One headlight

One more shift at work until Peryton and I drive off to Indianapolis for GenCon 2011. I really cannot say how much I enjoy this vacation. And this year, I swore things were going to easier for me while I am there, despite the fact that every year I run more and more events. But back in May I swore that I show up prepared, and up until tonight, I haven't been keeping my promise to myself. I knew this past weekend and Monday was going to be the clincher, the crunch, the... the test. And I passed it, with a "C" maybe a "B."

The scenario outlines are almost all completely done, so the typing since May has been helpful. And even the incomplete tales have the scoops, twists, bells and whistles all worked out in outline form with copious details. Of course when the plots hit the table, the players will be the ones who dictate how close things stay to my thread; which is the joy of role-playing, interactive parlor game that it is.The characters are complete for all six of the scenarios that I am running that should have pre-generated characters. And the character sheets for the other four are ready to go. And I even have a little LARP experiment worked out with Caed, my virtual sister, to spice up the Peryton clique's Friday night "Apocalypse All-Nighter."

Things are looking good.

And getting here hasn't been an easy path. We've had to postpone the Elder Tunnels Summer 2011 issue because I couldn't finish my piece being so absorbed in my preparations for the event. And our kitchen sink's elbow has a hole, and we might have mice (despite seven cats). Two big convention friends JerryTel and Andre Kruppa have both canceled their appearances at GenCon, and these guys are at least as serious as I am about gaming. Existential angst and superstition are at the edges of my mind this week.

So tomorrow, I clean up the place for the house sitter, and pack before heading off to work a shift. And then on Wednesday AM, the dice are cast.

The Next T&T Campaign

As some of you might remember, I finished up my "playtest" campaign of 7th edition Tunnels & Trolls last winter. Using some stringent Kindred selection rules, I had taken four, sometimes five, sometimes two, players' characters from 1st to 14th level from September 2005 up to March 2011. A lot of the duration of the campaign was because of Peryton and my convention play elsewhere, and still a lot of it was due to the difficulties of getting adults in their 20s, 30s and 40s to the tabletop for a role-playing session. But now the question is, "what's next?"

Well, I haven't been in too much of a hurry to restart to begin with. I am running T&T at a few conventions, always a good fantasy fix, and have a fairly stable storyline with T&T with recurring characters through BASHCon in Toledo. I am also busy writing T&T scenarios in the Elder Tunnels periodical and elsewhere. I also am working on my Spacers(TM) sci-fi affliction. But I do feel the need to get another "not for profit (pizza and beer moneys)" T&T campaign going. And I prefer the physical tabletop to the on-line conference call, I've discovered over the last couple of years.

So where do I start? What are my fixations, like what creatures and environments will proliferate the session? Am I going to have Lovecraftian horrors? Is the Nordic mythology angle something that I am dying to translate into role-playing terms? Heck is it going to beer and pretzels with puns about Gary Gygax and Britney Spears? I'm still sorting that out, but here's a couple of the inklings I have going on in mind.

I want to explore a bit beyond the 14th level, but not base the whole campaign there. I think I'll have the characters start at around 5th or 6th level. I feel that will have the players and I start from a point of expertise and competency and our first sit-downs won't be about the youthful hero, or heroine, discovering himself and the world around him. This is especially important as I think that the most of the players in the new campaign are going to be from the old campaign. But starting anew will have the players more open-minded about a change here and there that I will be making from last time. Aside from conventional changes, the players will still have to work within the outlined T&T rules before we start exploring the free-form of Beyond 14th Level T&T role-playing (I feel there should be an echo there). Also if I started out with the PCs from last campaign right at 14th level, certain players (especially one nicknamed Lumberjack) would forget to do anything but be a munchkin.

I intend on filling up the "spaces" that I discovered in the first campaign, namely the "Higher" level challenges. By this I mean various things. I intend of finding a comfortable way of finding creatures that can deal with say a Death Spell #9 or Hellbomb Burst, with detail enough to make them translatable to other GMs that might one day run the scenario that I craft. I also want to fill some of the space that over designers and solo authors have avoided over the past decades. D&D has its planes of hells and major demons and devils, I am hoping to show a rather unique T&T high level arena that players twenty years from now will allude to just as the forty year-olds refer to the "Cacodaemon," "Orcus" and the "66th plane of Limbo" do now and expect everyone to know what they are talking about.

So yeah, this campaign is going to be ambitious. But not anymore ambitious than getting together a group of friends to role-play while they live their lives for longer than a couple months. It might as well be worth it.

TrollHoot 2011: Along the banks of the Upper Sandusky

Thursday night/ Friday morning at work, I had an inkling that it was going to be a good weekend. As for paying attention to my job versus just being good conversation with my patients, it just wasn't going to happen. Luckily it was an easy enough night and I came home to find that Peryton had packed up everything and had it ready to loaded up, so I just spent the morning keeping myself awake and packing my own things. I made the conscious decision leave my PC at home and just work from pen and paper, and the quick notes that I had made at various times over the last couple of months. Instead I paid attention on having a different shirt to wear each day of the event. Then just before noon I packing up the car; and just a little after noon I was picking up the old woman and we were headed to the wilds of central western Ohio, in search of the source of the mighty Sandusky river.

Peryton was still making notes on her upcoming Dr. Who game as we drove down, so we let the car's GPS unit do most of the talking. And just a little after 2pm, we arrived at the Comfort Inn where this year's Troll Hoot would be taking place. The hotel was nestled in the town's By-the-Highway commercial area, where a second hotel was, a truck stop and all the fast food sites one could want within a mile of each other. And despite Gamercaster's continued threats to be showing up early, Pery and I were the first people to show up. Having no company for lunch, we explored the civilized area we English-speaking peoples had established a foothold in the wildernesses that is Upper Sandusky. We made it Burger King and picked up some beer, cider, snacks and paper-plates from a convenience store across the street from the hotel.

Everyone, Caed, Gamecaster, JerryTel and a newcomer Jeff, hence forth he will be Brock, announced via the Hoot's facebook page that they were there by 5:40. Amazingly the Dinner in the New Town tradition at the Hoots was observed by all the attendants and in a punctual manner. We all jumped into Caed's minivan of death and went in search of a local (non-franchised) restaurant, which Caed had the forethought to ask the evening manager behind the desk. By the way, this woman, and the other desk people would prove to be a skilled and friendly bunch of people throughout the weekend. We hit an "Italian" place, which struck me more as a western European cuisine menu in a gasthaus set up, there was "French" dressing and German bologna (not me the dish) as well great pasta dishes. Don't get wrong here, I am impressed not being ironic, it was nice to see blackened chicken and duck drumsticks without Tabasco sauce, with a great salad. I had the lasagna and a couple Black and Tans. We were having so much fun, the Toledo boys (Gamecaster and JerryTel) were getting to know Caed, and Brock getting back into gamer-dorkiness after an 18 year absence, that the waitress didn't want us to leave.

Gamecasters play-testing game of his rather furry science fiction game Quantum started around 7:30pm. The man showed his raw talent for the table-top arena in keeping up with a rowdy group of would-be gamers on track for his game. I probably wasn't the only person who was a little loopy with a bit of alcohol in me and a definite lack of sleep. I mean everyone had a quick joke or long story, and the Monty Python quotes flowed freely. To the man's credit he was able to keep the story going, work with impromptu rules discussions of his system AND keep up on the jokes as well. Afterward, he reminded us that this was first time ever GMing an adventure. And my Space-Goat character rocked, not to be overly immodest.

Saturday AM found me awake around 5am, which was later than I thought it would be. So I spent the daybreak hours exploring the smallish hotel and its grounds. I really liked the space. The lobby isn't much more than a door, a front desk and then the breakfast/dining area with a flat-screen TV in one corner continually playing Fox News. But the conference room is nestled into a hallway not adjoining other rooms but with access to the pool. The back hallway of the two story structure is nice and wide and removed from the hotel rooms through fire doors, which have nice sound dampening qualities. The hotel wrapped itself around a smoking patio/rock garden with benches. Thoughts of very small conventions with say 30 ppl expectancy started swirling around my head.

I ran the first event of the day, and though the 10am start time was too early for everyone, the four hour allotted time-slot proved to be a little too short. "A Journey Through a Strange Valley" was combining bits of earlier adventure "The Bubble Pits" and though I had a Tunnel-Hack matrix (extensive random terrain and encounter tables) worked out, I was exploring as much as the players were. We, both the players and myself, never get did get to any real meat, though I was definitely having fun with my trademark side-dishes gravity factored into "tunnel delving" and marking getting there a battle all of its own. JerryTel, having been eating gravity-salad for three years now, decided it was time for his dwarf Warrior, Jerry the Great nee Good, to take up "snow-shielding," a variation of snow boarding but without the visibility and a lot of physical damage.

Lunch was at McDonald's, and JerryTel and I had a bit of fun with a political discussion on the way back. I think we scared the hotel staff at the front desk, but him and I were actually finding out where we could give on our respective ideological positions, not throwing rhetoric at one another. It was a conversation not a debate or polemic exercise.

JerryTel began his "Feast or Famine" A Game of Thrones session just after 3pm. And once again I was drawn into his apt storytelling. The guy would be a great TV writer if he put his mind into it. And I don't mean TV as anything superficial, because it is my opinion that the writers for that medium understand what appeals to people in their art and culture but have a very limited time frame to express the bits and pieces that they have to offer. I am not familiar with aGoT, but I have seen at least three medieval-toned movies with Sean Bean to get the grit, and read enough Roger Zelanzy's Prince of Amber series so I think I did well enough. Who excelled was Brock, who's real name is Jeff mentioned earlier. But it during this session where Jeff found his character Brock Oath-Breaker, and he ruled the session. And from there on out, the man will ever be Brock of Brockville, home of Brockweisser, where they only grow wheat and barley, and import hops to have a beer worthy of Brock Day celebrations, roughly every Thursday. The man was in the role-playing zone.

Before Peryton's Dr. Who scenario, "Dreams of Cybermen" , we ordered the "Saturday Night Pizza Delivered!." These two 16" pizzas not only came from Anthony's Heavenly Pizza, the boxes were adorned with the proverb John 3:16. The pizza itself was rather tasty. Once again suggested by the evening manager at the front desk.

Though we gripe about the Friday sessions of Troll Hoots being the worsts, for the last two we've had great Friday night sessions, as everyone gets there earlier these days and we get caught up earlier as well. So Fridays are becoming one of the better slots to run a game. What hasn't changed throughout the four Hoots that we've had is the fact that the Saturday night slot is a grill session. Not saying Saturday night 7pm-Midnight is a bad slot, just a demanding slot. Peryton's "Dreams of Cyber Men" was an ambitious project, not only in her quest for doing homage to the Dr Who stories that she loves so much, but in her task before her as well.

At 6pm everyone was hyped from twelve hours of gaming in an 18 hour period. We had dinner and some of us had a cocktail just before the climax, if not the finale, to the Hoot. I heard from both JerryTel and Gamecaster separately that they were sold on Troll Hoots, and what a great game. Brock had found his niche and namesake. Caed was as hyped as Pery about playing Dr. Who. And then the game started at 7pm. Gamecaster had his character generated after breakfast of the day and had been reading Pery's rulebooks whenever he could. Brock and JerryTel used pre-generated characters, though changing the names, Brock's was "Brock," by the way. Caed and I being already familiar with Pery's Dr. Who games made our own characters. Us, generating our characters took a bit too much time. Full stomachs and being in the same room all day, and some alcohol started knocking ppl out.

The scenario itself was an awesome Dr. Who story. Peryton got its Torchwood characters from 2040 to my character Dallas Rugby, third, maybe 5th, string quarterback of the 1976-79 Denver Broncos in the year 1976 and from there we ended up on Sarkis, which my PC was amazed was not a Greek Island. And then we ran into representatives of the GCE mega-corporation where Pery's Corp-Speak of the future rather knocked our socks off-- she hinted at a whole galactic arm ran through Item Lists and waivers of responsibilities. Caed's Torchwood representative proved as ruthless as any granddaughter of Captain Jack Harkness would be. And Gamecaster's Mister Magoo homage took technobabble to higher levels than I have seen in six years of delving into space opera. Brock pulled radio watch. JerryTel's "dope-pusher from the future" biochemist added a criminal element to the tale giving the whole session a rather new angle on a rather traditional Cybermen yarn. I don't want to give away too much, but there was a multi-faced blob with tentacles... I am serious this plot was worthy of any Dr. Who fan's notice. Pery's Dr. Who fixation is paying off in creative role-playing in dozens.

A little after midnight, things wrapped up and everyone was indeed tired. JerryTel stated that drinking at 6pm was a bad thing. I countered with that we should've turned 6pm-7pm into a cocktail hour and gotten some air. Brock was ready for bed, and Gamecaster was packing like the cops would be showing up soon (he had to work the Sunday AM). There was a definite energy ebb there at the end of things.

At a long, leisurely breakfast on Sunday, Peryton joined JerryTel and I. Then Brock appeared and lastly Caed. We discovered that Brock is from the Lorain area, which is promising for the next, err one of the TrollHoots for 2012, Pery and I have a couple favorite spots in Lorain, Ohio. As it looks like right now the hoots and hollering of a few gamers as an excuse to be tourists and dorks at the same time is proving to be a resilient norm around this neck of the woods.

Pery and I took the long way home. We circled around Upper Sandusky and then headed in a round about way towards Norwalk. From there we headed to a favorite spot, a new reincarnation of a mexican restaurant once named el Gran Castillo, now called el Arriero, in Lorain and then proceeded back home towards Cleveland. We let the GPS guide us back to the expressway and ended up traveling through a stretch of road that brought me new eyes to older haunts in Sheffield Lake and Avon and a route to get to or from lake-side Lorain-based activities.

Once at home, Pery and I promptly crashed for seven hours after first trying to wade through a French I-Hate-Women "science fiction" flik from the 60s. And then found out Gamecaster left his toiletries with us, in rush to avoid the cops. All and all, I'd call this weekend a success in the scheme of life.

Two Tickets for Tacos at Midnight- Part Three "Tacos at Midnight, then we slept."

Sorry folks I thought that I had finished this. But hey better late than never...

Saturday evening at BASHCon is always kewl. For all the trials and tribulations getting to this period of time in the space that is the University of Toledo Student Union, it is these hours of relaxed abandon where the true gamer can bask in glory of it all. It isn't too hard paraphrase the 80's band the Police to say, "There has to be a Dorkiness sun, that gives its heat to everyone." And by around 6pm hanging with the BASH folks, one can tell that they are goofy Mercury. The main room is just packed. Most tables have at least five people gathered and paying attention to the game master or the facilitator. The dealers are getting itchy to close their booths and join in. Even the staff is looking forward to something, probably a Bob Newhart drinking game in their bud's dorm room, but still they're smiling, if confounded.

Of course, this year's staff found a way to mess with the mood, the Public Announcement. Not just the PA system, but the public announcement as practiced. I shall illustrate my contention here as the tale unravels before you.

After walking around for a bit, at 6pm Peryton and I walked up to a table with JerryTel and three other people and found out this was where I was supposed to running my CoC adventure "The Horrible fate of the Haunted House Hunters." The table actually assigned to me was being used for garabage collection and a Pokeman game by that game's three devout convention goers. Jerry had wisely decided that table-squatting was the best way to go, and I agreed.

I had five players and was sucking wind, as well as sucking as a GM, as I only had four pregenerated PCs ready. I normally have six to eight ready to go, but this year I blame the hotel for my remiss. Still, the group around me threw me a line as I invented tasks to keep them looking at their character sheets as I quickly scripted the basics for the fifth PC, and had him fill in his special touches. By 6:28pm we were ready to go.

I could tell it was going to be a good game, the players were GenCon-goers, and we all knew JerryTel. I started with my prologue for the night's adventure, drawing the players into the world of the Reality TV semi-stars 'The Haunted House Hunters' led by "Truck ," a former pro-wrestler now celebrity entertainer, played by Jerry. I laid down the first scene with a strange call from a worried neighbor about the upstairs apartment, the players were becoming their PC's and even leaning forward...

"If you want to play REAL Call of Cthulhu...!" Yelled someone walking up and down the center of the auditorium. "Come try our new game Dark Eons in room..."

The rambling announcement only disrupted many already busy tables for about two minutes. Selfishly, I noticed that I had the rules book for Call of Cthulhu 5th Edition in front of me. Looking deeper, I think that I was the only person running a CoC at that point in time according to the schedule. I almost took offense. Luckily, one of my players brightened the mood by acting like he was about to leave for the "real" CoC session, but then sat back down.

The game was great. 'The Haunted House Hunters' players got right into their roles. Jerry made a great celebrity and Peryton found an ashtray, yes a clean ashtray, to use as her imaginary camera's lens focus, and everyone else let themselves feel like they were actually going to be on TV whenever she pointed it at them. Her trippy MTV style of video shooting had everyone a little hamming it up. I almost felt bad as I started to mess with them as they were in a real haunted house. I think I got some actual surprised looks from the players.

At 8 or 9pm, the Dealers' Area was closing down, I know because there were only three announcements before over the PA system before it finally did. I know at 9:17pm a guy that I had seen earlier in the day at the Dark Eons room walked past my table to offer his advice to my players.

"Oh look Call of Cthulhu! Burn the books! Burn the Books! And always run away!" I suppose things were a little dead in the Dark Eons corner of the convention.

All of my game's players did fantastic in their roles, all I really had to do was parcel out clues and use insanity to speak for PCs to provide missed clues. And soon enough, I had a college professor lighting himself aflame and driving a minivan into the front door of house in a nicer Cincinnati neighborhood. This gave me all the energy I needed for the scenario's horrific narrative, which I had been working on for two months. At 11:45pm I was lyrical,

"And the house flashes, blue then green! The sky itself turns blacker than the darkness already there!..." I sang.

"Testing.... Testing... Is this thing on?" Someone said over the PA system, and he of course he tapped the microphone three times, then went on to stammer. " If anyone here has found my copy of White Wolf's World of Darkness..."

Want to talk about pissed?

"Shut up!" (Sounding more like "SHUT! UHP!") I finally shouted very loudly, as the person looking for his personal items over the Public Announcement system. Instead of personally going from table to table and doing the leg work that he should have been doing before bothering everyone, the man had found a microphone. And we all listened as he rambled further into an incoherent whine and then an undecided finishing point, which others finally shut off the microphone in his hands.

The tables around mine, looked from the ceiling, where the PA speakers were towards me. Peryton frowned at me. One of the campus cops looked up from his coffee from across the auditorium at me. The rest of the table kept their looks passive, I'd say more than a little supportive. I then finished my final bit, trying to recapture the cadence and melody in language from before. Of course, I felt the need to apologize for my outburst. Overall though, this session rocked. The players, one of the best groups ever, and my notes came together very nicely. I hope to repeat this session more often than not in the future.

Walking out, the campus cop looked sideways at me, but had to smile when I shrugged my shoulders. Which leads me to the next advent of BASHCon, TACOS!

I can't really remember what we ordered at Del Tacos, but I remember the real corn meal in the tortilla. I also remember the plastic packages of sauce smelled like tabasco as well as chili powder, as Peryton barely contained herself applying the gunk upon her junk food. It was rather pleasant. Back in the room and Saturday Night Live was playing as I donned my Captain America costume and the wife donned here Wonder Woman single piece... I was probably falling asleep, as neither of us had even packed a swim suit, let alone a 60-pound shield. But hey Peryton would make Linda Carter envious.

Sunday was all fun.

I woke up a little too early, but was able to have breakfast in the hotel's restaurant. This was a first in three years. The gravy and biscuits was spoiled by hotel etiquette of using to many dishes for whatever recipe it is trying to sell. Gravy is poured over the biscuits, and the potatoes get soaked into the excess. Deep fried chunks of potatoes in a dish separated from the mosh pit of sloppy food is a untalented chef's choice (think on that Corporate America, you who think that chefs are cooks and menus just polite notes before biological needs). But I was hanging out with the Dealers of BASHCon, but I didn't have a booth. Of course, I was not hanging out as much as just saying "hi." Still it was nice to be the guy who is just there for the tacos and maybe selling a scenario, or 2'ooo, among the professionals.

Waking up Peryton at 7:35am, she informed me that our games didn't start until 10am. Everything was quiet, no exercisers of smokers within a stone's throw. At which point, I decided to do some napping. Napping is fun, especially the way I do it. I think of a plot that I want to explore and start working out narrative or dialog. I usually wake up commentaries on films from the 30's; but I am not confused, and rather exhilarated.

On the way to the convention I saw a Red Roof Inn on the correct side of the busy commercial road as opposed to where our hotel was. I couldn't help but smile. I like Red Roof Inns, and it is on the side of the road where I can drive into and out-of easily en route to the convention. That rather rocks., in terms of stress reduction for next year. Namely, it's a motel without dark nooks and crannies accompanied with fewer platforms for the educated and stingy to; all while make waiting to check in a step towards sainthood. I don't know about you, but I'm not seeing any negatives at having to drive to Del Taco for breakfast burritos instead of "hotel services" in future instances.

My PowderPunk play-test scenario was all ready to go, but no one showed up. Not really a surprise, so I just refunding my $15, and threw a dollar for a ticket in JerryTel's 2e. (plus) Ad&d game. Peryton showed up as well, but I think that she already had her ticket-- 2E. is like her D&D church.

I could go on forever about what I see is wrong with D&D, but I have to admit that JerryTel's talents made the session awesome. Our champion's daughter was without her finance, alas, just before the wedding day. The father of the bride, who happened to be our leader and friend, was trying to solidify a growing hegemony towards a fiefdom. Then there is his salesmanship. Of the five of us playing the scenario, there were two kids, and three of us more typical gamers (over 40), and we all got into our characters after hearing his description of them. JerryTel knows how to draw the kids in.

Despite JerryTel's D&D format, I was rather riveted as a PC as to how the story would turn out. Even as an older gamer, I was infused with energy by the adolescents around me. At the same time I liked the character that I was playing. Okay, I was a sugar-filled pastry that was a were-bear beserker. Which is easy enough for any table-topper looking for maximization of dice rolls, but I was drawn into the plot. Jerry is a story-teller. The guy developed a plot that TV writers would do well to emulate to get people involved with what it is that they are selling. Lastly rules-wise, as far as I can tell, Jerry crafted war-gamer obstacles, as invoked by the tale, a worthy challenge to achieve any victory points if that was a goal for success.

And with the superbly designed scenario finished, we had lunch with JerryTel then slipped off. We slipped off into the snow. The ride home was rather typical for winter storms. We actually filled up on gas as we thought that we were an hour out but were actually in our home county. Had we been been using GPS, or not just mentally napping, Peryton and I could have found cheaper petroleum. Luckily since we don't drive to often anyway, our gas tank three weeks later is still full.

Two Tickets for Tacos at Midnight- Part Two "The Ass End of a Hotel."

Having had some time to walk around and do some early convention site seeing, I was at the table where I was supposed to be running about 40 minutes before the official start time. JerryTel had indeed decided to stay and was ready for for the near-traditional Friday night Tunnels and Trolls game. Peryton had wasted no time in finding a new Dr. Who RPG source book to buy and bring back to the table. With luck, a fellow by the name of Trevor, Tre-Pod from now on, jumped onto the table at 7pm as no one had shown up for his game, and so it began.

I was running "The Lost Pyramid" a scenario that I have been working on since about 2004, which for inexplicable reasons I never finished. But thanks to sheer determination in the months before BASHCon, and some beer on Friday morning, the notes had come together nicely. JerryTel and Peryton both had established T&T characters who had adventured together. Tre-Pod runs a podcast on gaming at Alexis Dragon Tavern Podcast, which might be the reason why he was an awesome player. He read through some of the rules while listening to my shortcuts through character generation, and surprised my by creating a Specialist Type, the Type catch-all from 7th edition that makes me normally cringe, with a strong idea as how he wanted to play it as well as a willingness to listen to my rulings as to how we would achieve it. He also played a great troll in a low-key manner that didn't turn into a munchkin study.

Just before 11pm the game was going awesome for both the players and me, and we were right on track for being done a few minutes before midnight. I took a break for five minutes ready to resume and head into the adventure's climax. Unfortunately the building couldn't take the energy pull for my massive talents as a GM so the power went out. Everyone decided that we would finish the adventure after our morning games in the morning. And with that we called it a night.

Back at the hotel, the room proved to unsurprising, because as I was forcing myself to relax, I was still pretty charged for the great session of T&T earlier, someone came into the adjoining exercise room at 12am, and decided that watching the Roseanne show on Nick at Night while futzing along on a treadmill was great idea. It only took the staff forty minutes to respond to my request that she turn down the volume of the TV. How did I know the exercising party was a female, I heard every sound that she made when she walked in that room.

Saturday

Not sure what time that I drifted off, but I was awake again at 3:30am. "The Lost Pyramid" had woken me, and I was having no rest until I added a couple more notes. This process was done at 6:40am, and I was suddenly very fatigued, and my next game was scheduled for 9am. So it was time for my Extreme Napping ability-- where I wake myself up at or near preset sets of times periods, don't ask me how I do it, but I can. I was able to tell Peryton when it was time for her to get up and get ready without having to hurry through her dolling up process. And with that I told her to wake me when she was ready to go, and let myself drift into a deeper sleep. I actually was awake before she was done, mostly because of her hair dryer and someone else watching TV and talking on a cell phone in the Exercise Room. Still, we were on time getting out the door and to the convention.
Well no one showed up for my "Glow" scenario, so I jumped in on Peryton's "Fiend Folio Frenzy" for the Peryton RPG, and I got to play a Templar saving a foreign land from itself one killing at a time. The other player was playing a wizard, and the guy having decided that the pre-made character was not up to his standards had replaced certain spells with other more useful ones in his mind. For some reason, the guy kept rolling his eyes as I would hack and slash my way through everything, but since we couldn't speak to anybody, as he'd gotten rid of his "Comprehend Language" spell for another "Magic Missile" slot I am not sure how he planned to actually get into deeper role-playing. Peryton, herself, was having fun watching two PC's muck about as she is prone to do. Still the adventure was fun, and from the other player I learned that Peryton had made some unconventional changes to the creatures of the "official" Fiend Folio, which he listed in detail. I couldn't help but thinking that her changes made the creatures more interesting than the ones the fellow was describing, in some depth.

At around 1:30pm, JerryTel and Trev-Pod had found Peryton and me, so the four of us started finishing "the Lost Pyramid." At roughly 2:45, the adventure had been completed, and everyone was still rather charged and happy during the wrap up. It had been a fun game, and the details that I added were a bit rough around the edges, but were still received well. The demon was exercised. Everyone had other afternoon sessions, so I decided to drag Peryton back to the hotel for a nap session before the evening events.

Back at the room, I discovered that we were near the housekeeping staff's closet as well as the Exercise Room. I still think I got around 40 minutes of sleep, while learning the more intimate details of a housekeeper's fourth, not third nor fifth, pregnancy. But if her husband fools around on her again, I say that she get some outside action herself...

I think Peryton was passing the time by reading her Dr. Who books like scripture...

Two Tickets for Tacos at Midnight- Part One "Irritation Iteration"

Between the Day-to-Day problems or just little bumps of real life, Peryton and I were in neither well-centered or in overly happy moods Thursday night and Friday morning. BASHCon was coming Friday evening and our household laser printer went down. Peryton was fiddling with the machine for like four hours on Thursday night, while I kept writing up my Glow scenario, and going further and further in-depth into the post apocalyptic world as opposed to making much progress on the scenario. Chatting up C-Crab helped me get around my block but then even I could not fix the printer, meaning only one thing spend too much at printing shop as well as dealing with whatever kind of day the folks running the place were having as well.

Friday morning, Peryton and I gave each other a lot of room, as well as little reminders that we were doing what we loved to help keep things under control. Wallah, everything was packed and the documents that we needed to get printed up for Toledo were ready to go an hour ahead of schedule. So by about half past noon, I yelled at Peryton and she stopped standing in the center of the room and thinking of things to keep her from leaving, and we were off to the Staples just up the street from us.

Of course, at Staples the person who knew what she was doing was busy handling a customer that needed all of her attention to print two pages and then to argue over the price, so we got the other guy. I knew we were in trouble the second Peryton asked him to print up the items "double-sided on each sheet of paper" and he answered "Yes" in that tone of voice that actually means 'I have no idea what you just said.' Peryton being the smart one went and browsed the prices for new printers to be bought in the near future, leaving me to wait.

And what a wait it was. For five minutes I watched the guy handling our order stare at the computer in front of him and go slack jaw, every minute crouching lower and lower, once in a while adjusting his glasses. He never clicked the mouse which he was handling awkwardly as if he'd just touched one that morning for the first time ever. He thought that progress was being made when he came back up to the counter and asked me what was it exactly that I wanted to be done for the second time. This time he went back with a reassured expression, but the second he got to the computer the earlier look of dread that came over him returned. After another five minutes, he clicked the mouse twice, and after a pause he clicked a third time.

The man's face did not whiten when nothing happened, it got red with anger. Apparently whatever was going wrong was becoming my fault and not his responsibility. He was about to say something that might've gotten me thrown in jail when his coworker noticed what was going on. He kept his voice even and mentioned that he could use some help when he answered her. The other worker promised that she'd be over in just a second, so five minutes later the other customer was mollified enough to leave after forking out whatever ungodly rates the store was demanding. The woman took a look on the PC screen and started clicking the mouse in rapid succession, but still nothing happened. The man could barely hold back his urge to throw the flash-drive that we needed printed up back in my face before the woman noticed that there was no paper in their massive printer designed to orders all day, quickly and efficiently even, not to mention without any hassle to the customer. So after twenty minutes of deep thinking and nothing happening, the printer guy was ready for a nap while the printer slowly pushed out almost 50 papers of work. He couldn't help comment on how large the order was and how pricey the cost was going to be.

25 minutes after I showed up for a five to seven minute print job, even with printer jams, the fellow finally brought over a pitifully small pile of single-sided sheets, and laboriously counted the exact amount of sheets though he could've read the number from the printer itself. It took him another few minutes. He then shoved the pile at me and jumped onto the cash register to punish me for making his life hard. While he stood there waiting for me to take out my wallet so he could close out his transaction on the machine in front of him, I examined each sheet that he felt that he had bled while producing, and tossed about five blank sheets of papers at him. He almost had a stroke having to call back the supervisor to now learn how to remove items from the once all-mighty cash-taking retribution machine. After paying him, I asked to use a three-hole punch, which for some reason was not available on the "Do-It-Yourself" work tables. The supervisor wasn't going to play this time, she went on break. The dude picked up three and examined them closely before another employee walking by asked if he needed help, he explained my outlandish request and she told him that he was holding one, and gave him a safety briefing on the proper use of the item to be related to me. The man threw the thing on the counter and fled to look busy while he went back to sleep.

Still Peryton and I were on the road ten minutes earlier than we had planned. Oops, the GPS unit that we for some reason decided to use was on a "No Toll Road" setting and we lost about 30 minutes before we noticed that our usual hour and 15 minute drive was expected to take two hours. About ten miles later, we expected to be at our hotel in Toledo only twenty minutes later than planned.


Getting to Toledo, we were in a better mood, though the placement of the official hotel for BASHCon is on the wrong side of a busy commercial road leading to on-ramps to the expressway without a traffic light was getting keeping things real so to speak. The annoying habit of Toledo-ers of using the left turn lane as a short cut to get ahead of slower traffic made a few moments of my moving into the left turn lane a real world game of chicken. And then when someone decided that passing on the right of a stopped vehicle, one that had stopped to allow us into the hotel driveway since the light ahead of everyone was red anyway, I decided that laying into my horn and daring the other driver to confront my rage by meeting my eyes was a healthy release. The fellow in the minivan declined my invitation to roadside mortal combat, a wise choice I think. Taddah, we had arrived!

At the hotel, I was once again behind a person that seemed uncomfortable about the transaction that he was about to take part in. While I waited the person asked questions about room reservations and tried to check in under another person's credit card, offered half on one night's rate in cash and in general seemed awfully unfamiliar with experience of getting a hotel room in the industrialized world. Finally the man, wearing a fraternity ring from 1990 pulled out his golden American Express and did the "pre-approval" thing that I thought the rest of us have been doing since the advent of the fax machine. I noticed it was a rather large insurance company card for employees' business use. I paid attention because I was only standing behind him in an otherwise empty lobby for about ten minutes. Of course the second I got to the counter, a second person appeared from the backroom and stood there with nothing to do as Peryton and I were checked in by the other clerk. She made small talk with us and smiled, which made everything okay.

And what a room we got. It wasn't the darkness of room that first had me off-set, it was the deep smell of dust. Turing on the light, and opening the shades, which viewed onto the employees smoking area, in-between the pool building and our own wing. I discovered that one couldn't open the window. We weren't there for the room, but the gaming. Turning on the room's air unit, we dropped off our bags and kept only the essentials for the evening's events coming up. Registration this year was starting an hour earlier as well. On the way out, I noticed that our room was next to a dingy "exercise room" where crappy treadmills sat with unused sit-up benches, large TV sets and mirror-covered thin walls. There was even an aluminum door that connected to our very own room. You guy's don't want to hear about getting out of the hotel parking lot.
The early registration meant standing in line for an hour early than you would have otherwise. There were signs at the "stations" where students in orange shirts looked perplexed, exasperated and then looked to one another for guidance. Small meetings would then occur, and then the person at the computer would sit back down, look worried, hit a button and then find the paper badge and the right color sharpie pen to write down a name and an ID number, accept cash only and then hope the person in front of them would go away without any more trouble. And then the next person would step forward. By this point in the day, I had stopped timing people doing whatever it was that were supposed to be doing, but the tangible evidence around was hard to avoid. Anytime that I tried to divert myself with conversation with the people around me, I would be interrupted by people needing to move large video games through the single access area to the gaming room and the registration desks; or large groups of students who knew the person at a certain computer and would ask you let them get through basically so they could get through the line quicker than you.

I did have a bit of fun though. I proclaimed loudly when we all got in the line, that it didn't matter if one registers or walks up, you still wait forever. I got a lot of disapproving stares from the orange shirts and a campus police officer, and a score of people in line politely explained to me that I was indeed incorrect. At about the 40 minute mark, some were jumping from the preregistered line into the walk-up line as it was shorter. At the hour point, I was through the line and everyone around had waited with me was still either waiting in line or for the person at the computer to find the right color of sharpie. Very satisfying, the line jumpers had spoiled their own good thing by over doing it and now had mob overwhelming the single person trying to help out her friends-- I got to ask them now to excuse me as I walked through and past them onto where I needed to be. The orange shirts inside the main gaming area were happy that I could read the event placement without bothering them, with their relief I was able to smile at them, even joke. My mood was lightening up, and it was an hour plus before my first game was due to run.

Walking around to take some pictures before I got busy, I ran into JerryTel, standing in line and making me look patient. The man was livid. Instead of amusing himself by immersing himself in the sociological and dysfunctional dynamics of the gauntlet that is the norm of recent BASHCon registration processes, he was remembering past years, where one could expect to done and gaming in about 20 minutes during the busy times, sometimes quicker. He had made suggestions on the BASHCon forums even earlier last year. A pointless task, as I think that no one running the BASHCon probably was really part of the the BASH club, nor especially had much to do with ppl who attended gaming conventions in general. What we had in front of us were assorted something-or-another "management" majors acting as "facilitators" and using student generated database programs to inventory and set up up accounting options for extra credit. In short, they felt they were doing a dirty job, not really worthy of their time, except when obligatory as part of their degree. I got the man to smile though, and told him that I hoped that he'd bear through the line, instead of going home.

I then walked around the Student Union and took some pictures of everything getting set up. One does not simply walk into BASHCon, but once you're there it's worth being there...

High Elvismas in Gary, Indiana

Getting off of work on Thursday AM, Jan 6th, a whole new world was opening up for me. I was going to be off from that morning until the following Monday PM, Jan 10th. As I had been unlucky enough this year to be scheduled to work Christmas Day and New Year's Eve, a bit of celebration was in order. And January 8th, which happens to be Elvis's birthday, as well as mine and David Bowie's, was going to be that event. High Elvismas/Bowie New Year/Tom Day was coming up, and with a vengeance.

I had been warning Stony and Bruce Wayne, as well as some other folks from around the Indiana/Chicago region that I was planning a birthday trip to Gary, Indiana for about three weeks, still almost all, including those mentioned, were surprised that I had been serious. Peryton, just home from Arkansas with their family, knew better than to take my threats to vacation in Rust-Belt cities lightly, so she packed, but couldn't take the day off of work. So most of the day Thursday was spent sleeping and buying belated Christmas gifts. We were supposed to meet Cathal (Charles Fodel) on-line that evening, but he was under the weather, so we just did dinner out.

Friday, Peryton would not be home until late afternoon, so I pretty much slouched around the house, played Civilization and drank beer. When my partner showed up, as he watches the townhouse when we're away, he thought I wasn't leaving at all. But alas the woman showed up from work, I shut off my computer, dropped a tooth brush into a box with folded clothes, grabbed the gifts that people had been sending me over the last couple of gifts and threw everything into the car. Wallah we were ready to. And despite my laconic affect, Peryton being gone for a couple weeks had me used to not actually talking, I was raring to go.

The drive started late, and during the rush of Clevelanders rushing home to their escapes in the suburbs, and we were in the thick of it. And the weather wasn't going to be helpful either. As we hit Toledo, Peryton's tiredness from her workday was catching up with her, so she napped. The snow storm that was moving from west eastward greeted me with a smile, but at least traffic was dying down. I amused myself by finding the worst of the 80's on the radio and singing along, within an hour, I was happier to hear locally aired High School basketball games.

Somewhere in the landlocked portions of northern Indiana, the snow storm was turning into squalls. Peryton was awake, and not liking the trip one bit, but at least keeping her thoughts to herself. Just expressing things in that "attitude" that only husbands understand as they probably are the targets of it 99% of the time. She couldn't help but voice some concern when during total white outs of snow, I'd shut off the headlights to use the ambient lighting around us, to improve visibility. Visibility as to what was important, the truck'r tire tracks in front of us. I, myself, was in sailing mode. During a storm on the water there is not much one can do expect be prepared to react and keep your craft from colliding with something or capsizing from the swells. In a car this translates as seeing the drive lights in front of you, and avoiding piled up snow. I lowered the back windows a bit to hear the sounds around the car, and had so much blood rushing to my eyes and forehead that the ringing in my deaf ear stopped-- It was kind of nice. I found some classical music on the radio and would tease Peryton every now and then, to focus her emotions into annoyance at me not worries, of course.

Alas, right before we got to the hotel in a more affluent area of Indiana than Gary, Stony refused to get within 50 miles or so of that city's city limit sign, where we booked our reservation the snow storm abated into a slight dustings here and there, and all the traffic around us acted like they hadn't experienced a Stop sign before, let alone bad weather. In the hotel room, Peryton brow-beat me into ordering in, I had had my fun already and it was midnight local time. Checking my phone I had a few missed calls from people wishing me a happy birthday, and to decline my invitation to explore Gary, Indiana the day after Coptic Christmas.

After sleeping a bit, I spent the early-early hours of Saturday, January 8th, playing my mediocre Civilization scenario and waiting for the breakfast bar to open up. At breakfast, I was treated to a horde of dairy farmers with their Momma Grizzly wives and packs of ill-behaved kids, all nodding and shouting back at the Fox News morning show. The front page of the local newspaper, the "Whiter Edition" of whatever is the monopolistic news outlet is for Chicago these days, had the Mayor of Gary, Indiana photographed standing like a felony suspect before two white men in polyester suits and bad haircuts looking down on him as he asked to keep tax levels at their 2010 level in his jurisdiction. I drank my coffee while pretending to read the newspaper, listening to chorus of disgusted grunts whenever the words "ohBOMBah" or "liBerahaldemoKrat" was issued from the TV speaker. I did hear a lot of discussion on how babies grow up retarded without dairy products in all six to eight meals a day. Really not in my element at all, but the guy at the front desk, most likely not related to the dairy farmers filling up the joint, smiled a subversive smile at me as I decided to take the stairs instead of listen to more moaning as a bunch of tubby folks (with tubby kids!), complained about the elevators being too slow.

Giving Peryton her bagel and cream cheese breakfast from the "buffet" downstairs, had the desired effect of getting her out of bed and getting ready for some rust-belt exploration. And before noon, we went forth. Stony had called me "Mighty Whitey" on-line, so I was feeling kind of like Robert Falcon Scott at the North Pole, I know that he went to the South Pole instead, but we all know how well that went.

Gary was pretty much like East Cleveland, just a whole lot bigger. More money as well, because some has the money to tear down a lot of the abandoned buildings. While I enjoy doing some socio-economic talk on things, that really isn't the reason I do rust-belt cities. I do it for the massive sprawling industrial sites to be seen, the wonderfully intricate highways with hardly enough traffic on them and the harbors. I wasn't able to make it to the harbor of Gary itself, but I did find the steel foundries' harbor. It was isolated as I figured it'd be on a cold Saturday in the dead of Winter. I suppose I should go on more, but there isn't that much more to say.

On the way back, Peryton and I noticed a Scottish pub, of all things, just in front of the area where our hotel was. And in front of this pub, called the Tilted Kilt, was an assortment of SUV's and large pick-up trucks so numerous that I thought it might be a car dealership. When we walked inside, we discovered that kilts meant plaid skirts and attractive young women in school-type white shirts and black ties, arranged to allow viewing of cleavage and navels filled out the rest of the uniform.

"Oh it's a Hooters." Peryton said.

"Mom would love this place." I replied.

There were enough families to keep the place from being an not overly expensive soft-porn dive, so we had lunch and then went back to the room to relax.

As evening came on, Bruce Wayne had called to talk about where to meet up. In deference to my mother's taste in restaurants, I suggested meeting up at the Tilted Kilts. At about 6 pm Stony met us in the lobby of our hotel and it was good to see him. He being the former marine, couldn't resist my challenge to walk from the hotel to the restaurant. I had to make him and Peryton slow down, as they're both pretty fit and I am fat, dumb and happy these days.

Back at the "sports bar" once again, we got a large table and waited for more company. Bruce Wayne and his lady friend, Amy (Colts Gal), arrived. The waitress, having been trying to get our order the second we sat down, asked if we were going to staying for 'The Game.' It was then Tom Day party started coming together. The Indianapolis Colts were playing the New York Jets; Bruce Wayne and Colts Gal, were obviously for the Colts, while Stony a Chicago Bears fan, was for the Jets. Before that moment, the only thing else I had to offer was going up to the American Legion in Gary or Hubbard and checking out those sorts of places, of which I am now a member, so that my mother can get cheap beer and buffalo wings at one nearby her house, and see what in the heck they look like. Hell yeah, we were staying for the game.

The dinner conversation was fun, as was watching the football game. Lots of laughs and discussions, Stony is about the deepest literature person that I know, so I could pose as an literary intellectual every now and then. Peryton, Bruce Wayne and Colt Gal are no reading slouches either, and still we could get goofy.

As the second part to the celebration, we decided to head back to the hotel room and watch Jim Carey host Saturday Night Live in the room's very little living room. Before then everyone piled into Colt Gal's tiny and freezing cold car, and did a drive about trying to get more beer before it was midnight, because of local liquor laws. I felt like I was 22 again. While watching SNL, we shared a jug of weissen beer that Bruce Wayne had brought, and during the commercials, Stony had brought a bag full of classic RPG games and RPGS mags from the late 80's as a b-day gift, so we'd take them out one by one and pass them around reverently.

The party wrapped up about 30 minutes after whenever SNL ends. I was having the time of my life, and everyone else was smiling as well as we said goodnight. Elvismas was now passed, but all would be well into the rest of year, as we showed our hunka-hunka burning socializing in his honor.

Sunday morning was only preparing for the drive home. Had lunch at Hardee's with their awesome chicken sandwich! And spent a lazy evening watching the Clone Wars on the couch. Not a bad birthday weekend at all.

Spacers, what is in a name... err trademark?

It's kind of funny to me that most of you reading this blog have not known me for ten years plus, nor have played in my chat-room role-playing games that I have been running since about '97. In fact probably only three of you, Caed, Old Sock, and "old-old"-Paul, were around at that time. More distantly Trollgod, Colleen and a few Trollhallans were there as well, but probably not paying all that much attention. More than a few of my original inter-webby friends, have dropped off to answer the calls of the real world. A couple for less than glorious reasons, like prison and/or decades-long bans from being on-line. A few for growing differences between them and me. I say this because most everyone in a rather large group of friends, who happen to be artists, writers, editors, gamers and other sorts of inhabitants from the Island of Misfit Toys that I associate with have appeared over the last four years or so. Mind you, no one with any sort of felony will be discussed from here on out.

Anyone who knows me does know of my love of science fiction, and not just TV sci-fi or paperback books, but a very specific brand/style known as space opera. Space opera, whether "classic pulp," "retrograde" or sphere fantasy has been a fascination of mine since about the age of nine. And I am sure everyone reading this knows about my "niche" role-playing setting for space-faring sorts of player-characters, which emulates the look and feel of B&W space opera given voice with T&T style (requiring two six-sided dice and a pencil to use) rules, often called SPACERS (TM). What you might not know, is a bit of the history.

"Spacers" started out as a ten-paged set of T&T sci-fi rules called "Sputniks to Spacers" around June of '97. This product was folded over to give it twenty-two whole pages, including the cover and back cover. This was snail-mailed to about four people for the price of $4 each. I drew the original cover which went on to adorn a friend's fanzine, based out of Utah, called Space Races. Lemon-Face was very happy with it. But Elfis On-line, out of Austin, Texas, asked for some help as well. I was also a bit busy doing Call of Cthulhu(TM) chatroom sessions using my TAG, then called LAG (Laggy's Adventure Gaming), rules, so it would take me a few years to get around to playing "Spacers."

In the spring of 2000, I had lived through Y2K and was facing my Ford plant closing down, I was in the mood for something to make to me happy. So I assembled four people, including Old Sock, into a Yahoo chatroom called "Spacers: A Foothold on Pluto" the second weekend of that May. When the plant closed down in June, I went to California to spend good times with Grampa (my grandfather) and Old Sock for a couple of months. Back in Cleveland, while the Summer was slipping away, I sat between a fan and an open window writing up the next installment called "Spacers: A Fungus Among Us" for three new chatroom friends, ran just before I re-entered schooling to establish a job certification for the State of Ohio that September. The climax of these scenarios would not take place until early 2002, as I got busy after having run out of savings, getting stable enough again to spend long evenings on-line. Old Sock returned to re-play his Spacer character, Trax, the Android, "Spacers: Don't Pay the Ferryman." The last game was quiet a little chatroom party, it lasted for two days.

Life came and went. Caed hooked me up with Peryton, a like-minded game designer and all around fantasist-geek. In the year 2004, Peryton's and my wedding vows included the term, "We will go to GenCon every year that we are able." So while fine-tuned her D20 variant, I boosted my Spacers' rocketships.

My next scenario turned out to be a bit more of a saga than I had first thought it would be. It lasted like five years and has meant about five hundred on-line sales. During it I made my best friends in life to date, Monk and LumberingJack. Apparently the title "Rocketmen Vs the Saucers" had already been scooped by Disney in the 90's, but after a couple letters from me to them, I got the gist that they were not interested in telling me to "cease and desist" my efforts. I get the feeling that they already made their name off of the title in question and did not care any longer. But in 2006, I was interested in realizing the Spacers brand in relation to space opera role-playing, so I began promising "Spacers" rules in a formal, official form, and soon this came about. It is right around this point, that a friend, LumberingJack, pointed out that I had better claim trademark.

"It's a good title, man." To quote him directly, "Start to make it yours before a big company get around to making it its own for a game expected to sell plastic miniatures for a few months..."

'Jack happens to be an accountant and his wife a business lawyer, so I figured that he was telling me something important. In 2007, Peryton Publishing was functioning high enough to release a copy of Spacers (TM) as well as Spacers: Rocketmen Versus the Saucers, Episode Two, "The Straits of Sublight." My 'Versus the Saucers serial of scenarios actually started in August 2005, and I ran to varying table sizes at many conventions. I have made many friends because of these sit-downs, for all of that it's been worth it. Of course being able to buy beer and pizza on a PayPal debit card does not hurt in the slightest either.

Still 'Versus the Saucers gig having taken a name from 90's TV culture, even if unknowingly so, was not going to be my defining Spacers moment. I am after all Major Tom to all Space Cadets everywhere. Even before finishing the serial, I was onto the next project. This time for a Vermont-based convention Carnage in November 2009, I started Spacers: the Centaur's Bow. Not only did I get involved with the rather vibrant and talented New England and New York gamer scene, I got some talent for PeryPub as well, including the indefatigable CCrabb. This latest Spacers campaign, the third as far as I am concerned, only marks current efforts in a long line of more things to come.

In short, I'm rather proud and proprietary of my efforts. Thought I'd end this post with a list of PeryPub products that you can expect from the Spacers line over the coming three years.

First Campaign (May 2000- Feb 2002)
SPACERS: Planetoids of Death
Locales- Pluto and Charon
1. Call from the Underworld.
2. A Fungus Among Us.
3. Don't Pay the Ferryman.

Second Campaign (Aug 2005-Aug 2010)
Spacers: Rocket-Men vs the Saucers
Locales- the Oort Cloud, Earth-Venus Half-Way Point, Phobos, Neptune, Pluto-Charon
1. Rendezvous at Ice Station Zero:Zero.
2. The Straits of Sublight.
3. Trouble At SOHO Station.
4. The Moon of Fear.
5. The Blades of Triton.
6. The Whale.
7. Goofy Space.
8. The Charon Incident.
9. The Wrong Side of Pluto.

Third Campaign (Nov 2009- and on-going)
SPACERS: The Centaur's Bow
Locales- Uranus, Miranda, "Goofy Space" (and still going)
1. Space Head.
2. Ionek.
3. Automachen.

Bear with me on the slowness, we have to pay our great artists, editors, and helping writers. And there even more expenses to stick with more legalistic markers, mind everyone reading this they are not half the battle.