Careless Whispers

For my Curse of Strahd run, I'm recording terrible things to whisper to each of the characters based on their chosen backgrounds, flaws, etc.

Maybe they will come up during a fortune reading; maybe whispered by a fragment of a barely remembered god from beyond time and space; maybe it appears on a slip of paper pinned to a tree by a dagger.

What I wish I knew how to do easily is formulate terrible, Dread- or Apocalypse World-style leading questions.


Other thoughts:

There is a problematic element identified in the "Curse of Strahd" adventure: "mongrelfolk." I'm opting to rename them as "broken ones", but there are elements of their existence in the setting which I am finding hard to reframe.

The broken ones, in Ravenloft, are specifically one degenerate family, the Belviews: a degenerate community of lepers and worse (echoes of Dunwich, Lovecraft country) who lucked out when an angel visiting the land decided to cure them of all diseases. Unfortunately, this didn't fix the consequences of generations of inbreeding, and when the angel set about to try and fix that, too, the Belviews said they wanted animal traits, so they could be better than normal people. The angel, in his pity, indulged their request, and began conducting horrendous magical experiments which ultimately jumbled the Belviews into random assortments of beast traits.

These first-generation broken ones can theoretically be restored magically to their original (albeit inbred) human forms. However, the setting indicates that they also breed true somehow, and later-generation broken ones essentially can't be restored to any semblance of normality.

The setting depicts them all as being more or less infirm of mind, so the angel has locked most of them up, Bedlam-style, where they are mistreated by the few functional broken ones entrusted with their care.

What the setting doesn't seem to do is have any sort of salvation for the Belviews.

It also doesn't establish whether or not the Belviews fall under the "souls v. shells" proviso (by which 9 out of 10 humans in the setting are mirthless, irritable shells of people with no souls, who cannot sustain a vampire's thirst and are immediately detectable as such by vampires - also, death is no escape, as no souls can leave Ravenloft, and are instead reincarnated after a few decades).

So... are the Belviews a colony of mostly shells?

Are there any with actual souls, and if so, are the merely functional, or do they have the capacity for grace?

Are they what happens when a community just keeps begetting shells and shells, with no soul-bearing progeny?


Some thoughts on redeeming this element of the setting:

Is it at all possible that the corrupt angel's ministrations are bringing new souls into Ravenloft when these broken ones have children? Could they be a new vector of souls that can get slotted into the pool of reincarnated souls which cannot escape? This may be good for vampires in the setting, but is it drawing these souls from somewhere else? Would that absence be felt, and would something start investigating?

Can the broken ones be reviled for their appearance, but instead of being all infirm of mind and incapable of living in society, could they instead be useful or industrious in some way? Waiting for someone to disrupt the cycle of revulsion and help integrate them anew into Barovian society?

Part of the setting is that the angel's continued failures with the Belview family has ultimately corrupted him, so making the Belviews redeemable feels like it would take away from that element: that Ravenloft is so bad, and Strahd so manipulative, that even an angel gets its wings soiled and drawn into the swamp

Should there be/can there be any hope for the broken ones? I can do what I can to remove the racist baggage that "mongrel" brings, but the broken ones are still an isolated community of inbred degenerates (like other fiction would set in the American Appalachians) which are essentially irredeemable and anathema to civilization, even with magical help.

Maybe a sacrifice is in order... maybe if the angel can be convinced to sacrifice itself for the Belviews, it can end its suffering, and bestow the Belviews with a better chance of integrating into society?


During a discussion on Google Plus, a friend suggested that we break up the continuous slog of bleakness by making the broken ones more or less "pure" souls, relatively untainted by the curse of Ravenloft, and to make the Abbey-cum-sanitarium a legitimately comforting (albeit alien) place where the weakest of the Belviews are fostered by the Angel. I would need to work to weave that back in with the established corruption of the angel's nature and its tragic attempts to redeem the land by finding a way to placate Strahd's terrible and cursed obsession with Tatyana.

"Curse of Strahd", Episode 2

Our heroes are confronted with Count Strahd von Zarovich, who has ridden up in a black carriage and stepped out to address the group. His shadow toys with theirs as the Count plays the kind host. As he speaks, one by one, his keen eye falls on each of the four adventurers, even the arcane trickster hiding by the roadside. His gaze lingers longest on the gigantic young man - the barbarian folk hero - whose muscular frame is coupled with a charming innocence and, presumably, a pliable will.

Strahd presents his one rule: his beloved Tatyana is not to be touched. The adventurers, normally prone to sassy backtalk, take the opportunity to pump the vampire lord for information: "how are we to recognize your beloved and avoid her?" Rhapsodic, Strahd enumerates her beauty, while his gold-gowned consort in the carriage shifts uncomfortably, clearly distressed. The adventurers ask about the missing children, and Strahd admits knowing nothing. The group manages to connect the crest on Strahd's carriage to the crest on the liveries of the zombies they had just killed and pulled to the side of the road, and mentally prepare for the consequences of killing what must be some of Strahd's guards.

But the hammer never falls. Strahd bids them adieu and steps back into his carriage; the dour elf driving the carriage coaxes the horses around the party and swings the carriage back onto the road before heading back towards town. A raven alights on a nearby branch, and the trickster, resentful of authority, and assuming the raven to be an eye of Strahd's, looses an arrow in its direction, hitting the mark squarely. The wounded raven flies off, the arrow sticking awkwardly through its torso, and the adventurers mentally prepare for that, too, to become a problem for them later.

The adventurers, having survived the encounter, continue towards what they hope is a town. Soon the four espy a stranger rider coming their way, threading in and out of the treeline. This skeletal rider on a skeletal horse looks for a way out of the mist, its soul doomed forever to remain in Ravenloft. The Kelemvorite priest knows better than to wait for such an undead abomination to attack, and waits until it is in range to strike. A small black book falls out of the horses's pack as the pair continue to thread through the treeline. The priest, his foe in range, lands the first blow with a scythe of pure faith guided by his will. The storm sorcerer and the barbarian engage as well, and the rider is quickly defeated. The barbarian hopes to maybe tame the skeletal horse, but the priest is not sparing any undead today, and it, too, falls under the party's might and magic. The trickster, having snuck over to the dropped book, picks it up, opening its pages to find the rantings of a trapped soul, which quickly begin evaporating from the pages until the book is entirely blank.

The group continues onward, finding a dead body by the side of the road, torn by wolves: they are able to establish that it is not Tatyana based on Strahd's eloquent description. They remove a satin choker with a brass butterfly pendant: the only real clue as to her identity. The group, weary from having traveled all night, nevertheless bury the poor woman, leaving her pendant on a stick marking her grave (which the trickster swipes as soon as they start to leave). They continue on as the night slowly gives way to an overcast dawn.

They eventually reach the massive wall and gate into Barovia proper, fifty-foot walls buttressed by gigantic statues depicting knights in armor, their heads fallen into the weeds and roots below. The gate, rusty and dew-pocked, opens at their approach, and closes fast behind them as they continue through the tight, choking forest. A sharp stench of something dead beckons from the forest, but the crew is in no mood to chase down trouble, so they continue on, heedless of the dire warning that the dead body would have borne them. As the forest breaks into grasslands, a crystal river glitters a mile to the south, so the adventurers stride to its shores to refresh themselves and refill their waterskins. They hike back to the road and continue to a fog-shrouded village: Brovia.

As they reach the town's outer limits, they hear the crying of a woman from a nearby house. Suddenly, a broken arrow falls from the sky, as a familiar raven flies overhead and alights on a nearby rooftop, eyeing the group. As the trickster picks up his arrow, soaked with dried blood, the raven spreads its wings and taps the roof to make it clear that it knew what it was doing. The cleric, trained in some basic wizardry, magically mends the arrow, which the trickster returns to his quiver. Unsure what to do about the raven, they continue into town, to find the barricaded house from which the woman's crying is pouring. They let themselves in and find a commoner upstairs, cradling an uncomely doll and bemoaning her lost daughter, Gertruda. The group approaches gently and asks her what is the matter, and she explains that she had locked her daughter up in the house for years to protect her from that devil, Strahd, but innocent Gertruda broke out last week, and hasn't been seen since. Mary, the grieving mother, knows the devil has been whispering to her daughter through the boarded windows. The group manages to establish that Gertrude, too, is not a match for the Tatyana that Strahd described, and eventually leave the woman to her grief. The folk hero is the last to leave, conflicted about whether to comfort her or leave to save the missing children from his hometown.

The raven more or less leads the group to the center of town, as the morning-lit square begins to fill with Barovia's taciturn and glum villagers, starting their day. Slack-jawed, unexpressive, and somber, the villagers stop to stare at the newcomers, their clothing a muted tragedy of earthtones. One solitary baker out delivering bread – wearing a rich red vest, in stark contrast to the other villagers – gives them a friendly wave as he continues to his deliveries. Though the cleric knows of the Vistani and their language, he is unable to ascertain by sight whether the solitary cheerful fellow is one of that family. The raven beckons them to a tavern, The Blood on the Thorn, and they enter.

Immediately, they take in the measure of this once well-appointed tavern, now in disarray as of years of neglect. A silent, stocky barkeep solemnly polishes glasses; a trio of Vistani keep to themselves at a table, while a green-clad blonde fellow beckons the group of newcomers over to his table. Buying them a round of wine, the man introduces himself as Ismark the Lesser, then inadvertently alludes to his father's recent death. Having bought a round for the group, Ismark asks for their help with a problem: his adopted sister Ireena is in danger, and they may be able to help. The cleric immediately agrees, followed eventually by the rest of the group.

After finishing their wine, and a small breakfast of beet soup and bread, the four newcomers join Ismark and head to the mansion of Ismark Kolyanovich, their father, the deceased burgomaster of the town. The gate is barely hanging, the fence is torn and twisted, and the overgrown and neglected yard is matted and trampled at the base of the house, where hundreds of human and wolf tracks tell of a house constantly under siege, as do the myriad burn marks on the walls and the barricaded windows, from which shines not one single pane of glass. Ismark calls to Ireena to open the barricaded door, and after some deliberation, she does. The group sees a tan woman, hazel of eye, with curly raven hair, matching Strahd's description of Tatyana, and as she leans out the door to check for danger, they espy two small pricks at the base of her neck.

SCENE

"Curse of Strahd", Episode 1

Finally ran Episode 1 of "Curse of Strahd" last night. After resolving remaining character questions and ability choices, here is what we have:

• Folk hero barbarian, a smith's apprentice; comically misuses words trying to seem smart. 
• Storm-pact Sorcerer, a charlatan, sarcastic, inappropriate; engaged to the folk hero's sister. 
• Kelemvorite Cleric of the Grave, bookishformer Chauntean cleric drawn to the veil between life and death, and his owl familiar Astrid. 
• Arcane Trickster with criminal ties and issues with authority. 

Each of them were residents of the town of Greenest, and proved themselves when the Cult of the Dragon attacked their town.

Still reeling from the Cult attack, the town is rebuilding, having lost almost all of its wealth to the cultists, and then the predatory bandits that fell on the town when it was vulnerable. Though a band of five heroes stood up for the town and destroyed the remaining vestiges of the Cult's infrastructure in the area, they had failed to return Greenest's stolen wealth, and after reporting back in, they disappeared completely. Some of the more cynical townsfolk wonder if the adventurers kept the riches looted from Greenest to retire somewhere.

The governor's seneschal finds that several children have gone missing in the past few days, and rounds up his irregulars to investigate. The Trickster is approached by his contact, who notes that this string of disappearances matches something that happened five years ago in Daggerford, and gives a description of the suspect in case they find him.

The four manage to talk a wagon out of the seneschal, citing the possibility of having to carry multiple children home; they were awarded a wagon that had been seized in a recent criminal investigation, but was currently befouled by a load of onions that had gone bad in the interim. They did their best to mitigate the smell, and rode off into the west following the tracks they hoped were correct.

Following the trail of children's footprints, adult footprints, and castoff waxy papers from an unusual taffy candy, the four draw got closer to the Wood of Sharp Teeth (coincidental name). Eventually a few of the trails become wolf tracks, and howling can be heard from the nearby forest. They leave the wagon behind and run/ride to the edge of the forest, where the barest echo of a child's scream draws them in. As they follow the tracks, howling coming from all sides, the fog drifted in, more and more dense, until they could barely see each other and their lights. The folk hero is quick to notice that the trees, fungus, moss, and the ground cover are all different somehow.

As the wolf howls echo in the distance, a lone raven call echoes from a new direction; the storm-pact sorcerer feels the slightest draw in that direction, so the group follows, ending up on a dank, soggy road flanked by dense, misty treelines. They follow the road, as the mist draws in behind them, closing off retreat. Soon, they come upon four disheveled people in dirty, torn livery, and before they get a chance to ask for directions, the Kelemvorite opens his eyes to the Veil, and though he is immediately choked by something inexplicable (it will eventually be revealed that even souls are trapped here in Ravenloft), he is instantly able to tell that the four liveried people are the walking dead.

As the group defends itself, an ornate black carriage drawn by two black horses comes upon them, piloted by a haughty elf coachman. As the last of the zombies fall, the coach parks across the road, its door disgorging an extremely wealthy and finely dressed man, pale of skin, with long raven hair.

"I am Count Strahd von Zarovich... welcome to Barovia."

CUT

My Fallout 4 Build, Part 1

The Milkman, an outfit I've been trying to perfect for Fallout 4.

I manage my Fallout 4 mods with Nexus Mod Manager, Currently, I have 256 Mods active, which map to 251 plugins. Some of these plugins are actually multiple plugins grouped together using FO4edit. It's a little messy when you look at the load order, but it means more room for other plugins.

Armor and Weapon Keywords Community Resource (AWKCR) is a good resource for a variety of other mods, and serves to support Crafting Workbenches (Craftable Weapons Armor Clothing Ammo Junk). 

Crafting Workbenches is what the modding community used to build weapons, armor, etc. in-game for much of Fallout 4's modding history, because we didn't have the Contraptions Workshop. Contraptions Workshop makes the process a little more "honest" maybe, but Crafting Workbenches was there when we needed it. And a lot of other mods include patches so that their items can be made at a workbench instead of just in the catch-all "Utility" section of the Chemistry Station.

Of the mods which click into Crafting Workbenches, Craftable Armor Size is pretty keen: it allows you to change pieces of armor from Light, to Sturdy, to Heavy, depending on your needs. A related mod, Custom Combat Armor (or Craftable Custom Combat Armor as it appears on my mod list) allows one to add paint jobs, textures, and other features, above and beyond the coloration that comes with each of the various armor options.

Worsin's Immersive Power Armor Garage provides 106 paint styles for all of the armors, with the added benefit of splitting the bonuses from the vanilla paint jobs. The paint jobs are shiny, as if the Lone Wanderer was decorating and maintaining their Power Armor suit(s) like cherry racing cars. It even supports Legendary Modifications, another mod I use, which allows one to apply one's own Legendary effects to weapons, armor, and even Power Armor pieces (and one can determine, during installation, how easy or hard that should be). The Power Armor Garage has been around for a long time, and though it hasn't been updated in awhile, it hasn't really needed it: the paint jobs from "Far Harbor" and "Contraptions Workshop" work just fine, and another modder was kind enough to patch the mod so that the Tesla Armor from "Automatron" also gets the paint options. But best of all, the Power Armor Garage lets you build up a special Advanced version of each type of Power Armor, that holds multiple enhancements for each piece. Repairing this is a challenge though: you have to craft component parts individually, as opposed to throwing Aluminum, Steel, Adhesive, etc. at the problem. The mod uses a lot of plugins, so I recently combined them in FO4edit to reduce the plugins count.

And now: radio mods. The fist mod I ever really installed was More Where That Came From, which bolstered the Diamond City playlist with another 111 songs. Note: this required the modders to curtail some of the DJ's song-specific commentary, so folks generally advise one to wait until one has heard all of Travis' patter for each song before loading this mod. "Skeeter!" Anyway, that stuff goes away, so do hold off.

Second up is Old World Radio - Boston, which has 21 stations, almost all of which have their own DJ (many of whom are impressions of celebrities, such as Bobcat Goldthwait, Morgan Freeman, and Christopher Walken). The DJs have their own stories and situations that they discuss between songs, and they are very entertaining. There's even a station with old nuclear war emergency training tapes.

Last but not least: WRVR, which expands on the existing WRVR locale, and adds an entertaining new companion, DJ Casey Kessler, fully voiced by the mod author. The station has some nice music, a stab at a radio play, and amusing commentary by the DJ. Still a WIP, but so are many other mods. This one is worthwhile in its current state.

And with that, I close for now. More mods later!

Gaming Music Update

I've updated my music organization schema! I also developed an Excel spreadsheet to help me more easily and consistently tag the MP3 files in my collection, for later searching and reference:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5aCjfAHYXoQYWk5YUhlN2tlTEk/edit?usp=sharing

(note: you will need to allow macros for this to run)

Here are the categories I use - you can modify or add your own if you download the spreadsheet:

Genre

fantasy

future

historical

horror

investigative

modern

pulp/steampunk

scifi

superhero

western

Dresden Files

Club

Dreaming

Nevernever

Summer Court

Winter Court

Locations

bar

boat

camping

castle

city

desert

dock

factory

ocean

outdoors

pub

ruin

rural

ship

snow

space

spaceship

suburban

tavern

urban

vehicle

Source

abyssal

alien

angelic

animal

beast

cars

demonic

magic

monster

people

pirate

radio

water

weather

wildlife Type action adventure ambient chase combat crowd environmental espionage long track military nautical pastoral quiet builds recreation religious social tribal warfare

Modifiers

dark

dreamscape

dreary

ethereal

gothy

hard

indie

jazzy

lively

lowlife

magic

melodious

music

new age

otherworlds

quiet

romantic

sinister

soft

somber

spooky

storm

tense

windy