Jason: “…Let me be clear here, you are firing a rocket launcher in melee combat!?”
Me: “That’s what I said.”
We interrupt your regularly-scheduled Poor Unlife Choices for an important announcement.
Friend-of-the-Game, and my personal writing idol, Alyc Helms is an accomplished fantasy author. She’s a graduate of Clarion West and her short story work has been featured in many prestigious venues. Now, her very first full-length novel is dropping next month, and everyone–myself included–is extremely excited. The Dragons of Heaven has been described as a pulpy action romp spanning continents and genres, as if Big Trouble in Little China was thrust into actual Asian folklore and had to fight to survive.
But there’s an interesting meta-story to this story that is of particular interest to readers here. See, Alyc spun this story off a role-playing character of hers from a game of Abberant, which isn’t World of Darkness but is another White Wolf title. Additionally, hearing her talk about letting her character come alive outside the scope of the game has been instrumental in helping me develop Tom. And while I don’t plan on novels of my own in the near future, you can look forward to more game-based fan-fiction-y pieces, so stay tuned.
Anyway, I will end this announcement with a recent anecdote from FOGcon, a local SF/F literary convention that Alyc and I are on the committee of. The main character in Alyc’s book, one Missy Masters, has supernatural abilities inherited through her family, the key one of which being a, quote, “preternatural control of shadow.” At the convention, Alyc did a reading from the book showcasing this specifically, as Missy used her abilities to summon a shadowy rat familiar to help her track down a burglar in an abandoned San Francisco movie theater.
So at the end of the reading, after the enthusiastic applause, Alyc shyly asked if anyone had any questions:
Me: *raises hand slowly*
Alyc: “Yes, Colleen?”
Me: “How many dots of Obten do I need to get that shadow-rat thing?”
Alyc: “…Oh my god, you are such a nerd.”
The Dragons of Heaven releases June 2nd 30th! Preorder now!
Chris: “I also give him instructions to remake my…previous outfit. My…appropriately dignified outfit.”
Jason: “I’m not sure what you—“
Chris: “My Count Dooku outfit.”
Jason: “Ah. Yes. He is…less weirded out by that request than you’d expect.”
Jason: “When we last left off, the chess-boxing match between Dr. vonNatsi and Professor Barnabus Chauncy Snodgrass the Fourth was still on-going. Given that neither of these two are particularly impressive physical specimens, and I don’t know that there is one dot of Brawl between these two, it may be on-going for some time.”
Jim: “But how is the chess game going?”
Jason: “Well, the problem is these are Etherites, so they tend to over-think themselves pretty quickly when dealing with chess. You know, they’ll make a move, and then they’ll hesitate, because what happens if the queen comes to life and engages them in a battle of wits, and then cheats?”
Chris: “Paul is a winner.
Jason: “Paul is on Pluto being devoured by alien space bugs right now.”
Chris: “Right, so…doing pretty well!”
Jim: “Dooo…I have a suspicion of who this is?”
Jason: “You can suspect anything you fucking like, but you do know what Chinese people look like.”
Me: “And you do know you’re looking for one.”
Jim: “Right, but does she fit my perception of the appearance of the person I’m looking for?”
Jason: “Well she’s probably not Norton. And if it’s Perpenna, well…he’s had some work done.”
Jason: “I decide to add Victoria Lovelace to the game because I think she’ll be awesome and [Kara] decides to murder her for her dress.”
Chris: “Can’t say any of us are surprised.”
Jim: “You get into the weirdest situations.”
Jason: “Yeah, first you were showing a gargoyle Up, and now you’re headed to the kitchen of the Fairmont Hotel to find onions for your garden….”
Chris: “It actually doesn’t have to be onioins. Any member of the Allium family will work for what I’m doing.”
Jason: “…I haven’t the first idea what the hell you’re doing.”
Me: “Also I changed into new clothes before I left the house.”
Jason: “Into what?”
Me: “New clothes.”
Jason: “…Describe them?”
Me: “Uh, black…leather…black…leather…and black. And a t-shirt, cause I don’t go shirtless, cause I’m not that guy.”
Jason: “And what’s the t-shirt?”
Me: “I don’t know, American Apparel?”
Jason: “It’s got ironic shit written on it?”
Me: “No.”
Jim: “Does it have a mustache on it?”
Me: “No.”
Kara: “Does it have a polar bear perched on a melting iceberg?”
Me: “No.”
Roommate-Ben: “Does it have wolves on it?”
Me: “No.”
Jim: “Does it have bears on it?”
Me: “No, it’s just a plain black shirt! It’s—” *grabs own shirt* “—It’s literally this shirt guys, but with less breasts!”
We interrupt your sporadically-scheduled writeups to share this TheBoldItalic article showing some rare shots of the actual storm tunnels still hidden under San Francisco.
I want to go to there….
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The Vampires of San Francisco 