Alas, the Kickstarter for Cards Against The Multiverse Casters Against Humility Casters Against The Multiverse did not fund.
All this really means is that I cannot, at this time, produce them in bulk to sell. So instead, they are back up on The Game Crafter for sale! I’ve lowered the price a bit to hopefully make it more attractive.
Please, check it out and buy my game!
At the time of this post, Cards Against the Multiverse has become Casters Against Humility! I decided to rename it heeding concerns from some helpful individuals, and also gave the cards a bit of a redesign. The backs now blend better with the original game, while the faces make the expansion more distinct so that there are fewer legal concerns. Take a look:
Backers also now have access to the original PDF (update 2) so they can see the cards!
Keep sharing around the internet and in real life, this only happens if we hit $7000!
We’re live!
So that game I talked about? Yeah, now I’ve got a kickstarter up for it.
I’ve gotten a few printer quotes and found one that is very reasonable. The Game Crafter should be sending me my prototype in about a week so I can give people real pictures. I photoshopped up a nice graphic of cards on a table.
Most importantly, however, this means that instead of asking you guys to drop $20 on a deck of 100 cards, I can offer them at a more reasonable $15 over the $20 that I need to do with The Game Crafter to make any profit, and if this project funds I can print out decks to sell after and actually begin making a living as an actual professional no-shit game designer.
That would be HUGELY important to me, guys, as I’ve wanted to be a professional game designer for… oh… 15 years? It’d be longer if I were older and 15 years ago didn’t put me at 13 and not yet really thinking about careers.
Look, I know that this is an expansion, and not my own full game.
But everyone starts somewhere and I’m proud of this, damnit.
So please, go check out my Kickstarter, and consider supporting it, because if this is successful I have so much more coming in the future.
I originally wrote this for my Argumentation and Debate class this past semester. It’s an argument in favor of instating a Basic Income that would put people just below the poverty threshold, and I chose that number because I felt that’s what I could support with the data I had. I personally think we should do more, maybe a $20K/yr basic income, or even $30k/yr, which would be roughly $5k more and twice the poverty threshold respectively, but Basic Income is already a pretty radical idea and I knew I’d be going in trying to convince people who had likely never even heard of the idea. I thought people might find this interesting
Claim: The US Government should instate a Basic Income of $150/wk ($7.8K/yr) paid to all residents of 18 years of age or older and $50/wk ($2600/yr) for those 15 to 17 years of age, with reductions for those who are employed.
First, it is important to outline the specifics of the proposal, and what it is hoped will be accomplished. A Basic Income of $7,800 a year would not put a person above the poverty line in and of itself. The 2015 Poverty Threshold is $11,770 for a single adult household (US Department of Health and Human Services). Below this amount, a person is considered to be living in poverty. Thus the proposed Basic Income is not an instant cure. To be above the poverty line, an adult living by themselves would require a further $4000 a year, or nearly half again the amount of their Basic Income. Based on the Dauphin, Manitoba Mincome experiment, a reduction of 50 cents per dollar earned working seems reasonable (Langley). This would mean that an individual adult living on their own would need to make, essentially, $6000 from working, which amounts to working roughly 16 hours a week at the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour (Department of Labor), or 13 hours a week at the current California minimum wage of $9 an hour (Department of Industrial Relations). If two adults lived together, as a couple or roommates, they would be only $400 below the Poverty Threshold of $15,930 for a two person household. If only one worked, they would need work only 83 hours in the entire year at the current federal minimum wage to raise their household over the Poverty Threshold. Due to the fact that this Basic Income alone will not keep one out of poverty, it is actually a “Partial Basic Income,” but even so, its benefit to the unemployed and underemployed is obvious.
There are several benefits to instituting such a program. First, the increase in socioeconomic status across the board would lower crime rates and alleviate the effects of unemployment on criminality. Second, the increased socioeconomic status of Americans would promote more healthy lifestyles. Third, more citizens would contribute to society as their financial security allows them to devote time to their communities. Finally, a Basic Income would be an effective contingency in the near future as increasing numbers of jobs are lost to machinery and computer programs. The cost of such a program would be easily covered if Basic Income replaced existing social programs.
To begin, according to the Handbook of Crime Correlates, high socioeconomic status correlates to lower crime rates, while higher unemployment correlates to higher criminality (Ellis). Basic Income may not in and of itself lower unemployment, but it would ameliorate the effects of unemployment as the unemployed are provided with a a guaranteed income of a given amount which will not run out. The unemployed will be less likely to turn to crime out of desperation. FBI studies show such correlation and suggest this cause (Raphael and Winter-Ebmer), and further state that the fall of unemployment can also decrease crime by up to 30% across the board. While Basic Income may not be quite as good as employment, Basic Income studies in Namibia show a decrease in crime of 42% (Bergman). There is, therefore, ample evidence to suggest that not only would a Basic Income decrease poverty, it would also decrease crime, and by extension what our society spends on it. If the Basic Income also required that individuals lack a criminal record, as suggested by Charles Murray (Longley), the potential loss of Basic Income could further dissuade individuals from breaking the law.
As well, a Basic Income could provide considerable benefits to society through improving the health of individuals. There exists an inverse correlation between socioeconomic status and “unhealthy behaviors such as tobacco use, physical inactivity, and poor nutrition” (Pampel). Under the Affordable Healthcare Act, the individual cost of such unhealthy behavior can be seen as a communal cost. Therefore, the general and widespread rise in socioeconomic status of individuals due to the institution of Basic Income, causing the fall in unhealthy behaviors, can be seen as reducing communal costs. This can be seen more concretely by looking at the Manitoba and Namibia Basic Income experiments. In Namibia, malnourishment, a seldom acknowledged but very real problem in America (Egger), fell by 25%. In Manitoba, hospital visits were reduced by 8.5%, and improvement was seen in the domestic violence and mental health rates (Bergman). US studies which preceded the Manitoba experiment also saw positive affects on nutrition and health data, such as an increase in the birth weights of newborns. People who are provided money for which they don’t have to rely on a job are statistically healthier and this increased health trickles down to younger generations too.
Crime and Health are not the only things improved by a Basic Income. The economy itself is improved as well. When one is struggling to feed themselves and their family, it can be truly difficult to have the money, energy or even opportunity to contribute to one’s society. A person struggling to buy groceries, for example, may not be able to afford the transportation costs to give their time to their church or people in need of support, even if they have the time due to unemployment. Indeed, they probably need such support themselves. The ability to help others, or even be of much functional value to one’s community is a luxury bought by the lack of worry for food and shelter security. However, Basic Income experiments in Kenya and the US show that if people are given money, they often invest it back into the community and economy which gave it to them. A man who had been given a year’s salary with no strings led to people in his village repairing their homes and starting their own businesses as that one man stimulated his village economy. In the US, recipients of Basic Income returned to school for acting classes and psychology degrees, or started composing, becoming researchers and “self-sufficient, income-earning artists.” (Bergman)
One final reason to instate a Basic Income is the inevitable progress of technology. More and more jobs that were traditionally done by humans are being performed by machines and programs. These machines and programs are often cheaper, more reliable, and do not require breaks as humans do. Baxter is a “general purpose robot” which can be adapted to perform virtually any job, and can “learn” how to perform tasks by being shown, rather than programmed. Baxter costs $20,000 (Grey), but a typical factory worker would cost $24,252 in wages alone over the course of a year (Assembly Line Worker Salary). Whereas the factory worker requires breaks and insurance, Baxter can be run 24 hours and will not cause expensive lawsuits or settlements if damaged while working. Driver-less cars are already in use, and the change of the transportation industry from human drivers to driver-less vehicles is eminent. When it happens, it will put 3 million people out of work across the country at least (Grey). Programs which can perform complex calculations and logic algorithms faster and with greater fidelity than humans are already in use, and their take over of human brain labor began before we’d even reached the moon. In the 60s, Nasa’s computers were humans who would use adding machines to compute long equations. Computer is no longer a job title, however, it is a physical object at our command. Instating a Basic Income would combat the inevitable unemployment and allow people to eschew their now-computer-performed job for their passion, regardless of just how profitable that passion may or may not be.
There are two primary arguments against Basic Income, however. The first is cost, and the second is an objection to laziness. However, neither sufficiently demonstrates why Basic Income should not become the law of the land.
First of all, government spending on Family and Children welfare support, Unemployment spending and housing subsidies amount to $200 billion a year (Chantrill). Secondly, looking at the costs imposed by society (McCollister) and the number of murders and non-negligent manslaughter reports in the US in 2012 (U.S. Homocide), we find that in 2012, murders and non-negligent manslaughters cost the people of the US a total of $133 billion alone. Looking at the results of the Namibia Basic Income experiment, Basic Income could reduce the societal cost of murder by $53.28 billion. In 2013, Bergman projected the savings of Basic Income’s reduction of hospital visits to be $200 billion all on it’s own. Together, these effects amount to nearly $500 billion that could be saved were Basic Income instated in the US, and they are only a portion of the effects. The average societal cost of a crime is $290,569, and when crime is potentially reduced by as much as 40%, if we were as lucky as Namibia, that $290.5 thousand adds up. Further, if an individual’s Basic Income is reduced by $.50 per dollar they earn working, the average American would not receive Basic Income, due to making an average yearly salary of $44,888–far more than the $15,600 which would reduce Basic Income payments to $0 (SSA.gov). If it is assumed that 50% of employed Americans qualify for half of the Basic Income payment of $7,800, on average, the cost of supplying employed adults with Basic Income would be $447 billion. The cost of providing Basic Income to the unemployed (Forbes) would be $104 billion. Totaled, Basic Income would cost at most $551 billion. Easily paid by savings gained in replacing current government cash assistance programs with Basic Income, the reduction of the crime rate, and the fall of hospital visit and their associated costs.
This leaves the concern of laziness. The idea being that if people are given free money, they will stop working to live on the modest government dole. However, historical Basic Income experiments show that hours work typically fall by less than 15%. In Manitoba, total work hours fell by only 13% (Bergman), with breadwinners barely decreasing hours worked, while women took off a couple of months of work for maternity leave and students took more time for their studies. The Denver experiment showed an even lower decrease in total hours worked, only 9%, a drop caused by nearly identical factors. To the amount that people changed their approach to work at all in response to a Basic Income, it was generally to pursue work they enjoyed better.
In conclusion, Basic Income is a good without condition or provisos. It can lower crime, promote greater community engagement and communal health, lead to greater fulfillment as people use it to invest and support themselves through the growing pains of new careers, and give us a place to turn in the face of greater and greater rates of automation. It neither costs more than what we currently spend inefficiently, nor promotes laziness, and most of all, it provides security and livelihood for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged members of our society that they may grow to provide a greater portion of their security and that of society.
Works Cited
Bergman, Rutger. “Why We Should Give Free Money to Everyone.” De Correspondent. The Correspondant, 24 Dec. 2013. Web. 11 May 2015.
Chantrill, Christopher. “Government Spending Details.” : Federal State Local for 2015. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 May 2015.
Department of Industry Relations. “Minimum Wage.” Minimum Wage. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 May 2015.
Egger, Robert. “5 Myths about Hunger in America.” Washington Post. The Washington Post, 21 Nov. 2010. Web. 11 May 2015.
Ellis, Lee, Kevin M. Beaver, and John Paul. Wright. Handbook of Crime Correlates. Amsterdam: Elsevier/Academic, 2009. Google. Web. 4 May 2015. <http://books.google.com/books?id=eD0ttBXoMvQC>
Grey, C.G.P. “Humans Need Not Apply.” YouTube. YouTube, 13 Aug. 2014. Web. 04 May 2015.
Longley, Robert. “Mincome: A Guaranteed Income for All Americans.” About.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 May 2015.
McCollister, Kathryn E., Michael T. French, and Hai Fang. “The Cost of Crime to Society: New Crime-Specific Estimates for Policy and Program Evaluation.” Drug and Alcohol Dependence. U.S. National Library of Medicine, n.d. Web. 11 May 2015.
Pampel, Fred C., Patrick M. Krueger, and Justin T. Denney. “Socioeconomic Disparities in Health Behaviors.” Annual Review of Sociology. U.S. National Library of Medicine, n.d. Web. 04 May 2015.
Payscale.com. “Assembly Line Worker Salary (United States).” Assembly Line Worker Salary (United States). N.p., n.d. Web. 11 May 2015.
Raphael, Steven, and Rudolf Winter-Ebmer. “Identifying the Effect of Unemployment on Crime*.” JSTOR. The University of Chicago Press, n.d. Web. 11 May 2015.
SSA.gov. “Social Security.” National Average Wage Index. Social Security, n.d. Web. 8 May 2015.
Statista. “U.S. Homicide: Number of Murders by State 2013 | Statistic.” Statista. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 May 2015.
US Department of Health and Human Services. “2015 Poverty Guidelines.” 2015 Poverty Guidelines. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 May 2015.
Ok, it’s an expansion to an existing game which was published under Creative Commons.
I created an expansion to the call-and-response party game Cards Against Humanity based on the collectible card game Magic the Gathering.
As an expansion, it works exactly like Cards Against Humanity, and was designed to be similar in appearance, though distinct so as to not infringe upon CAH’s copyright. The set contains 100 new cards- 70 white response cards and 30 black call cards- the backs are printed with Cards Against the Multiverse, so while they will blend into the deck, they will be distinct. If this matters, CAH and CAtM cards will fit in standard card sleeves.
You can buy the deck professionally printed at The Game Crafter for $20 or as a pdf you can print out and cut up at Gumroad for Pay What You Want.
The last ten years have seen the medium of information consumption and socialization change perhaps more vastly than ever before in the history of film and television.
There are works which keep up with this change, and find a way to weave texting and social media into the diegesis of the work seemlessly–or at least intriguingly and in a way which enriches rather than distracts–such as the BBC Sherlock series. There are also works which fumble with the new mediums, thinking they can convey a text in much the same way they might a phone call, simply showing the screen for a frame, such as virtually every other work. Unfriended is the former by way of extended use of the latter.
I’m not sure what I expected going in, but the focus on a single computer screen for an hour and twenty three minutes, showing us the Skype-focused POV of the main character, worked beautifully. Part of the beauty is in keeping the movie to a fairly tight hour and twenty three minutes–any longer and it probably would have gotten tiresome. Instead, you are fully engaged as teenagers fight and bicker and are forced to confess their transgressions against one another all across a single computer screen as windows are opened, closed, minimized and moved. It’s not precisely the way I would have filmed the movie, but it is a wonderful way to tell the story.
Unfriended comes off as a bit of a vengeful ghost flick, and that, coupled with its modern trappings, gives it a Japanese-horror-flick vibe. But it’s true DNA is much more Slasher–teenagers drink and fuck and bicker and desert one another, and are picked off, one by one, by a revenant they have wronged even more than each other.
I would be lying if I said Unfriended was really new, but while the path is old he conveyance is sleek and reasonably modern, and that makes it quite enjoyable.
More Tumblr-spiration.
One of my biggest peeves about Harry Potter was the scene in Deathly Hollows where all of Slytherin was thrown under the bus because of one loud-mouthed turn-coat. It was the conclusion of the paper-thin, transparent archetype houses that Rowling had wrote for seven books, where all of Gryffindor was good and righteous and main character material (except Pettigrew, who hadn’t been a Gryffindor for decades) and all of Slytherin was evil and cowardly and conniving and antagonist material (except Regulus Black, except he just happened to turn good at the last second of his life), and all of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were background characters more akin to props than people.
Apparently Rowling justifies Slytherins’ objection to fighting by saying that they would have been fighting their family. That… ok, maybe this is an american thing, what with the war of brothers in our history, but that’s just not good enough to me. That seems like all the more reason for them to fight.
“Potter’s right there, let’s just give him to Lord Voldemort!”
Pansy Parkinson was pointing to the boy who lived, who’d sought a brief refuge in the long final night of conflict between him and the would-be tyrannical facist, and he froze. The Gryffindors stood and whirled around to face the Slytherins, wands drawn as they turned.
Each and every Slytherin had already stepped back twice, save the loud-mouthed young woman who was ready to sell Potter out, leaving her standing alone in the center of four houses of wizards and witches.
“Does anyone else believe we should hand over our own student to the wizard who wishes to finish the murder he could not accomplish 17 years ago?” McGonagal asked, a brow arched.
Pansy looked around to find the rest of her house staring intently at their shoes and the cobbles beneath them. “But- but it’s him or us!” she cried in a strangled voice.
A single Slytherin pushed through the crowd and put a hand on her shoulder- turning her around to face them, a queer magic user who used the terms witch and wizard for themselves on a whim, who’d been found in several parts of the castle and dungeons entangled with both witches and wizards over the years, who was widely considered an embarrassment in Slytherin, not so much for their predilections but more for their libertine attitudes about Muggles and mixed blood magic-folk. “Pansy,” they hissed, “I can assure you that there will be death this night. But it will not be a matter of Potter or us. It will be a matter of Voldemort or us. After seven years, do you really think that Voldemort and the Deatheaters can prevail when they could not kill Potter and his friends in the chamber of prophecies? In a graveyard with no one aware of his whereabouts and no assistance? Potter will live this night, and even if that were not the case, I am sick of being part of this racist, despicable house. I am sick of the people out there in grim masks spouting all sorts of anti-muggle, homophobic, sexist bullshit, assuming not only that I agree with them, but that they are right.”
The witch-wizard released the quivering woman’s shoulder, and she slumped to the ground.
“Alright, you den of serpents,” they said, turning to address the bigots and aspirants they’d dormed with for seven years. “The fuckers out there believe that lineage, or sex, or blood dictate magical power, and they’ve been a blight on our proud house, changing our reputation from ‘those who aspire’ to ‘those who hate.’ Meanwhile, we’ve just spent seven years trying to outdo a muggleborn woman who was born to dentists and is regularly called ‘The Brightest Witch of Her Age.’ I don’t care if you like it, we have empirical proof that magical talent is about intellect and cleverness, not blood or parts.” They whipped their long, ebony wand from a sleeve, “and I for one am tired of being held to such an archaic, offensive standard that would deny my mind and attribute everything I am to what is in my veins or between my legs! So I’m fighting those fuckers!”
The crowd of Slytherins murmured to one another, and looked to them doubtfully.
McGonagal peered at the foul-mouthed agitator, and stepped up to join them, “Are any other Slytherins going to join us in the fight?” she asked imperiously.
The murmured amongst themselves again, but this time one stepped forward, a young fourth year, one eye concealed by her hair, a voice that faltered unaccustomed to being raise, “Professor,” she beseeched, “those are family members out there,” she said. “A lot of us… we can’t go into that. But… we know our potions. Some of us are pretty decent with healing, especially those who often patched up the… trouble makers of our house. Let us see to wounded, we can see what we can do inside, but it’s just… not in a lot of us to level a wand at our parents. …or sisters.”
The woman nodded, “very well,” she turned to Filch, “Escort Ms. Parkinson to the Dungeons, Filch.” She turned back to the assembled Slytherins as the crooked man put a hand on Pansy’s shoulder and steered her to the stairs. “The rest of you, make yourselves useful. We will triage wounded here. Get what will be needed from the potions room, Snape kept more supplies in his office. Those with the stomachs to fight come with me.”
McGonagal strode out of the Great Hall with three houses, and more than a few Slytherins falling in behind her, the queer-witch pushing through the crowd level with McGonagal and Potter, but addressing neither. The older witch placed a hand on their shoulder, though, “While the sentiment is appreciated, as is the convincing of your house mates to aid us, the language…”
“I got ya,” the young wizard-witch nodded, “Sorry, my passions got away from me.”
“Well, such is the liberty of youth,” McGonagal replied, “I wouldn’t say that such a speech would not have come from me at your age…”
The young wizh smiled and doubled their speed as the army neared the bridge, crossing it eagerly as Deatheaters began to ready themselves for the battle to be rejoined.
They can’t remember which side cast first in the second stage of the war, but they remembered every familiar voice, every seen-before boot, every cloak-clad body she’d seen elsewhere. The witchard shouted in gleeful fury as they spun and dodged and threw spells. They, being a Slytherin and famously under-trained in it, were never skilled at the Patronus charm, but they found themselves making a new memory, a memory of standing up to every hateful wretch she’d had to take tea with, had to listen to as they were lectured about the inadequacies of half-bloods, had to bite their tongue to keep from raging against the homophobic slurs of, of blasting handsy “uncles” in the fork for every pinch of their ass, and in the heat let loose an explosive cry of EXPECTO PATRONUM! and marveled as an immense basilisk of silver light, crowned with crest and horns and a wide hood rimmed with spines spreading from it’s neck slithered from the end of their wand, hissing and rasping and sending Deatheaters flying with deft swipes of it’s luminous tail, the King of Snakes sending the servants of the pretender to the throne sprawling.
Inside the Great Hall, Slytherins mixed potions and worked with Madam Pomfrey to administer aid. They rubbed salves in, coaxed people into drinking bitter brews, and bandaged wounds. At first, wounded students could only remember every cup of pumpkin juice they’d drank that’d been hexed by a Slytherin, and hesitate. But little by little, whether due to pain, or shock, or horror, they trusted in the new leaves turning over, and every sip redeemed the house’s reputation that little bit.
The Slytherins, for their part, kept their heads down and focused on the matter at hand, trying to block out the shouts outside the walls. Everyone of them could hear the cries of family and friends all too clearly, even if it was imagined, and shut their eyes as they stirred and cut and poured. Some pleaded that their family be brought in to be healed too, others told the fighters that the people who birthed them could be left to rot like the refuse they’d decided to be.
As the queer-witch fought, they also thought about those vast halls that would lie empty and filled with all sorts of magical goods–not everyone in Slytherin had trust funds, some had ambitions to acquire wealth as well as power.
But most of all, they aspired to topple the hateful upper echelons of Wizarding Society, and repay every injustice they’d ever given.
A few years back, a couple of the more prominent posters on the gaming forum I post on wrote up a rather extensive series of fixes for Dungeons and Dragons 3.5, collectively called The Tomes, aimed at bringing non-casters up to the power level of spellcasters (because the reverse is even more work). Lately there’s been a bit of a resurgence of focus on working on the Tomes, collating things into a single pdf, adding more material in a less sporadic method, and so on.
One thing they introduced in the Tomes to beef characters up a bit, and encourage those characters to be organic and more fleshed out was Backgrounds, which were sort of like mini-feats you got for doing the bare minimum work in writing a backstory for your character. They also helped you figure out what your character’s backstory was by giving you a prompt when you knew you wanted a specific one. A thread came up about creating some more, because there’s only 10 or so backgrounds in the original Tome material, and I’ve written up a few, so I figured I’d move those over here for more exposure.
Living Weapon Snkt
You, for some reason, whether hyper specific psionic meditation, experimental meddling with your aura or genetics when you were a child, possession by a violent spirit, or some other thing, can create weapons attached to your body at will.
Effect: As a move action, you may produce a weapon from your body which mimics the stats of any one Simple or Martial weapon (or a pair of light weapons), which may be composed of bone, chitin, horn, psionic/spiritual/arcane energy or whatever material–however, whatever material it is made of, it behaves exactly like a standard version of the weapon it mimics. Form and material are chosen at character creation and cannot later be changed except through magic. However, people who don’t have metal claws hidden up their arm find your augmentation horrifying. While this does give you Intimidate as a Class Skill, it also makes NPC initial attitudes start one step worse. Also whatever gave you these weapons was probably pretty traumatic, and you may occasionally run into parts of your past which want to kill you, fill you with rage, or are complete mysteries to you.
Artificial “I am fully functional, and anatomically correct.”
You were made by another person. But, like, not through the usual means- through special magical artifice means. You’re a robot person, is what I’m saying.
Effect: You have the Construct type (See below). The DC to repair you is 10+one half your HD+your highest stat. You are confused by living creatures and their emotions and habits, and probably spend a lot of time trying to understand them. Charisma based skills meant to affect you suffer a -2 penalty, but charisma based skills you use to affect others do as well, as you and the living things around you aren’t speaking quite the same language. The exception to this Intimidate–being an emotionally distant, pain-resistant arcane construct with glowing eyes just makes you better at that, and as such, Intimidate is always a class skill for you and you gain a +2 bonus to it.
Gladiator “I’M CRUSHICUS!”
Before adventuring, you were the star of a gladiatorial arena. You may have started a mere slave, but through crushing the skulls of other mere slaves and winning the hearts of the crowd, you gradually earned your freedom, a reputation, and experience in crushing skulls. Or maybe you just escaped.
Effect: You may tell stories of your time in the gladiatorial arena to wow new people and make them like you, or to make your existing fans willing to help you out. People who have heard of your time in the arena have their initial attitude improved by one step, people who haven’t heard about you can be subjected to stories for ten minutes over drinks and likewise have their attitude improved by one step. As showmanship is important in the arena, Perform is always a class skill for you, but your first style must be something usable in the arena (this is somewhat broad, singing is fine, pipe organ not so much). Finally, you should probably fight in the arenas at least once a month to keep your reputation up. If you are an escaped slave, your former owner probably has men looking for you.
Magical Girl “In the name of Lolth, I will punish you!”
In the name of some vaguely defined concept or personified object, you punish evil doers. Or kill good doers. Or spank the naughty. Whatever. You are a magical warrior who makes speeches and shit, and that comes with some very specific implied powers. Or, you may or may not actually be a prepubescent and/or female. Whatever.
Effect: You have some manner of magical patron who will offer advice and might be the source of particularly plot important magical items that get used once and then forgotten. You also have the magical girl power of transformation–pick one outfit which may be armour and one weapon (or pair of light weapons) these start as masterwork items, and can be hidden in a dimensional pocket which will not hold anything else. You also have a small token of some sort, possibly disguised as a makeup compact or other mundane item, which allows you to summon these items once per encounter as a Full Round action where in you twirl and pose and are enshrouded in light. During this round, no one can attack you, and at the end the outfit is equipped and you may be holding your weapon readied, if you wish. If your outfit or weapon are damaged they will be fully repaired the next time you call them. Your special outfit and weapon have the Linked quality and can be further enchanted by sacrificing items to them as if you had the Ancestral Weapon feat from BoED. You’re probably ambushed by things with tentacles a lot when you’re not wearing your armour and trying to have a normal life, and you feel this weird compulsion to never tell anyone who isn’t part of your adventuring group about being a magical warrior, regardless of how much simpler it would be, and your propensity for making friendship speeches in battle makes Perform (oratory) always a class skill for you which you can use like Diplomacy for attitude improvement.
Medic “No one wanted to be relegated to healing duty and the cleric has better shit to do.”
Look, I get it, no one wants to spend major character resources on restoring hp for people. But people need to be healed if you’re going to get that infant-sized ruby at the bottom of the dungeon, so you scribbled down a bit in your background about being an army medic.
Effect: First, Kn. Nature, Heal and Survival are always class skills for you, and you have a +2 bonus to Heal. Second, you can perform a twenty minute ritual which restores X hp to each member of your part (three people plus one per point of Wisdom mod) where X is half their max hp. This ritual may be performed at will, but each time it is used without at least an hour passing since it’s last use, it takes twice as long as the last time it was used (1st time: 20 min, 2nd time: 40 min, 3rd time: 1hr 20 min, etc). This ritual requires special herbs which cost 1/4th the amount you would heal your party, or can be scrounged from most wilderness areas with twenty minutes and a successful Kn. Nature or Survival check. You can gather these ahead of time if you wish, but they lose potency 3 days after being picked. You probably also keep a pile of bandages which can be applied to injured people and allow them to heal 1hp per five minutes for a number of hours equal to your Wisdom mod.
Cook “And in the morning, I’m making waffles!”
Look, not everyone has special noble birth or great destinies or sob stories about growing up in the gutter. You grew up in a surviving merchant or inn owning family, and you learned to cook in between mucking out stables, cleaning shit and putting up with idiot customers. And you found you really enjoyed it.
Effect: What does being a cook get you? Well, people forget that cooking is actually pretty physical work. Your familiarity with knives and cleavers translates over into daggers, handaxes and throwing axes pretty well, and in fact you are proficient in them. In addition, lugging around bags of potatoes and flour has conditioned you for carrying shit and your carrying capacity is calculated as if your strength were two points higher. You have a repertoire of recipes and cooking techniques which you can put into use to keep your party’s morale up–anytime you take an hour to cook a meal while your party camps, everyone who eats can activate an Guidance, Resistance or Virtue effect with your character level as the caster level once in the ensuing 24 hours. If you have leftovers, people can eat them to gain another use after using their first (use Survival to determine how many servings you can make, or figure each serving costs 10 gp). Finally, you effectively have max ranks in Craft (Cooking) as if it were a class skill for you, if that ever actually matters.
Animal Magnetism “He followed me home, can I keep him!?”
Animals just inherently like you for some reason. While other people get mauled by wolves when they wander into the woods, you get a bunch of wolves sniffing at your backpack and begging for handouts while you’re trying to eat lunch.
…maybe they like you because you always share and word got around.
Effect: Creatures of the Animal type always have an attitude at least one point more in favour of you, and no worse than indifferent unless you attack them. If you’re in danger, there is a 10% chance that an animal appropriate to the environment will show up to help you. This chance is increased by 5% for every 5% your hp is below maximum, and decreased 10% for every time an animal has come to your rescue in the last 24 hours. The animal’s CR cannot exceed yours, nor be lower than yours minus 3. If you want a specific animal, roll charisma vs DC 20. Finally, you have a +4 bonus on Handle Animal and Ride checks when made to affect Animals. On the other hand, animals will wander up to you in the wilderness and want attention and handouts, and Mister Cavern is encouraged to have this happen when you’re trying to sneak, especially if you rolled poorly.
Crocodile Charmer “Look at this beauty. If she bites you, the cleric won’t even have time to cast a healing spell. …I’m gonna touch her!”
You have a way with reptiles and similar creatures. Maybe you got dumped in a pit of them when you were a kid, maybe you grew up in a crazy religious sect that uses snakes to test it’s piety. Maybe you just like them.
Effect: You begin play with three doses of antitoxin and a pet tiny viper that has 2 int and already knows a full array of tricks. You also gain +4 to handle animal and diplomacy checks made against Scaled Ones. Scaled Ones Animals and Magical Beasts have an initial attitude one point in your favour (no worse than Indifferent), and will not attack you unless you attack them first.
Sea Monkey “Warblgarbl.”
You come from the sea. You have fins and gills and probably a bluer skin tone than normal, and people think you want their land-women. They’re not necessarily wrong.
Effect: You’re an otherwise normal specimen of your race, you just happen to be an obscure sub type which lives in water. You can swim at your land speed and either have the Hold Breath ability or can breath underwater, if you select the latter, you cannot breath air, but you do have a bulky collar-like piece of equipment that allows you to adventure on land for up to 16 hours at a time before you need to rest in water and let it recharge. This collar is a very simple magic item and just needs to be immersed in water for eight hours, which you can do while you sleep since you’re usually going to be sleeping in water too.
Giant Frog “Ribbit.”
The primal chaos of limbo flows in your veins. And sometimes outside you veins. And sometimes through other parts of you. Look, it’s all very complicated hipster math, alright?
Effect: In times of great need, you can call upon the power of giant frog to giant frog your giant frog giant frogs. When you are at or below 1/4 your total hit points, the power of chaos activates within you, and you roll on the following chart-
| d20 | Effect | 1d8 | Spell School |
| 1-8 | Cantrip | 1 | Abjuration |
| 9-17 | Level 1 spell | 2 | Conjuration |
| 18-19 | Level 2 spell | 3 | Divination |
| 20 | Level 3 spell | 4 | Enchantment |
| Roll d12 | Caster Level | 5 | Evocation |
| 1 | Character Level-2 | 6 | Illusion |
| 2-3 | Character Level-1 | 7 | Necromancy |
| 4-9 | Character Level | 8 | Transmutation |
| 10-11 | Character Level+1 | ||
| 12 | Character Level+2 |
| Cantrips wrote: |
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| 1st Level wrote: |
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| 2nd Level wrote: |
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| 3rd Level wrote: |
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*affects a random enemy in range
**Randomly determine center of effect
***affects a random ally
If not otherwise noted, you are the target of non-touch spells. Touch spells can be held until you can touch a target.
Note- Giant Frog and Mister Cavern are Denisms. Giant Frog refers to the fact that in D&D, chaos shows the least diversity of form with the Slaad all being giant rugose things. Mister Cavern refers to an 80s Russian D&D clone where Dungeon Master was translated as Mister Cavern.
Valren fell into a chair in the dim tavern, and rifled through their bag, pulling out parchment and a quill. They hardly looked up as a server approached, “Mead, please.” Valren sighed as they scribbled. A potion of Altered Visage would cost 5 silvers, but only last about ten minutes. If they bought a more expensive one, they could be disguised for an hour’s time, but the potion would cost 30 silvers.
“Sorry boy, the temple of Hestic only accepts women as students.”
A temple course was easily within that duration, but they’d also need to keep up appearances throughout the day. If Valren was lucky, they could get a three hour potion, but it would cost nearly 100 silvers, and they’d need eight of them a day. If Valren learned how to brew the potions the materials would only cost half that, but 50 silvers a day is still a lot of money.
And a temple to a goddess of magic is not a place to expect to be lacking in magical detection.
Valren stabbed the quill into the table in frustration as the server returned with a mug of mead for them.
“Here you are, sir. 2 coppers.”
“Not a sir.” Valren muttered as they fished two coppers from a robe pocket.
“‘Scuse me?” the server asked confused.
Valren looked up. They knew their stubble was already growing back in, that their frame was too gawky, their chin too square. They peered into the server’s eyes. “Never mind,” they said, pushing the small coins into her hand.
“Let me know if you need anything else!” she said chipperly, turning to leave.
“Wait- do you have any pie today? Blueberry?”
“Yeah, would you like a slice?”
“I could use one, yeah,” Valren said, turning back to their quill sticking out of the scarred table. Valren grumbled again, and plucked the quill from the table, slipping it behind their ear, the pen’s long feather mimicking the long green point of their ear. They rubbed their face, reaching blindly into their bag to produce a soft leather bound bundle of crumpled and stained pages. In a move practiced to hind brain functions, they set the book on the table face down and opened to the piece of cardstock they were using as a bookmark.
The book was scribbled with a dark ochre ink–fortunately people don’t think about the colour blood turns when it’s dead and dry–and the pages smelled sickly sweet if you got too close–fortunately the only people who knew what that smell was had horror stories from the war where they were the monsters, so they didn’t pry. Valren scanned the pages to find where they’d left off last and started scribbling notes down in mirrorscript goblese.
Their native script of goblese would probably have been safe enough in most cities, but Golan had a not inconsiderable goblin population. Mirrorscript was about the least they could do to keep some secrecy.
Fortunately they’d invested in Secret Ink and and a lens of Magic Detection. When the server set down the plate of pie, even if she could read goblese written backwards, it would look like nothing more than incredibly tedious notes from the market approval board meetings.
“Are you a wizardry student?” she asked.
Valren looked up, “I wish,” they scowled, “No, there’s precisely one place to gain magical training in this town, and it only takes people it deems to be women. Valren speared a bite of pie with their fork and shoveled it into their mouth.
The server looked around and sat down. Valren hadn’t paid much attention to her at first, but noticed now she was a half-elf, a species surely only marginally more popular around town than goblin. “And of course only a fairly narrow scope of magic,” she said.
Valren cocked a painted on eyebrow. “You want to study too?”
The light boned, oak-toned half elf nodded, “But the sisters don’t take too kindly to the use of cast off husks.” She slipped the rough-bound tome from the goblin’s hand and turned it over to look at the front, “Binding?”
Valren’s golden eyes widened slightly, just an instant, “Well, when no one wants to teach you healing or fire magic and you find a book full of summoning sigils and incantations… you take what you can get.”
The two appraised each other–the server noted Valren’s awkward frame and crafted femininity, Valren noted the stud of bone next to her eye that they’d previously taken for a piercing.
“Viola,” the half-elf said, offering a hand.
“Valren,” the transgendered goblin said, taking the thing hand and shaking gently. “Magic detection?” they asked tapping the side of their eye socket analogous to the half-elf’s bone stud.
“Less conspicuous than goggles, greenie,” she taunted lightly.
“Lots of goblins wear goggles,” they replied. “Light makes us tetchy.
My journey has been something of a rambling one. If life is a path, then my path was confused by so many people telling me what to do or not do or what path to take based on their own path, and just… some of the advice is good and always will be (“watch out for wolves”), but some is outdated (“oh, there’s a rest stop three miles down the path, it was there when I went down the path twenty years ago!”) and some is just wrong because their path is not yours (“You have to hop across the river on rocks for half a mile once your five days in.” “…there is no river here…” “Of course there is!”).
I had no map, and the maps people tried to give me were outdated and often for entirely different paths, but no one could find one for my actual path. I’ve started making my own map, asking advice from and looking at people who have similar end points. But I’m also just tired of trying to follow a path that isn’t there, or doesn’t work for me. This blog was a stuttering attempt to train for a path, but I’m tired, and so it is now a machete with which I’ll carve my own, that I may show it off to those who believed and doubted me.
To that end, I’m launching a Patreon so I can hopefully focus on this blog and my creative assets more and more, until I’m making a living writing and designing games. The road will still be hard, I’m probably going to need to sharpen this machete a good number of times, and I may have to trudge back to the old path a few times, but I’m always going to come back here, and if the people who like my writing are willing to spot me a whetstone, I’ll put my all into this.
…that was a long metaphor and not at all planned… I’m glad it worked out.
Anyway. Looking at one of my creative role models, I’m taking her advice, and I’m asking. I’m asking for help. I’m asking for people who enjoy reading my weird ideas to help me keep writing those weird ideas by taking care of more material concerns.
What do you get from supporting me?
Well, I’m new to this, and I’m not producing a single constant product, so it took some thought. I’m starting the rewards at $3 a month where you get my thanks, and $5/mo where you get my thanks and your name in whatever my first book is (it’s going to be a bit of a wait, but I’m hoping that book can be a reality sometime in 2016).
The last two levels, $10 and $15 a month relate to a couple features I’m looking at introducing to the blog. I’m going to push myself, and having found that my longest stories here hover around 2500 words, I’m going to try to get a 5000 word story written each month. Patrons at the $10 a month level get to suggest story ideas and topics and then vote what that 5000 word story will be. I also want to start writing about food and put together my two majors from college, so every week I will write a food article, usually a piece about a dish, it’s history or cultural significance and my experience making it, or possibly a review (though I’m going to avoid these since they’ll be so localized). As a $15 a month patron, you get to suggest what a week’s food article will be about.
As time goes on, I’ll hopefully have more things going on, more inspiration, and more money to put into some of the ideas I’ve had percolating, so all Patrons will also get first announcement of major projects.
So, will you help me make this a reality?
The Raven's Desk 