The Pure Chronicles: Setting Out

I've decided to have a little IC journal for my character's trip through the Stolen Lands AP. Pure is a tiefling Life Oracle, and well... Let's just leap right to it.

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Journal of Pure
As Regards: Restovian Exploration of the Area Denoted as 'The Stolen Lands'

I am starting this in order to document our exploration per the remit of the Swordlords of Restov. We are given a remit to explore and document within the area known as the Greenbelt.  Our group is a motely band, consisting of a variety of outcasts and strange individuals, but the strangest of course is myself. My unclean fiend tainted existence may find use in bringing order to this distressed land.

Our compatriots consist of..

Amalena, a ‘friend’ of mine of loose morals and ready magical talent.

Navan, a summoner who can project a duplicate of himself. Ah, his talents in defeating the fiendish leave me with hope that one day he can visit the appropriate punishments on me for the crime of existing.

Zultant Goblinbane – A supposed paladin of Abadar, he seems brave and ready.

Shara Orlovsky – A strange hand to hand combatant, I believe from a noble family.

And

Talon -A tengu warrior. He seems upright and just.

All in all, our fellowship seems well adjusted, but my attempts to forge a formal compact of our agreement has proved troublesome and we set out without a definitized version.

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First of Pharast

Prior to our initial arrival, I had found myself troubled by a vision.

In the vision, I found myself standing in a thick forest at twilight. Shadows were looming around me and then I found starving wolves emerging from the trees to attack me, circling with hungry eyes. And then, a bear crashed through the woodwork, and the wolves and it formed up in military fashion against me. Then they looked towards the setting sun of the twilight and there was a massive antler wearing deer, coated in blood. Then they attacked me and tore me apart.

Usually dreams of my death are pleasant ones, this one however, was a vision, not a dream.

None the less, we arrived at our first port of call. An area referred to as Oleg’s trading post. Oleg’s was a ramshackle wooden fort that had clearly seen better days. On our arrival, Oleg believed we were a group of bandits, who had been assaulting him and despoiling his storehouses. We explained ourselves, and our remit and lied in wait to deal with the bandits who he believed would soon be arriving.

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Second of Pharast

We dispatched the bandits.

An interrogation of the one surviving bandit indicated that they were associated with a ‘Keseler’ who ‘lived down by the river.’

The bandit also revealed information about a nearby alchemist and some information about the lay of the land. He however indicated repentance so as to avoid execution and we let him go with his boots, to presumably head back north.

The bandit also indicated that groups of bandits identified themselves with amulets depicting a silver stag’s head. I informed the party of my vision, but inwardly my guts were turning. Whatever power grants me my skill at healing obviously has taken a notice.

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Third of Pharast

After a discussion, we proceeded out eastward in search of the alchemist.

We encountered what we believed to be the relief force sent from Restov, led by a ‘Keston Garris.’ They were nervous about encountering our party, which makes me doubt for their efficacy in defending Oleg’s encampment.

We also encountered annoying creatures, later identified as grigs. Scandalously female from the waist up and bug from the waist below. They tittered at us, attacked us with thrown objects, and then escaped.

We discovered him, a cantankerous sort of man named  Bokkun. Apparently he was attempting to remain neutral in the goings on between Oleg, the bandits and others, but was unaware of anything else of note in the area.

He seems less then sane. He does however have a taste for something referred to as a ‘fangberry’ and knows of a location of a patch of them. He promised a discount for a large amount of them.

He did not let us sleep in his hut.

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Fourth of Pharast

We continued our plan of a circular investigation of territory immediately surrounding Oleg’s. On so doing, we encountered what was apparently a field of bones.

As this is obviously suspicious, we began cautiously investigating when we were attacked by an absolute monster of a trap door spider and its terrible young. The spider was dispatched through force of arms, and the young dispatched through judicious use of alchemist fire. Unfortunately, that was the last of our alchemist fire.

We found several human remains, believed to be bandits, and buried them. They had another stag’s head amulet. This bandit group seems large.

Also discovered because of the thoroughness of our tengu friend, was what appeared to be a map depicting  claw like tree, with an enticing ‘x’ on it. Zultant believes it to be a treasure map.

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Fifth of Pharast

The day was spent burying bodies. It was trying work in the uneven dirt. Navan refused to bury these bodies as he had buried the bodies of the bandits we slew back at Oleg. I regret that duties prevented me from being able to watch him work.

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Sixth of Pharast

We completed examination of the area around the spider nest and found nothing else of value. I am still concerned that the grigs may come and destroy us.

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Seventh of Pharast

We entered the forest. It was dark and unpleasant. In the night we heard the sound of wolves. This was highly distressing to me.

I kept it to myself.

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Eighth of Pharast

We discovered a large grove during our investigations. Apparently it was being managed by kobold farmers. These kobolds assaulted us and we were left no choice but to dispatch most of them. We did capture one, strip him naked and interrogate him.

He indicated his name was Glowball and he came from a large encampment to the south led by a leader by the name of ‘Soot-scale.’ When we returned some of his radishes and indicated a desire for peaceful interaction, he seemed receptive. I do not trust him entirely however, and I advise we keep him locked up.

I plan on trying to turn him over to Guard Leader Garris at the first opportunity as traveling with a naked trussed up kobold sends the wrong messages to people. Amalena particularly.

Tomorrow we will continue our investigations..  

Lament for the Zombie

Zombies are overused and just plain aren’t scary.

I’m sorry, but that’s my opinion.

Zombies rose to particular prominence as the ‘undead horde’ thanks to George Romero’s watershed horror film Night of the Living Dead which was released back in 1968.  The film was creepy, intense and gave the overall sensation of a world going mad, along with the loom, lingering forms of the undead as they attacked the humans, whose foibles caused them to fray, falter and so forth.

 The success of the zombie film was also due to the fact that zombie films, in general, are cheap. Undead people tend to look like, well people, and extras are easy to come by. Romero used to find it funny, supposedly, that extras always wanted to be the ones who got shot or blown up or chowed down on people, meaning he had plenty of gruesome opportunities to let his special effects guys go crazy.

Now, I’m agoraphobic, so crowds bother me. I can understand why someone would worry about a horde of malicious insensate, unreasonable kinda-people coming for you. So I appreciate why zombies were scary and successful.

The problem is that they aren’t scary in RPGs, or video games for that matter, and the common idea of the zombie film, is well, tired and was kinda stupid to begin with.

It’s been said that Romero always thought we should be rooting for the zombies. This is probably out of some hideworn 60s era dross about them being the silent unwashed proletariat waiting to rise up and take what was theirs. The whole ‘eat the rich’ nonsense. So most zombie films portray, well, morons and jerks, who end up as zombie chow in short order.

It’s also been theorized that the reason the ‘true zombie fan’ doesn’t like fast zombies is because, well, nobody has a chance against them. Similar to the ‘eat the rich’ bullshit, there’s also the idea that only cagey, resourceful people ‘like me’ could survive the zombie outbreak. Strangely, zombie films tend to portray the religious, the well off, the well armed and such as the people least likely to survive the onslaught of slow, shambling brainless killing machines. Which again, is probably due to the dime store socialism that seems to have infected the indie-side of Hollywood in the sixties that Night of the Living Dead was born out of.  Basically, the ‘true zombie fan’ wants to envision that only he and his friends could really survive and that people made into chow are done so just because they were too dumb, too foolish or too (insert trait he doesn’t like) to survive against slow moving oceanic seas of corpses. Fast zombies wreck that because well, anybody can be run down if the zombie is the cheetah and you are the antelope.

And in that, is why zombies in RPGs are always kind of well, dumb. See, RPGs inherently give the player character capability and agency and zombie films, more so then normal horror films, don’t function if the heroes aren’t hamstrung.

Player characters don’t forget to call the cops. Don’t buy that shambling undead hordes can overwhelm military bases with astounding ease (given that they tend to have at least a passing understanding of how modern firearms or military tactics work), refuse to accept that they have to throw fifteen different breakers on dozens of floors of an apartment building to turn the lights back on, and know that Home Depot carries generators, gasoline and other fun stuff. So DMs are usually left with alternatives of putting their heroes in bizarre locales, which raise further problems for the zombies (why don’t they free solid at the arctic base, why aren’t they being liquidifed by pressure on the ocean floor, etc) Fantasy zombies are little better then creepy robots, and most classes are literally given specific anti-zombie artillery, which has led some to just straight up making something like ‘unturnable zombies’ to keep the cleric from flash eradicating them.

There are some specific ‘zombie RPGs’ out there, but most operate on the intrinsic conceits of taking away the player’s capability to do anything at the onset. The problem here is that the ‘weak pc’ vs the zombies really turns the game into either a shaggy dog story, or else turns the game into a puzzle. That of course discounts that some people do go in for a ‘storyteller’ like experience.

Zombies end up as the baseline, the lowest threat. After all, they don’t think. And the only threat they present is when there’s a lot of them. Some DMs try to get around this by making other weirder zombies (zombie sharks!) but that’s tricky since zombie doesn’t necessary mean ‘all undead’ and sometimes people want fancier, or weirder undead: Ghost sharks, vampire sharks, etc.

Ironically, the older version of the zombie, that with the voodoo priests and the like, can be arguably more compelling. The idea of loss of control, or the despoilment of family members can strike more firmly then just a wall of necrotic flesh. The idea that the voodoo zombie may or may not even be dead might also make dealing with them weirder. Undead who talk, but talk like the dead, are far scarier than just fleshy robots groaning out ‘brains!’

Bugbears: Cyberpunk. Corps and the Law.

I don’t just discuss fantasy rpgs here. No, no, I also sometimes complain.

Today’s complaint, which I hope to eventually grow into constructive criticism as opposed to just me bitching, is about Cyberpunk.

Wikipedia defines Cyberpunk as..

Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a futuristic setting that tends to focus on "a combination of low life and high tech"^[1] featuring advanced technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cybernetics, juxtaposed with a degree of breakdown or radical change in the social order.^[2]

Much of cyberpunk is rooted in the New Wave science fiction movement of the 1960s and 70s, when writers like Philip K. Dick, Roger Zelazny, J.G. Ballard, Philip Jose Farmer, and Harlan Ellison examined the impact of drug culture, technology, and the sexual revolution while avoiding the utopian tendencies of earlier science fiction. Released in 1984, William Gibson’s influential debut novel Neuromancer would help solidify cyberpunk as a genre, drawing influence from punk subculture and early hacker culture. Other influential cyberpunk writers included Bruce Sterling and Rudy Rucker.

Now I bring this up because a person bugbear of mine is the Megacorp. Not because I have a problem with the idea of a large corporation, or even a problem with the idea of an abusive mercantile entity. No, no, my problem with it is the too-cool-for-school approach most Cyberpunk games, and indeed almost the entire cyberpunk genre takes towards it.

We’re all familiar with the common tale of Cyberpunk. Everyone’s dirt poor. Everyone’s oppressed and put upon. The wealthy elites loom above all in their palatial wonderment achieved by robbing the plucky small populace of their hard labor and blah blah blah.

This is where my problem comes from? Why? Because I have a business degree. Despite what the tattooed barrista at the coffee shop who wasted his time on a PoliSci degree has told you, economies are not zero sum games. Aside from genuine thieves, very few people get rich by specifically disenfranchising others.

Now. Let’s start our examination of Cyberpunk stuff by examining frequent bugbears. The megacorp's association with law enforcement.

Shadowrun, like most cyberpunk series, predisposes that the corporations (with their ‘armies of lawyers’) are kingdoms onto their own, who flout a weak and meaningless law and who resolve their disputes through things like back alley assassination, blackmail and the like.

The first question I ask myself with this, is.. Why?

We’re told mega-corporations are essentially defacto voluntarily joined nation states that operate on a mercantile basis. Within their walls, their laws and regulations reign, and all law enforcement outside of those walls is a privately run subsidiary of the dreaded corps. Firstly, any country stupid enough to pass law enforcement off to entirely privately run agencies has abandoned its right to call itself a country unless that privately own agency is the King's guard and the King runs the country. Secondly, no mega-corporation run by a sane human being would want this arrangement.

One of the first things were taught in Contract law is the importance of the well maintained market place, and that requires clear non-arbitrary laws. That is, a market place where contracts are upheld. One of the functions of Government, some have argued the only function, is to operate as a neutral and disinterested arbiter of contract disputes via the law.

Cyberpunk wants its cake and wants to eat it too. It wants the ‘evils of privatization’ with privately run police forces, but doesn’t seem to recognize that the companies who don’t run these PPFs (Private Police Forces) are beholden by default to those who do, and that you can’t really have a real civil justice department when you’ve got dozens of clearly non-neutral actors running around. Why would I trust a tort ruling based on evidence discovered by a PPF owned by a company who is my competitor, what happens if two PPFs both collect evidence. Who represents the final say? Who’ll enforce my warranty on those parts that I SpookCorp bought from FireAntCorp? Do I need to invade them like a freaking Viking overlord to get my $600.00 back on shipping?

And if we try to say the police and justice departments still exist, then the PPFs are just security firms, and don’t really have justifiable authority to operate in ways that flout the law of the country they’re in. See. Governments are really, really freaking pissy when people start muscling in on their ‘job’ of being the final authority and the guy in charge.  

A true cynic could argue that a successful government is just like a crime family made big, with taxes for military and police being a giant protection racket. I don’t hold to that, but the rationale that the bigger bunch doesn’t want people ‘muscling on their turf’ still comes into play.

Now, not all cyberpunk buys into that. Robocop is cyberpunk, and OCP clearly has legal troubles despite apparently owning the police. I’m not sure how the hell that works, but I reason it might be because they only own Detroit’s police department. And well, Detroit.

You see, there are people who think that passing a law magically changes human nature, but in reality, you need police for that nasty ‘enforcement of the law thing.’ Libertarians sometimes say that all laws are ultimately enforced by violence, and get tut-tutted, but in reality, they’re quite on the level with it.

In the real world, let’s say I’m the head of FireAntCorp, we’re a smoke and fire factory who somehow commands the power of a zaibatsu and produces all sorts of products.  I get into a tort issue. See, I was supposed to ship two hundred crates of FireAntCorp brand Fire Ants to SuckerCo. But, because I’m an evil corporation what corporates, I decided to only ship one hundred and seventy five and stick it to him for the extra twenty five. So he files a civil court case against me for replacement of damages.

We here at FireAntCorp tell him to go pound. He goes to a court. Our mutual armies of lawyers do their thing. Let’s assume his are better than mine. We lose. I decide to not pay him, why should I? I command FireAntPPF.

So, SuckerCO sends nice people to collect. I tell them to go pound. SuckerCO goes to the government about how I’m violating a court decision to pay him, and they can’t just take it out of a bank (let’s assume all the banks belong to me, for some strange senseless cyberpunk reason). The government sends nice people. I tell them to go pound.

They send NOT NICE people. People with arms, with the aim to take the court decided moneys and rebuke me rather strictly for my lack of compliance. And if I decide to fight back, I graduate from a bad business partner to an insurrectionist, and my punishment goes up from probably some fines and some minor jail time, to potentially the gallows.  Why? Because if they don’t inflict an appropriate punishment on me for flouting their authority, then their decision making process, their supposed authority and their entire reason for existence gets thrown into the can.

If I can just ignore a court decision they don’t like, then those court decisions are meaningless.  Now, I could bribe them, or hold things up in court, or a thousand other dickbag maneuvers, but those for the most part (bribery aside) are legal. That is to say, something decided on as part of that whole neutral playing field of rules thing.     

If I’m SuckerCO, I want a stable legal system. Even if I’m FireAntCorp, I want one. Because I can’t bribe everyone, but I can hire specialists (well paid ones) to find me loopholes or exceptions to protect me. This means business is predictable, and therefore we don’t need to worry about one another shivving the other or not being able to get paid.  

Most Cyberpunk Corporations you see, have just made themselves into over glorified crime families. Except that the reason why businessmen are rich and die in expensive mansions at the age of 80+ and most crime bosses are middle class at best and die in crappy McMansions at around fifty, is because legit businessmen don’t need to exert force personally to assure they get paid every time they try to sell something, and don’t generally need to worry about getting shot gunned if someone thought the deal was bad.

Unless you’re in Russia.