Loaches

"The lab was eerily quiet - merely the lub-lub-lub sounds of the pumps on the far wall. We followed the coils of tubing, filled with orangish goo, bubbling into the armorplast tanks, towering above us. Under the tanks, we found the controls that would open the valves - we also found the explosives and the countdown timer with four second left! BOOSH! It wasn't a big explosion, but it was enough to crack open the seal on a 100 kiloliter tank! Orange goo and writhing blobs gushed forth. The blobs had eyes - and claws!!"

Take the DNA of a roach, and the DNA of a lobster, splice in a little canine for size and strength and what do you have? You have a Lobster-Roach - a Loach*. 

Loaches vary wildly in appearance. The Common Loach, if there is such a thing, is about 24 inches (60 cm), color varies from ruddy brown to light orange. Its main distinguishing feature are its claws, it has two in front, as would be typical of a lobster, but in place of a tail it has a third, sometimes larger, claw. The head of the creature has both eye stalks and compound eyes, from its mixed DNA heritage. The eyes grant limited range infrared vision, but vision is poor overall.

Loaches are amphibious and found in nearly any environment, except, perhaps, the most extreme. They are found in oceans, on land, in swamps, brackish lakes and in jungles and forests, above and below ground. They do prefer wetter environments. There have been encounters with loaches in cold water and high volcanic plains.

Loaches are predatory, feeding on smaller animals and insects and they are carrion feeders. Loaches are voracious eaters, feeding in environments until there is nothing left but bare plant life. In extremis, loaches will feed on other loaches. Loaches are quite aggressive, attacking anything they feel might be a threat or food. They are less aggressive in brighter light and more aggressive in total darkness. 

Loaches can be found in many sizes and colors on a great many planets. They also seem to easily mutate and evolve. No one is sure where they originated or if they were even a natural mutation. (A recently rediscovered, 3rd party expansion kit for the child's toy, My First CRSPR, listed a project to spice together what was called a "Roach-Shrimp" - but these were only a few millimeters long, best viewed under heavy magnification. The magnifying scope was sold separately and was a costly additional expansion to the toy.)

On some planets, loaches are harvested, even cultured, for agricultural and other products. The claw meat is quite pleasant, especially when poached with butter and citrus peel. Certain loaches have one of their claws removed and are returned to their environment, where they are harvested from again and again for decades. Loach roe, or eggs, are collected and used in recipes or eaten raw. Entire boutiques are filled with fancy jars of loach roe and pickled meats. The center dorsal shell is often quite thick, hard and frequently iridescent, it has been fashioned into tools and jewelry for hundreds of years. Larger loach claws may have pseudo-teeth, these are used by the animal for attack or for ripping flesh before it's consumed, but the teeth can also be harvested and used as dental implants for many species.

Common Loach: Appearing d6; Init -1; Atk claw +2 melee (1d6); AC 12; HD 2d4; MV 30’; Act 2d20, 1d16; SP infravision 30’; SV Fort -1, Ref +0, Will -1; AL C.

The Common Loach will be found, with minor variations in size and color, in most environments and on most planets. However, below is a table of suggested variants to the loach. These may be found by themselves or among other loaches. (You should feel free to further vary, mutate and utterly mess with the template to fit your next adventure.)  

To randomly determine if any of the following variants are found in an encounter with Loach, roll a d3, on a result of 1, roll d24 and consult the list below...

The Point

The blog was down for nearly a week. Apparently, this was intentional on the part of Google.

I am neck deep in the Google ecosystem. This blog is hosted on Blogger. I bought the domain from Google Domains. My personal email address is with Gmail. So, I gave Google Domains my personal Gmail address when I registered the URL for this Blogger hosted blog. Gmail, for whatever reason, sent the email verifying my email address (essentially Google talking to Google about Google servicing Google) to my Spam folder. I wasn't expecting this email, so I didn't check my filters. Over the last month, Google Domains has repeatedly sent warnings that my domain would be turned off if I didn't verify my Gmail address directly to my Gmail spam folder. I remained unaware this was happening. Last Monday, Blip! - no blog. I mean, it hardly matters at this point, I'm the only one reading this drek. But, it's the principle of the thing! So, I gave feedback three times over the course of the week. Their feedback form is the only form of support I can find from Google for Blogger issues. Considering I STILL haven't heard anything back, that's a ZERO for customer service. I was, WAS, so excited to put this blog on Blogger.

This week has given me the opportunity to reflect on this project. The point of this whole project was to give me reasons to play solo games. I have been working on this project for a month and I have yet to roll a single die. I have spent nearly a grand on new equipment and various odds and ends, I have written more both here in this blog and in my journal than I have in the last year and I have been drawing, and actually drawing far better than I thought I could. (Yes! That's some of my best work. Shut up!) But I haven't played a single game nor produced a single video.

I think I missed the point.

I think I have bitten off more than I WANT to chew. I have made EVERYTHING into content. Instead of doing videos of me playing games, I'm writing tables for games I've never played and gluing crap to other crap and writing and drawing and it feels like I'm so productive but in the end I have really not produced anything I set out to produce.

I have issues starting projects and not completing them. Maybe part of stopping that behavior is realizing when I have gone crazy with a project and killing it before I just drop it out of frustration.

Rolling a 3 for Motivation

At least it wasn't a 1...

This is a whiny blog post, feel free to skip it.

It's not easy being a creative.

I want to make big, bold, beautiful art. I want to create all the things. I want to do it perfectly and I want to do it immediately and with no effort.

Yeah, I'm that guy.

None of this (motions at the entire universe) works that way. Every thing I do requires time and effort and it NEVER goes smooth. Everything I do is a test. Everything I do is a learning experience. I can never seem to budget enough time for what I want to do. I try to simplify, but either I underestimate the complexity of the task at hand or my desire for perfection and "coolness" makes things far more complex than I intended.

Or, I am just too damned tired and/or overwhelmed to even start. The procrastination pile just grows and grows...

This blog is supposed to be accompanied by a YouTube channel. But, I'm having some trouble producing content to get it launched. I set the scope for the YouTube channel too wide and I know it. Buuuuuuuut... my desire to do all the cool things will not allow me to reset the scope.

I made this uncomfortable bed - there will be no rest!

There will be a YouTube channel! On this I vow! (🙄) It's just going to take WAY more time to launch than I wanted. The blog posts are flowing like water - which is frankly unusual for me. But, the vlog/channel/videos are going to be a minute and it's all on me.

What am I talking about? So, honestly, the channel should just be about live game play throughs and any additional content that comes to hand down the line. But, it occurred to me that maybe I should create some terrain for the first game sessions. Mind you, I won't have any painted minis for that game - but kit-bashed terrain? My brain is requiring it!

Have I ever built terrain before? No. No, I have not. Have I watched maybe a thousand videos of other creators, far more experienced creators, doing it over the years and convinced myself I can do that, too? Yes. Totally.

So, because my brain has the dumb, I decided not to just start building terrain (which I haven't done before) but to record all of it (which I also haven't done before) and, just to up the difficulty (to impress the French judges) I want to do a THREE PART VIDEO as my first entries to the channel!

What? The? Heck? Is? Wrong? With? ME!?!?!?

Now, having said all of that, yes, I have been procrastinating like a madman for weeks on the videos. But, last night I put at least three hours into filming. I figure I got about a fourth of the filming and construction that I want to do done. Now, that means I'm likely another 12+ hours of recording & construction & painting, and probably four+ hours of editing.

All to produce three 5 minute videos.

Why do I think this is fun???

But - I do! 😎

Bolds

"We heard them in the corridor ahead of us, their tiny claws scraping on the metal deck plates, yipping and growling at each other, preparing for our approach. Just as our weapons were ready and we were about to launch our attack - they dropped out of the ceiling tiles! Blades flashing, spears goring - and one had a burner! The frothing furry freak began vaporizing holes in the bulkheads! In a moment, the hull would begin to implode!"

Kobolds have long been a staple of fantasy RPGs. They are tiny and gross and dangerous and frightening and, dare I say, alien. On one hand, the thought of an armed and armored chihuahua is comical, but in numbers, that comical band of warrior poodles can (and have!) committed more than one TPK.

Their alien-ness makes them an interesting and somehow comforting opponent in a sci-fi setting. They are as at home in a space based campaign as any Space Elf (Vulcan) or Space Orc (Gamorrean). And just when your players are getting ready for an easy "W" - they realize that there is a mutated one and one with psychic powers - and they begin writing up a new character just in case!

"Bolds" can be introduced into nearly any sci-fi scenario - just as they are presented on page 419 of the Dungeon Crawl Classics core book. The following are a list of variants that might be found in a typical tribe or warren. These may also be found as labor aboard a vessel or perhaps conducting piracy or performing mercenary services. To randomly determine if any of the following are in a given situation, roll a d5. On a 1, roll a d20 and consult the table below.

Gearing Up...

Putting together a new project is always a lot of fun. There is always so much to think about. What will the blog look like? What will I write about? What will the vlog look like? What new video editing skills do I need to accomplish those visual goals? Etc., etc. …

But, my favorite part, by far, is always going to be… the gear.

Now I have to preface this by saying I’m really not good at much of anything. I’m not a professional photographer or videographer or, well, writer. (Obvs! 😉) But, I have so much fun with this stuff that I just can’t help enjoying the whole effort. It’s exciting seeing my little ideas come together.

So, for this (soon to be started - I swear!) vlog/video/solo gaming project, I want to do some fancy video editing. I want to display a virtual table on the screen, something with a lot of color and action and information - YouTube can be a big canvas if used correctly. When I’m playing a game, I want to show my talking mug in one corner of the screen. I want a big picture of the game board and figures on a map, all the game pieces, right in the middle. I want to use the bottom of the screen for game data; character stats and lore and maps, etc. - these elements might move around a bit depending on importance in the moment. Last, and certainly not least - I’ve always been a fan of dice. The game I’ve picked, Mutant Crawl Classics, actually adds dice not used in other games, so I want to give the dice their own area of the screen, their own prominence.

For my face, I don’t need super high quality video, but really good audio is a must, my phone will do that double duty perfectly and give me a back facing monitor. The main board will be covered by my Canon PowerShot I purchased for my travel blog project, again the flip up monitor will be very useful. I’ll probably add in my GoPro on a micro-tripod for low to the surface shots, extra action, etc. But - what about the dice?

This has become a fun project all of its own. I realized early on that I didn’t need an expensive camera just to show dice rolling. In fact, super high quality video for that might actually look worse. Think about the little cameras they use for poker games or on the football field - you want to see the action but the resolution isn’t expected to be perfect. There was no need to get another $400 GoPro.

So, I looked around Amazon and watched videos on YouTube and finally settled on an AKASO Brave 4 at $90 dollars. I bought a really pretty dice tray and a nice mini-tripod. Today, I set up the first test shots and they are exactly as I imagined! It’s going to be super cute! It also has a high probability of causing chaos and shenanigans - it’s a $90 GoPro knock-off, it can’t be perfect!

I’m really looking forward to getting all of this rolling up and out. So much to do!!

Not Quite Useless Trash

Got a trash heap in a sci-fi world? Maybe something in there is kinda useful. Roll a d100 and find out!

How Did I Get Here??

We established in the last blog post that this blog and (the coming??) YouTube channel are being built out of overwhelming boredom, a need to play RPGs and a wistful hope of becoming a full time gamer. But, this particular project went on a bit longer of a journey - I thought I would share that with you here…

I started by looking for people running solo games on YouTube. I was shocked to see how little of that kind of content existed. Lots of crafting videos by one creator, lots of groups playing games, almost no solo players. In fact, I really only found one: Me, Myself and Die.

Voice actor Trevor Devall makes for quite entertaining viewing. I can not recommend his channel enough. He gets very excited about the games he’s playing, you can’t help being excited with him.  If, after you watch his channel, it appears I am entirely copying him, well, it’s nearly true. His work was a big inspiration and I only hope that if mimicry is the truest form of flattery, that indeed he is flattered.

I started off not looking to create a YouTube channel, I was merely looking for ideas on how others were playing solo games. After watching just about everything on MMD, I convinced myself that it might be an extra fun kick to share what and how I’m playing with the world.

At first, I wanted to find a way to play something like Star Wars. I wanted to play a lone padawan trying to learn the ways of The Force. I thought I would use my preferred ruleset, the Revised Rulebook from Wizards of the Coast (it coincided with the D&D 3.5 rules.) Right about the time I thought about playing that on YouTube, Hasbro, who knows less about roleplaying games than they do about good Star Wars toys, forced WotC to start messing with the latest Open Gaming License (OGL), which pissed off the gaming community as a whole and forced a great deal of creators to rethink their association with Wizards and the D&D brand. It occurred to me that Disney now owns the rights to Star Wars and Hasbro owns the rights to the d20 ruleset, these are two of the most litigious companies around. I don’t want to ruin my life messing with either of them, thank-you-very-much.

I looked at GURPS, my old friend, frankly the best system ever made. (Fight me!) I looked around their website to see if there were any rules about running a game on YouTube. All I found was a FAQ, written in 2012, that mentioned running a GURPS game on a BBS… that’s what page they are on at Steve Jackson Games. I must admit I’m very disappointed. I read through their Facebook page, post after post about Munchkin. I must have looked for at least a half hour, I saw one, a single lonely post that mentioned GURPS. It’s as if they don’t care about their product anymore. Just another dead, abandoned RPG - I guess. The current market is clamoring for D&D alternatives - I hope they find a way to capitalize on it soon.

I wanted to stay with Sci-fi, and at this point I wanted to try something very new to me. Especially since most of the things I was comfortable with were disappearing fast. I had long been curious about Mutant Crawl Classics and its predecessor Dungeon Crawl Classics, both from Goodman Games. I found a nice bundle on Drive Thru RPG for MCC and I tucked into reading the book. It took me a couple of nights, but now I’m hooked. I’ve not only purchased the third party produced Star Crawl but have also purchased the DCC bundle. I have been listening to the Glowburn podcast and will likely add Spellburn to my podcast list soon. I’m really excited to be playing this game and sharing my fun with the world.

Boredom Genesis

Being an adult sucks. There just isn’t enough time to do all the things you want to do. Trying to gather other adults together to pursue shared interests just increases the difficulty.

The Mighty Red Box

I've been playing Role Playing Games since I was a wee laddie. For Christmas 1985. I received the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, a.k.a. The Red Box, and I have never looked back. (Thanks, Mom!) I’ve played RPGs in grade school, in high school and in college. I’ve played games on the road, over the phone, on the internet, at home and at work - I even played D&D, on my lunch break, when I briefly worked at Wizards of the Coast - how’s that for geek cred?

But, as the years have gone by, as I and my circle of friends have grown older and our days were overtaken by jobs and responsibilities and “real life” - it’s gotten harder and harder just to find a group to game with, much less find a day and time that’s open on everyone’s schedule. We’ve all tried, and tried, and failed and got together once, and tried again. Add to that the complex subtleties of group chemistry and finding game genres and gaming styles that agree with everyone - it can be a real undertaking. Role playing, especially D&D, might be more popular now than it has EVER been, but somehow that hasn’t helped.

Layer on a three year global pandemic, and, well… it didn’t get easier.

I literally NEED to play RPGs. I need to write adventures, imagine scenarios, roll dice and re-re-re-erase my character sheet. Call it an addiction if you will, but if I don’t play now and then, I get cranky, depressed and, I hate to admit it, unpleasant to be around. I don’t need to play every day or something, but every few months is about enough to maintain me. No, I don’t want to play a board game! If a board game has a rule book that’s longer than an RPG, why wouldn’t I just play an RPG?

So, like any addic… gaming devotee… I turned to YouTube. I watched others play RPGs. It’s okay, but it didn’t really scratch the itch, ya know? I thought back to the old days, in my teens and twenties, TSR and others were doing anything they could to keep gaming going. There were Choose Your Own Path books, and books where you had a real character sheet and rolled dice and full sized solo adventures. Magazines (remember those?) often had short solo adventures. I remember using the random dungeon tables in the back of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master’s Guide to build a ten level dungeon on the smallest graph paper I could find. Surely solo RPG play must still exist… ?

Sun Tzu said: If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by. (He probably didn’t say that, but what do I know? Nothing is real.) In answer, I say, if you put enough keywords into YouTube, you can find anything you are looking to find. I’m still looking for the right keyword for this week's lotto numbers, but I was able to find some neat solo wargaming and RPG games and YouTube creators. I attached my face to the screen and binged all I could! There is some amazing content by some incredible creators. I was hooked!

Now, in all my years of playing RPGs (does the math… ‘85 to ‘23… 38?!) I’ve usually been the one running the game; the Dungeon Master, the Game Master, the Storyteller (I soon get to add “Judge” to that list - more on that soon.) In the last 20 of those years, I’ve wished I could somehow make my living running games for others. Twenty years ago, that was a Fantasy! But, with the advent of the internet, social media and content sharing sites like YouTube and the new found popularity of D&D, a full time game runner can indeed make a living. Watching those creators got my creative juices flowing. Wouldn’t it be cool if I could be a full time paid gamer, too?

It’s a nice dream. For the moment, I’m a working stiff. I have a good job with a good paycheck. This new creative outlet will hopefully allow me to run and play games. Roll dice and erase character sheets. I’m even taking up miniature and terrain painting because… why not? I want to share this all with an audience of friends, most of whom I haven’t met yet. Give back to the community and to the other creators who have inspired me.

I think this is going to be a lot of fun!

My First Minis

I have just finished painting my first wargaming miniatures!

My first regular troop!

My first fully painted units!

My unpainted Pile o'Shame!

I'm so very Proud!!

Welcome to the Party Pocket Dimension!

Oh! I do love this joy! The beginning of a new blog - so exciting!

I have been thinking about this project for months, wondering what I would do and how to proceed and here we are with the first concrete actions. This is so much fun for me, you have - no idea!

So, welcome all! I am going to be putting in a bunch of work and changes over the next few days, don't get attached to anything just yet! But do say "Hi!" if you see this!