Tag: fiction

Sitar

G. Derek Adams3 Comments

I play and she dances.

That is how it works. That is it.

The heat of her day, and the hat on her head, and the crease of her waist and the slight boredom in her green-green eyes.

I thump down on the strings and an eruption of trees – pines today. Green like her eyes, but I place them outside her reach with petty twangs. She spins faster, catching the rhythm. A few coins clatter. It’s hot.

I throw gold notes at her feet, but her steps erase them – Nena the Cruel, the Cat Dancing. Give her a heart, and she will return a hard-scrabble scrap rat-tat-rattling around your rib cage.

She makes the devil jealous. The sun weep.

I fill the plaza with water, my fingers on the strings. She steps onto the waves like a birthright, her hem dry.

The crowds pass, but they do not see. This marble and stone corner of the world full of spite and spiders — full of amaranth and ambrosia. At the end of the day I will slide my hand under her elbow, and she will jerk it away. My desire-sweat drips, and she kills me again with green-green daggers.

I bring a spirit of fire into the forest, I build a wall of earth — it is never enough to hold her. A snake winds around the base of my spine and I want her and want her. I scream down into my hands, and the strings do their best to answer.

My hands move. Nena dances.

I play and she dances.

That is how it works.

[Story on Demand for N.E. White]

 

 

 

 

 

Identity

G. Derek Adams4 Comments

[Spoiler Alert: I’m a giant nerd. I’ve been running a Pathfinder campaign for the past two years, and I’m starting to work on the next one. All of my new players are relative neophytes to the game, and I put together this rough breakdown to guide them through choosing a proper character class for their style. One of my players really liked it, and suggested I put it up on my blog for use by nerds throughout the land — and since I’m lazy, and going to be away for a week — WISH GRANTED, Mr. Yellow Devil.

Any other tabletop nerds out there? I’d love any feedback or suggestions you have on this chart.]


Here’s a rough break-down of the nineteen character classes available. Think of this as a very rough overview, to give you some idea for further discussion with me and the other players. I’ve also included links to further descriptions of each class — it’s very technical, but there’s a good overview of each through the link, enough to give you more idea of what each class can do.

Arcane Divine Martial Skilled Natural Synthesis
Wizard
Sorcerer
Summoner		 Cleric
Paladin
Oracle		 Fighter
Barbarian
Cavalier		 Rogue
Bard
Ranger		 Druid
Monk
Witch		 Magus
Inquisitor
Gunslinger
Alchemist

Nineteen Ways To Die

CLASS Description Best at… Examples
Alchemist “I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensaring the senses … I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death..” S.Snape Making themselves more powerful; influencing enemies and the battlefield in unexpected ways. Severus Snape
Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde
Barbarian Fueled by rage, they destroy all who oppose them. Doing lots of damage. Conan
Khal Drogo
Bard Their songs are magical, their wit and knowledge deadly. Making the party more effective.
Gathering information		 Kvothe*
Tom o’Sevens
Alan-a-dale
Cavalier Noble knights, they ride into battle leading the way to victory. Mounted combat.
Unique Ability: Tactics		 Jaime Lannister
Sturm Brightblade
Barristan Selmy
Cleric True servant of their faith, they shield the world from evil. Healing.
Making the party more effective.		 Sazed
Sephrenia
Melisandre
Thoros of Myr
Druid The raw forces of nature are theirs to command. Elemental magic.
Shapechanging.		 Tim the Druid
Beast Boy
Allanon
Cold Hands
Fighter In the press of battle, there are none more rightfully feared. Doing damage.
Most adaptable class.		 Boromir
Garet Jax
Bronn
Gunslinger The smell of gunsmoke and black powder, hard-knuckle death dealers. Doing a lot of damage.
Unique ability: Grit		 Roland Deschain
Matthew Quigley
Chow Yun Fat
Inquisitor Their god commands them to bring the unfaithful to judgement. Weakening enemies.
Unique ability: Judgement		 Simon Belmont
Inquisitor Glokta
Magus Pure magical energy, channeled into the sharp edge of a blade. Doing a lot of damage.
Wizard/Fighter		 [I honestly can’t think of an example — the cast spells through their weapons, it’s ridiculous.]
Monk A combatant armed only with wisdom. Mobility, and damage. Tempi
Drunken Master
Son Goku
Wong Fei Hung
Oracle Their power is a mystery, even to themselves. Healing.
Unique Ability: Mystery		 Calypso
Cassandra
Paladin A divine warrior, they bring hope and courage to all. Healing/Combat Hybrid.
Diplomacy.		 Obi-Wan Kenobi
Paksenarrion
Ranger A fierce combatant, a skilled traveller of the wilderness. Ranged Combat.
Tracking, Wilderness Survival.		 Aragorn, son of Arathorn
Rogue A thief, a trickster, cunning wanderer of the night. Stealth, Trapfinding and Lockpicking.
Sneak Attack damage.		 Locke Lamora
Arya Stark
Tasselhoff Burrfoot
Sorcerer Magic flows in their blood, and bends to their will. Spellcasting.
Knowing less spells than a Wizard, but can cast more often.		 Kelsier the Survivor
Belgarath
Summoner They create a powerful beast, the Eidolon from pure thought and desire. Well, summoning.
Perfect if you really want to play a Monster.		 The Incredible Hulk
Lyra Silvertongue
Witch Their power flows from spirits unknown. Spellcasting.
Freaking people out.
Unique ablity: Hexes		 Elphaba
Baba Yaga
Wizard Their mastery of magic comes from long study and mental excellence. Spellcasting.
Most varied, and adaptable spellcasters.		 Gandalf
Harry Dresden
Albus Dumbledore

Simple Complicated
Barbarian Fighter Ranger Monk Cleric Wizard
Rogue
Paladin Oracle Witch Summoner
Bard
Gunslinger Inquisitor Sorcerer
Cavalier Druid Alchemist

If you want to do damage: Barbarian, Magus, Monk, Gunslinger
If you want to hurt things with magic: Wizard, Sorcerer, Magus, Witch
If you want to heal things: Cleric, Oracle
If you want to be a leader: Cavalier, Paladin, Cleric, Bard
Sneaky, stabby type: Rogue, Ranger, Inquisitor

*It’s tough to pin Kvothe down to one class. Bard/Assassin/Wizard/Fighter/Rogue would just about cover it.

Cyrus

G. Derek Adams3 Comments

[I know I just posted this a couple of weeks ago — but I STILL LIKE IT, DURN IT. It’s funny how names and associations stick with you throughout the years — I never grow tired of the name Cyrus for any sort of warrior, swordsman or knight — and Chrono Trigger is completely to blame.]

And his hand slid through the hilt as if it were made of dream.

The barbarian stumbled forward, thrown off balance. He turned around, and the sword was gone.

In its place stood a hooded figure, old gray travelers cloak worn thin from endless miles on the road. Agnar glanced around and saw the temple seemed to be caught in gray amber, the clerics at the doors were nearly statues they moved so slow, the demons outside were a painting in stillness. A moment out of time.

The figure squared his shoulders, and fell into a natural fighting stance. Strapped across his back was a massive greatsword, the length of it tightly wound in dark cloth. The cowl slipped back, and Agnar stared into a stranger’s face. His face was clean-shaven, flat as slate — his hair was nearly gone, just gray fuzz on the sides of his head.

“Need is not enough.” the traveler said.

Agnar tried to respond, but found himself mute.

“Fate is not enough.” the traveler said, and Agnar felt the winged mark on his palm burn and itch.

“Rage is not enough. Skill is not enough. Might is not enough. All of these are dust.”

Sand began to pour from the sleeves of the traveler’s cloak, Agnar tasted the desert on his tongue.

“Only love is enough. Only truth is enough. Only sacrifice is enough.”

The traveler turned, and looked out towards the doors of the temple.

“You can bring death, but can you bring life? You have walked in the Light, can you bear its lack? Go out into the world, go without the Bright Lady’s balm, survive, and redeem one of the wicked. One evil soul brought back to the light, and I will be yours to wield — from now unto the Cracking of the World.”

The traveler walked away, and faded even as time slowly wound back to its proper pace. Agnar stared ahead at the demons pounding on the doors of the temple, and felt a dry, empty feeling steal through his limbs. A man who has lived his life ever by the sea, withers and dies when he can not hear the waves crash.

Marlowe looked up with great pain, and smiled with the sadness of knowledge. “Your trial begins, brother. You have stepped out of the Light.”

Botanists fight dirty.

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[One of my first Story on Demand offerings. I have to fess up, I totally ripped the style and tone completely from Bill Watterson/Calvin & Hobbes for the style and tone. This is a female Tracer Bullet, completely.]

Her overcoat was stiff with congealed agar and the shattered glass of a dozen Erlenmeyer flasks. She slid her battered arms into the sleeves, and tried to ignore the bullet wound in her leg.  A pair of pipettes were still lodged in the right sleeve of the jacket, as well as some tissue cultures from the family Malvaceae.  The battered gumshoe shook the detritus from her coat sleeve, and reached into her pockets — finding her two best friends right where they belonged.

A pair of ugly Colt revolvers, with worn pearl handles.  Watson and Crick — the only partners she’d ever needed in this dirty job.

It had been quite a dust-up in the back offices of ECO-RICH, the multi-national botany conglomerate. She’d been called in on the case, when a pair of their top researchers had turned to whistleblowers–setting up interviews with dozens of prominent science and home gardening blogs. Then they’d turned up dead. Both researchers had simultaneous heart-attacks during a purported sex romp in a jury-rigged jacuzzi powered by eighteen Bunsen burners.

But then the autopsy reports had come back: Baby carrots.

Baby carrots lodged in their aortas.

A contact on the force, Overstreet, had sent her the tip — and she’d made her way down to the offices of ECO-RICH to do a little snooping.

A brace of white-coat goons had been working late, and before she could spool up an alibi — things had gotten frisky.

An ethno-biologist with arms like a steel trap got the drop on her, grabbing her from behind and pinning her arms to the side. Without hesitation she kicked off hard from the face of an approaching zoologist, propelling  her captor into a nearby Spectrograph. A weasely ginger had pulled a snub-nose out of his pocket protector and gotten a shot off, grazing her leg — while the other researchers tossed Petri dishes and glassware like a tipsy housewife when she finds a collar with the wrong lipstick in the wash.

Crossing through the test tube hailstorm, she’d headbutted the ginger sap — the sound of his nasal cartilage snapping was sweet music, and a pair of electron microscopes ripped off a nearby table helped her finish the symphony on the rest of the jolly green thugs.

The gumshoe reached down, and riffled through the pockets of the closest researcher.  She pulled open their Twitter account, and banged out a warning.

— Just got the chloroform forcibly removed from my cell wall’s chloroplasts by a punitive ass-kicking. #ECO-RICH #MURDER #SCIENCE SLEUTH #WATCHOUT

She tossed the device aside, and walked back out into the late night rain.

She was on the case, and had a very promising beginning to the data field required for the x-axis of her perspective bar graph.

A bar graph of justice, and a chart of pain.

[For Jargon Journalist. Take some time and go fondle her comment section.]

Heavy

G. Derek Adams1 Comment

The witch leaned over Tome’s body, a small hedgehog cupped carefully in her hand. She spoke quiet words of power, and her hair rippled slightly as if in a wind.

“It’s so heavy.” Alice whispered. “I pull, but it barely moves. I think I can pull his spirit back to his body..but.”

Tears coursed down her face. “I’m not sure I have the strength. And even if I do…it will tear. His soul will be ripped into tatters. Please don’t make me do this.”

Artist: Charlie Bowater

Aufero

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Aufero is a strange place.

Almost, but not quite, sensible. Approaching, but never meeting, sane.

So many pieces that don’t fit. Words, names, places, people, gods, colors, music. A world on the edge

Artist: W. Heath Robinson

of things, a Grand Central Station of the cosmos. A quiet shore where many lost things wash up and begin again.

What brings them there? What keeps them there?

The Lost named it, when they stepped from their silver ships. In the old tongue, it means “to steal”. As if the world itself was a bandit, reaching into the pockets of more respectable universes and grabbing everything that jingles, everything that shines. Aufero piles up its treasure, little caring for organization or thrift. Rubies bang against pennies, coarse granite against opal.

History wanders, and logic gets lost. Civilizations rise by whim, and the unlikely and strange gad about in the common streets as if protected by royal decree.

Dinosaurs moan about philosophy, while living skeletons make a proper Old Fashioned at the bar. Swaggering bravos, kings and titans of industry all plot and battle in the streets of a city where it is always night, for no particular reason at all. A patient prince of Hell lays waste to all who oppose him, cheating the laws of the universe with deadpan glee. Minotaurs play chess. Gnomes sing the blues.  Friendship is real, and love is real and death is real  — side by side with a thousand quiet absurdities and the hallowed mundane.

George Washington wearing a clown nose.

Do you want to go?

[Just some navel-gazing about my main story-world.]

SENTI-9

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SYSCHEK 99955586

…..STOP-GO, CLAMP C – 78%

…..STOP-GO, CLAMP D  – 64 %

…..STOP-GO, CLAMP E – DYS

…..STOP-GO, CLAMP F – DYS

…..STOP-GO, AMBUL-SYS – 56%

…..STOP-GO, SCANTER – 40%

……STOP-GO, CORE – 42%

……SYSCHEK TERM

PARAMETERS SET- PATROL MOD SYSQUERY………………………………………………………………………………………………………..ERR

SYSQUERY…………………………………………………….ERR

SYSQUERY……………….ERR

….

…

SYSCHEK 99955587

…..STOP-GO, CLAMP C – 78%

…..STOP-GO, CLAMP D  – 64 %

…..STOP-GO, CLAMP E – DYS

…..STOP-GO, CLAMP F – DYS

…..STOP-GO, AMBUL-SYS – 56%

…..STOP-GO, SCANTER – 40%

……STOP-GO, CORE – 42%

……SYSCHEK TERM

PARAMETERS SET- PATROL MOD

SYSQUERY……………………………………………ERR

The Bastard Sands

G. Derek Adams2 Comments
The Bastard Sands

Descabellado in the Old Tongue. Misbegotten, wild, by-blow, wrong side of the sheets. Bastard.

Mean son-of-a-bitch Desert, is what it should be called.

They don’t worry about it much, down in the soft South. The fine cities, and the Emperor’s mines and the dons and their ladies sipping at spider-tea under the shade of a white umbrella.

I worry. I worry plenty.

My wagons and my goats, out in the mess. Wind and sand, chewing away at your skin, gumming up the wheels, howling in the night so a man can’t get a decent sleep. They pay’s good when I roll into a town, but I’ve come close to dying of thirst more times than I care to remember. Anything goes wrong out in the Bastard, anything at all and all they’ll find is your shiny white bones.

I’m a fair tailor, a better cook, and a sharp-nosed merchant. I buy cheap and sell dear, and the common folk know better than to complain about the prices. They know what it takes to bring my tiny wagon across the sands, know the gold I pay to my caravan guards to keep the critters and savages and damn trail-spooks off of me.

One day, I’ll have enough money to retire. Buy me a nice little shop in Toledo and sell coffee and biscuits and spend every morning and evening sweeping my front stoop. Not a speck of sand, and clean white cloth on every table – the inside of the shop will always be cool. Cool stone and some nice green plants.

Not like out here in the Bastard.

Shit, I don’t even know why I’m writing all this. Won’t feed the cat or wake the Titan, like my old man used to say.

Fills the time, I suppose. Better than praying, or remembering. Not as good as drinking, but I’m out of whiskey until I make it to Briar in three days time. Ink I got, whiskey I don’t.

Listen to that sand howl, like a mad creature in the wind. Ha. Time to go to bed, that almost sounded poetical.

—-

X Hartower

— Day, — Year

The Bastard Sands

[A little flavor text for my nascent tabletop campaign, Titan’s Wake. ]