Main Topic
Today we talked about books that need to be in a GM’s Library that are not gaming related but can be used to draw more inspiration from.
Zendead-
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley- How it created the genre of Sci-Fi,
Far Eastern Myth helping to be more inclusive in your games,
Dune by Frank Herbert- How to take existing Cultures and change them into something new that doesn’t look like its Inspiration
Nulloperations-
The writing of Stephen King – King shows you the importance of sub-characters to make a rich world
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams – Twisting a genre and the importance of relaxation and jokes in the gaming group
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler – building a mystery, which helps in countless genres
Joules-
YouTube Show – Extra Credits (They go into almost a bajillion subjects in creating video games. Lots can be used for creating your game.)
Fables by Bill Willingham – Characters with existing backstory don’t have to be static.
Books of Fables (Rudyard Kiplings “Just So” Stories, Aesop’s Fables) – Actions have consequences. And they don’t need to be huge and drawn out
Stat Blocks
Zendead
The Unspoken- The Unspoken are a group of highly trained and specialized warriors for the Queen. They are never seen unless the Queen is threatened and then they appear from the shadows of the throne room. Since the Queen is a widow and has no champion she needed a way to protect herself so so spoke with her spymaster. The result is the Unspoken. They were taken from the finest guard and then trained in a secret location known only to the spymaster. Their membership is secret and very small. They train as a unit of five. There are three units in total that rotate duty. The head of each unit reports to the spymaster and the Queen only. No one has ever seen any of them speak aside from head of a unit. The truth is they has been muted so that they can never speak They have created a unique system of hand gestures as well as faces to convey everything that a normal language can. There is at least one of them that can do spellcasting as well.
Joules
In Little Fears, kids use “stuff” to fight monsters and help save the world.
One of the items is “the all seeing camera.” All the powers aren’t known to the child yet. But they’ll find them
This camera used to belong to the child’s dad. It was a big part of their life from their first breath. It took baby pictures, pictures on vacation, family photos. It held the memories of the family.
The one day, coming home from a wonderful vacation everything changed.
It was dark and it had been raining. Dad couldn’t maintain control of the car.
The child doesn’t remember much after that.
The child went to live with Auntie and Uncle while Mom and Dad were recovering in the hospital. In suburban Massachusetts.
But since they were away from all that they knew, they were allowed to take the camera with them. Taking a piece of home and the happy memories.
It is now fall. And things aren’t feeling right. A whisp in the corner of the eye. A cold breeze. A strange noise.
Well, while doing the “Fall Tour” of the local historic sites with Auntie and Uncle, the kid decides to “be like daddy” and take pictures. Putting the camera up to their eye, getting ready to take a picture of the statue, the child sees something thru the viewer. A skeletal form overlaying the statue. It disappears when they stop looking thru the viewer. Putting it back up to their eye, it reappears. The apparition overlaying the statue notices that the kid is looking at it and disappears.
That’s the initial power of the All Seeing Camera. Seeing the invisible.
The more the child uses it, the more powers that are discovered. The ability to blind monsters with the flash. The ability to have others experience everything the child experienced when they took the picture.
And there’s a special feature of the camera. But a very dangerous one. If things go wrong, the consequences can be death.
The feature is called “save.” What happens is when someone is hurt (no matter how badly), taking a picture of the person heals them, restoring all their health and correcting any negative effects. The memory card in the camera “saves” the damage. However storage devices are finite. And since the crash, the memory card in there was fused in there for some reason. It’s currently unknown how many “saves” are on that storage device, and how much more space is left.
When the storage device is full, all the damage that was “saved” explodes outward, returning the damage to its original owner.
Bones re-break, gaping wounds re-open, and kids rescued from the brink of death find themselves back at the brink, staring into oblivion once again.
The Camera is a useful tool and a powerful one. It can even save someone from dying. But every bit of magic has a cost. What are you willing to pay?
Justin
<pulled>
Lexicon
Penology noun pe·nol·o·gy \pi-ˈnä-lə-jē\
Definition of PENOLOGY
- : a branch of criminology dealing with prison management and the treatment of offenders.
Origin and Etymology of penology
Greek poinē penalty + English -logy
First Known Use: 1838
Closing remarks –
Zendead
Music by The Enigma Tng
Joules
Rip Off! (on Audible) or Mash Up! (on Kindle)
Justin
Ethys Asher – FFXIV Lore
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs2UQ_EJkAAlzXkcTfDj-2g
Music is courtesy of Magnatune
Artist is Numa from their self-titled album Numa
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