Erin Klitzke

August 6, 2009

Torg Update – Session of 30 July 2009

So…it was a mostly a recap evening last Thursday with us chasing ourselves in circles and arguing. A lot of arguing. But then…there were four Terran/Nile Empire characters in the room staring daggers at each other and not agreeing on anything. So we go in circles.

On a lighter note, we totally got to meet Dr. Mara Hatchi-Two and Christopher Bryce (well, we kind of got to meet Dr. Bryce). And Yuri showed up again, which of course had Grace even more in knots than usual.

Of course, me being me, I don’t actually get to lecture Grant like I wanted to because it’s so bloody hard to do in front of the rest of the group. Because it is, damn it all!

So, we found out that Fred has indeed been captured and that necessitates a jail break. Which will hopefully not get us all killed, though we have very little faith in this, and here’s why: The witch-hunter that found us in Japan, the one we tried to kill by blowing up a freakin’ building? Yup, he’s the one that’s got Fred. I have no idea how we’re going to deal with him, but I’d better come up with something sometime between now and 8 eastern (probably should come up with something by 6:30 eastern, since I’ll have to discuss it with Jen in the car on the way in and pass a note to Trish before study ha–err. I mean pass a note to Trish before we try to get ourselves all killed). I really don’t want to get Ren killed–mostly because I’m not certain who I’d play (though a realm-running version of Cmdr. Brigid O’Connell or Colonel Tim McConaway could be interesting) but also because I think the party would completely disentegrate without her.

Grant made a suggestion, prefacing it with a “You’re not going to like this plan.” Which Ren didn’t, since he suggested getting someone captured so we’d have a man on the inside. Which, of course, didn’t fly very well with Ren for various reasons (one of which being that Grant would probably be the one getting himself captured). It just doesn’t seem to be a good idea to have to have two people to rescue rather than just one. That was the largest chunk of the issue. To her thinking, the group needs to stay together as much as possible. That’s just the way it is.

I have a feeling we’re in deep, deep trouble with this one. but time will tell.

July 24, 2009

Torg update – session of 23 July 2009

Let it be known across the land that Dr. Ren Colby is a mess.

Last week, the heroic (hair-brained?) death of Albert Westin caused a major panic across the streets of Avignon, since he turned into a werewolf and lept onto the dias where the pope was standing, giving a speech that was a call to crusade against demons–demons like the scary, snarling werewolf that turned some random guy in the pope’s entourage into goo (I know he wasn’t a random guy, I’m just not exactly sure who it actually was). Panic in the streets ensues and suddenly, there’s two groups of us seperated in a city gone insane.

Ren, of course, is on drugs and bleeding from the neck after trying to hack the GodNet. So render her (and me) halfway to useless for most of the session. I was largely comic relief for quite a wihle (for all the seriousness of the content of this week’s session…most of us laughed so hard we couldn’t breathe). Mercifully, she’s with…the newly dubbed “Team requires Adult Supervision”–two of our Nile characters, Grace and Mable (Molotov Dolly). Of course, being on drugs and blood loss…Ren isn’t exactly adult supervision at this time. The three ladies end up trying to work their way back to where we were staying without incident. But when does anything ever happen to us without incident? That’s right, next to never.

In the meantime, Grant, Anotep, and Mei have been left to their own devices in the courtyard where the speech was being held. Thank god Grant was there, because if he hadn’t been, I don’t think that we’d have ever seen Anotep and Mei ever again. They start threading their way through the crowds, also trying to get back to our lodgings. Also like the ladies…nothing goes according to plan.

Yeah, so that's what Mei, Ano, and Grant ran into

Grant, Anotep, and Mei get lost in some side streets that are more like alleyways–a result of Grant’s attempt to steer Mei clear of people, which were pushing her to the brink of a complete and total meltdown. At a point, as things start to get damper and cooler, they stop and Mei asks Grant if he’s sure they’re going the right way. He tells her very slowly that they aren’t, but he’s not looking at her — he’s looking at something else. And it’s ugly, and it’s in armor, and it wants to eat their faces. Badly.

So Mei comes up with a plan–and it wasn’t a bad plan, considering she was in powered armor. She was going to pwn it in the face as a distraction so the “squishies” (Anotep and Grant) could run and then she was going to bring up the rear and keep herself between them and the fugly. Brilliant plan. It would have worked, too, if Grant’s hero gene hadn’t flared up again.

For the record, when he wakes up…Ren is either going to slug him or jump his bones. Maybe both. Either way, there’s a lecture in his future.

Mei was in the process of stabbing the ugly in the face and Anotep had started to run when Grant takes out his pistols and starts his run. He runs up Mei’s back, steps on her head and jumps, firing down on the ugly as he’s flipping in mid-air and lands behind the thing.

He’s wearing no armor.

This thing has claws.

And it used them on Grant. It whirled, plunged its claws into his belly, and slams him against the wall. He goes down, unconscious and bleeding. Mei is like “Shit.”

I’m flailing at the other end of the table, unable to do anything since I’m nowhere near where they are.

Continue reading “Torg update – session of 23 July 2009”

July 23, 2009

What I’ve been reading

So over the course of the past week or so, I’ve had the opportunity to do a bit of pleasure reading, which is a welcome relief from everything else in my world. The house has been quiet and I haven’t felt incredibly guilty about taking some “me” time to curl up with a good book–or three, in this case. In this case as well, I’m reading something that’s a touch different from my standard fare. I tend to generally keep to fantasy universes for my pleasure reading unless it’s a shared universe such as Star Trek, Star Wars, and Battletech. The sole exception to this has been Jack McDevitt‘s Alex Benedict series, which straddles the line between mystery and science fiction (don’t ask my why I like it so much–it’s probably the beautiful relationship between Alex and his assistant/pilot, Chase). Coincidentally, in hunting down his web site, I found out that he’s released a fourth book that I’m going to have to pick up when it’s released in paperback (I can’t justify buying the hardcover since it’s out of stock at my local Borders).

Fantasy novels in author-created universes tend to be what attracts me, though in the past few days, I’ve found at least one science fiction series that I’m going to have to start following.

I discovered LE Modesitt Jr.‘s work purely by accident when I picked up The Chaos Balance on a whim at the drugstore–my family had been nagging at me to read something other than the Star Trek and Star Wars novels I’d become addicted to–and my affair with the Saga of Recluce began. I never did make it all the way through The Chaos Balance, but Fall of Angels got me hooked on the series completely. I kept reading until after the release of Scion of Cyador and never quite caught up again after that (I don’t know, something about Hamor doesn’t really interest me the way Candar and Recluce did). Then, the first summer I was home after graduating from college, I picked up one of Modesitt’s science fiction works (as well as a couple books of the Corean Chronicles)–it was The Ethos Effect.

The book was and still is amazing, even reading it again. I finally picked up a paperback copy for myself a few weeks ago but hadn’t read it because I was waiting on getting to read another book–this one for the first time.

The Parafaith War is set in the same universe as The Ethos Effect, though the latter book takes place more than three hundred years later. And it was every bit as good as The Ethos Effect. It centers around an Eco-Tech officer by the name of Trystin Desoll, an outsider despite his family being amongst the founders of the Eco-Tech Coalition. The Ethos Effect centers on a similar character, though by no means the same, in Van Cassius Albert, a RSF officer who’s too good at what he does and is very clearly an outsider amongst his fairer, lighter-skinned peers. Both men have to make hard decisions about the fate of the universe they live in, and both pay a price for making the ethical choices they make. Both books are amazing and I highly recommend them because they’re a good read–so long as you’re not afraid of a little social commentary and intellectual stimulation during your science fiction experience.

Then, in browsing through books on Amazon (I try not to buy on Amazon, though I’ll occassionally use it to check release dates and the like), I came across another series that was often purchased by people who bought LE Modesitt Jr.’s science fiction. It happened to be Jack Campbell’s Lost Fleet series. So yesterday, I picked up the first book, Dauntless, after work and started reading it after I got home.

The humor in The Lost Fleet: Dauntless mixes well with the darkness and desperation of the situation the ship of the book’s name finds itself in. I do not often find myself laughing or shaking my head and smiling–physically reacting to and interacting with–novels I read. It’s a very rare thing for me. But this is what I found myself doing as I began to learn more and more about the situation John Greary, sudden commander of this lost fleet, finds himself in. I’ve already decided that I’ll have to pick up the rest of the series when I go to work tomorrow. It’s been a wonderful read thus far and I’m looking forward to making it all the way through–and finding out if Black Jack Greary can actually live up to the reputation that was built around him while he was in cold storage. He’s sort of a science fiction King Arthur sort of figure–which makes it even more amusing for someone like me to be reading it.

July 17, 2009

Torg update – session of 16 July 2009

So another one bit the dust. We all saw Albert’s imminent demise comimg as players, though probably not quite in the spectacular fashion he went out. Though I get ahead of myself.

We start out on the pilgrim road to Avignon with a potential crusader against the technodemons. He’s rabble-rousing and building a peasant army as we go, Ren is getting sicker and sicker to her stomach as we skirt along the border of Germany and France, where the evidence of slave raiding is quite clear. She knows what that looks and feels like. This, of course, means she gets more and more quiet and withdrawn as we move along the border. Grace asks what’s wrong and Ren lies through her teeth. Of course nothing’s wrong!

So, at one point as we’re getting closer to Avignon, Grace wanders away from camp to clean her weapons. She proceeds to get into a fight with the Executioner we met before, who apparently wants to know what we’re up to before he kills us all. In the meantime, ignorant of Grace’s straits, Ren pulls Mable out into the woods to talk about Allison, who Ren wants to know more about. This is going to have to be played out via e-mail a bit since Liz doesn’t know much about Allison (David’s the one with all of that information). We end up stumbling upon the aftermath of the little duel between the Executioner and Grace but don’t learn very much about the situation.

We make Avignon a few days later, and it’s a seething mass of humanity so thick you can barely move in the streets. Amotep keeps going on and on about how awful and disease-ridden it is, saying that slaves in Egypt aren’t treated this badly (Grant turns to Ren at her eyeroll and says “Well, it’s true.”). Ren doesn’t disagree that it’s bad, she just chooses not to dwell on how bad it is. We eventually make it to our quarters in a less dirty area of the city and settle in for the night. Much to Mei’s chagrin, she’s been informed that the pope is giving a speech the next day that’s essentially going to be the call to crusade against the technodemons and that we’re all going to go listen. All right, minor wrench in our plans, since part of the reason we’d come to Avignon was to continue our hunt for DeSoto. So…we come up with yet another plan. We decide that while we’re at the speech, before the speech, Mable is going to swoon and Grace and Ren are going to drag her off to go lay down–of course, we’re not going to actually go lay down, we’re going to go hack the GodNet to see if we can get a lead on where DeSoto is. The others are going to stay and listen to the speech because we really don’t have a way to get them out of it.

So the next morning, we go to the speech almost before the sun’s up. Mable isn’t going to have a hard time faking a faint in her outfit, since she can barely breathe (she gets a promise that we’ll loosen her ties after we’re out of the crowds). We actually get primo “seats” for this speech–we can actually see that there’s figures on the dias from where we’re standing! Mable fakes her faint and the three of us beat feet further away to find a place to do our hacking. We eventually find our way to a saint’s shrine that has a terminal that Ren sneaks in to try to access as the speech begins.

Problem. There’s no keyboard.

So Ren sneaks back out and tells Mable and Grace that we need a new plan. Mable asks why and Ren brings her inside to show her. Mable looks at the apparatus for a few minutes and finally says that we don’t have any other choices–Ren’s going to have to improvise a head jack for herself to get into the computer, which is an idea that Ren’s wholly uncomfortable with. But she does it anyway, since someone’s got to and she’s the only one with a chance at success.

So she novacanes herself up and stabs a needle into the back of her neck with some wires attached with Mable’s help and then she’s in the GodNet.

…and God talks to her. It’s kind of scary.

And of course, the OS and organization of this computer system makes no sense. So Ren starts working at trying to sort through that mess so she can start trying to find the information she needs.

In the meantime, Albert has moved forward in the crowds listening to the speech, having seen someone on the dias he recognized (and apparently needed to kill). And someone starts tapping on the back of Mei’s armor.

Ting ting ting ting ting!

“Stop it!”

Ting ting ting ting ting!

“Stop it!”

Ting ting ting ting ting!

“Stop it!”

She finally turns around and there’s Odette, but it’s not Odette, it’s her evil half. And she taunts Mei. This is very amusing, since Mei is played by Odette’s former character (and David plays a very, very bad Odette. Which is fine, since we’re dealing with Odayle, Odette’s evil half). Of course, Amotep is staring at this mess very confused and Grant is the color of a bedsheet since he can’t do a damned thing without blowing all of us. Odette finishes her taunting of them and then bounces off to come find where we are.

And a few minutes later, Albert makes his move. Trish drops a martyr card, goes RAWR PUPPY and leaps up onto the dias, turning one figure up there into goo.

Then proceeds to be obliterated by energy weapons fire. Chaos and panic ensues. Chaos and panic Ren can feel on the GodNet. So she starts to pull out. As she’s pulling out, she hears the obnoxiously endearing voice of an old ally, our good friend the Tachicomas:

“Hey! Where’d you go?!”

And then she’s out demanding to know what’s going on. Grace tells her Albert just got himself killed. Ren utters a string of explicatives and tries to get back onto the GodNet, but the node is dead–like the system’s shut down as a security protocol in the midst of the panic.

And then Odette finds us. She taunts Grace, wondering aloud if Odette was ever real, is she in the back of Odayle’s head screaming to get out, to make Odayle stop. Grace isn’t sure what to do. Odette/Odayle taunts Ren. Ren counters. She taunts us all. Frederico DeSoto comes up in the midst of the conversation. Odette/Odayle says she really didn’t care much for him anyway and skips away. Ren laughs.

“Lying is a sin.”

And then we stumble out into the mess to try to find the others, or our way back to our lodgings. We’re not sure which yet. I’m bleeding from the neck thanks to my attempt to hack the GodNet. I’m muchly looking forward to Grant’s reaction to that. As Jen said in the car…at least it’d get them talking again.

…and as a side note…there was a zepplin that looked Nile when we arrived in Avignon. Grant and Mable both confirmed that it could be from there, but it wasn’t anything they knew about. So we’ll have to check that out. Soon…

July 14, 2009

Maintenance day update

So, I got some news the other day that is exciting and daunting all at once. My paper that I proposed for the Great Lakes History Conference was accepted. Now I just have to put together 20-30 pages for my session and make hotel reservations for that weekend in November. Professionally, this is about as huge as my winning the assistantship at OU. Personally, it’s a little scary. The last time I did a presentation like this I was a junior (was I a junior? I think that was the summer between sophomore and junior year) at Grand Valley State presenting on our work at 20KT275 and 20KT276 at Student Scholarship Day–a completely different animal. I wasn’t flying solo on that one, for starters–I was presenting with two other people. This is all me, and while the work on the subjugation of Wales under Edward I dovetails with my thesis research, it’s different enough that it’s going to take a bit of additional research to really get this together to my satisfaction.

On another note, officers and I announced that we’re shaking the RoA tree. Some people are enthused, I’m not sure how others feel. I’m keeping my fingers crossed, since I’d definately hate for this to fail. I’m glad that we’re no longer working in the dark, though. Folks know that we’re doing something, which is good. Very good. I have to get myself working on the charter documents based on what we have so far, since the whole IC angle of the mess seems to be my strength (well, no, is my strength). And think of what the next set of things on deadline are going to be, since we have a deadline on some things coming up…gee….tomorrow. And then roll from there. I want everything in place before I start my assistantship in September.

Still haven’t told my boss at the mall about the assistantship. I’m putting off the inevitable panic she’s going to have. I’ll tell her in a few weeks.

July 10, 2009

Torg Update, session of 9 July 2009

So, two weeks ago in Torg, in the session I didn’t actually write anything about since not much happened, we’d picked up Amhotep, an Egyptian mathematician (read: math wizard-priest) that we’d met while we were in Cairo (this character is a replacement for Amarant) while still in London and then picked up Molotov Dolly (real name: Mable; Terran Mystery Man) on the way into what’s left of the Chunnel, having decided that it was probably the best and safest way to get to France from England. After weathering another reality storm, we ended up running into an Executioner on the CyberFrance side of the Chunnel who told us to turn around and leave, or die. Of course, we can’t turn around and leave since we have to rescue DeSoto, figure out this Odette/Mariah tangle, and get the Starfire Wheel back from the bad guys (ie, the pope). So we keep going. (Apparently, the executioner also told Mei Lin that it was nice to see her again. How delightfully odd.) At the far end of the tunnel, we find a red, sharp-edged metal spade made of the same sort of material as the executioner’s helmet with the name “Carrie” on it–Carrie being the real name of our very own Grace. This was two weeks ago.

This week, we trekked through the French countryside. Of course, someone has informed the local lord that there are strangers in his land (I’m going to lay odds on the executioner, but who knows who told him) and he tracks us down. Luckily, we bluff him into thinking we’re not as weird as we actually look (…of course, now that I think about it, this could totally be a trap and we just walked right into it — Ren should PROBABLY pull Grant and Mable aside and share this fear) and the local lord, Faust something-or-other, invites us home with him, assuming that Ren, Grace, and Anhotep are servants to Mei Lin, Albert, Grant, and Mable. This results in three of us basically being left to our own devices when not needed by our “lords and lady” or being summoned to prayer (upshot of the prayer part is that Ren’s learning more and more about the differences between Catholicism and the new orthodoxy in France) and thus left us to sit back and be entertained by the social blunderings of poor Mei Lin, who is posing as a young male cyberknight.

Who got us invited to go on Crusade. Lovely. At least it gets us on the road to Avignon.

On the road to Avignon, Ren told Mable what she knew about gospog fields after mentioning that there could be real trouble if all the people Lord Faust had been rallying actually decided to go on Crusade against the demons–they’d just be more bodies to plant. The next night on the road, Mei Lin gets a strange feeling and wanders out into the woods, only to run into something she described as a Techomage–something she thought was only a myth. He had said his name was Galen, and then spouted something at her about a prophecy — apparently, we’re in the second round of a prophecy, one where we must “wake the sleeper.” Albert suspects the sleeper is Odette. Anhotep dropped Mei Lin into a vivid dreaming to hopefully find out more information….and waiting for her to wake up is about where we left off for the night.

So, apparently CyberFrance is going off to war against the Technodemons that were assaulting NATO forces that Ren was formerly attached to in Germany and further east. Bloody glorious. We’re all in scads of trouble. Scads.

July 9, 2009

Post-vacation update #1

Back from Wisconsin, and what a glorious trip without worrying about work calling me it was. I got a bit of writing done, both WoWFic–including starting a new story, “Family Ties“–and work on Epsilon (Jen mentioned last night after her perusal that there was a marked shift between Sam Cooper’s attitude toward Aaron in one scene and her reaction to him the next morning. I promised her it’d make sense later).

I’m still working in part on the revitalization efforts for Sentinels (US) — the RP community has suffered since the opening of Wyrmrest Accord and everyone has seen a sharp decline in numbers. But at the same time as it’s brought out the lazy in some folks, it’s brought out the best in others. One of the new blogs on the blogroll is one of those “bests” — Ravine of Lichbane has started a new blog with fiction and discussion of RP issues that I plan to be following closely myself.

Other recent addition to the blogroll is Erik’s blog. I’ve known Erik and gamed with him for a long time (back since the days when I was almost exclusively doing things ISRP). Lately, he’s been getting his campaign setting ready to hopefully query more gaming companies with. I’ve seen bits and fragments of it, and while 4E is Greek to me, the flavor bits and pieces (which I think he really wanted me to pay attention to) are looking pretty good.

Also poked at Aurora Force with a stick, got set up for Michael Bullian’s tragic death at the Battle of Ithor. I probably need to start drafting how that’s going to happen so I have it together and ready to go when we get that far. If we ever get that far.

All in all, considering I spent several hours by a pool every day I was away, it was a pretty productive trip! I’ll have to post pictures up here soon.