth. It was dirty, and hunched, missing most of its face and part of its left arm.
Behind it, were many more.
Sinjin’s strong voice bellowed, and he drew a hatchet and braced his massive bulwark.
“ALL TOGETHER, IN THIS LIFE AND THE NEXT!”
.
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Short Fiction: “Carry a Torch Song ” (Sorcerers & Speakeasies)
CARRY A TORCH SONG
(A Sorcerers & Speakeasies short story)
Felspethe moved silently from her office to the interior balcony overlooking the main room, her form concealed in the dark shadows the balcony’s drapes cast from the stage lights hanging just under it. It was a good crowd, tonight. Mostly human, as you’d expect on a Saturday night at an upscale place like the Annwyn Avalon, but with a smattering of feybloods, dworrowfolk, sidhe, and one small block of uroks. She saw with approval that Tam-Tam, the night’s floor manager, was lounging in apparent boredom between the uroks and the nearest humans. It was unlikely anyone would dare bare iron in her club, but it was better if Tam-Tam could calm tensions before they got anywhere near that far if someone had too much to drink.
Or smoke. Or snort.
Her Court was similarly alert, if lazily so. Their dull yellow beaks and dark feathers were nearly invisible in the rafters, up at her balcony’s level, though from time to time a rook or jackdaw would flutter from one beam to another, and sometimes a patron would look up. The larger crows and ravens were much quieter, content to sit in spots picked out before she opened her doors. If they took wing tonight, it would be at her command alone.
One of the largest ravens, nearly three feet from tip of razor-sharp beak to end of it’s tailfeathers, was sitting on the railing of her balcony. It had ignored her when she walked out, but turned it’s head now to regard her with one shiny black eye.
Felspethe smiles. “What catches your attention tonight, Valgrn?”
The corvid’s voice was quiet and deep, very much at odds with its appearance.
“Captain Auburn is back.”
Felspethe raised a long, delicate eyebrow, and scanned the room more carefully. To her annoyance, she couldn’t spot the brazen-headed police agent who should have stood out like a pumpkin in a potato patch.
“Where?” She kept her voice calm — no reason to ruffle the Court.
Valgrn tilted his head and leaned, jutting his beak forward. “There. Standing by the maquette.”
Felspethe’s eyes jumped back to a point they had just slid over, a small roped-off alcove which featured a terracotta statue of a lithe elven figure in clothes a century out of fashion, its face a near match for Felspethe’s own. And sure enough, there was Captain Urielle Auburn, in the smart pinstripe suit that functioned as her uniform nowadays. And, as always, her enruned rifle Killfire was neatly slung over her back, in a well-maintained but obviously military shoulder sheath. The captain’s eyes were boring a whole across the club, though Felspethe didn’t bother to see what she was looking at yet.
Flespethe’s heart fluttered a little, which was almost as annoying as not being able to spot Auburn on her own. She wanted to be annoyed about the rifle, but couldn’t generate any heat behind the feeling. The Annwyn Avalon forbade weapons, but she knew perfectly well a quarter of her patrons concealed some derringer or stiletto. And Auburn could likely flash a badge, or a note from the mayor, and insist on bringing Killfire in anyway.
But most police would have brought something more subtle. It was just so like Urielle to insist on being obvious about it. A smile crept onto the corner of Felspethe’s lips, and it took conscious effort to suppress it.
“Do we know why she’s here?”
Again, Valgrn pointed with his beak, the line of his gesture crossing the steely gaze of Captain Auburn at the location of one of her VIP tables, where a circle of patrons in suits that each cost more than her monthly payroll sat and laughed loudly. The largest of the group was Beula “Breakbone” Jotkin, an ogreblooded uruk famous for being able to punch through brick. No one in the club would want to trade blows with the big enforcer… except Auburn, of course.
But the greater threat was a small man sitting next to Breakbone, and almost certainly paying for her meal. Pleasantly plump, balding and gray-haired, Fodrick Freeburner was the unquestioned head of the Weefolk Beneficent Society… known on the streets as the Halfling Mob. He was an almost cherublike figure, with sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks, who played “Little Father Christmas” in the city’s Yule parade every year.
He was also, Felspethe knew, a merciless criminal mastermind, and a potent necromancer.
She found her mouth suddenly quite dry. If Auburn was here for Freeburner…
“What can you see in the farther branches, my knight?”
As she stroked Valgrn’s feathers, his eyes went from glossy to flat black, as he looked beyond where she could see.
His voice was barely a whisper. “Captain Auburn hunts a killer. She believes it to be Aussker Crackkettle, a minor numbers-runner for Freeburner. Freeburner has kept Crackkettle hidden. She is here to remind him she has gone to war. True war. And that if she does so again, it will not go well for him.”
“And here, tonight?” Felspethe held her breath.
“Captain Auburn will begin no war in your lands. But if Freeburner senses advantage, he may unleash Breakbone upon the captain.”
Valgrn’s eyes regained their normal gleam.
“It is unlikely Freeburner would risk it. But not impossible.”
Felspethe knew the future was too shadowy to ever be sure of anything, and Valgrn had certainly earned her trust with his predictions. But she needed to push the chance of a street war breaking out here, tonight, well into the “impossible” category. And to do that, she needed to make Freeburner wonder if she and her Court would side with him, or Urielle, should blood be spilled. But at the same time, she had to do so in such a way he didn’t perceive it as a threat. She couldn’t operate without his tacit approval.
But she also could not allow Auburn to fight alone. Not again.
“The Captain’s unit in the War, the Stormguard. What was their color song?”
Vagrn’s beak could not smile. Yet, the humor was clear on his face.
“March of Cambreadth. Shall I signal the stage chief to ready for you to perform?”
Felspethe allowed the smile this time. “Indeed. One song, to honor the war hero among us. No one could blame me for that, could they?”
She glanced down again, and was startled to see Urielle looking up at her. She should be invisible here in her balcony, but their eyes locked. Urielle nodded once. And… was that a hint of a smile of her own ?”
Felspethe’s heart pounded but she kept enough composure to simply nod in return, and let her smile bloom to its full glory. Urielle’s eyes widened briefly, and then she looked away quickly.
Felspethe felt the emotions that fueled her mortal form more than food, air, or lifeblood boiling within her. Rather than fight them down, she began to let them coil, where she could access them as needed. This song, this one rare song from the owner of the Annwyn Avalon, would be enough to make anyone considering crossing her pause.
And if it didn’t? Well, Felspethe was sure Urilee Auburn and Killfire would not let her and her court fight alone.
PATREON
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Thoughts on Introductory Game Fiction vs game Tie-In Fiction
You can set the tone for an RPG, from an entire game system to a single adventure, with bits of short fiction. The purpose of this fiction isn’t really the same as fiction that exists only for its own sake. You need to introduce a world and show some of the ways it can be used, as much as entertain with prose.
That’s subtle different from game tie-in fiction. God tie-in fiction does work entirely on its own, and may even take liberties with what game rules could handle in order to present a story set in the same world as a game. It’s a balancing act, but the best tie-in fiction tends to be a good story first, and a faithful representation of a game later. (And this is fair – lots of games made as tie-in to fiction are imperfect representations of those fictional worlds. When you change the format, you accept some alteration in the details.)
For example, I’ve been experimenting with what fiction set in the Really Wild West would look like. I’ve done short introduction fiction for some of the RWW pieces, but am thinking I might take a different approach if I wanted to do my own tie-in fiction.
I haven’t had time to write a complete Really Wild West long-form story, but I have written the first scene of one.
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE RUSTY
The air was dense with smoke and ash, burning Skaff’s throat as he sucked desperately through the bandanna held to his mouth. His eyes watered but he dared not shut them, glaring deep into the smoke as he ran. The clouds of thick gray ash and cinders were painful, burning his cheeks and hands, but it was infinitely preferable to the oily black vapor that would surely be crawling through the town’s streets by now. Choking, even burning, was a less fearful fate than the horrors he had seen visited on those who had been exposed even briefly to the black gas.
A loud roar, part steam horn and part animal howl, bellowed through town. Even over the screaming of panicked citizens he could not see through the conflagration, the roar was clear and chilling. He felt the need to run from that sound as quickly as possible, but it seemed to come from all directions at once. As its echoes faded, a similar sound rang in the distance. He was unsure how far away the source of the more remote roar could be—a mile?—less?—but he knew it was not far enough. The distant roar seemed to come primarily from the east and so he turned west, the direction only discernible because the low setting sun made one section of smoke glow more than the rest.
A woman crashed into him, running in blind panic, and clawed at his coat. She was tall and thin, with the fine features and sharp ears of an elf, but her face showed none of the serenity Skaff associated with the European clade. Before he could react to her at all, though he knew not if he hoped to aid the woman or shove her away, the elven interloper cried out and dashed out of sight into the smoke. She left a wet sensation on Skaff’s shirt, which he briefly hoped was water, perhaps a result of the woman trying to protect herself from the flames. But the strong smell of iron, wafting up even through smoke and bandana, told him the truth. He was covered in another person’s blood, soaked through her clothing to thoroughly that one impact had splashed it on him. It was a sure sign black gas was nearby. That woman, though running, was already dead. She just had the worst parts of experiencing her end yet to come.
Skaff tried to angle his retreat to move both westward, and away from the direction he thought the unfortunate blood-cover woman had come from. He could no longer see clearly from his left eye, and the stinging in his right forced him to close it even as he desperately fought to keep looking for deadly vapors. Shapes in the ash were vague, and he could only guess at their clades. A human, one of the insectile chivvin, the jerky motions of an automaton. A figure that was a centaur, or a mounted rider, thundered past. Suddenly, in a flash of crimson light and wave of heat, the horselike figure burst into flames, turning to charcoal before it could even fall to the ground.
And then, the dull glow of dusk was blocked from above.
The shape concealing the sun was vast, looming far above him. Even through the smoke its basic form was obvious, three long legs stretching up from the ground supporting a huge disk which writhed with undulating tentacles. Screams echoed down from the top of the shape, and Skaff stopped dead in his tracks. Hot drops of red fell on his face, like hellish rain, and he could taste that they were blood. One of the massive tripod legs lifted and swung forward, smashing some unseen building of brick and glass in the process. A stone struck Skaff, driving him to the dusty street, and the sky further darkened as the leg fell toward him.
Skaff woke screaming.
All around him it was dark, and for a long panicked moment he didn’t know where he was. Instinctively he scrambled backwards, fighting some wet shape that enwrapped him, tangling him and holding him tightly. Then he was falling. He thought he was falling from a great height, but he dropped just a short distance onto a hard, cold floor.
It was the chill air, as he dragged it into his aching throat, that made him realize he wasn’t in the smoke anymore. He wasn’t in that town. The tripod hadn’t crushed him, by the narrowest margin.
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Owen K.C. Stephens 