This is what happens when we mix miniatures with Fate’s social combat mechanics: here is a snapshot of today’s playtest session of the War of Ashes RPG I’m writing for Evil Hat Productions. With Sean Nittner, his lovely daughters, and Karen Twelves.
Photo: Photo Sophie Lagacé 2015.
This year I focused on art for Edmund’s presents. I got two show pieces. One was Eric Lofgren‘s ink drawing of a British Columbia-inspired Eowyn of Rohan facing the Witch-king on his steed (from an ArtOrder Challenge a few years ago.) I just love Eric’s pen and ink work, and you can see from my choice among his prints a direct connection to Edmund’s choice of presents for me. Great minds, etc….
The other piece was commissioned especially for Edmund. You may have read my summary of the Tianxia: Blood, Silk and Jade (Vigilance Press) game I ran at Big Bad Con in October? In it was a funny scene where Edmund’s character, the wild forest girl Wolf-Eyed Yue, was made up and disguised as the Moon Festival Princess.
I thought it would be wonderful if Denise Jones, the artist who beautifully illustrated the Tianxia rule book, was willing and able to capture the scene. She was enthusiastic, and publisher James Dawsey graciously gave permission to use the likeness of the official Tianxia characters Wolf-Eyed Yue and Han “Dragon Dog” Ping. (The third character in the scene is the lao dan the heroes hired to help with the transformation.) It was a treat to see the various steps in creating the image, and I’d like to share them (I have permission from the artist to do so.)
First, Denise drew a sketch of the scene as she envisioned it based on my description.
Right away, you can see why Denise was the right person to illustrate a wuxia-based game book: she has turned what could have been a very static scene into a dynamic pose. She latched onto what made the scene funny for us in the game: the contrast in moods between Yue and her cheerful attendants, and the physical comedy of putting a wild forester in a fancy dress. To give the sense of tension and action, Denise has the two attendants pulling in opposite, slightly off-balance directions with Yue torn in the middle. Yue’s characteristic wild hair is being tamed, symbolic of the whole predicament. The only change I asked for was to give Yue a grumpier expression, more in keeping with the way our game unfolded.
Next, Denise sent the polished sketch in clean lines.
Now Yue looks suitably annoyed at the spa treatment she’s receiving! You can see the line weights have been carefully selected to reinforce the opposed movements forming a slightly left-tilting triangle.
Next came the image with flat colour layout.
The light and dark colour masses have been distributed to play with the theme of Yue being pulled in different directions. The violet of the dan‘s over-robe gives her mass and solidity, while the bamboo motif on the screen behind the characters counters this by reinforcing Ping’s movement. Light touches of red cloth to the left and right of the screen, matching the hue of Yue’s dress, now suggest an opposite triangle pointing upward. Yue’s scarf ties her to the dan and suggests being twisted out of shape.
Finally, the finished illustration!
Shadows and textures make the image come alive and mute the lines to make the effects more subtle. The finished print is 11″ x 14″ (about 28 cm x 36 cm). It’s gorgeous.
After our homey Christmas Eve, we slept in on Christmas Day. In the (late) morning, Edmund baked his contribution to the get-together later that day: another recipe from Where People Feast, Pacific macaroni and cheese… a deceptive title for a scrumptious baked pasta dish filled with fresh crab meat. It smelled so good, I started hoping San Francisco would be snowed in within the next half-hour so we could justify staying home and eating the whole dish!
Then we exchanged some stocking stuffers, and we headed out with the steaming dish to have Christmas lunch-dinner-feast at our friends’ Steve W. and Dorene with a bunch of other friends and family. As usual, everyone had brought wonderful dishes to share and Steve W. had cooked up a storm. It was a day of comfortable conversation, friendship, good food, and bad puns.
After exchanging gifts with our friends, we came home not too late because (1) we wanted to exchange the rest of our presents to each other, (2) I wanted to avoid seasonal drunk drivers as much as possible, and (3) our hosts had to fly out to a wedding on the 26.
We were quite pleased with the presents we gave, they seemed to hit the mark. And as usual, I received way more than I should, from people who know my tastes well. First, the “us” presents:
Edmund got us a role-playing game right up my alley which I had somehow missed, Ben Woerner’s World of Dew (Woerner’s Wunder Werks). Happily for us, even though we had missed the Kickstarter campaign this spring, the good folks at EndGame had not, and they had ordered several retailer copies so that Edmund found this and brought it home. It is in turn based on John Wick’s game Blood and Honor (John Wick Presents), which I had also missed—in this case because it was released during our moratorium on all non-essential purchases. Both are beautiful books illustrated with vintage Japanese prints.
To go with this, Edmund also got us volume 1 of the 30-tear anniversary Usagi Yojimbo compilation (Dark Horse Comics). We’re both fans of the long-eared ronin, it will be nice to re-read these adventures in one fell swoop. (I wonder how many volumes this new compilation will end up necessitating? I probably shouldn’t ask myself these questions, and should just enjoy my 600 pages of furry chanbara instead…)
Finally, Edmund also got us a paperback copy of the latest novel in Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series, Blood of Tyrants.
Then we received the latest expansion for the Mice & Mystics board game from our friends Steve W. and Dorene, Downwood Tales (Plaidhat Games). We’ve greatly enjoyed Mice & Mystics and we were looking forward to being eaten by snakes or having our mousey fur incinerated by firebelly newts, and playing new characters like Jakobe the gecko and Ditty the shrew. This is a massive expansion that seems to provide as much material as the original set—or perhaps even more, since some elements appear to increase replay value. This afternoon we made it through the first chapter and enjoyed it.
Steve P. and Maureen gave us another game, very story-oriented, Hobbit Tales from the Green Dragon Inn (Cubicle 7 Entertainment). It’s very similar to Atlas Games’ Once Upon A Time card game, though a bit more structured and also more competitive. I agree with reviewers who have suggested that for family play, you’ll get a better experience from not keeping score. In addition, Maureen gave me one of those handy vacuum sealing corks that allow you to keep wine good for a few days more after opening the bottle. Heidi and Eric gave us lovely glass-blown Christmas ornaments.
Karen Twelves and Sean Nittner gace us a copy of Evil Hat Productions’ Race to Adventure!, a compact board game based on the pulp universe of Spirit of the Century. This belongs in the category of games that, although competitive, are not too painful to lose at because you can play them in half an hour or less, like Race For the Galaxy (unrelated, despite similar title.) I suppose this can also be said of the Hobbit Tales game above, but I feel the competitive aspect tends to detract from story, so I prefer to play it more cooperatively. Sean and Karen also gave us a print copy of the beautiful Atomic Robo RPG.
Finally, June and Edmund both got tons of sweets for us, especially chocolate.
Presents that were for me only: Edmund gave me beautiful silver jewellery designed by Haida artist Odin Lonning: a brooch and matching earrings on the Eagle and Raven lovebirds motif. Pacific Northwest people like the Haida and Tlingit (among others) have two main social groups, called moieties (literally, halves), the Eagles and the Ravens, each in turn containing 22 or 23 lineages. Traditionally, one cannot marry within a clan or lineage of the same moiety, so marriages typically signify the joining of an eagle to a raven. Eagle and Raven, when linked together, are consequently known as the Lovebirds. The Lovebirds are a popular design for items such as bracelets and rings, given as gifts between couples of these clans.
In addition, and perhaps to give the brooch something to hold in place, Edmund took me at my word when I said I would adopt The Feminist Killjoy Gift Guide as my Christmas wish list, so he gave me the Infinity Scarf (#29 in the list.) Amusingly, when I wore it yesterday I received several compliments on the look, but only Dorene noticed what the theme was. Hee hee. Rounding this up, Edmund also gave me the first collected volume of Brennan Lee Mulligan and Molly Ostertag‘s Strong Female Protagonist, a comic book you can also enjoy online.
My mom sent me four little books she got at the annual book expo, le Salon du livre de Montréal: Le Journal d’Edward, hamster nihiliste, 1990-1990; Tous les coqs du matin chantaient; Mitsou: les aventures extraordinaires d’un chat végétalien; and La Fabrique des mots. She also sent two DVDs: Louis Cyr, the Strongest Man in the World; and The Scapegoat.
I opened a Crabbie’s ginger beer and finished wrapping presents this afternoon. For dinner, Edmund made a couple of recipes out of Dolly and Annie Watts’ Where People Feast: An Indigenous People’s Cookbook, baked Alaskan halibut with lemon-dill butter with a side of beet and blackberry relish, plus his famous sautéed parsnips. Now we’re having dark chocolate cupcakes for dessert.
With dinner, we played Sentinels of the Multiverse—Legacy, Expatriette, Haka and Nightmist beat The Chairman in advanced mode, ha-ha. (But we were pretty far down by the end…)
We sure know how to rock the casbah. ^_^
Happy holidays, one and all. Here is a picture of one of the best things this year, Phantom coming to live with us since July (the black cat in this picture). With him is Valentine, our little beach foundling.
We’re at the late fine-tuning phase on the War of Ashes RPG for Evil Hat Productions. Open playtest is great for for identifying issues, but it’s slow. When you’re at the point of making small incremental changes to refine a solution, internal playtest is faster and easier. So poor Edmund was wrangled into being game-master for the dev team: Creative Director Sean Nittner, Editor Karen Twelves, and Sean’s lovely daughters, plus me. I had a couple of packs of ZombieSmith’s Atronian miniatures (the models shown above, except mine aren’t painted yet.) Mara wanted to play a “good” Kuld so Edmund got a guldul rider mini for her (concept sketch shown below.) The Kuld smelled of mac and cheese, by the way, so that’s what we called her. I played the Vidaar champion Vala the Loud; I used the Froth rules when fighting a Kuld horde but attracted the attention of the gods.
Let’s just say that the marking event that flavoured the whole episode was a rain of ylark — large oxen-like cattle beast like the one showed here, sans armour… Sean’s Elvorix travelling preacher Semela Aeditus ix Atronia co Brambletown got herself elected as mayor of Brambletown, while Karen’s militant atheist Jaarl warrior Lele was trying to convince Brambletown to use the stones from the temple to build a wall around the town. But too late: the Kuld hordes (not Mac, the dangerous ones) were on our doorstep! Fortunately, Mac and the Elvorix alchemist Ficca Bibulus had fortified our meagre defences with a wall of ice. Will this suffice? Tune in next time to learn more…
This gave us a chance to test a number of changes. We’re very happy with the zones rules written by Mike Olson, so these remain unchanged; and we’ve considerably streamlined the Froth rules, for the better. In fact, now we want to make Froth usable for more actions! Manoeuvres seem to work well, but I have some work to do to give magic more oompf. So it was an enjoyable and productive afternoon!
Credits: Art © ZombieSmith 2014, used with permission.
The Reef 
