Empire of the East: Received

I had forgot i backed the kickstarter for this. I received the hard copy this morning (sitting at the local snowbound post office!), and the cover art and contents are terrific.

Quick breakdown before I need to get to work: relatively brief compared to some settings for DCC although much more is implied than given. Which is great. The flipside of the coin is that I have no experience with Saberhagen (except I did read some of the Berzerker stuff) and I promptly would discard  all the NPCs, which must account for a good chunk of the book. Page counts are not important but a chapter of NPCs is meant for fans of the books, which I could be but am not, and even then I  

Things to steal explicitly: science/technology. If you don't want a sentient tank and artificial intelligence in your fantasy, then you and I ought not to be friends. The idea that physical combat effectively nullifies magic is delightful and would save a lot of hmm-ing and hmm-ing at the table. Psychic combat, maybe even simplified further than what is presented (I tend to discard the DCC spellduel since it's infamously clunky - there's a blogpost on here from way back that has some proposed rule changes). Class limitations might feel restrictive to players, but makes sense to me sometimes. Gifting of spells - Wizards temporarily loaning another PC the use of a spell is a delightful idea and blows a whole world of cool opportunity wide open. The patrons Ardneh and Orcus. I read the PDF that came to backers pretty fully and totally skipped over the NPCs. I guess my DCC already IS Empire of the East except for some details - technology and aliens and AI more rampant in Thrend than what is represented in this fine book, but of the same cloth if you get my drift. Less tolkien and more asimov. 

The magic items are fun leftovers from the end of the techonological era of long ago... like all magic items they ought to be mysterious, powerful, and unpredictable (or else so haywire that they are dangerous to use)

More later, but i'd buy it probably just for the Ian Miller cover art! My group has sadly moved on from DCC since I don't run the majority of games, these days, but I may convince them to return so I can do some Ynn/Amberville/Xyntillian. The spectre of the Orange Emperor no longer clouds my judgement with the long shadows of fear and so I may rise again to wizardly prominence when these piteous fools drop their guard! Muwahahahah!

Anyways, more later (I forgot to post my One of Us review, also). Peace and Plenty be upon you, zero-level henchpeople!

Balthazar and Bork in the Wastelands

 Alas, if you did not attend, much hilarity was experienced by

Joseph

and

Eli

The Misadventures of Balthazar and Bork

Being a Comedy of Homelessness, Chitin, and Inheritance

Part Dieux: Electrix Boogaloo

So, the party (Bork played by Joe and the Junker Balthazar VVVMVF played by Eli) alighted on the shipping platform of Mesa 4, which Balthazar's Ancient Family Heirloom indicated was his own personal property and filled with Treasures Beyond Compare.

Jacques, the dirigible pilot who brought them, indicated that they ought to signal by Wrist-O-Com when they wished to escape the premises, and Jacques always gets payment up front which of course drained the Junker's coffers compleatly. Being a bit of a drunkard and Anarchist (not Antifa because O NO You DINT) Bork often took payments in rum, and a good thing, too.

So, within the delivery hangar they were greeted by a cloaked group of spindly ghasts, who immediately sniffed Balthazar's genetic rights to the Mesa and begged of the party to send paychecks retroactively for hundreds, thousands of years, and when it was determined that Bork (now CEO) was carrying RUM, the unnervingly polite and totally undead fiends drank deeply of it and wobbled off, tipsy, to darker climes, directing the party languidly down Maintenance Hallway 4. After nigh on a millenia with no fermentables, their tolerance for alcohol was very low and so they passed out somewhere off camera.

Continuing down the hallway, the party encountered the old "Jiggling Doorknob" problem, which Bork promptly nullified by kicking the door into smithereens and unleashing the masked, blank-faced Monstrous Centipedes within. A short tussle ensued, but the vittttleorious party found, to their surprise, an Ancient and Untouched Cache of Meals Ready To Eat in various unsavory flavors (I did not tell them they missed a collectible limited edition Candwich) but eyes lighting up with dollar signs they signalled to Jacques to return, and meantime they stuffed the carcasses with as many MREs as they possibly could. This effort left them with (perhaps hundreds!) of MREs and a mere 12 minutes or so to explore the remainder of the Mesa, because Jacques has no qualms about abandoning stranded explorers of haunted laboratories and mesas.

Down the hall, they encountered a Security Droid (somewhat malfunctional) who requested access clearance, and of course since Balthazar is the rightful heir a single drop of blood suffices to gain them entrance to Laboratory 4, containing row upon row upon hideous row of shrivelled, Partially Viable Super Psychick Fetal Clones which (although tasty) are well-suited to becoming an anti-establishment Psychick Army to destroy some lower quadrant of Bastion whilst the Junker Balthazar plays fruitless games in Parliament. The drone delivery devices of Mesa 4 only needed their address in Bastion to deliver White Hot Death to the new chairmen of the Junker's (Evil? Misguided? Doomed?) corporate headquarters. It is amazing what paradigms can be busted when you think outside the box.

Ahhh, the joys of Pseudo-Random Generation (by Tablesmith) and fast-and-loose rules systems (Into The Odd) with no expectation of continuity nor clarity! It is good these nanites in my blood have broken the RPG dam that held my heart back in some sense. It has been heavy with serious matters of late...

Perhaps more picaresque scenes, later, G*d willing, if you compleat the requisite forms, of course.