Holy Improvised Weapons! - Mad Skills and Door Traps

I'm currently reading Mad Skills by Walter Greatshell.

Basic plot - young girl has an accident that causes severe brain damage. Parents sign her up for an experimental treatment that turns her into a super genius. Unfortunately, the group that offered the treatment is super shady(surprise!). They can use her implant to hack her brain and use her as an assassin. She figures out that something is wrong and escapes.

That is as far as I've gotten. It's an okay read but it is getting to a level of weird that I'm not enjoying. One thing that is really interesting is how the author shows her struggle to reconcile the memories and personalities of the three different people she has been; the Maddy before the accident, damaged Maddy and the Maddy after treatment who doesn't fully realize she's now a genius, just that something is different.

Another cool thing about the book is how the main character uses her super brain to create improvised weapons. Some of these could be really awesome to use in a modern game.

The first one she makes is a trap for a door.

"She yanked open the medicine cabinet... - then grabbed a toenail clipper. As heavy boots squish-squashed toward her across the wet carpet, Maddy used the clipper to strip the wires from a curling wand, then twined the bare wires around the brass doorknob and plugged it in. Someone grabbed the knob. There was a bright blue spark and a loud snap, then a scream and a bone-jarring crash."

A Curse for You: Blue Diablo

Reading Blue Diablo by Ann Aguirre gave me a great idea for a curse. One of the characters, Chance, is lucky. Unfortunately, all the bad things that would have happened to him, happen to those around him.

The effects of the curse can range from a mild +2 on a check to avoiding death. Roll to see which of the other members of the party will suffer the consequences. The unfortunate party member will suffer a penalty of equal strength.

With practice the character can learn to control the curse. Instead of taking the bonus, they can take a point of fatigue (or subdual) for the strain of holding it off.

The frequency that the curse strikes is entirely up to you. You are free to pepper an encounter with a range of bonuses or save it for thematic moments.



Armin swung his sword at the dragon's leg. As the beast turned, its tail collided with the cavern wall and a shower of debris fell. He ignored the stones in favor of avoiding the tail, which was sweeping towards him. As he dodged, he heard a cry to his left. Drak, one of his fellow baiters lay on the ground, his leg crushed under a boulder. The boulder had become unstable when the tail collided with the wall, when it fell the tail swept it away from Armin and onto Drak.

Armin cursed. He couldn't control the curse if he didn't know he was in danger. He pulled Drak away from the fighting into a tunnel that was too small for the dragon to follow. Once he made sure Drak was out of harm's way, he returned to the entrance of the tunnel and surveyed the battle. The baiters surrounded the dragon, attempting to force it to reveal the vulnerable areas under the wings so the archers could strike it with arrows laced with dragonsbane. The dragon was old and crafty. It knew how to fight without exposing its weak spots.

As he moved to rejoin the fight, he spotted another fallen comrade. He knelt beside the man to help but the archer was dead, bow still clutched in hand and surrounded by scattered arrows. Suddenly the dragon roared. Armin looked up to see it  snatch a man from the ground. As the dragon lifted the warrior to its maw, the raising leg shifted the wing. The underside was exposed!


The curse whispered to him. He could make the shot, but at what cost?

Swords and Sabres

Who doesn't love sharp pointies?

As part of the complete customizability goal for my game I started looking up different kinds of weapons. I never found a source that really suited what I was looking for until one day when I was browsing through the bargain books at Borders.

The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Swords and Sabres by Harvey JS Withers is awesome.

It provides a description of the weapons, an explanation of how they were used, and variations of design. On top of all that, there is fun historical information and lots of cool pictures.

I was able to find interesting new weapons to add to the list I got from open source materials and I also have plans to include weapon modifications that have function as well as fluff.



I don't have Knives, Daggers and Bayonets yet but I took a peek at it while I was killing some time at Half Price Books and it looks like it will be just as useful.

Feed

When I started play testing my game, I used a zombie apocalypse setting. I love the survivalism aspect of apocalypse stories and I thought zombies would make for a fun game. I started looking for stories and movies for inspiration (which was tricky because I am a total wuss. I once got nightmares from a friend describing a scary movie to me). After I got my first zombie nightmare, I decided it was time to take a break from that setting. However, I still like the setting idea and want to flesh it out. To that end, I still look for good zombie stories.

In honor of zombies and blogging, I introduce Feed by Mira Grant.

This story follows Georgia Mason, Newsie blogger in a world where the cure for cancer and the cure for the common cold equals zombies. What I liked most about this story is that society didn't fall. In most zombie stories I have come across, humanity exists in isolated pockets. In Feed, society survived and continued, just more paranoid (Georgia is part of the press detail for a candidate in the presidential election). Everything felt very plausible from the technologies and procedures used to deal with the plague to the cultural changes that result from living in constant fear; I especially liked the differences between the pre and post rising generations.

One thing I knew I wanted to do with my setting was offer play options for different points in the timeline. That way a GM could start during the rising and play through or simply focus on what happened after. This story made me think about offering alternate versions of the timeline. GMs could play through the normal fall of society or play in a world that survives and adapts (possibly due to the actions of the characters?).

To conclude: Feed is an excellent read for those who like more than gore in their zombie fiction and I can't wait to read the rest of the trilogy.