Unreview: The Batman

Let’s start with the picture of me in a Batman costume when I was two years old. That would have been October, 1970. My grandmother made it for me. I’ve been through Adam West’s friendly neighborhood Batman, Denny O’Neil’s Detective, Frank Miller’s Dark Knight, Alan Moore’s Killing Joke, and even Scott Snyder’s Court of Owls. I’ve seen ’em all.

That’s because I love Batman. My Holy Trinity of Superheroes is Batman, Wonder Woman and Spider-Man. Those were the three I grew up with. The first comic books I ever owned. I still remember the covers and stories. I’ve seen them all change and adapt as different authors took them down different roads.

And it’s a good thing they change. Myths should change. They need to change. Mythology that doesn’t change becomes religion. And then, it dies. When its believers misinterpret mythological meaning for facts, you get dogma. Noah’s flood stops being a story about renewal and second chances and becomes a factual, historical event—despite all the evidence to the contrary. Mythology changing into religion.

Batman is a myth. If we cling too tightly to the myth, refusing change, he dies. He becomes religion.

Case in point. Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight was important to the history of not only Batman, but but comics in general. It established rules for Batman that exist to this day. The most important is the one that annoys me most: Batman is a psychopath who’s going to punch the world in the face until the world gives him his mommy and daddy back.

I’m so sick of this meme, but Miller planted it so deep, there’s no pulling up the roots. And if you try presenting any Batman who isn’t pathologically obsessed with revenge, it isn’t the “real” Batman.

(Yes, it’s revenge. Stop kidding yourself.)

I miss the detective Batman who solves mysteries. I miss the Batman who has a deep friendship with James Gordon. More than just a professional relationship, I’m talking about a friendship. I miss a Batman who isn’t just punching the poor and mentally ill in the face while ignoring that real corruption comes from above. That’s what I miss.

So, when I saw the trailers for The Batman, I did not have high expectations. From all the marketing, I expected an edgelord Batman who would say mean, scary things and kick the crap out of poor people just struggling to survive in the Worst. City. In. The. World. That’s what all the marketing told me. Like I said, not high expectations.

But then a friend of mine suggested I check out the new Planet of the Apes trilogy. When I asked why, he said, “Just do it.” I noticed that the director on the second and third films was also the director for The Batman. Okay. Let’s give those a try.

Like Batman, I was a huge Planet of the Apes fan. I had toys. Watched all the movies. Watched the animated series. Watched the live action series. Big fan. Again, I did not have high hopes for the films. After all, what new can you do with Planet of the Ap—

—oh shit. This is good.

No, not good. Holy shit. This is amazing. This is…

This is the hero’s journey. Big, mythic, grand, and beautiful. This isn’t a plot-driven mess of special effects, this is a series of movies that took the meaning of the originals, twisted it, re-shaped it and presented it as something completely new.

This is a New Myth.

After watching all three movies overnight (literally last night), I suddenly had hopes for The Batman.

I sat down in the theater (with only six other people in the seats) and waited for the lights to go down. I started with my seat reclined. By the end of the movie, I had changed the seating and was leaning forward. I hadn’t even realized I’d done it.

Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson did everything I’ve wanted to do with Batman. Everything I hoped someone would do with him.

First, they ditched that dogma about “Bruce Wayne is Batman’s alter ego.” That was fun forty years ago when Frank Miller did it. It’s been forty years. The movie isn’t about Batman, it’s about Bruce Wayne. Who he is, what and who he cares about, and what he’s willing to do—and what he isn’t willing to do.

Next, they showed a way to transform the dark, edgy Frank Miller Batman into something else. You literally watch it as it happens. He may begin the film saying “I’m vengeance,” but that line comes back—and it comes back hard. Really hard. He may begin the film declaring that stupid line, but by the end of the story, he sees exactly where that line leads to. Exactly.

(Also, here’s a small divergence. Remember in The Avengers when Banner says, “That’s my secret, Cap…”? You remember that line? That line made me cheer. It was a single sentence that gave the Hulk more depth than decades of comics ever gave him. Made the Hulk truly incredible. Well, there’s a line in this film that explains Batman’s Code Against Killing Disadvantage, and it does so with more eloquence and brevity than almost a century of Batman comics, tv shows and films. I swear, I choked up. Hit me so hard I gasped. It is in the last third of the film, on a rooftop, and comes right after Selina Kyle says, “He has to pay!” Watch for it.)

This film takes all the Batman dogma and challenges it. Holds it up to the light and asks, “Do we really need this?” At the same time, it honors the Batman mythology in ways that are creative, insightful and… yeah, I’ll say it. Fun.

This is a fun movie made by people who love Batman. Not the dogma, but the myth. And they honor it ways that I would love to tell you, but I don’t want to spoil them.

And did they set up sequels? Yes. Oh hell yes. Again, I don’t want to tell you. I want you to see them for yourself.

When the film was over, I sat in my seat, listening to the soundtrack, watching the credits roll, wanting to hit rewind and watch it again. This time with a friend.

I feel confident in saying this is my favorite Batman. More than O’Neil’s detective. More than Miller’s psychopath. More than… damn. Can I say this? Yes. More than the Animated Series. I’m not saying one is better than the other, but what this film does to smash the rules of what a Batman film is (and can be) just make me too happy.

Also, a final note. Whomever is responsible for the marketing of this film should be sacked. Ignore the trailers. See the movie. If you’re a Batman fan, see the movie. If you aren’t a Batman fan, see the movie.

And call me. I’ll go with you.

Halloween Kills

Halloween Kills' review: Sequel suffers from middle child syndrome

1963: In Haddonfield, IL, young Michael Myers kills his sister. He’s captured by police and sent to an institution.

1978. Myers escapes and returns to his home. Along the way, he murders a handful of people. The only person to survive Myers is Laurie Straud. Again, police capture Myers and he returns to the institution.

2018. Forty years later, Myers escapes again. He begins another killing rampage.

2021. The people of Haddonfield are finally done with this Michael Myers fellow. They gather together in a mob and murder him. At least they try to.

All right. Let’s talk about this.

The idea intrigued me. A mob of a dozen or so people get together with guns and other weapons, looking to hunt down the Boogeyman and kill him, once and for all. I like that idea. I like people getting together against evil.

Also, consider the world Myers exists in. His murder sprees must have been covered by the press. People know about him. People know he’s seemingly indestructable. This is not rumor or innuendo. There is a documented instance of Myers getting up and walking away from:

  • Sewing needles through the eye,
  • Multiple stab wounds,
  • Six gun shots to the chest, and
  • Falling two stories to the ground.

This isn’t your every day maniac. This guy is living (undead?) proof of the supernatural. There’s no doubt about it. You can be a skeptic but the guy demonstrates inhuman abilities—super strength, super endurance, super speed, super everything—on a minute-by-minute basis. So, when the people talk about him, they know what he is.

He’s an unstoppable monster.

But when you watch Halloween Kills (and the previous Halloween from 2018), you’d think nobody knows anything about anything. Because in the world of Halloween, PEOPLE ARE FUCKING STUPID.

They say, “Let’s stick together” as they enter a darkened building knowing Myers is in there, and less than thirty seconds later, they split up.

They hear a strange sound—knowing that Myers has escaped from the institute and seeing a man’s bloody hand print on the inside of their open back door—and go looking in dark rooms with only a flashlight and a cheese knife.

They go looking for Michael in a dark park and split up. Fortunately, they’re smart enough to bring pistols. But when they see Myers, do they fire at him from range? NO! THEY CLOSE THE DISTANCE! You’ve got a firearm for Christ’s sake.

And when, at the end of the film, they finally corner Myers, do they all open fire on him and shoot him in the head a dozen times? No! They beat him up with 2x4s and baseball bats. Even though they all have firearms.

I call this Stupid People Syndrome™. Whenever I sit down for a horror film and I see SPS™, I’m out. I’m done.

There’s a reason Alien is so terrifying. It’s because the people in Alien are smart, and when they come up with a plan, you think to yourself, “That’s a good plan.” Then, when the plan fails and one of them dies, you think, “Well crap, I would have died, too.”

And that’s how you make the audience feel horror. Not with jump scares that last just a second and are gone. No, no, no. You want an audience trembling with every passing moment? Then, you make the people we’re rooting for smart, capable and convincing. Otherwise, it’s just Friday the 13th, and we’re all just waiting for the pretty, stupid people to die.

So, when I see SPS™, I check out. And I wasn’t the only one. There were about ten other people in the theater when the movie started. By the time it was over, I was the only one. Everyone else had gotten up and walked out.

Every five minutes, something else showed up to snap my disbelief suspenders™ against my chest.

Laurie gets serious surgery in the first five minutes of the movie. The kind of surgery that lasts 10 hours. But these doctors are magic: it takes them ten minutes. Also, after having her entire abdomen cut open and then stapled back together again, she’s laying on her side, sitting up, and WALKING.

There are no cops anywhere. I mean, you see them, but they do nothing.

There’s a gay couple who gets cut up. I felt very uncomfortable with that. I mean, if you want equal representation, then everyone should be equally—oh what the fuck am I saying??? No. That was wrong. Misguided at best. Two couples walked out of the theater after that. I should have. But no, I have to sit all the way to the end.

I lost count of all the cracked skulls and brain pools. The viscera in this film… So many heads open with brains spilling out all over the place.

John Carpenter didn’t need cracked skulls and pools of brains and blood.

John Carpenter didn’t need thumbs going through eyes and ripping out brains through the sockets.

John Carpenter didn’t need exploded bodies with limbs laying all over the place.

John Carpenter didn’t need any of that. There’s not a drop of blood in the original Halloween, and it scared the crap out of me. You know why?

Because back then, Carpenter knew what horror meant. A slow, creeping dread that something is sitting behind you now—right now—and will wait there, behind an awful pale white mask until you look.

That’s how you scare people. That’s how you make a horror movie. Not a gross out fest like this.

At the end, there’s a flash cut sequence of Myers murdering people in the most visceral, gross and awful ways with a trite five minutes of voice over exposition from Jaimie Lee Curtis that sounded like it was written by me in the 9th grade. I cringed the whole way through. And there was nobody else in the audience to share my pain. Sitting in the dark, when the final credits rolled, I got up and walked out, and never once felt the need to check over my shoulder.

I wasn’t frightened. Not at all. Just pissed off.

I hated this movie.

Back 4 Blood (Unreview)

Tweak these settings in Back 4 Blood to turn it into a smooth, 4K-friendly  gore fest | PC Gamer

For a few months, I got completely lost in Left 4 Dead versus mode. I mean completely lost. I was up until 4:00 AM playing the game, sleeping for a few hours, then going right back in for more. I got good. Really good. I had the maps memorized. I knew the perfect ambush spots. I could snipe a Smoker at 400 meters. I could kite Tanks. And I carried Gnome Chomsky all the way through that damn carnival more times than I can remember, helping other people gain that pesky achievement.

And that’s one of the reasons I loved L4D. The game was about sticking together, helping each other, and never leaving anyone behind. Ever.

One time, we were just a few hundred feet from the Safe House, each of us in the red, one of us seeing black and white, when our Nick got caught by a Smoker and downed. I managed to snipe the Smoker, but he was still down. One of us was incapacitated and the rest of us were in the Safe House. While the other players waited for him to die so the round could end, I healed up, grabbed the grenade launcher, a pipe bomb, an adrenaline shot and a health pack, and started for the door. Everyone—including our Nick—told me to stay inside. “Don’t you come out to get me johnjwick!” he shouted in my head set. “You stay the @#$% inside!”

I ran out. Hit the adrenaline. Rushed to our Nick and started picking him up. “GET THE @#$% BACK INSIDE THE SAFE HOUSE!” he shouted at me. But then, he was up. And I used the health pack to heal him. And we ran back to the Safe House. The whole way he was shouting “HOLY @#$%! HOLY @#$%!” And when we got back in the Safe House, he shouted, “YOU DO WHATEVER YOU WANT JOHNJWICK! YOU DO WHATEVER YOU WANT!”

It was one of those moments that the immediacy of video games provides. A great, epic, exciting moment. And the kind of moment that only Left 4 Dead could provide. At the time.

Since then, there have been a lot of 4 player co-op games that came close to replicating the L4D experience. Limited equipment, overwhelming odds, and situations where you can do nothing if nobody else helps you. You aren’t Master Chief. You aren’t a Vault Hunter. You’re just an ordinary Joe who needs other people to get through this horrific mess.

And then, there was no Left 4 Dead. The game died. I still played it from time to time, but the experience wasn’t the same. People didn’t work together. They all thought they were Spartans with Mjolnir armor, running ahead and getting killed. I lamented the end of a wonderful game. Because the game is so much different when you’re playing with others. Sure, you can run through the campaign by yourself, but it just isn’t the same.

And now here comes Back 4 Blood.

Thank you, Turtle Rock Studios. Thank you.

They’ve taken the basic concept of L4D and added some beautiful innovations while keeping everything that makes the game work in the first place.

There’s four of you. That’s it. Your goal is to get from Point A to Point B. And there are a metric @#$%ton of infected (“ridden”) in your way. You’re low on ammo, low on supplies, and you just have to run. Your backpack can only fit a few items. And the choices you make have a profound impact on what you can do during the level.

There are zombies—sorry. Ridden. There are ridden who can immobilize you. If someone else doesn’t help you, you’re screwed. They have to stop whatever they’re doing and spend time holding a button down (different button depending on your system) to free you. If they don’t, you get left behind.

If all that sounds like Left 4 Dead, you’d be correct in that assessment. It is exactly like L4D. The four characters feel like real people. Their banter, dialogue and monologues make me laugh. The gallows humor hits me just right. And there are moments when the exact opposite happens.

My favorite character right now is “Mom.” That’s her name. That’s what everyone calls her. (Reminds me of my Soccer Mom script from The Shotgun Diaries and I wonder if there was some inspiration there. I hope so. I hope I was a small part of the inspiration for a character as cool as Mom.) I’m playing through the solo campaign with her, and so far, she has not let me down. I adore her.

The game is performing magic: making me care about people who do not exist.

As for the changes and additions: there are a whole bunch of new special inf—I mean ridden. The Exploder feels like the Bloater and the Spitter merged into one awful, gross mess. (Also, all the survivors shout “‘ploder!” when he comes by, which sounds like… yeah, you get the point.) The Tallboy feels like someone looked at the Charger and said, “We can make that better.” You can sneak by Snitchers (who are Screamers from State of Decay who were actually originally in L4D, but never made it out of the development phase), and a whole host of really creepy, awful others waiting for you and me.

I haven’t run into a Witch yet. I’ve heard there’s something called “The Hag,” but I don’t want to look up spoilers. I want to be surprised as I go.

Having played through half the solo campaign, I can’t think of anything I don’t like about the choices the designers made for mechanics. I like the new commerce system they have going on for multiple reasons. First, it provides more choices for players while making those choices significant. You use “coppers” to buy equipment, which means you have to be careful about what you choose. Also, putting all the medical equipment—bandages, first aid kits, and pain meds—in the same slot means you have to consider what you’re carrying.

Also, the way you gain coppers is by exploring the map. To get them, you have to run down dead ends, open security doors, and do other stupid things you would never do in Left 4 Dead. You need coppers for equipment, and to get coppers, you can’t just race through the map from Safe House to Safe House. You actually have to explore. You could just race through at top speed, ignoring coppers, but if you do, you slowly run out of options as you get closer to the end of the campaign. Smart. Very smart.

Right now, I love Back 4 Blood. I’ve only played a few hours, but the few hours I have played have been delightful. I’m smiling, laughing, and catching my breath.

After I’ve learned the game a little more, I’ll be jumping into versus mode.

And then, my life will be over.

See you at 4:00 AM!

No Time to Die (Unreview)

No Time To Die' proves the James Bond franchise needs to be shaken, not  stirred - cleveland.com

This year, at North America’s biggest gaming convention, I had the unique opportunity to grab a couple members of Chaosium (the makers of Call of Cthulhu, Runequest, and Pendragon, as well as 7th Sea) and walk around the dealer’s room, showing them the booths where little games were on display. I told them, “This is where real innovation happens.” That’s because small game companies have nothing to lose. They aren’t like Hasbro with Dungeons & Dragons who make an announcement like “Not all orks are evil,” and have to suddenly duck behind blast shields because the fan base may explode after having heard such a “dangerous idea” and ride out a shit storm of fan outrage—real or imagined—because the ideas in D&D have been around so long, making even a single innovation to the game, bringing it up to 21st century standards, could be considered “dangerous.”

And if you’re wondering what this has to do with James Bond, just remember when the Bond fans almost had spontaneous brain aneurisms because Daniel Craig was—wait for it—blonde. Forget that, in the canonical books, the world’s most famous secret agent was English and they cast a man from Scotland in Dr No, and if you don’t see a problem with that, you’ve clearly never visited Scotland. (And yes, Bond’s creator, Ian Flemming, later changed Bond’s back story to change 007’s heritage but that was because he was so impressed with Sean Connery’s portrayal of Bond, but make no mistake, when this whole franchise started, Bond was English and since then has been played by an Irishman and a Welshman, and again, if you don’t see a problem with that, well… you shouldn’t because it’s a stupid distinction. Almost as stupid as saying James Bond can’t be played by Indris Elba because… ah, you know what, I’m not going to take this any further, but I hope you get my point.)

Anyway, as characters grow older—and I’m talking in real chronological years—they should become more elastic. Writers have been reinterpreting “mythic” characters like Bond for thousands of years, but there’s always the hold outs who insist on keeping the character “pure” to the source. And these are the hold outs who prevent characters from evolving, literally speaking to past generations rather than the present or future ones. One of the amazing things that Marvel has been doing is taking classic characters like Iron Man, Thor, and the Guardians of the Galaxy, dusting them off, and giving them new voices. Look at the newest Spider-Man movies. That is not 1960’s Peter Parker. It isn’t even 1970’s, ‘80’s, or ‘00s (see what I did there?) Spider-Man. That’s a Spider-Man for the 2020’s, speaking to a younger generation of fans with their language. Actually addressing that Queens is not full of beautiful, blonde, white teenagers, but a hodgepodge of cultures and peoples that actually better represent the old cliché of the American melting pot. This is a Spider-Man for today, not yesterday, and that’s just one of the reasons why the movies feel like so much fun. Yes, he’s still in love with the seemingly unreachable Mary Jane, still has a single Aunt May, still has to balance high school with being a super hero, but does all the classic Spider-Man things in completely new ways.

And that’s because characters should be elastic. As writers, we have a responsibility to take classic characters and update them to a new audience. The myth has to be reshaped for new generations. If you don’t, then you get what happens to myth when it doesn’t adapt and change: it turns in to religion, full of dogma, sacred cows and untouchable traditions.

And with all that in mind, let’s talk about the new James Bond flick, No Time to Die.

Before saying anything else, I should say this: Daniel Craig is my favorite James Bond. Yes, that means I like him more than Connery. Frankly, re-watching the old Bond films, the misogynistic swagger is just too much for me, and that isn’t a new thing. I didn’t like it all that much back when I was a kid watching the movies on VHS tapes when my dad used to record them on network television when they played on the Friday Night Movie on CBS. Yes, I’m that old. I’m not some punk kid screaming “POLITICAL CORRECTNESS!!!” at the screen. And I grew up not only watching Bond on TV and on the movie screen, but reading his adventures, too. I’m a huge fan. But as fans we should also be aware of the faults of 007’s portrayals in the past. And frankly, while some of those faults make Bond interesting, there are others that make him a serious problem.

Bond is a chain-smoking, alcoholic, misogynistic, jingoistic (some may say fascistic) killing machine. (Something Alan Moore uses to brilliant effect when he makes Bond a villain in his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics. I mean, seriously. Can you think of a more dangerous villain than Sean Connery’s Bond?)

But that also means we get scenes like the one in Goldfinger—universally recognized as the classic Bond episode and possibly the best Bond movie for over 40 years—where he literally rapes a lesbian into enjoying sex with a “real man.” Yeah. That’s Pussy Galore. Go back and watch it with that in mind and tell me how much fun that Judo-in-the-barn scene is now that you’ve got that in your mind.

Again, Daniel Craig is my favorite Bond and Skyfall is my favorite Bond film. I love the directing, the acting, the action, but what I like most is how it takes big risks with the character and his world. Yes, it’s still got the worn-out cliché of a Bond villain, and yes, it blatantly steals the plot and characters from The Dark Knight right down to the “We’re not so different you and I” cliché that—

—you know what? I need to make this clear. Please. Please. Please. Hollywood. Stop using this. We’ve seen it so many times, it’s no longer cliché. It’s passe. We expect it. We yawn when we see it. You’ve used it enough. Just… please, just stop. Stop. Please.

Okay, back to Skyfall. The director (and writers) were allowed to do things nobody had ever done before in a Bond film. We saw characters who we never expected to change or die actually change or die. And there’s a line that made our audience laugh out loud so hard, we missed following dialogue.

And why did that line work so well? Because it makes sense for Bond to say it, even if he never said it before. It’s a new addition to Bond’s character that expands the possibilities of who Bond is while, at the same time, fitting his character perfectly.

(If you want to see the scene for the first time or remember it, I’ve included a link below.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icxQ4xdz0QY

Yes, Skyfall does some new, fun things, but it is also loaded with clichés that just need to die. We’ve seen them. We’ve seen them so many times, they actually work as ballast, bringing the film down rather than lifting it up.

No Time to Die feels a lot like Skyfall. It takes a bunch of risks with Bond and his universe, but at the same time, is so desperate to play it safe, clinging to tired canards. Yes, there’s a new 007 (because in the previous film, Bond retired) who is played by a wonderful black actress named Lashana Lynch, but she really never gets an opportunity to shine. There’s great banter and chemistry between her and Craig, but again, she feels like a toy the owners of the franchise are too afraid to take out of the box. I want to see more of her, but more on that later.

Then, there’s the return of Léa Seydoux as Madeleine, and she gives Bond a fantastic foil. She’s not your typical Bond Girl (or Bond Woman, or whatever you prefer). She’s dangerous, she’s good at keeping secrets, she is, in many ways, everything that Vesper Lynd could have been if the producers didn’t kill her off at the end of Casino Royale. Of course Bond falls in love with her, and of course there’s a dark secret in her past that will show up to threaten that love. And this time, there’s a twist that’s new, that gives Bond an angle on his character that makes you think, “How is this going to change him?” And, in fact, it does change him, even if it’s just for the last fifteen minutes of the film.

And speaking of fifteen minutes, there’s an incredible cameo from Ana de Armis that proves she can hold her own in Bond’s world. She shows up just long enough to make you fall in love, then you never see her again. And yes, that’s another Bond cliché, but at least she doesn’t end up in a refrigerator. I got to spend enough time with her to want to see her again as a replacement for Felix Leiter. More on that later.

The plot is so redundant, there’s no point in explaining it. The film never does, so I don’t see a reason why I should. Thanos blah blah half the population blah blah. Look, this is actually the least interesting part of the movie, which makes the villain the least interesting part of the movie, and that’s a damn shame because Rami Malek’s character could have been a great Bond villain if only he had a motivation that hasn’t been done to death already.

As for the action, I loved every time Hans Zimmer’s score revved up. The director, Cary Joji Fukunaga, has serious chops. This is no surprise. And there’s another cliché—the one-shot hallway fight—that Fukunaga has a great take on. My mind went, “Oh, here’s the one-shot hallway fight,” but ten seconds in, I was in. I just wish he had more meat to work with.

Finally, there’s the ending. And yeah, I was a little surprised. I’m not going to say anything more, but I’m now seriously curious what the next chapter in the Bond franchise will be.

But I have a suggestion. (Yes, this is where the “more on that later” is leading.)

I want to see a double-oh Netflix series. I want to see 001, 002, and all the rest of them in season long stories that are actually real political espionage thrillers. And I want to see Ana de Armis and Lashana Lynch as a reoccurring characters. What’s more, I want the other double-oh’s complaining about Bond. He’s a screw up. He never returns equipment. He sleeps with everything. He fails more than he succeeds. He’s got to kick in the door with a gun in both hands (and both feet, sometimes), killing everything in sight when he could just slip a radioactive pellet in the target’s tea.

That’s what I want to see next for the Bond franchise.

I liked No Time to Die. I think it brought a lot of new things to Bond, but on the other hand, still relied on tired tropes from not only its own world, but from other franchises as well. I had fun saying goodbye to my favorite Bond, but I’m hoping the next one will give me enough reasons to make him my favorite.

Or maybe even her.

Don’t Let Go of Your Balloon

Balloons Are Coming To 'Fortnite' -- Here's What They Do

On my birthday, I perform a “spelling” for my friends. It’s a magical performance. Like, literal magic. Stuff happens. Freya showed up one time, I summoned fire from my fingers, Kachiko and Mr. Finger have made appearances.

I called this particular spelling, “Demons, Daemons and Balloons.” It was a depression exorcism. At the end of it, balloons appeared, falling on the audience. Everyone took their balloon home. A year later, people sent me pictures of their balloon: still full.

The spelling concluded with “Balloon #3”, performed by The Candle Thieves. I’ve provided a link below.

* * *

Listen closely now. I’m going to tell you a secret. The great secret of the world.

Things can mean more than just one thing at a time.

I remember going to Disneyworld when I was small. My parents bought me a balloon. I remember asking my dad why it floated in the air the way it did. He explained, “Because helium is lighter than oxygen.”

I asked him, “Why?”

He started into a long, engineer answer about molecules and weight and… I didn’t care.

It floated. In my hand. Lifting up toward the sky. And I knew if I let it go, it would fly away. I never wanted it to fly away. As far as I was concerned, it was magic. Helium, oxygen. Those were magic words. My balloon was magic.

And I knew that if I got enough balloons, I could lift up off the ground and fly away.

I held on to that balloon all day long. Even when we went on the fast rides, I held on, ducking down and putting my body over it so it couldn’t fly away. And at the end of the day, I took it home with me.

There’s a picture my mother has of me asleep in the hotel bed, Mickey Mouse ears on my head, holding on to the balloon. Snuggling it like a teddy bear. I even gave it a name. And no, I’m not going to tell you what it was.

Of course, the next day, it didn’t lift as high as it did the day before. And the next day, it lifted up a little less. My balloon was dying just a little bit every day. And I got a little sadder every day.

Some people learn about grief from a pet. I learned about it from my balloon. Ask anyone who knows me: I anthropomorphize everything. Dolls. Sandwiches. Those little gummy bears. And yes, balloons.

My balloon slowly lost all its helium. Finally, it was empty and flat. Didn’t matter. I put it in a drawer and kept it. For months. Until one day, my mother was going through my drawers and decided to throw it away.

I cried all night.

I cried because of the simple joy it gave me. Joy and wonder. I didn’t know how it defied gravity, it just did. And I knew if I got curious, I could find out why. But it didn’t matter to me right then. I was just fascinated by the magic of it. The simple and profound wonder of five-year old me.

Pick a card, any card…

Once upon a time…

When we’re young, the whole world is magic. Because Clarke’s Law hasn’t caught up with us yet.

My balloon could fly. And if I had enough of them… so could I.

Demon

Exorcism. The word comes from the Greek exorkismos, which means “to bind by oath.”

Two thousand years ago—a blink of an eye in the scope of human history—men and women who heard whispers were seen as a witch, a shaman or possessed. And depending on which part of the world you lived, it was a death sentence.

Two thousand years later—a blink of an eye—I know why I hear those whispers. It’s a chemical imbalance in my brain. An imbalance of the stuff that makes my neurotransmiters fire, dopamine, glutamate, benzopiazepines and all kinds of other Latin words that I can’t pronounce. My brain isn’t like other brains. Look at it with a CAT scan and you can see the differences.

Two thousand years ago, I was possessed by demons. Two thousand years later… Clarke’s Law at work again.

I’m sick. Just like having a cold, catching the measles, getting the mumps, contracting chicken pox… it’s an illness, just like any other. And I can take medications to stifle the symptoms. When I see movie trailers for romantic comedies and I start to cry… I know I need to visit the doctor. My brain chemistry is out of whack and I need help putting it back.

And that’s the hard part. Admitting I need help. That I can’t do it on my own. Our western heroes wouldn’t understand. A sky scraper full of terrorists? I’ll do it myself. Face the Emperor and my evil Sith father? I’ll do it myself. A town run by two groups of outlaws? I’ll do it myself.

That’s how I grew up. A man handles his problems on his own without anyone else’s help. Because asking for help means you’re admitting your weak.

Asking a doctor for pills when you could just kick yourself in the ass and get over it! Because that’s what a man does!

And you never know when that little voice will show up. The dark, venomous twin of Socrates’ daimonion. One, the voice that gently suggests you do the right thing. And the other… that voice gently suggesting you do… anything but.

Staring at a page of words… it whispers, “You’re a hack.”

When you say the wrong thing and make someone you care about cry… it whispers, “You’re an idiot.”

Even years later, after the mistake is long gone and everyone’s forgotten it… that little voice hasn’t. And it makes sure you don’t forget it, either. It kicks you. Right in the teeth. “Remember when you did that stupid thing?”

“Idiot.”

“Loser.”

“Hack.”

“Worthless.”

“Helpless.”

“All you ever do is hurt people.”

“All you ever do is screw things up even worse.”

“Why don’t you kill yourself?”

“Go on. Do it. Nobody will miss you. And you’ll stop hurting all the people you love. Because you’re stupid. And selfish. You never think about anyone but yourself. What have you ever accomplished? You wrote a game? Big deal. You worked so hard to be a writer? What do you write? Games that maybe a hundred people read? Gaiman’s a writer. King’s a writer. You’re a hack. What are you? Almost fifty? And what have you done? NOTHING. How many people have you hurt? The single common factor in all your failed relationships is YOU.”

Shut up.

“Why are you starting another one? You’re only going to end up hurting them just like you hurt everyone else.”

Shut up.

“Best to be alone. That way, you can’t hurt anyone.”

Shut up.

“Or you can just go into your room and swallow a bottle of pills like you did before. Only this time, you aren’t living with your parents so they won’t find you and…”

SHUT UP!!!!

It’s still there. It’s always there. Just, sometimes, it’s asleep. And when it wakes up, it hovers over my shoulder and whispers into my ear.

How can I get rid of it? Be rid of it?

Two thousand years ago, I could find a holy man, a shaman, a magician, to cast it out. A magic ritual. A holy ritual. A ceremony. An invocation.

A spell.

I have my magic tools. My sword. My book. My bell.

And I know… I know… I’m not the only one here who could use a little ritual. Am I right? I said, “Am I right?”

Can I get an “Amen?”

Can I get a “Hallelujah?”

TESTIFY!

22 Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. 23 After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, 24 and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.

25 Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.

27 But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

29 “Come,” he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”

31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

The part that always got me about that story was that last line. “Why did you doubt?” Because for me, Jesus wasn’t asking, “Why did you doubt me?” He’s asking, “Why did you doubt yourself.”

Peter was walking on the water. He was performing the miracle. Jesus told him he could walk on the water and Peter doubted that he could. That’s why he begins to sink.

Don’t Let Go

When I was a boy in Minnesota, I wanted to be a priest. They looked so awesome in their black suits and white robes. And in Catholic school, all the girls thought the priest was so handsome. He wore awesome clothes, he had magic powers, all the girls loved him.

Being a priest was like being a wizard. Or a magician.

And then, I moved to Georgia. And I changed my mind. I didn’t want to be a priest. I wanted to be a minister. It comes from the Old French. “One who serves.” Has the same root as the word “minus.” Think on that for a minute or two.

I also grew up wanting to be a con man. Saw The Sting with my father—greatest movie ever made—and walked out of it thinking, “I want to be that when I grow up.”

Priest. Minister. Magician. Con man. Game Master.

Convincing people to believe in things they know aren’t real.

But they’re true.

Here’s the truth. As we come back from our long walk through Yesod, coming back to Malkuth, the realm of shapes and forms. Waving goodbye to our imaginary friends. Hoping to see them again. (And we will.)

Coming back to Phoenix, Arizona. December 5, 2015. Ten, five, twenty, fifteen. A lot of fives in there. Hail Eris. And not a single one of them a coincidence. Hail Discordia. We’ve walked into the otherworld on Saturn’s Day. God of the Underworld. A good day for a magical ritual.

But we’re back here. Home again. Our feet firmly on the ground. Safe.

And before we part for good, I have one more spell to cast. One more transformation. One more bit of alchemy. Transforming something mundane into something sublime.

Things can mean more than one thing at a time.

Do you remember my balloon? The one my mother threw away?

It’s still with me. I never let go of it.

It’s how I keep the joy and wonder of little five-year-old me around wherever I go. Because I never let go of that balloon.

I never let go of my wonder. Never let go of my joy.

And when I hear that voice whispering in my ear.

I look up.

And there he is. Still tight in my hand. Still made of helium and plastic and magic.

And if you look very closely… squint if you have to…

… you can see yours, too.

And when you feel like you have to be the western hero, taking on the whole world by yourself… you can look up… and know this.

You aren’t alone. You don’t need to be alone.

If you hold on to your balloon.

Let Me Tell You About Brandon Cutler

As things are crazy here in the United States on November 4th, 2020, I needed to find something that made me smile. Something that reminded me that good things do happen to good people. That the American Dream of honest, hard work paying off isn’t completely dead. And, because I am who I am, it should also involve gaming… and professional wrestling.

I have said this before, and I’ll say it again: I love professional wrestling. And if you love stories of good vs evil, dynastic warfare fought over generations, blood feuds, friendship, romance, betrayal, and live, death-defying stunt work performed in your literal faceyou are already a fan of professional wrestling.

With that in mind, let me tell you about Brandon Cutler.

Recently, a popular meme has popped up showing one wrestler throwing another onto a pile of polyhedron dice. The guy doing the throwing? That’s Brandon. And this is his story.

Brandon is not just a pro wrestler—he’s also a gamer. He wears a dragon mask to the ring. His finishing move is called “the TPK.” He plays D&D with other pro wrestlers on his Youtube channel. Also, he’s a sweet guy. He’s one of the Good People. But to tell his story, I have to take a slight detour. Don’t worry, it’ll only be for two paragraphs.

For decades, professional wrestling has been dominated by one company: the WWE. But just last year, a new company called “All Elite Wrestling” popped up and has been kicking ass. They provide a real alternative to McMahon brand of wrestling and they’re giving wrestlers that the WWE would never look at a real chance at making a living doing something they love.

Now, I have to simplify how AEW came about so I don’t bore non-wrestling fans with the details, but suffice to say, a huge part of it was a tag team called “The Young Bucks.” They’ve won a huge audience by exploiting social media, especially their Youtube channel “Being the Elite.” It’s funny, surreal, serious, violent, and everything else I love about pro wrestling. One of the behind the scenes fellows on that show is the subject of this little essay, Brandon Cutler.

Brandon helped with the production of the channel. (His wife also makes ring gear—really damn gorgeous ring gear.) After years of helping make Being the Elite a Monday morning tradition for wrestling fans on Youtube, money came in for a wrestling promotion using the Young Bucks and their other Elite friends. And that’s when the Bucks got the opportunity to pay Brandon back for his tireless work.

Did the Bucks make it part of the show? You bet they did. And even watching it now, more than a year later, I still get choked up.

Speaking of a year later…

It’s been a year, and Brandon has been not only creating content for Being the Elite and AEW Dynamite, he’s also been wrestling. Unfortunately, he’s been losing.

In fact, for a year, Brandon had not won a single match in AEW. Not one.

… but that was his story.

Everybody loves Brandon. Hell, I’ll say it. I love Brandon. And I cheer for him whenever he comes out. He’s part of my tribe. He’s a gamer. And even if he loses, he works damn hard in every match he’s in, putting on a strong performance. Brandon doesn’t lose because he’s a bad wrestler—he loses because things go against him. Also, he’s fun to watch, and that means a lot to wrestling fans like me. Win or lose, did you entertain me? If yes, you’re a winner in my book.

But in the reality of the show, Brandon is a loser. And you know what that does to me as a wrestling fan?

I want to see him win.

Now, the WWE has tried this “underdog” story for a bunch of different wrestlers, but they never pull it off. (My opinion: it’s because Vince McMahon doesn’t understand the whole concept of underdog. He only understands WINNERS ARE WINNERS AND LOSERS ARE LOSERS, PAL!) AEW pulled it off by never making Brandon look weak.

Eventually, he made a tag team with the other guy in the promotion who also had a record with no checks in the W column, Peter Avalon, “the Librarian.” (Yeah, it’s a dumb gimmick, that’s part of the story!)

But the two continued their losing streaks, even as a tag team with the Librarian slowly turning into a villain while Brandon maintained his honor and dignity by refusing to cheat. (He’s a paladin. A dragon paladin.) Finally, they broke the team and faced off against each other. One of them had to win, and that meant, one of them would finally get a check in the W column.

Who won? Well, that would be giving away the end of a story, and as a storyteller, I’m afraid I just can’t do that. You’ll have to see for yourself.

And that, my friends, is something awesome. The story of someone who earned their success with hard work, friendship, and delivering the goods. And, for bonus points, he’s a gamer.

And so, on the morning of November 4th, 2020, I turn to Brandon Cutler to remind me that the good things in the world are not dead. Heroes do win. And for that, sir, I thank you.

No work. All shoot.

* * *

If you want to see the recap of the whole story, you can watch this:

If you want to see Brandon’s match with Peter Avalon, you can do so here:

John Wick is the creator and Line Editor for Chaosium’s 7th Sea RPG. He was the original story editor on the Legend of the Five Rings CCG and RPG and has won numerous awards for game design.

Medeiun: A 7th Sea Short Story

I wrote this after reading a story about Luciano Garbati’s statue called “Medusa with the Head of Perseus” by Jessica Mason. When I was a boy, I read illustrated versions of The Iliad and The Odyssey and fell in love with Greek myth. I spent a summer reading all the way through the full versions, making sure I selected the biggest translation of the two books I could find. I wanted it all. Then, I read Ovid and anything else I could get my hands on. That was when I first discovered Socrates and Plato as well. And, finally, Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Campbell helped me understand the gods of Olympus were expressions of how the Greeks saw the world around them: cold-hearted, capricious, unjust, and petty. The world doesn’t care that we’re here and might not even know that we’re here. That’s why the Olympians are the way they are.

Nevertheless, the story of Medusa never sat right with me. Poseidon violates both her and the temple and Aphrodite punishes Medusa? Even my nine-year-old brain knew that wasn’t right. And it sat with me… for over three decades.

Finally, after reading the story—and talking with my friends Jessica and Adrianne—I decided I should re-write the story. What’s more, I could tell the Théan version of Medusa’s tale. Something a bit more heroic.

And so, with all that in mind, I hope you enjoy Medeiun, an old Numanari sailor’s re-telling of a well-known story, but with a very distinct Théan twist.

Luciano Garbati’s Medusa With the Head of Perseus

* * *

I heard this story when I was sailing off the Numanari coast. A sailor almost as old as I am now told it to me, and now I’m telling it to you. And by the end, you’ll know why your only mistress is the ship and your only love is the sea.

Once, a long time ago, there was this priestess of the Goddess of Love and her name was Medeiun. And she was beautiful. So beautiful, she could even make the gods themselves desire her. But she was also a warrior, trained to guard the temple of her goddess. She could fight with sword or axe or spear and fire arrows with deadly precision, shooting out a man’s eye at a hundred paces. That’s how good she was.

One day, the Lord of the Sea heard how beautiful this priestess was and he had to go and look himself, because he was sure no mortal woman could stir his desires. He took the form of a fisherman, not unlike yourself, and he went to the temple. And the temple was a great and beautiful wonder, greater and more beautiful than anything he had ever seen before. And when he saw this priestess, his heart nearly burst out of his chest. He wanted her. No, he didn’t just want her. He knew that he could not live without her.

And so, he went to her in the form of a fisherman and swore his love to her, but she rejected him because she was sworn to her goddess and to the temple. The Lord of the Sea became enraged and took his true form and demanded that she love him.

The priestess told him, “How dare you demand I love you? My heart is my own and will love who it will love without demand from another.”

Now, the Lord of the Sea was even more angered, and he began wrecking the temple. The priestess, she drew her sword and her spears and all her weapons and defended the temple the best she could, but she was only a mortal, and he was the Lord of the Sea. With his rage, he destroyed the temple and nearly killed the priestess. Her limbs were broken and her beauty smashed. When the Lord of the Sea had seen what he had done, he laughed.

“Your beauty is wrecked, priestess! As is your temple! Who would want you now?” And he left both Medeiun and her temple behind.

Now, it was years later, many years later, that the Lord of the Sea heard that the goddess had not only rebuilt the temple, but Medeiun herself was priestess there again. “How could the Goddess of Love put that ruined woman in her temple?” But he also heard the Goddess had not only restored Medeiun’s beauty, but had made it even greater than before. And so, the Lord of the Sea again took the shape of a fisherman, and he went on the land to see this new temple and the rejuvenated beauty of its priestess.

When he arrived, he saw the temple was even greater than it was before. He went inside, and there, he saw a veiled woman with a sword at her side. He approached her with a humility that aided his disguise. “Are you truly the priestess Medeiun who once defended this temple against the wrath of the Lord of the Sea?”

The veiled woman nodded, speaking with a voice the god would have recognized if he were not so vain. “Aye,” she said. “That is me.”

And the Lord of the Sea took his true form and laughed. “Behold woman! It is the god who ruined your beauty and your temple! And I shall do it again!”

And the priestess laughed under her veil. “I do not think so, oh vain god. For after you left me for dead, the Goddess of Love came to me and saw what you did.”

And the Goddess of Love so wept when she saw how her temple had been ruined, and she moaned when she saw how her priestess was nigh unto death. And she made a promise to her priestess.

“I gave you the task of protecting my temple,” the Goddess said. “I gave you weapons and training to protect my temple from mortals who would defile it, but clearly, I must give you a weapon to protect it from the gods as well.”

And as her tears fell onto Medeiun’s wounds, they healed, and restored her beauty. But not only restored it, but her divine power made Medeiun’s beauty even greater than it was before. And as the goddess’ tears fell onto her hair, Medeiun’s curly black locks became serpents: the creatures of great wisdom and secrets, messengers of the Goddess of Love and all the gods.

Medeiun drew the veil from her face and the Lord of the Sea looked upon it, and he felt his heart break. Salty tears falling from his eyes.

“Know this now, Lord of the Sea,” she said. “For as beautiful as I am now, my beauty can transform into poisonous wrath. If I wished, I could look askance upon anyone, and they would turn into stone. Anyone!” She let the veil drop and put her hand on her sword.

“Even a god.”

The Lord of the Sea looked about the temple and saw the many statues that were there. And he also saw their faces—all locked in eternal terror.

Medeiun drew her sword and stepped toward the Lord of the Sea. “Begone now, vain god, lest I look upon you with the disgust I truly feel and you join those who have come here before you, looking to despoil the temple of the Goddess of Love!”

With that, the Lord of the Sea fled the temple, never to return. Nor did any of his own priests or devotees ever enter a temple of the Goddess of Love without blindfolds on their eyes.

And that is why, young one, when we sail the sea, we never speak of the ones we love. A sailor only ever speaks for their love of the sea. For we dare not invoke the wrath of the Lord of the Sea, for even unto now, he cannot suffer to remember the day a mortal priestess made him flee from her sight.

* * *

From “A Magician Looks at 40”

 

On my birthday, I try to present a magical ritual/performance for my friends. I call them “spellings.” The first one I ever performed was called “A Magician Looks at 40.” While I do write the thing down, there’s a lot of improvisation and extemperaneous stuff going on, so what you’re about to read isn’t exactly what I said or did, but made for the basis of it. By the way, this is also the first chapter of my RPG about magic called Secret.

I’m posting this because a couple of friends posted some stuff about astrology and it made me think of Robert Anton Wilson’s suggestion for replacing the ancient Babylonian study of the stars with something more personal.

 

I. Invocation

The 2 of Wands in Aleister Crowley’s Tarot Deck. Two primal creative forces. “Destruction is the first step of creation.”

I’m fifteen years old and Robert Anton Wilson, writing in The Cosmic Trigger, destroys the simplistic twelve symbols of the zodiac for me, explaining how the Gregorian Calendar Shift in the beginning of the Middle Ages makes the charts astrologers use today completely useless. Most modern astrologers don’t even know who Pope Gregory was, let alone that he made a decision that made their craft irrelevant. I’m not a Sagittarius, I’m a Scorpio, all thanks to Pope Gregory. Just sitting there, right there, alone with your thoughts, alone with your friends, think about this for a moment. Over seven hundred years ago, a man made a decision that only now is catching up to you. Across time and space, from the Vatican in 1582—over five hundred years ago—that one man’s actions reach out and touch you where you are seated. Time and space mean nothing to ideas. You’re not a Virgo. Never were. You are a Leo. Not an Aries, you’re a Pisces. Trade in your old sign for the new sign! Half price! Only now at Pope Gregory’s Mad Calendar Sale!

I’m not a Sagittarius, I’m a Scorpio. All because Gregory changed the calendar five hundred years ago and astrologers today are using the wrong charts. Of course, it didn’t hurt when Richard Dawkins informed me that the charts have also not kept up with the wobbling of the planets, orbital drift or any other basic principles of modern astronomy. You are a Cancer because the Sun was in the constellation of Cancer when you were born. Go back and check. You’ll see the charts your neighborhood astrologer uses and the charts your observatory use are a little different.

I’m a Sagittarius, I’m not a Scorpio.

Robert Anton Wilson, writing in The Cosmic Trigger, tells me to ditch any notions of the traditional zodiac and make my own “sign” based on the events of my birthday. Build your own cosmic significance from that. I’m fifteen years old. I start reading.

 

December 10, 1684. Sir Isaac Newton first publishes thoughts that question Kepler’s accepted understanding of the planetary movements. Newton is too busy with his important experiments—alchemy, creating gold from lead—but he pauses for a moment to make minor corrections in the world’s understanding, thus changing all of science forever. A distraction from his true passion. Magic.

December 10, 1864. Tecumseh Sherman demonstrates a fundamental understanding of warfare. He knows strategy cannot defeat Robert E. Lee. He knows the grey-bearded man is the greatest military mind the United States has ever known—perhaps may ever know—and will continue to defeat the Northern Generals with the sheer power of his mind. Tecumseh Sherman knows this and begins a different kind of war. He begins his long March to the Sea. He isn’t fighting Lee. He’s burning everything Lee believes in. He’s fighting a different kind of war. A symbolic war. A war against the very idea of the South. A war of ideas. A war of magic.

December 10, 1901. The man who invented the very symbol of destruction begins to reconsider his legacy to the world. The tool he invented for miners and construction workers, meant to assist in taming the American West, to level mountains and build railroads, is now in the hands of madmen. Anarchists. They abducted his idea and made it their own. His name is Alfred Nobel. And he invented dynamite. And perhaps to wipe clean the blood from his hands, put there by men who used his tool as a weapon, he has taken his wealth and fame and created something better. Something sacred. Something holy. Alfred Nobel, creator of dynamite, detonates his legacy so he may build something greater in its wake. The Nobel Prize. He hopes we will remember him for one thing and forget his invention of the other. But if we did, we would not see the magic he made. The alchemy. Transforming lead to gold. Transforming the base and vulgar into the sublime. Just like Newton before him. Magic. True magic.

December 10, 1968. The year I’m born. The Nobel Prize is given in science to the two men who break the genetic code and discover the true purpose of proteins. Same year, in Toshiba, Japan, four men are driving a large van with large metal casks containing almost three hundred million yen. Their progress is impeded by a motorcycle police officer who is nearly panicked. He tells the four guards the car was targeted by thieves who have sabotaged the van. With dynamite. He orders them to stand back and climbs under the car, hoping to defuse the bomb. Moments later, smoke and fire emerge from the underside of the vehicle. They hear him screaming through the smoke. The four men back away… and the officer jumps out from under the vehicle and drives away, taking all three hundred million Yen with him. The greatest robbery in the history of Japan. And he did it with nothing more than a bluff. His only weapon was his confidence.

Magic, science and con men. Themes that will stick with me for the rest of my life.

This is my birthday. This is my zodiac. Magicians and con men.

And this is my fortieth birthday. The year the Zohar declares I am fit to begin studying the mysteries of the Qabalah. For centuries, it was the age a man had to be before he was raised to a Master Mason. The year an initiate may be exposed to the greatest secrets of the Golden Dawn. Forty days, forty nights for Noah and his collection of floating friends. Forty days and forty nights of temptation for Jesus in the desert. It’s also the magic temperature for unrefrigerated food. As soon as it hits forty degrees Fahrenheit, you may as well eat it or throw it out.

It is the atomic value of zirconium. The planet Venus forms a pentagram in the night sky every eight years with it returning to its original point every 40 years. That same forty years, the Jews wandered the wilderness, looking for their promised land. Lent runs forty days. Muhammad was forty when the Angel Gabriel came to him with the revelations of Allah and in his Islamic faith, we mourn the dead for forty days after their passing.

Forty lashes for raising a hand to an officer in Her Majesty’s Navy.

Forty days for Moses waiting for the Ten Commandments.

In the Hindu faith, the most sacred prayer—the Rigveda—has 432,000 syllables. In each day, 30 Muhurtas. 360 total number of days in a Hindu year. Do the math… forty years.

Forty winks. Ali Baba and his Forty Thieves. And those nine months of pregnancy? Divide them up and you’ve got… forty weeks.

It isn’t a number we can easily ignore.

So, let’s not ignore it. Let us celebrate it. Celebrate it as the spiritual and symbolic number it is. The Great Number. The number of the Flood. The number of the desert. The number of ritual and ordeal.

Playing at Eternity: Moorcock’s Eternal Champion

I played Call of Cthulhu before I played D&D and I read Michael Moorcock’s Elric before I read Lord of the Rings. What can I say? I was always like this.

I discovered Moorcock the way most people in the Twin Cities did: by hanging out in Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Bookstore. I was looking for something to read and the guy at the counter pointed me in the right direction. I had already discovered Robert E. Howard and Conan via H.P. Lovecraft, and once I mentioned those two, he knew where to lead me. The first Moorcock book I bought was Sailor on the Seas of Fate. I loved it. What’s more, I discovered Elric was only one incarnation of a character called “The Eternal Champion.” In fact, all of Moorcock’s heroes were incarnations of the Eternal Champion, which got me to read all the Moorcock I could get my hands on. When I finished with all the Elric there was to read, I found getting hold of the other books was… more challenging. I read about Hawkmoon and the Runestaff, Prince Corum in the Scarlet Robe, von Bek, and poor Erekosë who started the whole thing off. Like most of my reading habits, I had to read all of it before I read anything else. And, thanks to Mr. Moorcock, I had a huge list to fill. Back in those days—the dark, early days—there was no internet or Amazon. I had to get what I could get when I could get it and I never got my hands on all of it.

Until recently.

Gollancz Books has been reprinting all the classic Moorcock novels and I’ve been reading them. All of them. One at a time. I’m finally getting to read the second Corum trilogy (which I never got around to) and the High History of the Runestaff (I only got to read the Count Brass trilogy). I’m also getting to read all the “newer” Elric stories that I skipped over (all the Dream Thief stuff and Revenge of the Rose). Reading Moorcock again has re-ignited a love of fantasy in my brain. Reading the new stuff and re-reading the old shows me just how important he was to my own writing and my own thoughts about fantasy and epic.

(I’m specifically thinking of the vivid prose he uses when violence breaks out. I’ve used a similar technique with all my writing, but never realized it was Moorcock who inspired it.)

And, of course, being who I am, I’m thinking, How would I design an Eternal Champion RPG?

Well, how would I? Easy. I’ll tell you. But I won’t tell you all of it. You won’t get a working model. Just a glimpse. Why? Well, I don’t own any of the rights to make a real Eternal Champion RPG (that would just be disrespectful to Mr. Moorcock) and second, I get paid for my work. Except sometimes. When I’m feeling generous.

 

How It Would Work

Okay, some heads up on what we are doing here.

The Eternal Champion fights for Cosmic Justice across the Million Spheres (different realities), making sure the powers of Law and Chaos don’t get out of hand. The Champion takes different forms, plays different roles, but always has both a Consort (the one the Champion loves) and a Companion (the one the Champion trusts). There’s more to learn, but that should give you an idea.

 

First, I’d use Chaosium’s BRP. It’s the system I learned on, it’s the system that gave me Stormbringer, and it fits in my head. However, I’d use the simpler d20 version of BRP—the one found in Pendragon. I like it more and it’s my game, so there.

Second, this is a four person RPG. No more, no less. You need 4 people to play this game. One person is the GM. We all know how that works. Now, each player creates an incarnation of the Eternal Champion. You get to pick your Champion’s details including gender, appearance, and all the rest. Using Jared Sorensen’s “three things” rule, I’d say you get to say three things about your character and that’s it. At least to start. You can add more stuff later, but let’s not get bogged down in details.

Next, after everyone’s shown off their new Champion, you make a Companion and a Consort for the other two Champions. So, if it’s Amy, Becky, and Charlie…

  • Amy makes a Consort for Becky’s Champion and a Companion for Charlie’s Champion,
  • Becky makes a Consort for Charlie’s Champion and a Companion for Amy’s Champion, and
  • Charlie makes a Consort for Amy’s Champion and a Companion for Becky’s Champion

Got that? Go around the table with everyone making either a Consort or a Companion for each Champion. Once you’ve got that done, we’re ready to play.

Spotlight

If you aren’t familiar with the concept of spotlight in RPGs, you should be. It’s the moment the GM shines on your character. Everybody else should focus on making this moment about you because soon enough, it’ll be their turn in the spotlight and you’ll be there to help them shine.

The GM focuses one session or set of sessions on a single Champion. This is their story. If the spotlight is on Amy’s Champion, Becky plays the Companion and Charlie plays the Consort. When that story ends, its Becky’s turn in the spotlight with a story dedicated to her Champion while Becky and Charlie switch roles. And so it goes.

Oh! And I’d also throw in some kind of bonus mechanic (bonus dice, bonus to your roll, etc.) if you can work in a parallel to a previous Champion’s story. Because Moorcock did it, you get rewarded for doing the same thing.

 

* * *

 

And that’s pretty much how I’d run it. A lot of the magic stuff would be hand-wavy because that’s pretty much how Moorcock wrote it. Not a lot of spell lists, but I’d use something similar to magic points because in Moorcock’s multiverse, magic seems to have a serious effect on the caster’s stamina. Violence would be brutal. Of course there would be a Law vs Chaos mechanic. And yes, I’d use pretty much the same mechanic you’d find in Chaosium’s Stormbringer and Hawkmoon, but with some slight modifications. No, I won’t tell you.

I hope this post encourages you to think of your own Eternal Champion game, or better yet, pick up the whole series. Trust me, if you’ve never read any Moorcock, get out and do it. You can thank me later.

In the meantime, I’ll go back to the adventures of the Prince in the Scarlet Robe. He’s about to roll the King of Swords and I can’t wait to see it happen.

Of course, there’ll be a heavy cost. For the Eternal Champion, there always is.

Santa Vaca: Alignment

Recently on my FB page, a very long chat about D&D’s alignment system came up. Instead of bitching about how much I dislike it (and whoah, do I have reasons), I’d like to offer an alternative. This is the Alignment system from Santa Vaca, my hack of the World’s Most Famous Roleplaying Game. Enjoy. And if you want a copy of the whole book, you can get it here.

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In this world, there are no gods, but four Primal Powers: Order, Chaos, Good, and Evil. These Powers are necessary elements in the world. Without them, the world falls apart. Because the Powers are sentient agents in the world, that means the DM plays those sentient Powers. They’re NPCs. They have roles to fill in the world. They are so distant from us—so alien—communicating with them is not easy. Determining what they want is tricky. The Powers communicate to those who serve them through the symbolic language of dreams, portents and omens. Your character is aligned to one or more of these Powers in some way.

Order wants Structure, Tradition and Hierarchy. The Symbol of Order is the single arrow, pointing upward.

Chaos wants Freedom, Liberty and Self-Reliance. The Symbol of Chaos is the eight-pointed star.

Good wants Selflessness, Altruism and Comfort. The Symbol of Good is the indalo.

Evil wants Hatred, Revenge and Suffering. The Symbol of Evil is the skull.

 

Choosing Your Alignment 

You have five points to allocate to the four Powers. Your points may change depending on your character’s behavior.

The more points you have in a Power, the more potent your relationship with that Power is. It also determines the kind of blessings (and curses) the Power you’ve aligned yourself with will put upon you.

If your devotion to Good is higher than your devotion to Evil, that obviously says something about your character’s moral standing. Likewise, if your devotion to Chaos is greater than your devotion to Law, that says something as well.

 

Examples 

For my own character, I’ve allocated my devotion like this: 

Good 2

Chaos 2

Law 1

 

I could have allocated my devotion like this: 

Chaos 2

Good 3

 

Or, like this: 

Law 2

Good 2

Evil 1

 

Or like this: 

Good: 5

All of these examples add up to five points of devotion. How you allocate your points is up to you. Don’t worry about putting points into contradictory powers. You’ll pay for it later. 

 

Calling Upon the Powers 

Once per game, you may, before you make a saving throw*, call upon one of the Powers for assistance. When you do this, you gain a bonus to your ability equal to your devotion to that Power. For example, if you want to cause pain, misery and sorrow, you may call upon the Power of Evil and gain bonus equal to your ranks of devotion to that Power. If your devotion is 3, you add 3 to your ability.

Any time you call upon a Power, check your intention. Is your intention to cause pain, misery and sorrow? You add your Evil alignment bonus to your ability. Is your intention to serve others, to ease suffering, to sacrifice yourself for another’s welfare? Add your Good devotion bonus to your ability.

The bonus only lasts for one save. No longer.

If your rank in a Power is zero, you have no bonus. You aren’t neutral—that’s different, as you’ll see below—you just have no alignment to that Power.

 

Increasing & Lowering Devotion 

Whenever you invoke one of the Powers or petition it for Power, there’s a chance your devotion to that Power increases.

Whenever you call upon a Power and succeed, make a check next to that Power. At the end of the game session, roll a d6 for each Power you’ve checked. If the result of the d6 is equal to or greater than your devotion to that Power, your devotion to that Power increases by one point.

Like I said above, the total ranks of your devotions cannot exceed five points. If a devotion increases, you must lower your devotion to another Power by one.

That is, if my devotion to Good increases, I must lower my devotion to another Power by one.

 

Communicating with the Powers

The Powers are not like us. They are alien, distant and immortal. They do not send messages written on stone. They don’t speak through burning bushes. They do not take human form and visit us.

The Powers have motivations. They communicate these motivations through a cryptic and symbolic language. They visit us in dreams. They deliver portents and omens. But direct communication with a clear message is impossible.

 

The Neutral Character

The Neutral character does not subscribe to the authority of the Powers. Neutrality is not “balance.” Neutrality is nothingness. The world is an illusion. The Powers are not real. At least, they are not any more real than anything else.

Neutral characters are not aligned to any of the Powers. This means they gain no bonus, but they have an important benefit. Neutral characters do not serve the Powers, they are trying to transcend this

limited existence to something else… a place not ruled by the Powers. A place where only one Power exists. The Power of Will.

Neutral characters have one rank in “Neutral.” When an aligned character rolls dice against the Neutral character, they gain no bonus. None.

The Power of Will.

 

* In Santa Vaca, all rolls are saving throws based on your ability scores.