Peter Hook Spambot Carnival EX Plus α

The Acorn Afloats, and so I must answer, albeit a month later.

PETER HOOK, aka PETER THE HOOK, aka HOOKY PETE, aka the SOUL FISHER: Armour 14 (as leather), Move 150’, 2* Hit Dice, 9hp, Big Chuffing Hook 1d10, Morale 6, Number Appearing 1. Immune to non-magical damage and weapons.

PETER HOOK may have been a man once, in the distant past, or perhaps was some sort of pixie or sprite, but is now a cruel and predatory spirit. He sneaks into your home at night and, if you sleep with your mouth open, he reaches in with his big shiny fish hook and snatches out your soul! You live, but as a cold, flat, emotionless robot-shark person, perfect for a job in the financial sector.

PETER HOOK keeps the souls in jars and then trades them for trinkets, the sort of garish junk you find in seaside shops; the tackier, the better for PETER HOOK.

• Very quiet: effective Stealth of 3 in 6 (LotFP rules) and surprises on 1-4.
• Immune to non-magical damage and weapons.
• Sees perfectly well in the dark.
• Can open any door or window using his hook (see below).
• Cannot cross a line of salt.
• Cowardly, and must make a Morale check if discovered sneaking about, or if attacked.
• Knows all the entities that desire souls, and how to contact and find them.

The Soulless: Those with their souls taken by PETER HOOK have Charisma and Wisdom scores of 0, or the lowest possible value, if your game doesn't like 0 statistics. If the soul is recovered, it can be "drunk" to restore the original values. Can you drink someone else's soul and get their statistics? Try it and find out!

Peter's House: A green wooden door you don't notice unless you concentrate. Perhaps it's down an alley, perhaps it's in the corner of a garden wall, perhaps it's in your house! The door leads through interdimensional space to a cramped grotto packed full of soul jars and PETER HOOK's assorted trinkets, few of which have any value; there is a 1 in 12 chance of finding a single normal treasure item, generated as you like.

Peter Hook's Hook: A huge, shiny fish hook. It's an Oversized item, a two-handed weapon, and counts as magical for the purposes of damage immunities. Anyone but PETER HOOK finds it unwieldy and has a -2 penalty to attack rolls, and only PETER HOOK can use it for fishing souls. The hook also picks any door or window, even magical locks.

And for Troika! and similar games of fantasy fighting:

SKILL 8 (10 for sneaking purposes)
STAMINA 8
Initiative 1
Armour 0 (but immune to non-magical damage)
Damage as Greatsword

The Soulless: Victims have a LUCK of 0 and can never regain LUCK by normal means, although a generous Referee may allow magic items to provide a boost.

Peter Hook's Hook: Two-handed; counts as magical for purposes of damage immunities; imposes a -2 Attack Skill penalty to anyone but PETER HOOK; unlocks any door or window, even those sealed with magic.

Gracie Is Pregnant

In Star Trek IV: The One With the Whales -- the best one -- it's suggested that in the Kirk era Starfleet doesn't recognise cetacean intelligence; over the course of the -- best -- film Kirk's crew go on a quest to find whales to solve an extinction-level problem, and along the way discover that they are not simple animals, but sapient beings capable of higher communication.

Given the "new life and new civilisations" thing it's reasonable to assume that the events of the film lead Starfleet and the Federation to formally recognise cetacean intelligence.

In other words, is Star Trek IV the secret origin story of Cetacean Ops?

(Oh, and it's technically 21 years since I started the blog! Crikey! Although the first few posts weren't very meaningful so I'm not sure they count.)

Going Over to Sutekh's House

Oh, I didn't write any more about the 2024 series of Doctor Who after all. Oops.

Oh well. I enjoyed it anyway.

I thought the finale, "The Legend of Ruby Sunday"/"Empire of Death", was very good, and there was lots to love. Bonnie Langford's Mel almost stole the episode, and confirmed how wasted she was in her original episodes. Sutekh himself came across very well and I quite liked the "controversial" cgi jackal form, which did much better "acting" than you tend to get in cgi monsters, even more so at this sort of budget level.

It was a bit disappointing that the Doctor defeated Sutekh in basically the same way he did it in the original story, even though that didn't work, as the episode explains, but I'll probably be long dead and unable to complain the next time the villain appears so I'll allow it. I did chuckle when he was defeated with a lead and a whistle. Jackals aren't quite dogs, but close enough for the pun to work.

It was also a bit naff that Sutekh's attack was more or less the Blip from Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, which was not helped by the turning-into-sand visual effect, or by the episodes being broadcast on Disney+, but I can let that pass. Let's call it an homage.

(Although one difference was an almost throwaway line that suggested Sutekh's victims remained conscious after being "dusted" which is nice and creepy... but alas not at all explored.)

I have seen a lot of claims about the Doctor's solution to the not-Blip also undoing the Flux, bringing Gallifrey back, and so on. I don't think there's direct evidence of that, and all that was undone was Sutekh's Sands of Death™ attack, but there's enough ambiguity there that I could see it being used as a mechanic to bring back any dead characters or locations in future stories.

My only real problem with the finale is that everything builds up to the Doctor going to find his granddaughter Susan at long last -- it's even explored in the dialogue! -- and then he... doesn't. It's a very odd creative decision, that.

I do have one final observation. If Sutekh has been hiding inside the TARDIS since 1975, then...

And Relax

I am relieved, but I am not enthused. We've had 14 years of incompetence, cruelty, and corruption from the Tories, and Labour should be better than that, but Labour's official party stance on the EU, immigration, Gaza, unions, and trans rights gives me considerable pause.

Worse, the rise of R*form as a political force, while fatal for the Tories, is terrifying. I hoped that the British weren't that sort of people, but apparently about four million of them are.

I have muted hopes and low expectations, but it could -- and has for 14 long years -- be worse. Fingers crossed for better.

Tanky Tuesday

Here's an idea I don't have time to explore at the moment, but popped into my head at lunch time and probably should be written down somewhere.

Bog standard fantasy business, except:

• The aftermath of a war that has left the world an irradiated-but-magical mess.
• Everyone bangs around in tanks, because tanks provide the best mobility and protection from the environment.
• Dwarf tanks are big chonky things that move very slowly but are almost invulnerable.
• Orc tanks are like dwarf tanks but are stuck together with spit and hope, and randomly explode.
• Elf tanks are speedy and graceful and are more like sports cars than combat vehicles.
• Undead tanks are ramshackle shells of destroyed vehicles, hanging together through willpower and hatred of the living.
• Ghost tanks are actual ghosts of tanks, all glowy and incorporeal.
• Chaos tanks are not tanks at all, but horrible wasteland mutants as big as a tank and just as tough.
• Players are tank crews exploring the wasteland, looking for supplies, survivors, and loot.
• Lots of random tables to generate the wasteland, and all the horrible things that can happen.
• Lots of building and modification options for tanks.
• "Dungeons" are the remains of huge battle fortresses, some traditional buildings, some gigantic super-tanks; some of the latter may still be rolling around.

It's Dark Sun meets Iron Kingdoms, except with tanks instead of robots. Or Spelljammer, on the ground, with tanks. Or a Tolkienesque Mutant Year Zero with tanks. Or Gorkamorka taken to its (il)logical extreme. Maybe it's a role-playing game, maybe it's a wargame, maybe it's both.

Inspirational viewing:

Break!! Fast

This arrived yesterday!

I have been following Reynaldo since the old blogging days, through the halcyon Google+ times, and then through the Break!! development, so backing the Kickstarter in 2023 was always going to happen.

The book is lovely. It's very thick -- almost 500 pages! -- and very dense but the design is nice and clean, reminiscent of the beautiful tomes produced by Bitmap Books.

It'll probably be a while before I get to read through Break!! in detail, but I'm very much looking forward to it.

It's Not the Konami Code

I have just finished Ian Livingstone's 2022 Fighting Fantasy gamebook Shadow of the Giants. It's not too bad! The main issue is that for the most part there's only an illusion of meaningful choice; decisions either loop back to the point where the choice was made so you can get back on the correct path, or they don't matter because either option has a roughly equivalent effect on later events. As a result things do feel a bit basic and linear, but also more gentle than the Sir Ian of old, who would not hesitate to punish incorrect choices with a gleeful "Your adventure ends here."

(There is one very arbitrary choice towards the end that feels like 1980's Ian, but it's the only occurrence I found.)

So the "game" part is a bit easy and flat, but the "book" part is quite strong. There are some interesting ideas and a few evocative sequences, and there are a handful of compelling characters met along the way. The quest is an interesting one, local in scale but still with real stakes, and I appreciate the twist (revealed early on) about the cause of the calamity. I give it three Yaztromos out of five.

I finished it on my second try. The first attempt was scuppered by one puzzle towards the end. See if you can solve it:

"You see a three-by-three boxed grid carved into the rock wall with each box containing a number."

2	7	6
9	5	1
4	3	8

The book gives us a clue:
"Up down
Left right
Say the number
See the light"

You're then supposed to turn to the paragraph number that matches the solution to progress further. Or, you know, give up and start again. If you want.

After a bit of searching I found the solution online, but I can't work out how you're supposed to get to that solution. These books are aimed at children so I should be able to grok it, but it's gone right over my head! Perhaps my brain is fried after my incident.

I have worked out one way to get to the correct answer -- I'll put it in the comments -- but it feels wonky and I'm not convinced it's the intended solution.

What do you reckon? What am I missing?

SAINT SEVURDAPOY'S ARROW

This is an arrow made of some sort of lightweight but strong metal. The name "Saint Sevurdapoy" is carved along the shaft.

• Feels icy cold -- almost painful -- to the touch.
• Counts as enchanted for purposes of immunity to normal weapons.
• Bursts into cold black and blue flame when fired.
• Flames do not start fires, but do provide dim blue light.
• Vanishes after use, but reappears at midnight. At the point it disappeared. I hope you remember where you shot it!
• No special effect versus red dragons.

13th Age:

• Standard bow damage +1d4 cold damage (+2d4 at Champion, +3d4 at Epic).
• Does 1d4 cold damage to the archer when fired.
• When hit, the target must make a normal (11+) save or one random magical effect or spell affecting them is suppressed until the next noon.

Quirk: Your manner is abrupt, brusque, and curt. To-the-point, one might say.

B/X:

• Standard bow damage +1d4 cold damage.
• Does 1d4 cold damage to the archer when fired.
• When hit, the target is affected as if Dispel Magic has been cast on them, with the archer's level standing in for casting level.

Fighting Fantasy:

• Standard bow damage + 1 cold damage.
• 2 STAMINA damage to archer when fired.
• AFF: When hit, the target is subject to Counter Spell; assume the archer has a Magic skill equal to her SKILL, modified by the STAMINA cost of the original spell.
• Troika: When hit, the target is subject to the Undo spell; roll versus the original casting, using the archer's SKILL.

No More Parachutes

This is your semi-regular reminder that Temple of Doom is the best one.

#TempleOfDoomIsTheBestOne

The Ferry Not Taken

I forgot to mention that as well as Rogue Trader, Stuart and I played a bit of the pithily-titled The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game the other day.

It's a fun game, that seems to scale well from small scenarios to full battles without breaking. There's some Warhammer DNA in the rules, as you'd expect, but also some innovations and simplifications that almost look like they are prefiguring Age of Sigmar if you squint. A bit. Ish. It's worth a look even if you're not into Lord of the Rings; Stuart has used it to run old Warhammer campaigns with considerable success.

You can ready Stuart's summary of our game(s) here so I won't rehash the details, but I will mention that I did manage to win the scenario when we swapped ends and played it the second time. I always lose LotR games, so I'm happy with that.

Neither of our attempts at the scenario matched the events of the book -- or even the film! -- but I must admit that I did game the system to scrape my win. I knew that Frodo had to escape for the hobbits to succeed, and I also knew that he and Sam had better game statistics than Ant and Dec Merry and Pippin, so it made sense to get Frodo on to the ferry as soon as possible and use Sam as a blocker, with the other two hobbits as support.

The scenarios are set up so that something like the canon sequence of events occur, but I was concerned only with winning and to heck with the Professor's intended story! In "my" Lord of the Rings, Frodo and Merry-or-Pippin escaped, and Sam and Pippin-or-Merry were -- probably -- shanked to death by frustrated Nazgûl on the bank of the Brandywine. So sad. Please send flowers.

This of course got me thinking about how Frodo's story would unfold with two of his friends dead-by-ringwraith. Would he even get to Rivendell? Would he go to Mordor on his own? Would the Ring -- or Gollum -- destroy Frodo without Sam there to defend him?

(If it were up to me, dependable working class hero Sam would leave landowning toff Frodo to his death and scarper with the Ring, but there's only so far you can eat the rich twist the expected outcome.)

I surprised myself a bit with this pondering, as while I'm familiar with this sort of "what if?" thought experiment, I don't think I'd ever applied it to Tolkien before. Although some have.

Part of me would like to play this alternate timeline out and see where it goes. Perhaps that's a project for another day.