Once again, we return to the post-apocalyptic wasteland after some civilization-ending event called The Gray War that wiped out or mutated most life on Earth through something called “NanoGel” which became mysteriously “contaminated,” wrecking everyone’s day for the foreseeable grimdark future. A special group of people still travel the wastes, bringing fantasy and adventure by way of rolling dice and arcane sourcebooks: The Rulemasters! We met one previously, and Archon is back again for a lengthier tale.
I know this was supposed to be up earlier, but I actually tried editing this thing for once, but instead of just tightening it up, I filled in some plot holes, clarified a few points, and it still wound up being almost 21,000 words.
On the plus side, I’m halfway to a good-sized book of novellas and short stories about this guy, so maybe I need to add a level to my Patreon, assuming enough people dig this sort of thing? Anyway, I’ve got it here in PDF form, and I tried to upload ePub, but that’s “forbidden for security reasons.” Therefore, I put the story after the jump. If your browser can stand that big a text dump, then bravely read on!
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It looks like I’m going to have to get Kickstarting soon, but in the meantime, I came across some ps238, Nodwick, and Full Frontal Nerdity trades in my basement and thought finally getting the store in some operational state would be a good idea.
Note that the selection is limited, and I’ll put any others I find up as I come across them. I may also put together grab-bags of back issues, or maybe some autographed issue #1’s for the collectors out there.
Yes, that post title was written pre-coffee, why do you ask? Let us go onward into what my sleep-deprived brain found amusing at the dawn of this week:
• If you’ve ever seen the logo for the Texas-based burger chain, “Whattaburger,” then you might understand why they and DC Comics’ Wonder Woman might have some issues to hash out.
• Moving from food to “food,” here’s a tortilla chip so spicy that it’s sold one chip per package.
• People are angry that Winston Churchill’s former abode was dressed up as Hitler’s home for Transformers 5. I’m more upset that there’s going to be a Transfomers 5 and that they’re once again going to ruin the classic Transfomers villain, Hitler.
• If you can’t wait until the Thanksgiving edition of Talk of the Nation: Science Friday to hear the awards ceremony, you can read about the winners of this year’s Ig Nobel Prizes.
• While we’re on the subject of nerdy crimes against society, how about Philadelphia’s ‘Binary Bandits’? They’re thieves of the numerals 1 and 0 from the address numbers on targeted structures.
• They’re reviving Harry Potter and the X-Files, so why not do this while we’re at it?
• I’ll close this post with a little more ‘Potter, but it comes with a bit of a language warning. It’s not all that surprising, as it’s a link to a bunch of cartoons about how Dumbledore really wasn’t the most responsible headmaster Hogwarts ever had. Then again, maybe he was? We don’t know for sure what the qualifications were other than “hasn’t yet been killed.”
I’m related to a cosplayer now. What will I tell the neighbors?
Long-time readers of ps238 will remember Angie, the metahuman gadgeteer I based on a student my wife once taught. My niece, Ella, has decided to make her own Angie-outfit, including a really cool gadget-glove:
Not pictured: The modified Razor scooter she built that floats about 2 feet above the ground but has a bad habit of melting the pavement and setting off car alarms. 🙂
No, I’m not talking about a black market on Pokemon cards or the fact that playing any Pokemon game will inevitably lead you down a spiraling abyss of self-destruction while electric rodents torment you with taser-like cruelty. What I’m talking about is something I noticed in Pokemon GO which has apparently been a problem since the “Generation 1” Pokemon games (the ones named after various colors). That means this glaring affront to language has been around since about 1999, and either no one has noticed or no one cares enough to fix it. Just in case the screenshot to the left isn’t large enough, here’s a close-up of how the entire franchise has been chipping away at academic standards for a decade and a half:
Surely you see the glaring crime against language and spelling, right? Unless Krabby (and other clawed ‘mon) are dealing illicit substances or selling delights that run counter to state, local, or federal laws, it should be spelled “vise grip,” not “vice grip.” I assembled a handy infographic that I hope makes its way to the offices of Nintendo and immediate action is taken:
I know I’m just venting a pet peeve about spelling, and frankly, after running “vice” through Google Image Search, it’s easy to see it’s a losing battle. Half the images are from the Vice news site and the others are of various clamps, pincer-like tools, and other things that fall under the “vise” category. Usage often determines what’s eventually deemed correct, and it looks like “vice” is on its way to absorbing “vise.”
In short, Nintendo mis-used “vise.” It’s super effective! 🙂
Temporary tattoos have come a long, long way since my childhood. Now, you can get photorealistic and waterproof images of your favorite logo, cartoon character, or otherwise regrettable design in every grocery store. Back in the dark ages, however, all we had were boxes of Cracker Jack, before their toy surprises really started to go downhill. One of the best things to get was these little books of tattoos. Made from food coloring, you wet your skin, slapped one of the designs on it, and then after it probably smeared itself because you didn’t hold it properly, it left colored areas on your flesh. I found two books of these at a garage sale recently, and I thought I’d share the artwork available to kids of the 60’s and 70’s, along with snarky commentary. I only got books #2 and #3, so this only a taste of the artwork available, but I think it’s fairly representative:
The first item is the cover for the booklet, which helps convey the idea of what’s in store. It’s interesting to me you can still see the brushwork on the colors used for the cover art. Moving on, we have the pincer-bug, which I interpreted as “smiling” when I was a kid, but I can see now that was a kind of cranium-coloration. The rightmost tattoo came like that in the book, the printing and cutting machines deciding to add a large amount of irony to the artwork.
The 8-ball-and-chain, a fanciful fusion of two concepts that has never been repeated for some reason. There’s also the “Have a Nice Day if the left edge of your face has been sliced off” (or is it right? I mean, these images are reversed until applied, so…). We wind up with the “Love” image, which I’m sure artist Robert Indiana was thrilled to contribute to the realm of impermanent ink.
A green handprint, signifying humanity’s constant struggle with hygiene. The anchor is a classic, of course, as we still watched “Popeye” cartoons back then. The final one on the right just proves that chicks dig tattoos. Yes, I’m ashamed of myself for that last joke, I apologize…
We come to book three, which leads off with a smiling magenta daisy and a curvy arrow, because why not?
I like to think of the first one as being titled “Astonished Walrus,” and I’m sure it’d be a ripe meme-image if it had been produced today. The sun-with-leaves-for-flames was no doubt popular among fans of Raisin Bran. The blood-soaked bunny is, I believe, where Monty Python got the idea for its killer rabbit concept, though I could be wrong about that.
The clown was controversial, as nobody enjoys their terror-causing visages, and the thought of putting them on children no doubt caused a stir. The fish wearing a hat still stands as a tribute to Don Knott’s cinematic masterpiece, The Incredible Mr. Limpet. And lastly, we have what we kids called “The only cool tattoo we ever got from Cracker Jack.” We thought it was a pirate ship, and I’ve seen it referred to as such elsewhere, but I only now noticed there’s no pirate regalia present. Ah, the power of imagination. 🙂
• The image leading off this post comes courtesy of Inspirobot. Just keep clicking until one of its randomly-complied Facebook-ish captioned images “inspires” you.
• A few about video games, the first being that Starbound has had an update, which includes fishing. Secondly, if you purchased Rocksmith‘s 2014 version, a free “remastered” update is on the way. I’d just be happy with a way to not have it play back my tragic attempts at music while I select new songs.
• If you want to add a little extra to that horror role-playing game you’re running (or if you just like making people squeamish), here’s the d20 for you.
• And from Alert Reader Stephen comes a method of checking the balance of your d20. I note he doesn’t test one like in the previous link, but I think I’d trust one rather than crack it open.
• In ancient grimoire news, the 900-year-old Mayan Grolier Codex has been declared genuine. Unfortunately, it’s largely about astronomy instead of Mayan Magic Missiles and stuff.
• Just to put a name to the language rules most native English-speakers use but are sometimes unaware of, here’s info about The Royal Order of Adjectives. It’s why “The red ancient huge dragon” sounds weird.
• And here’s a fun little diversion: Steam Rocket. Move your astronaut around, shoot aliens, gather fuel, and re-assemble your rocket so you can escape into orbit! That almost sounds like work, doesn’t it?
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