Polearms & Proust (or, In Search of Lost Biscuits)

A very silly role-playing game about introspective thugs with big pointy sticks. Inspired by this BlueSky post, and written by someone who has never read Proust.

You will need:

• Pencils or pens.
• Paper - you could even use paper plates because you may need something to catch biscuit crumbs.
• 1d100, 1d20, and (maybe) 1d6.
• A packet of biscuits - these can be any sort of token, really, but with biscuits you can enjoy a nice sugary treat as you spend them! The author recommends Hob Nobs.

Each player should pick their POLEARM from the POLEARM LIST and write the name down on their paper (or paper plate). This is important! If players know how POLEARM TESTS work then they should roll on the table instead.
Each player should then pick a POLEARM ADJECTIVE and write it down; again, if they already know how the game works, then they should roll for it.
Each player should be issued at least one BISCUIT. One BISCUIT per two hours of planned play time seems fair.
(You can and should have more biscuits -- I'm not a fascist -- but I'm talking about BISCUITS as an in-game currency here.)
Each player -- and the GM -- should determine their ALIGNMENT; see, um, ALIGNMENT.
Each player should select a name for their polearm-wielder. Something gender-neutral or with a simple gender variant -- for example Alex/Alexandra/Alexander, or Justine/Justin -- works best, but this is just a bit of fun, intended to make it look like I'm more erudite than I am and that I've read Proust, which I haven't, so ignore it if you want.
One player should be designated as this session's PROUST; see I AM PROUST.

Now you can begin! Chuck the players into any sort of basic medieval fantasy type adventure with lots of OBSTACLES. See what happens.

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POLEARM LIST (d100)

• 01-04. spear
• 05-08. lance
• 09-12. pike
• 13-16. spetum
• 17-20. ranseur
• 21-24. partisan
• 25-28. pole axe
• 29-32. halberd
• 33-46. bardiche
• 37-40. voulge
• 41-44. lochaber axe
• 45-48. fauchard
• 49-52. glaive
• 53-56. guisarme
• 57-60. bill hook
• 61-64. military fork
• 65-68. lucern hammer
• 69-72. bec de corbin
• 73-76. fauchard-fork
• 77-80. fauchard-guisarme
• 81-84. glaive-guisarme
• 85-88. guisarme-voulge
• 89-92. bill-guisarme
• 93-96. guandao
• 97-00. trident

POLEARM ADJECTIVES (d20)

1. +1
2. ancient
3. bent
4. broken
5. cosmic
6. enchanted
7. fabulous
8. fire
9. glass
10. holy
11. ice
12. intelligent (you may wish to give it an ALIGNMENT for fun)
13. Krullian
14. lightning
15. oversized
16. poison
17. rubber
18. stolen
19. telescopic
20. tiny

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ALIGNMENT
To determine a player-character's alignment, give the player a bit of paper with the word "Proust" on it and ask them to pronounce it, before moving on to do the same with the next player. There are three alignments in P&P:

• As in "roost": lawful, righteous, arrogant, smug; basically high elves.
• As in "oust": wrong'uns and rogues, but charming; my brother Han Solo.
• Anything else: chaotic and unpredictable; goblins, probably.

The GM should also do this. NO CHEATING. If you're going to run the game, do this now, before doing any research. DuckDuckGoing "How to pronounce 'Proust'" counts as research. This is the general background alignment of your setting.

Alignments are in opposition but not necessarily direct, bloody conflict, although it's a lot of fun if they are.

If everyone already knows how to pronounce "Proust", roll 1d6 instead: 1-2 high elves; 3-4 Han Solo; 5-6 Probably Goblins.

---

I AM PROUST
(I imagine this in Vin Diesel's voice. You're welcome.)
Randomly and secretly pick one player to be the semi-autobiographical author insert for this session. At any point during the session that player can seize the narrative for one "moment"; a moment is loosely defined and could be a second or a year of in-game time. Be respectful; don't crap on another player's character or negate, overwrite, or otherwise undermine their choices. Otherwise Proust has total power in that moment and can redefine and remake the situation as they see fit.

No player can be Proust two sessions in a row; pick again if this happens. If the same player is Proust again, then no one is Proust this session. Je suis desole.

---

OBSTACLES
When player-characters encounter obstacles they can try to overcome them with either POLEARM TESTS or BISCUITS. They can also choose to be defeated by the obstacle, and go to find another way around. It's a role-playing game!

POLEARM TESTS
The moment a player declares they are trying to use their POLEARM to overcome an obstacle, compare the number of letters in the POLEARM (plus ADJECTIVE) with the number of letters in the obstacle's longest prior description. Only count letters (and numbers if something weird has happened), not spaces, dashes or anything funky.

The obstacle's description is locked the second the players declare they are trying to bypass it. A bit like the double-slit experiment, but this is a game about big pointy sticks and French authors not quantum mechanics. A "wooden door" cannot suddenly become a "sturdy wooden door".

If the POLEARM description is longer, the POLEARM wins; describe how the big pointy stick defeats the obstacle. Otherwise the obstacle wins and the player-character is defeated.

BISCUITS
The other way to overcome an obstacle in P&P is to spend (eat) a BISCUIT to trigger a flashback that illustrates how the player-character's contemplation and introspection shows them a way forward. Perhaps it was a lesson learned on a long-ago seaside holiday, almost forgotten but now remembered with vivid clarity. Perhaps it was just simple preparation but no, this is Proust, not Blades in the Dark. As long as it makes some sort of sense, it's good, but this is intended to be a funny game, so pushing the boundaries of "some sort of sense" is very much in the intended spirit.

BISCUITS always defeat obstacles.

A player-character that has run out of BISCUITS is either overcome by existential dread and exhaustion or is fulfilled because they have unlocked their memories and become their authentic self, depending on your interpretation of early twentieth century French literature and philosophy.

DEFEATS
I am inclined towards defeats being soft and temporary. Even if the obstacle is "one hundred angry wererats" I think a player defeat results in the player-characters being battered and bruised, fleeing, perhaps captured, perhaps left for dead, mostly dead but not all dead. I would be genuinely shocked if Proust isn't full of tragic deaths but haven't read any, etc, etc.

---

EXPERIENCE
For every adventure a player-character completes, they are awarded an extra BISCUIT the next time they play. I am amused by the idea of someone declaring that they are a "four-biscuit halberdier".

A player may trade a BISCUIT for a second POLEARM ADJECTIVE.

---

Right, that's it! Off you go! Play! Leave questions and comments in the, um, comments!

BRUTICUS ACHIEVED

So I was diagnosed with epilepsy yesterday. Yay.

In happier news I also got hold of Swindle, after a scary few days when I feared he had sold out. Here he is, not alongside his 2001 incarnation, because I've somehow lost him. Oh well.

I was a bit concerned about the vehicle mode as it looked a bit blocky and unrealistic in pictures, but it looks much better in person.

And here's the team, in all their nowhere-near-in-scale glory:

And at long last, their combined form... BRUTICUS.

The combination sequence is quite fiddly, and even after doing it I have no idea how Blast Off and Vortex "broke" in half to form the arms or how I'm supposed to reconnect them, but the end result is very impressive. And huge. I'm not sure where I'm going to put him now.

Again, there will be no comparison with his 2001 incarnation as he'd be missing a leg, but here's his 2001 head alongside his 2026 head, for fun.

BRUTICUS THE FOURTH

I went to the Transformers shop in London yesterday.

In mostly unrelated news, it was my birthday on the 10th, and I got the new version of Onslaught, and the fourth part of Bruticus. Here he is with his 2001 version:

The original Onslaught was one of the first Transformers I owned as a boy; he may have even been the second, after Optimus Prime, so I've always had a fondness for him.

There's a little bit of a wonky transformation with the arms, and I'm not fond of the "false" transformation of the gun turret -- there's a second, smaller turret hidden within Onslaught, while the trailer gets put aside to form Bruticus' torso and legs -- but overall he's a very handsome robot.

One more to go before Bruticus is complete!

Interview With a Vampire

I bumped into Kieron Gillen at Dragonmeet once but he looked busy so I didn't say hello.

Anyway, he's been running through his 101 favourite role-playing games and the most recent instalment has a story about a WFRP3 game in which the players did one of those silly facepalm things players do sometimes, and it reminded me of something that happened when I was running Horror on the Orient Express for Call of Cthulhu in 1998ish.

Spoilers for HotOE follow!

There is a vampire in the campaign, a horrible, withered thing called Fenalik. He is encountered early on but then stalks the investigators for much of the rest of the campaign, including boarding the Orient Express itself. At this point in the campaign Fenalik has lost all patience and confronts them on the train, but he is subject to some classic vampire weakness, such as not entering a home uninvited, and since the investigators' cabin counts as a home for this purpose, he cannot enter.

At first Fenalik is all charm and persuasion and tries to convince the player-characters to let him in, but they are having none of it. Once they realise that Fenalik is powerless to reach them they start getting a bit cocky, taunting the monster.

Fenalik is ancient and proud and wretched and does not take this at all well. He loses his temper and starts threatening the investigators with all sorts of horrible fates. Oh, the brutal, terrible things he will do to them while they live, and probably to their corpses too, once their living has concluded to his satisfaction. The players are finding this hilarious, of course, and continue goading him. They are also trapped in their cabin, but they're not thinking about that right now; they are too high on adrenaline.

The vampire is in a frenzy now, desperate and seething, and promises that he will tear them all into bloody, tiny, pieces.

One player, buzzing, says something along the lines of "Oh yeah? Just come in and try it."

There's a pause. A dreadful, heavy pause.

I wish I could say it was me being dramatic but it was more that I was working it out at roughly the same pace my players were.

A bit faster perhaps, as I could see their jaws dropping and their eyes going like saucers just as I started to describe the cabin door exploding into splinters and a furious vampire springing into the room...

As it happens only one character was killed in the fight that followed, but they were all a bit less overconfident after that.

The Egyptian (Danger) Zone

Stuart and I played my Danger Zone mission -- for Stargrave and similar skirmish wargames -- last week. Stuart's summary is here and I have nothing to add, but I did want to highlight the table a bit more.

We played at Dice Saloon and we arrived to a box of terrain pre-selected for us. It was a box of Ancient Egypt themed stuff, with a tinge of horror and was quite an impressive set so we decided to use it, making the assumption that this mission's planet was the home to a lost civilisation of Space Egyptians. Perhaps the Danger Zones were the result of ancient tech left behind by those ancient folk.

We also nabbed a box of cyberpunk terrain just to sci-fi the table up a bit. And now, pictures!

The table as a whole. The large hill towards the centre would see most of the combat, as we shall see.

My favourite piece. There's a hint of trypophobia to it. (EDIT: I am told it's from Dark Fantastic Mills!)

Fateweaver Duu'ey investigates some local architecture.

The early stages of The Battle for the Hill™.

These dog thing statues were cool, too.

Later on in the The Battle for the Hill™, as it got a lot more messy.

As far as I know, this stuff was all home-made, so thank you to the unknown builder for donating it to Dice Saloon for oiks like me to throw tiny men at it!

Lost and Found

Lost Carcosa is now available at the LotFP EU shop!

My involvement with Geoffrey McKinney's Carcosa goes back to almost the beginning. About a year after the release of the original Supplement V: Carcosa Geoffrey expanded one of the hexes on the campaign map in an article for issue #4 of Fight On! and I contributed some pictures; I'm not certain but this may have been my first published role-playing game work.

Later Geoffrey self-published that same content, this time in colour, as a zine. In 2011 Lamentations of the Flame Princess released an expanded version of Carcosa in a handsome hardback edition and almost all of my pictures were dropped in favour of new pieces by Rich Longmore. A fair trade, I think.

(Although I like my Bone Sorcerer more. Sorry Rich!)

I say "almost all" because I do have one very small piece in the published book. It's only about 5mm square and even I had trouble finding it yesterday, but it was apparently enough for James at LotFP to send me a contributor copy of the book. I've always been touched by that generosity and am always keen to tell people about it, because it's a side of James that I think gets overshadowed by his general infamy.

(I'm not sure James himself would approve, as much of that infamy is self-generated, quite deliberately!)

Earlier this year James got in touch to tell me that a new, even more expanded version of Carcosa was in the works, adding all the supplements and extras to the LotFP hardback. This time my pictures from 2009 (!) would be included and I also found a piece intended for the Fight On! article that was not completed at the time. Don't ask me why, it was 16 years ago!

Yesterday I received my contributor copy of the new book, and it's even more handsome than the 2011 printing. There are three variant covers, of which my favourite is probably the Yellow Lotus, and you can also -- if you are rich -- buy all three in a sexy -- and very heavy -- slipcase.

Which is what the contributors received.

See what I mean about generous?

Anyway, Lost Carcosa is out now, and it's quite swish. You can read Grognardia reviews of the original Carcosa here if you're interested in what it's all about.

When Banner Met Spidey

Spoilers for Spider-Man: Brand New Day -- it's very good, I've seen it twice this week! -- follow.

In the film, a significant moment hinges on Hulk recognising Peter Parker, and I've been trying to work out how that could be, barring any off-screen "I read about you in the Avengers files" business:

• In Infinity War, Banner meets Spider-Man before the latter goes into spaaaaaaaaace.
• In Endgame, Professor Hulk and Spidey are both on the battlefield. During the fight, Spidey unmasks and tells Captain Marvel his real name, and it's possible that PH witnesses that, but PH and Spidey do not interact directly on-screen. That said...
• In the same film, both Professor Hulk and Parker are at Tony Stark's funeral. Again, we don't see them interact, but it would be very strange if they didn't; if any "Hi, I'm Peter" hadn't happened yet, it must have happened here. BUT...
• In No Way Home, Spidey and Doctor Strange make everyone forget about Peter Parker. Not that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, mind you, but that Peter Parker even exists.
• In Brand New Day, Peter meets Banner. It's clear that Banner has no idea who Peter is, and Peter gives his name as "Ned Leeds".
• Later on, Spidey fights the Hulk. People are calling this "Savage Hulk" and it seems to be a new incarnation; Spidey doesn't recognise him, suggesting it's not the Hulk from Assemble and Age of Ultron. THAT SAID...
• This incarnation is the one to whom Spidey says "It's me, Peter" and reacts, apparently with recognition.

So what's happening here? Banner hasn't met Peter, and Professor Hulk probably has but doesn't seem to remember, but Savage Hulk does remember him?

There's a lovely moment in 2020's comic Immortal Hulk: Great Power in which something similar happens:

Although it's not stated on-screen -- which is a shame but I can see why, for reasons of drama and pacing, it wouldn't work in the film -- I imagine something similar to this happened. Doctor Strange's spell in NWH just didn't work on this version of the Hulk for whatever reason. Perhaps he's immune to memory wipes, like the comics version seems to be, or perhaps he was buried so deep in Banner that the spell couldn't reach him, or maybe when [REDACTED] "breaks his brain" the memory is restored.

I don't think Marvel has given an official answer, but that one's good enough for me. Probably.

I'm No Dyson

Here's a map I drew, because I sometimes draw maps.

#KelvinDrawsThings

Rejected in Reverse

Reverse Medusa. A rejected image from an upcoming project. #KelvinDrawsThings

Imaginary Horse

In 2015 Warhammer: Age of Sigmar was created. This had made some people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

Well, not "widely" as it's turned out to be a bit of a success for Games Workshop, more so than Warhammer Fantasy Battle was before it was scrapped, and is now on its fourth edition. I've still never played it, mind.

One thing that hasn't survived the years is the meta rules, suggesting that they weren't quite as popular as the rest of the game. Stuff like:

• And He Did Say ‘War’, and the World Did Tremble...: If Settra the Imperishable uses this ability, you must hold out your hand and utter ‘War’ in a supremely commanding tone. If you do, then until your next hero phase you can add 1 to all hit rolls for Death units in your army that are within 18" of Settra in the combat phase. If a Deathrattle unit is affected by this ability, you can also add 1 to their wound rolls in the combat phase. However, if Settra is your general, you must not kneel for any reason during the battle. If you do, even once, you immediately lose the battle. Settra does not kneel!
• The Grail Vow: You can re-roll all failed hit rolls for this unit if, before rolling the dice, you hold aloft a grail or goblet and shout ‘For the Lady’ in a heroic voice.
• Honour of the Clan: It is a Thane’s duty to uphold the honour of his clan, and his fighting prowess is as deadly as his beard is magnificent. You can re-roll any failed hit rolls when attacking with a Thane so long as you have a bigger and more impressive beard than your opponent.
• Liquid Fortification: You can add 1 to the Bravery of Josef Bugman and any Dispossessed unit from your army within 4" of him whilst you are holding a drink.
• The Mad Count: Marius Leitdorf is an exceptional swordsman, even if he is totally insane. If, during your hero phase, you pretend to ride an imaginary horse, you can re-roll failed hit rolls for the Averland Runefang until your next hero phase. If you actually talk to your imaginary horse you can re-roll failed wound rolls as well.
• Old Grumblers: In your hero phase, you can complain about something in a suitably Dwarfish manner. For example, the hardships you endured when you were younger, how the youth of today don’t respect their elders, how expensive beer is etc. If you do, this unit of Longbeards will join in and you can pick one of the grumblings listed below. The effects last until your next hero phase.
• WAAAGH! DRUMMER Models in this unit may be Waaagh! Drummers. You can add 2 to the charge rolls of a unit that includes any Waaagh! Drummers, but only if you bellow ‘Waaagh!’ when rolling the dice.

The one about the imaginary horse is maaaaaayyyybe insensitive to those with mental health problems, but otherwise I don't see the problem. I've always liked these rules, because they are fun, and games are supposed to be fun. Aren't they?