Notes from an imaginary drama

Satan the Accursed
Satan the Accursed, self-described "man of wealth and taste," is the narrator of the play. (While he is an unreliable narrator, the alternative is prohibitively inconvenient to attempt to stage.)

Satan the Accursed is a firm believer in total human depravity, and has held this opinion since humanity first came into existence. (On occasion, Satan the Accursed will state that the actions of somebody, not necessarily a character in the play, have been added to the list of case studies that he is accumulating to prove his point. As the play begins, he has accumulated six trillion and three.)

As a being predating humanity, Satan the Accursed is capable of easily stepping sideways into the Absence, and perceives Presence and Absence equally well. He occasionally stops one conversation to engage in another with an Absent being; since other characters are unable to perceive the Absent under most circumstances, the rest of the cast assumes Satan to be unfathomably alien and possibly insane, a misconception he makes no effort to correct.

Despite his open hostility towards humans, Satan the Accursed is nonetheless quite willing to provide assistance to anybody who asks politely. In all cases, this assistance is taken as further proof of the irredeemably flawed nature of humans....

Author's Note: Further points will be added to the Sternbilden as they are discerned.

I was evangelized by a Moonie

My mom knew a Moonie once. One of her coworkers, back when the Moonies were just starting to explode and before Hare Krishnas were banned from airports. Not sure what time period it was.

It was sorta awkward, meeting a Moonie. In part this was because he approached me, and didn't obviously look like a Moonie, whatever that's supposed to mean. (The only image I'm familiar with is of Rev. Moon officiating at a mass wedding.)

This meant that, until he asked the fateful question, I was sure that he was going to wind up doing one of three things:

• Asking me what time it was and/or how to get to the Student Center;
• Asking how my court case is going (bad news on that, by the way, but I won't post it here); or
• Inviting me back to his place for an afternoon of hot sweaty gay sex.

As it is, none of these things happened, because he asked the fateful question:

"Are you happy with your life?"

Missionaries really need to find a way to segué into that question more gracefully. Posing it honestly puts people into a position that's much more awkward than being unsure if they're being invited somewhere for hot sweaty gay sex.

So I said "More or less," and the rest of the exchange went rather smoothly. It was actually rather amusing, to be honest. If I'd tried a bit harder to keep the topic off what he was selling, and on the tangents that came up, it could've possibly become a dry comedy skit with some work.

(In particular, he asked me if I played music. It was a week ago - this being backdated so as to correspond with when it actually happened - but I'm still feeling sorta bad that I didn't turn that around and do with Randall MTS series amps what Bugmaster did with tomatos about 2/3 of the way down the thread.)

Since I didn't do that, however, I did (unknowingly) the next best thing: I asked him for a URL. And eventually he gave me one: http://www.worldcarp.org/. At which point the conversation fizzled out and we went our separate ways.

That day on Slacktivist, in a fit of synchronicity, Hapax posted this:

Actually, from what I've heard, the point of LDS (and JW) missions isn't so much to convert other people, as to strengthen Mormons in their faith.

Look at the model. You take a small group of idealistic young people at the age when they start seriously questioning the institutions of their youth. You remove them from their families, friends, any place familiar, any support structure or distractions that isn't supplied by that institution. You send them out to strangers to repeat over and over with every bit of sincerity they can muster how that institution is the best, the most, the only important thing in the world. At that point, the strangers will either a) agree with them (unlikely, but will reinforce the message) b) reject them, usually with hostility (more likely, but will reinforce an 'us against them' worldview) or c) ignore them (which will send them back into the arms of the institution as the only source of attention positive or negative). Missions like these are an incredibly effective mechanism for binding people to the church for life.

Synchronicity is a wonderful thing.

8. The Lost

Art: A child is shivering in a misty winter forest. In the picture are four cups, one of them empty; the other three are filled with ashes, dust and salt. In the distance, a volcano is erupting and the sky is illuminated with lightning. In the foreground, a rapier and a diamond lie in the mud, concealed by rocks.

Meaning: Irrecuperable losses. Obsolescence ("the world has moved on.")

Meaning-reversed: Overreaction, making mountains out of molehills. This card may, occasionally, connote the involvement of rakshasa.

Not dead, nor dreaming

Well, I may as well say it now: Kredge Karlish has been silent for so long because his campaign ended. Two players left (with few tears, to be honest), and Fox was dissatisfied with the way the game was turning out.

As with many things, however, he is not dead. Just dreaming. I'm keeping the blog up, because I will be posting to it sporadically - I was very backlogged to begin with, so there's a lot of updating to do on my part. Once I'm done with that, his further adventures will be dealt with as I make them up.

In the meantime, a new campaign has started. I guess this is the time for me to introduce Narko Charkozu, my alter ego for the indefinite future.

Just thought you might like to know.

Tried so hard to love you in my way

I saw Aida performed at Bethel High School an hour ago.

It wasn't bad. Overly loud, which drowned out the reverberation, and the lyrics were a bit belted for my taste. But then again I'm a fucking spectator, so it doesn't matter what I think.

It made me realize that I miss Mika.

The Emerald Setlist

I haven't finished the writeup of the Emerald Set yet; I only have about half of the cards named at all, never mind designed. With that said, I'm posting what is done here as a backup, and to remind myself that this is a work in progress.

In total, the Emerald Set will have 55 cards, because that's how many the Levantine Set has and I'm too damn lazy to consider rewriting a Random Card Generation table myself.

The Emerald Set

The Emerald Set is inspired by Fax Celestis and his generally-inspiring Cartomancer class.

I liked the idea. I liked the mechanics. But I had my own ideas of what exactly a D&D-style Tarot deck would look like, and they didn't correspond very well with the Levantine Set, so I'm posting them here instead.

Sooner or later I'll find hosting for it, but until then this will have to work.