Libromancer's Apprentice

The following is a narrative and epilogue for a character I played in Pandaemonium, at HLG Con, October 12-13, 2018. Once there was a child, like any of us.  Playing the games we all play.  Running wild with friends, due home by dark to be welcomed back by parents A child grows and changes, the pieces not always fitting the mold set by the parents.  Algebra seems so… tedious compared to the thrum of a tuned engine, the just so fit of a pair of jeans, to secrets held in the shadows.  Childish mischief transmutes into the usual adolescent rebellion.  Or started as such.  There were so many fascinating things to learn, interesting things to try, expanding the consciousness. It was a laugh when the straights started crossing themselves instead of laughing or mocking.  Why not take on their scorn and wear it as a badge of pride.  Watch out for the scary witch. It only takes a moment for everything to change, one decision made so quickly you don...

This weekend, we lived a Gothic Horror/Romance.  With space wizards and light sabers.  On a real life heavy cruiser.  I did horrible things to amazing people, causing characters emotional trauma and player tears.  I lost track of the number of times friends told me they hated me or that I was the worst as they gleefully went deeper into the dark places of the plot. Not only that, I portrayed a space wizard ghost trapped in a ship and who thinks its the AI. Sometimes, life is pretty sweet. I also admit that I'm a strange person. When I was invited to contribute to Legends of the Stars 2 ( website , Facebook ), I think I had a bit of a brain glitch.  Really?  They wanted me to contribute?  Holy crap .  We'll hand wave the ensuing anxiety of whether or not it was a true invite that lasted through my first story development meeting up until I was officially on the writing team. This made for one of my top LARP experiences so far.  I'...

The above pretty much describes what little free time I have these days, be it active involvement, planning, or ideas bouncing around in my head. I've been running a Dungeons & Dragons game for a few months now, with a bit of an unintended break thanks to crazy schedules.  Also, I'm still new enough at running games that I'm not at all confident in my ability to create a solid world and plot.  But folks seem to be having fun, so I must be doing something right. Also on the table top/RPG front, I joined Chaosium's Cult of Chaos, which is a fancy way of saying I now run organized play Call of C'thulhu games.  Also, it means I get to GM without having to write the scenarios.  Yay.  First up for that is their A Time for Harvest campaign, which I'll be running at Modern Myths.  Game one takes place this Saturday from 3-7 (part of International TableTop Day activities), and then will continue through on the last Sunday of the month until we've finished a...

I've written before about LARPing .  It's loads of fun and a great way to meet new people. My first LARP occurred two years ago, and myself and three of my friends played a group of experts from the Vatican (well, I was there as medical support) searching for holy relics rumored to be hiding in Hungary (in particular the original top of the Holy Crown of Hungary). Just your average team of Vatican treasure hunters So it was that we, along with nearly 40 others, were traveling in December of 1935, only to be trapped in a mountain valley when sabotage knocked the train off the rails.  A valley scheduled to for flooding in two mornings.  Over the next 36 hours we found strange artifacts, encountered cultists and ghouls, were decimated by horrifying creatures from another dimension, and desperately tried to find what we needed to repair the damage to the rails in order to escape. Ten of the original forty escaped, including one of ours.  All with scars and t...

As I've mentioned previously , I really want to run a LARP inside a library.  As libraries are public spaces while they're open, I am envisioning a one-shot, after-hours game, likely as a lock-in style overnight event (lock-in to reduce issues with security).  Based on space, liability, and environment I will need to at least look into non-physical combat resolution systems.  In many ways Nerf would work well for the indoors setting (for one thing, less likely to knock something over), but sometimes people get a bit... touchy about gun-related things, even neon-yellow, foam dart shooters.  I also recall a one-shot zombie apocalypse survival LARP my friends attended that used tossed 'spell packets' to simulate hand-to-hand combat. For the environment I'm looking to work within, I think my best bet is to go with a C'thulhu mythos setting.  Well suited to night time adventures, easy to develop a plot that makes use of a space full of books, potentially minimal ne...

This past weekend, despite harsh conditions and overwhelming odds, we not only stopped the Machine Collective from demolishing Earth for materials in building a Dyson Sphere, but we made a huge step towards the regrowth of life on the surface and the eventual re-emergence of civilization out of underground bunkers.  OK, so maybe I wasn't fighting against real cybernetic hordes intent on the final doom of humanity, but I was having a good time with a handful of friends and about 30 other players running around in character as we played make-believe.  It was disgustingly hot though, and the wet field made our socks very very squishy.  Also there was the risk of ticks, which are creatures of my nightmares. Send in the D-Team LARPing (or Live Action Role-Playing) has a bit of a bad reputation.  It is connected with the much aligned world of Role (or Roll) Playing Games, historically accused of debauchery and Satanic rites (and while I find Mountain Dew repulsiv...