Ian Absentia

There actually are rivers in LA. They're just lined with concrete and usually dry. !i!

Oh, dear. Employees' names, unblurred. Eek. !i!

Okay. What have we heard about Rivers of London that sounds like it'd mesh with the movie? Or the comic on which it was loosely based and reinterpreted for US audiences. !i!

[Ugh, I hate the editing controls on this site.]

Except that the Constantine movie takes place in (*cough-cough*) Los Angeles. I know, I know. I'm being picky. It was actually an okay movie, with some really great imagery -- just not really the comic book Hellblazer's John Constantine. As the basis of a gaming adventure, it'd be okay, too. Can we have a mash-up based on Keanu Reeves? John Wick: Hellblazer. That said, I have no sense of the tone of the Rivers of London books or the game planned for them, or how appropriate it might be for this. !i!

That's certainly what all the Disorderly types are counting on. !i!

Assuming a full and proper restoration of the Machine, the "breaking" of the Machine is effectively a simulation, a "what-if" scenario to collect data, and all the disparate "broken" parts sensory organs to perceive itself. Yes, it's the Matrix. It's also the kalpa and pralaya, and the Big Bang/Crunch. One might almost surmise that Greg and the Wachowskis heard of this idea somewhere else. !i!

So...everything resolves in a singularity. I approve! !i!

"Pooh?" said Piglet. "Yes, Piglet?" said Pooh. "I'm frightened," said Piglet, taking Pooh's hand. "Oh, bother," said Pooh, eyeing the approaching sheriff in the rear view mirror, brushing Piglet's hand aside as he took the loaded pistol from the glove compartment. "No one lives forever." !i!

No worries, really. Most of these ideas have been a quarter-century in the making, so I reckon you have at least a decade to respond in a timely fashion. 🙂 !i!

And the ding-dongs who play them like ding-dongs. To each his own. Some dine from a plate, others feed from a trough. !i!

Some people will put whipped cream and colored sprinkles on their steak. We must simply not dine with these people. !i!

I understand the derision toward hobbits as portrayed in most RPGs. But I'll direct the discerning reader to both "The Scouring of the Shire" toward the end of The Return of the King and to the treatment of halflings in D&D's Dark Sun. Just because they're small and twee, it doesn't mean things won't get nasty. !i!

A reasonable work-around to this is to use Mythras Imperative, an abbreviated version of the full rules and which is available for free download, entirely compatible with the current edition of Classic Fantasy. That said, the full Mythras core rules have a variety of utilitarian magics and, well, you might just go down that BRP-adjacent route instead. !i!

Honestly, an amazing image. *cough-cough* (not these days) *cough* !i!

Yeah, I've been logged out several times over the last week or so, and now locked out requiring a change to my password. !i!

I was thinking on my chest, in reverse, like in Memento. !i!

I've just discovered my new tattoo. !i!

Quoted for truth, regardless of topic. Yeah, well there warn't no love lost on this end, neither. You pick your poison and imbibe with restraint. Cheers! !i!

And on a very political note, I was caught in traffic next to a fellow's truck loudly emblazoned with his sincere belief in an invisible, underground child abduction/sex trade cult run by treasonous political opponents, yet we're unable to agree on the very public evidence and data regarding global climate change and warming. I reckon it's more comforting to believe in something it's impossible to do anything about. !I!

I spent the weekend in Tacoma at a track meet. I can attest, from an athletics standpoint, it's abrupt changes in heat/cold conditions that cause the greatest stress. We can run in 100F heat with little problem as long as we can acclimate to it over a week or two; jumping from 70F to 100F in a day or so is devastating. That sort of thing applies world-wide. On a personal note, I lost one of my hens Friday to just this very phenomenon. She started panting in the morning and kakked before I could do anything for her. Chickens survive this kind of heat the world over, but a jump of 20+ degrees can kill 'em. !I!

Black on medium grey causes problems in reproduction and legibility? Say it isn't so. All joking aside, yeah, when we prepare tables and text for work, grey shading is no more than 15% and no less than 10% darker than the surrounding field. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. !i!

For those of you who were wondering what the crowdfunded reboot from a few years back looked like -- and for those who are literate in French -- Nephilim Legende is available in PDF via DriveThruRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/274494/Nephilim-Quintessence Enjoix! !i!

Some of the old BRP monographs are seeing daylight again under the Mythras Gateway license. Such as Rubble & Ruin, which was just rereleased. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/354244/Rubble-and-Ruin !i!

This. This is the thing of it. !i!