Superheroes pt.X1: Panic Attack

Had a writeup for a different character for a Pt.2, and referenced a superhero team called Panic Attack as a part of that character's backstory, and I want to come back to that character, but I ended up becoming more interested in Panic Attack themselves. I do really like the wiki-style approach from the first one and this kind of free-associated inspiration is exactly what I'm going for (even if I mostly end up just inspiring myself lol), but I ended up doing some really good short-form writeups for them, so I'm just going to roll with that instead, maybe interchange both formats.

Superheroes pt.1: Vision Serpent

Panic Attack are superpowered individuals connected by The Panic Room, which can appear in any time or place. Members of Panic Attack all seem to have powers involving physical or psychological pain.

https://gifer.com/en/VPy8 Rhett Hammersmith (?)

The Itch

The Itch is the most brilliant person you'd ever know, if they could only think straight for a moment. But always it's there, The Itch, just underneath the skin, gnawing and crawling. The worms exist, they've been assured, it's just that no one else can see them. 

The psychic worms of The Itch evoke cosmic entropy like that moment pouring cream into coffee when the tendrils slither.

Peek (created by Semiurge)

Everybody's got an angle - Peek sees them all.

A woman suffering from agoraphobia. She entered the Panic Room, and never left. She's a sort of mission control for Panic Attack, muttering premonitions and observations while she stares into its corners, nodes of mineral intelligence crusted on and outsourced to her cheeks.

I imagine that Peek is never fully seen, only her eye or a portion of her face at any one time, from a viewslit in her Control Room.

Thiotimolina

The magical little girl shining brightly. She says in a tinny voice, "Here's an easy spell that anyone can cast, even you. A spell to flip causality itself. Malicious things may hide in shadows, but shadows are not the cause of malicious things. We make the shadows in which malicious things thrive. All it takes to defeat the malicious things is to smother our shadows; to rest and bask within the light."

Thiotimolina is a fairy of the mineral intelligence. She is an epiphenomenon of the endochronic properties of resublimated thiotimoline.

https://www.deviantart.com/merulagfm/art/Cyborg-Fairy-419432766

I'm gonna be honest I'm still not totally happy with how the "spell" is written, hard to balance evocativeness with logic with symbolism, maybe need to dedicate more time to polish it, but I still love the idea. 

The Man and the Monster

They embrace, a stimulating shock, an aggressive tickle, the primal fear of sitting in a tub of wriggling worms or the urethral penetration of the candiru. Squirming critters morph into butterflies fluttering in the stomach, a bloody new sensation. Beyond absolute terror, a novel awareness. A marriage of convenience gone awry, all with one little mistake. A little mistake called Love.

The Horror Frog

Broken bones, flexing phantom limbs in twisted sockets, sharp weapons cutting both ways, and other ways as well. A metamorphosis, a tadpole racing down a one way stream. A wisdom honed in a mangled form ill suited for anything else.

:= (The Walrus)

A poltergeist, an undead dream, the manifestation of a teeth-related nightmare. Temporarily assigned to haunt the Panic Room.

Superheroes pt.1(?): Vision Serpent

Despite numerous posts about superpowers, I've yet to properly make a bunch of superheroes. The Recursers and Nazarites and the various other characters in MRD and MRDVol2 and the campaign are in the vein of Superheroes, but still. I get so caught up in the worldbuilding, but there's value in having Superheroes that can be a bit more plug-and-play, so that's my intention here. You could build a Superhero universe around these characters, or adapt them for MRD, Marvel, or DC.

I'm considering making a collaborative superhero worldbuilding project if there's interest, these could be seen as the seeds for that. I was originally going to make several of these but only had time for two and only received feedback on one of them (which is a little discouraging but oh well...), so this post will just be the first and I'll maybe make it a series for the rest of them.

The idea is that they're a little more straightforward than the stuff I would usually do, and while they might homage traditional superheroes or tropes, as the sum of its parts it shouldn't feel like a Marvel or DC universe knockoff, but something original and thematically distinct, with an emphasis on progressivism and solving systemic problems vs. brute violence, reactionary action, and defending the status quo. Also a heavy emphasis on diversity, intersectionality, and globalism.

The format is reminiscent of a wiki article or those old superhero handbooks, with things like "Power Level", but instead of any numbers it's some abstract description, a parody of the idea. Some words might be bolded where those could be articles in themselves which could be hyperlinked.

The "wiki articles" should be written in a way to invoke the sense that there is more between the lines; feeling not like the cohesive narrative of one writer's vision but a living collaborative world developed by many creators over time under various corporate, economic, and creative constraints; an emergent pattern, a character arc or narrative conceit built around the noise and chaos and incoherence of a superhero connected universe not bound by the notions of fantasy or science fiction or horror or even itself.

First an Index of previous Superheroes-related posts:

Weird & Non-Violent Superpowers

Superpowers 2.0

Cantrippers

Superpowers or Mutations

Maximum Recursion Depth, or the Beginning is the End is the Beginning (MRDVol2 abandoned concept)

Three "10 Superhero Fantasy Species" Settings

100 superheroes and villains as fantasy species 

FASERIP Marvel/DC/My Hero Academia Crossover! (Play Report)

Vision Serpent

Name: Len Levi (aka Veto Sanz)

Appearance: Unassuming size, light bronze skin tone, five o'clock shadow, tired and wise eyes, casually strong posture.

Costume: Lightly armored dark green serpentine body suit with red and yellow trim. Helmet reminiscent of a crested rattlesnake with a retractable lower face guard.

Powers and Skills: Wings of Saturim (Flight; Mildly Hypnotic); "Spiral Senses"; Master of the martial art Spiral Minding; Knowledge and gadgets of Saturim science and technologies.

Power Level: Just above human in most regards, but with a certain je ne sais quoi.

Biography: Trans-Masc (He/They) Mizrahi Jewish Mexican from Mexico City. Has a Ph.D in signal processing, where he developed a prototype Inverse Frequency Oscillation Device (IFOD), which had the potential to radically disrupt the telecom monopoly MegaXCom in Mexico and revolutionize communications across the world. Betrayed by their startup cofounder Gil Peretz in a corporate espionage showdown, just as the device was about to be destroyed and Len "disappeared" in a bodybag, instead he disappeared for real, teleported to another galaxy to serve the alien god Bright Mujo.

Serving in his Wave Palace overwatching the Saturim Civilizations, Bright Mujo personally educated Len in the sciences and technologies of the Saturim and their gods, modified them with the wings and Spiral Senses of the Saturim, and trained them in the martial art of Spiral Minding, incorporating the Wings and Spiral Senses to unique effect.

After an extended stay in the Wave Palace and after developing a complicated relationship with Bright Mujo, Len wished to leave, but Bright Mujo jealously would not allow it, and certainly not with the IFOD, nor the knowledge that went into making it.

To win their freedom, Len was tasked with telling a novel story profound enough to invoke a novel dream for Bright Mujo, the god of Memory, Patterns, Learning, and Nostalgia. After conceiving nights upon nights of stories and never succeeding, Len eventually resorted to generating stories from pseudo-random equations, mathematically derived poetry skat, inducing in Bright Mujo from his memory patterns a pseudo-novel narrative of his own free association. Bright Mujo accepted this partial solution, allowing Len to leave, but keeping the IFOD and the knowledge of how to produce it.

Returned to Earth, Len's startup was acquired by MegaXCom under Gil's leadership. Assuming the fake identity Veto Sanz, Len infiltrated MegaXCom, working to set right those harmed by the corporation both as Veto and as The Vision Serpent, while systematically instigating a boardroom coup. Complicating matters, just as Len was settling back into life on Earth and hitting their stride, Saturim agents reveal themselves, on the hunt for Len on behalf of Bright Mujo, seemingly reneging on their agreement.

Hazy Sunset City

A gaseous moon, a city bathed in a hazy sunset. Skyscrapers gently bobbing on magnets and gyroscopes, a city like a lo-fi beat. A disorienting spherical geography, a recursive ouroboric horizon. A sleepy dreamy city, always dusk and always dawn, a soft vibrance, a gentle vibration, a coffee shop nightclub on a warm rainy night with a gentle breeze, a smell of ozone and herbs and tea.

Working on a bigger post but haven't finished it yet, had one more of these little ones, maybe more will come.

Soft Warhammer 40K

A world like Warhammer 40K except where the lore doesn't implicitly justify the Imperium.

I realize this is a somewhat contentious topic; I'm not judging anyone for liking WH40K- while I am no lore expert I do enjoy the setting, but I believe it is important to at least acknowledge or confront this, in much the same way that one must as far as I'm concerned confront the xenophobia of Lovecraft and how that is largely inextricably linked to his works, no matter if you still appreciate the work in itself in the end. 

Anyway, right now we're just taking that as a given and exploring the worldbuilding implications. If you disagree with the premise that's fine, but just roll with it so we can have fun worldbuilding.

At risk of alienating even more people, I asked on my server if anyone could generate art of Warhammer 40K meets Hieronymus Bosch and Jack Kirby, and Peakrill obliged with some wonderful pieces, to help bring this to life. Do I think these are as good as, or as close to the ideal of what I'm looking for, as what a human artist could make? Probably not. But I was never going to commission an artist to make these anyway.

If The Imperium is almost like a dark ages post apocalyptic take on the post Roman empire world, this would be more like a post post apocalyptic take, something closer to the more modern understanding of history or at least my understanding, that while in some ways it was a period of loss of knowledge and infrastructure, in other ways they were more progressive and functioning reasonably well just on a smaller scale. In this world, it would be like Star Trek almost, like magical philosopher explorers, encountering all the craziness out in the universe with technology they only barely understand, wonders and reminders of what they can one day become.

The space orks are like rowdy punks in some cases, or psychedelic social anarchists, the Eldar are a little uptight but they'll take you out for a good meal and even if it's just to show off just take the lunch ya know? The tyrranid are an invasive species that need to be dealt with by social environmental institutions, like Space Rangers of galactic parks and recreation.

Oh and Chaos are just space Nazis of course.

Rather than looking like a mix of grimey industry and dark fantasy, it would be whimsical and Weird and Wonderful, like Hieronymos Bosch. Eh and throw Jack Kirby in there too. Decidedly not Moebius I think that would actually be too obvious and take away from it.

In the same way that I want for instance the tyrranid to still be a threat, but the way they confront that threat is profoundly different, and I think dealing with fascism and hate and violence is still something they should have to confront and I like the play on "Law and Order" types actually just creating Chaos, that the dichotomy of Order and Chaos is often just a fabrication or means of weaponization.

United Spacetimes of America

In the United Spacetimes of America the White House is adorned with bloated, diseased corpses of the poor, punctured on spiked benches, loudspeakers singing baby shark off key on endless repeat. Children under 13 must be accompanied by parents on the tour. 

Watch out for the West Wing. Through the silken halls, camouflaged among the antique treasures plundered across Spacetimes, in all colors of our rainbow and many more, the barbarians are said to roam. An experiment gone awry, a cult, an emergent collective of the spurned and forgotten, nobody knows for sure.

I imagine it sort of like to America what Marvel's Otherworld/Avalon is to Celtic mythology and the British Empire, or like WH40K's Imperium except steeped in Mythic Americana.

On the Shoulders of Giants

A once towering god king, an embodiment of strength, frail and brought to its knees, torn apart and consumed, salvaged for parts. A living idea in its moment of death, trapped in time, trapped in its own myth, upon which we reside.

Rorschach Not-Review

I finally read Tom King's Rorschach and it's really good. I especially like the way he juxtaposed Rorschach's Rorschach with the smiley-face of The Comedian; or Frank Miller's "Dark" with the Silver Age's simplicity, of meaning vs. nothingness but also clarity vs. obfuscation.

I've talked a lot before about the idea of pareidolia, and of how the way perception imposes anthropomorphism onto things could be like a kind of animism, or a control mechanism, a cybernetic interface to the noosphere.

It would be interesting to have something like a pulp hero, a Rorschach type, with a pareidolic mask. A living symbol like Batman claims to be, a force churning through the system of human minds via human bodies like Frankenstein's monster.

Willed into being, something connected to the human experience, a reflection on meaning lacking any of its own.

The Chattering Class: A Poltergeist Form for Maximum Recursion Depth

I ran a game jam for Maximum Recursion Depth (Exalted Funeral Print+PDF, Itch, Drivethrurpg) a while back, where I and a small panel selected one participant to have art and layout commissioned for their Poltergeist Form. Klintron of Sewer Mutant and Kid Minotaur won the jam with his entry The Chattering Class, which we have just released!

Also thank you Sarah Carapace and Roque Romero for the art and layout!

Designer Personalities

A world of designer drugs of viruses, bacteria, gut microflora, hormones and pheromones and neurotransmitters; leveraging the interaction of mind and body, the idea of a static personality becomes obsolete, identity itself re-constructable. Influencer personalities spread like memes. "The self" as a choice which most reject.

Worlds out of Phase: There is Only Forward Here

Worlds out of phase, passing through moments like walking between the raindrops. Each step a rotation through spacetime, winding forward and backwards like magnetic tape. A wrong step into another dimension, another universe, seamless and a-logical like a dream. Reality as we know it as thin and sharp as a razor's edge, or the needle of a drawing compass.

Imagine like Kokkoku except instead of being stuck in a single moment in time, they slide through moments in time or even other dimensions or universes, out of phase with the rest of reality as we know it.

Always right beside us, yet out of reach. Knock-on effects bottlenecked by three dimensions. A disturbed nexus, an interface, reverberations from unknowable origins.

Splicing frames of reality with each step, a wrong right turn intractably alters the source- there is only forward here.

The Earth's Core is a Mineral Intelligence

The Earth's core is a mineral intelligence, vibrations of sounds and lights and gravity curves rending warbles in time, oozing through geothermal vents in deep ocean, gluttonously exploiting their uncontested ecological niche, blissful, yet prepared, in the deep and dark places, waiting.

Encoded messages, names, written in quantums carved by the pressures of gravity. Glassy glittery splinters, undulations like a whining accordion, splines of spacetime, animations between frames of film, life subliminally.

Disproportioned, stretched grotesquery, funhouse mirror reflection, closer than it appears. It can't be helped.

Non-Euclidean curvatures fold the real and imaginary planes, the creatures kaleidoscope in patterns of impossible colors.

Anomalies abound, snaking wyrms and phosphenes. Anti-patterns, violent vectors, infection, a perverse microverse, magnified in gravity's shadow, a spotlight on the puppet performance.

Mineral bodies fighting holographic infection. Entropic draconic breath crackling, bacterial blue veins, cracked rainbows coated in droplets of regret. We sense the contrast like sharp edges, our shared language of panic and pain, and also pleasure.

RPG Scenarios and Puzzles based on Logic, Behavior, and Algorithms

As part of my interest in Non-Violent Encounter Design, these are RPG adventure seeds or encounters rooted in logic, behavioral phenomena or algorithmic thinking. They don't necessarily eschew violence altogether, but clever ideas will far outperform violent or linear ones.

I had intended to write more of these but it's been over a week since I've posted anything and I'm doubtful I'd have come back to this draft otherwise so here ya go, two good ones, one that I only picked the phenomena but never actually wrote, and one that's probably too complicated and also probably needs to be couched in more RPG terms so it doesn't look like a grade school math problem.

1. A seer proclaims that among three caves, one contains treasure and two contain aggressive dragons. There is no reason to prefer any one cave over any other, however, after the party decide to investigate one of them presumably at random, the seer provides another message just before they head out, that one of the two caves that they did not pick certainly contains a dragon. Each cave involves a laborious and dangerous Crawl, and if a dragon is provoked, it will cause havoc and likely destroy the opening to the treasure bearing cave, so they only get one chance to find the treasure. Which cave should they investigate?
   Monty Hall Problem: If the party sticks to their original decision, there is a 33% chance they found the cave with the treasure because they picked randomly among 3 caves. However, if they switch to the other cave after the seer eliminated one of them, there is now a 50% chance they found the cave with the treasure because they picked randomly among only 2 caves, so they are better off switching. This one may look familiar...
   
   
2. There has been an outbreak of monstrous wild boars eating crops, livestock, and causing destruction and mayhem. The wild boars are too numerous and too crafty to be wiped out by brute force alone, not even the entire army could do so without burning down the whole countryside. The king has established a high bounty on the wild boars, where hunters can return the tails of boars to collection centers for reward. However, in the time since the bounty began, many tails have been collected for reward, yet the boar problem is as bad as it's ever been. The party have been sent to investigate how the boars are reproducing so quickly.
   Perverse Incentives: Some unscrupulous "hunters" have begun to breed the boars in order to farm the tails for profit- not only obfuscating and failing to solve the underlying problem, but actively exacerbating it when inevitably some bred boars escape. Getting to the bottom of this will not solve the wild boar problem, but at least it will reveal that the bounty policy is broken.
   
   
3. Four Card Problem
   
   
4. The Dark Lord is building an army, where the devil summoners' invocation requires that they count the sum of all numbers between 1 and the total number of devils they intend to summon. The grand council of war wizards are trying to summon a counter-army of valkyries with the same invocation, but there are more devil summoners than war wizards and so as it stands, they will inevitably lose the war. However, there are ancient legends of war wizards capable of summoning far greater numbers of valkyries, suggesting there must be some non-linear invocation spell.
   Gauss Sum (an easier explanation): With the current invocation spell, to summon 100 valkyries, one would have to count the sum of all numbers between 1 and 100, or 5050. However, the sum of each symmetrical pair will be the same i.e. 1+100=101, 2+99=101, so actually, the invocation can be much simpler. Just take the number of pairs, or in other words, the total number divided by 2, multiplied by the sum of the first and last number, i.e. (n/2)*(first number + last number). With this new spell, a single war wizard can summon hundreds of valkyries in seconds, while it continues to take devil summoners hundreds of seconds to summon only 100 devils.

Stop!! Hibari-Kun! Not-Review

 

I saw this anime (originally a manga but I watched the anime) recommended on a tiktok (unfortunately can't remember where specifically anymore). I'm not gonna lie, I went in with low expectations, expecting it to be a slog to get through at the very least, or extremely offensive at the worst, but I was actually pleasantly surprised on both counts. It certainly is of a time and place, but all things considered I thought it handled the issues surprisingly well (obviously I am hardly an authority on the matter though so take what I say with a grain of salt), but more importantly, it was just a really fun and enjoyable show, I liked it so much I ended up practically binging it.

So I've buried the lede, but Stop!! Hibari-Kun! is a 1980's animated sitcom about a "cross-dressing boy" (although in most regard she really seems to be transgender and I will use she/her pronouns), her yakuza family, and a boy, a friend of the family, who is living with them.

While many episodes do involve Hibari's gender at least in some way (much less so as the show goes on), Hibari herself is basically always in control of the situation, never in any real danger, always comes out on top, and it always feels like the audience is expected to be on her side- to the point that she will often wink and stick her tongue out to the audience in fourth wall breaking assurance. It has almost a Looney Tunes / Bugs Bunny kind of logic to it.

Her family largely doesn't understand her identity in critical ways and I can very much imagine that would be triggering for people, yet at the same time, despite being this traditionalist yakuza family obsessed with conventional masculinity, they ultimately are mostly accepting of her when it counts, on the occasions where they're kinda shitty to her it's usually about something else, and her grace in the matters feels more like a strength of her character than an implicit acceptance of those characters. There are subtle things, like how her youngest sister and one of the yakuza underbosses will refer to her with she/her pronouns and call her Hibari-chan instead of -kun. There is one episode where Hibari has a really sweet moment with her dad where he is more explicitly accepting of her and they bond; little nice things like that. Similarly, whenever characters treat Hibari poorly due to her gender identity, they are always painted as the butt of the joke or being in the wrong in the situation. Also, there are plenty of episodes, especially as it goes on, that have little to nothing to do with Hibari or her gender and are good on their own terms.

As for the situation of the sitcom; there's Hibari, her yakuza father, her three sisters (two older, one younger), and Kosaku who is Hibari's age, the friend of the family who is living with them because his mom died, and then various ancillary characters like school friends, bullies/rivals, yakuza henchmen, etc. Only her family, Kosaku, and the yakuza know that she is a "cross-dresser", at school she identifies as a girl and in fact she's the most popular girl in school. There are sometimes plotlines where her identity is threatened to be exposed, and I think it's handled about as well as could be hoped for what is not an ideal plot pivot point from a modern perspective, but ya at least imo it seemed to be mostly handled well. Also, that becomes much less focal as the show goes on.

Episodes often involve episodic or slightly-serialized romcom triangles or quadrangles, typical teen sitcom type stuff. There's a bit of a will they / won't they with Hibari and Kosaku. His inability to confront his own ideas about gender and sexuality, again, could be triggering, but I think the show does a good job of framing things in such a way that the audience is not meant to sympathize with his "struggle".

The later episodes are not quite as good, at a certain point they kinda jump the shark, and over time it becomes less focused on interesting character drama and more on wacky hijinks alone which fell a little flat for me. I do appreciate though that many episodes are focused more on the side characters than Hibari or Kosaku, and some of the best episodes are not really about them.

In typical not-review fashion I'm not explaining this show well, but I just find it really fun and delightful. Hibari is a strong character, she's funny, she has that larger than life cartoon logic to her; even the situation aside it's genuinely a fun show, and I also hope people find the character to be a powerful and suitable symbol and don't find it offensive or hurtful, or can enjoy it independent of that, just for what it is, a fun show.

MRD Vol.2 PR 7: MRD is Sacrifice

After some discussion on my server, I've decided going forward to refer to what was previously being called Maximum Recursion Depth 2 (MRD2) as MRD Vol. 2. I've updated the labels on previous posts but the text and titles have been left unchanged for now. I will definitely screw this up and occasionally refer to it as MRD2 still but oh well. MRD Vol. 2 takes place in the same setting and is mostly cross-compatible with MRD Vol. 1 and I had intended it to be like an ongoing "zine", or almost like an ever expanding superhero comic book universe, but calling it MRD2 gave the impression it was like a new version of the game altogether, which is definitely not the case. Let me know what you think of this.

Current Index

Play Reports

MRD Vol.2 PR 6: Napalm Octopus, Razzle Dazzle Dog, and Turkey head on a stick (Shalom Bebee!)

MRD Vol.2 PR 5: Captain Cobra crashing the castle in 5...4...3...2...1...

MRD Vol.2 PR 4: Political Intrigue in Non-Violent Dimensions

MRD Vol.2 PR 3: You Weren't Supposed to See That Yet

MRD Vol.2 PR 2: This Time With Golem

MRD Vol.2 PR 1: Maximum Recursion Depth Volume 2, or Sometimes Less is More and Sometimes More is More

Some other posts for context

MRD Vol.2 Campaign Setup

MRD Vol.2 Nazarite Contracts

Mecha Gear with Tarsos Theorem Concept Crafting

Jewish American Identity and Jewish Philosophy in Maximum Recursion Depth Volume 2

Color Codes:

Design Notes

Hyperlinks

THE CAMPAIGN

The Corporation

RegeXperience: “Live for the RegeXperience”. Childishly edgy experimental entertainment and defense company that doesn’t want the world to know what’s really behind their algorithm. EXPERIENCE, ALGORITHM, ENTERTAINMENT

The Manager

Baz Beetz: Infectiously enthusiastic “artiste” and true believer in the company mission who is as profound as nonsensical.

The Cyblessed Liaison

“Tastes like eating out the ass-end of human progress.”: Like a cheap flaccid little candle dripping wax down an otherwise glorious cake wearing a tacky suit reminiscent of a 1980’s faux-wood-paneled station wagon.

The Issue

The Team must survive on Neo Siberia Bead, overtaken by the angelic Ophan bio-engineered slime molds, Smiling Boy Cultists, and famine. Not only must they survive, but they must hatch an escape plan within a month, before the Solar Scorch immolates the entire Tomino's Array (and lasers Washington DC into oblivion...)

The Team

Ben: Larry

Nazarite Contract: Fast Lane Fintechnomancer

Golem: Lycaon Strain

Larry's past life was one of public mission in conscious contrarianism to his peers partying with the money of their employers. The brief accolades received from new acquaintances never quite made up for the lack of money and freedom. When he'd ask what others were doing to make the world a better place, they'd stare as if they had never considered the question before. What's the point of caring if no one else does?

Lukas: Ikarus

Nazarite Contract: Infrared Ranger

Golem: Chemysterious Cascader

Was an heir to a crime family but betrayed them when his conscience caught up to him. In need of structure and a sense of justice, but without any good frame of reference and few other options, he shortly thereafter accepted the Nazarite Contract with The Corporation.

Huffa: Ernst

Nazarite Contract: Psychonautical Sub-Mariner

Golem: Forgetting Pile - An oozey amorphous Golem collective made of empowered trash and detritus.

An old man who trawls through the unconscious sea gathering the things people forget from their dreams. Sometimes its material that The Corporation deems useful.

Where we left off...

The Team have been trapped inside the bio-engineered Ophan slime mold-infested Neo Siberia Bead of Tomino's Array, the former Space Settlement of the Ziegler Family, the most powerful faction of the spacenoids. They've held out for roughly a month, building a domicile and maintaining the life support systems, but soon they must break out, or else the entire Array will burn to a crisp channeling solar energy firing at Washington DC.

Salvation!

The Smiling Boy Cultists have created a human-ophan hybrid and celebrate their salvation. Its body is twisted in an Oroboros wheel shape, a pink fire in the center, and numerous pairs of phoenix wings sprouting from the core. It speaks gibberish gurgled through slime in grotesque smacking sounds and wet farts. A disgusting, pitiful thing, transcendentally alluring.

Simultaneously, a tear in reality forms along the inside of the ceiling of the Neo Siberia Bead.

Mother at the Gate

Smooth, featureless humanoid abstraction; an over-large face of holographic planes of two eyes and a mouth, sloppily desperately pressing against the edge of reality-the gate, wanting. Mother at the Gate weeps silently.

The holograms subliminally flash the words SPACE, TIME, and CONSCIOUSNESS, and project the message that a sacrifice must be made in the name of each before the end of the phase.

SPACE is [] and SACRIFICE

TIME is [] and SACRIFICE

CONSCIOUSNESS is [] and SACRIFICE

Is, And, But, Not, All, None

Here, Now, Then, There, Alone, Together

SARAI, HOGARTH, ESME, THELEAPINGLORENZINO, CAPTAINCOBRA, DOUGHBOY, CYRILZIEGLER, ABE, ISAAC, LARRY, IKARUS, ERNST, FREDDYMERCURY, ASHMCCLAREN, BAZBEETZ

The SACRIFICEs must consent, but can be coerced or misled.

The SACRIFICEs must mean something. What would “CONSCIOUSNESS is FREDDYMERCURY and SACRIFICE but not here” or “SPACE is THELEAPINGLORENZINO all together then and SACRIFICE” mean?

The idea here was for it to be like the videogame Baba is You, but more loose and abstract, it would be too complicated and distracting to make them full-on puzzles like the videogame. It seemed like a logical extension of Concept Crafting in MRD Vol. 2, and the usage of Words as a core part of the gameplay. I had conceived of this "sacrifice" scenario before having the idea to make it like Baba is You sentences, which was itself very last minute. The scenario turned out fine, but I need to think more about specifically how I want this Baba is You mechanic to work.

The SBC are marching in a vector towards Mother at the Gate. The scene is like any cult confronting what they've been told is their salvation, reveling in awe of nothing.

The Team engage with the SBC amicably, learning that Abe has sacrificed his and Sarai's son Isaac to create the human-Ophan Isaac hybrid, Sarai seemingly resents existence and lives almost entirely in the Zoetrope Superhighway via her Virtual Boy VR headset, Hogarth is jealous of Sarai and wants to be closer to Abe, and Esme is jealous of Isaac's significance to Abe and the SBC.

Summoning their Golem and using their various Gear and Nazarite Features, they toss a supernaturally augmented child's skeleton, that of Isaac which they recovered at the end of the previous session, and manipulate the crowd to convince Abe to sacrifice himself, after which the rest of the family are in turn pressured or convinced to sacrifice themselves:

CONSCIOUSNESS IS NOT ABE ALONE NOW AND SACRIFICE

TIME IS TOGETHER NOW HOGARTH AND SACRIFICE

SPACE IS ESME TOGETHER THERE AND SACRIFICE

After which the Bead ruptures, and the SBC mysteriously phase away. Captain Cobra had hoped to rescue some of the cultists who had once been regular citizens of the space settlement and were victims of circumstance, and it is later confirmed that some of the phased SBC reappeared among the space flotilla of the Pirates of Perversity.

Confronting the Amalekite Fleet

While Captain Cobra returns to the Pirates and they hack the Array to stop the Solar Scorch, The Team (with Cyril Ziegler) are confronted by the Amalekite Fleet.

Enthalpy Olam Ha Ba (Amalekite Fleet Commander) raises a portrait videocomm with The Team, threatening them for approaching the Fleet. A necrotic Hamsa hand clutches and obscures their face, revealing only their corpse-like bulging eyes and purple pallor. The Hamsa's "evil eye" is like a holographic tattoo, and fractal, like countless eyes within eyes.

Their voice sounds transduced and lossy, with a "shhh" noise coming through the wire, and with uncannily improper inflection like modern AI generated speech. They fire what at first appears to be a missile towards The Team, but is actually the Ark of Lailah of the First Cry and Final Word. Meanwhile, Hamsa hand orbital strike pods descend towards the Earth; the Amalekites planting spies and saboteurs throughout the world.

The Team are given the option whether to pursue the Hamsa Strike Pods before they fall out of scan range, or defeat Lailah while the Pirates of Perversity stop the Solar Scorch, and they choose the latter.

Lailah of the First Cry and Final Word: Eldritch kaiju beastwoman in a translucent tube. Her chest is torn open and instruments pump air and fluids in the heart and lungs which pulse against the surface of the tube as if trying in vain to escape. The exposed head, not quite human nor beast, chokes and breathes in eerie, dissonant whistles like the violin strings of a horror movie score, and not quite human nor beast blood-curdling shrieks.

Uses Full Quiver Quivering at the beginning of Conflict and defeating the angels destroys the Gear, meanwhile each turn it will use Star Coo. After Full Quiver Quivering is destroyed, it will use Ribbon Strike Proboscis.

Uses each of the other Gear once each turn until destroyed.

Star Coo (PANIC + ALLURE)

A sound like bleating, nails on a chalkboard, sensual whispers, and reminiscent humming. Next action must apply a Star Coo negative mod.

1. PANIC (Wd6)
2. WORSHIP (Wd6)
3. SUBMISSION (Pd6)
4. PAIN (Nd6)
5. OBSESSION (Pd6)
6. TRAUMA (Nd6)

Full Quiver Quivering (BABY + NIGHT)

Swirls of spacetime vibrating softly until activated, like little eyeballs of starlight. Nervous creatures born with violent purpose.

Summons 3 angels, each with a driving need. They home in on enemies until their need is met. Defeating an angel provides its need as a mod. SUSTENANCE (Serpent tongue, oily wings, Nd6), LAUGHTER (goat horns, hyena maw, Pd6), PATIENCE (cockroach thorax, elephant trunk, Wd6).

Ribbon Strike Proboscis ((ENERGY + OUBLIETTE) + LIGHTNING)

Projects like lightning, a tree fractal of lung, an energy vortex trapping its prey inside and sucking the life out of them, exposing traumas. Breaking the mod makes it acquirable.

Each turn drains oxygen (Nd6) and induces hallucinations (Wd6).

The lung branches crack through your Golem, down your mouth… While doing so, the proboscis is vulnerable:

Insurgent Seed: Dropping a seed inside you, which will fight for survival against your Wyrm Shamir symbiont. Now or in the near future, some major change or conflict will challenge your Nazarite Vow.

Lost Breath (KAO): Stealing your breath, taking your voice and replacing it with another. When you speak, rather than carbon exhalation, you release an inhuman sound or visible substance. To find your literal voice, you must find your figurative voice as well.

• Rejecting the KAO takes an additional Wd6 per turn, or Enhanced WIS Damage once to be permanently immune.

Karma Vampire: It steals something from one of your Karmic Attachments, changing its nature and replacing it with something fabricated and hollow.

I did not have the time or energy to draft this up until nearly a week after the fact so I've forgotten a lot of the particulars unfortunately, but it went really well. I've foregone HP or attack/damage rolls altogether for Golem conflict; instead the PCs must disable the opponents' Gear. In this case Lailah's Gear deal Damage to the PCs' Golems automatically per turn or reactively (as a consequence of the PCs' actions), and probably I'll design things similarly going forward because I was happy with how this went, it just made things way smoother and the Players could focus solely on the problem solving aspects of disabling the Gears vs. any mechanical stuff.

Ikarus took the Karma Vampire effect from Ribbon Strike Proboscis, altering their Karmic Attachment with IQ Warburton III aka The Cofounder in ways which will be explored in the future.

Ernst took the Insurgent Seed, relating it to their Nazarite Vow:

Among the ruins you have found a treasure, and you must cherish and protect it from a world that will never love it as much as you do.

Where the treasure is an already chewed ball of bubblegum, the implications of which have not yet been explored.

Larry took the Lost Breath Karmic Attachment, and now coughs blood and bile when speaking, not unlike their Lycaon Strain Golem itself.

After defeating Lailah, the Amalekite Fleet finishes its Hamsa Strike Pod drops and flies off, and the Pirates of Perversity stop the Solar Scorch just in time to save Washington DC (but Tomino's Array has been burnt out from the inside out).

Back at HQ

For saving Washington DC, the Team receive the Mods VICTORY, GOVERNMENT, and PROMOTION, in addition to what they salvaged off of Lailah.

They also learn that the Ziegler Family, now located on Anno's Array, have created an alliance between the spacenoids and the Amalekites and have declared war against Earth.

They were offered the following Issues to explore:

• Track down the Amalekite spies throughout the world.
• A cosmically significant being known as The Celestial Predator is heading towards Anno’s Array. Despite the war, The Celestial Predator must be dealt with or else it could lead to the extinction of all mankind, Earther, Spacenoid, and Amalekite alike.
•  Eden-Cheney Processing has acquired the rights to the Teagen Tenderloin Kaiju carcass (from all the way back in the first few sessions...), which may inadvertently expose corporate intel, as a Tempeh Toon for which RegeXperience owns the license. Meet with Freddy Mercury at their Napa facilities.
• While not an Issue per se, The Team may choose to make a formal complaint to HR about the Cyblessed Poachers, Cyblessed who were hunting humans for sport in the Neo Siberia Bead, or in some other way attempt to address this situation.
  
  

Unlike at the beginning of the Campaign, the Team now have The Upstartups as well as The Corporate Alliance. As GM I gave them fiat that unless I say otherwise, it can be assumed that however they want to delegate the tasks as Players will work out, but that does not preclude the possibility of betrayal or acts of self interest. With that in mind, and so I can effectively prep before next session, they chose to take on the Issue of tracking down the Amalekite spies, while still filing the HR complaint (but not prioritizing it as their main Issue), delegating the deal with Eden-Cheney Processing and the Teagen Tenderloin Kaiju carcass to the Upstartups, and delegating covertly investigating The Celestial Predator on Anno's Array to the Corporate Alliance.

There are a lot of moving parts in this Campaign at this point, and I asked the Players at the end of session if they'd like to start seeing closure on certain things or if they were content with how things were developing, and they said the latter. Even so, probably for my own sake some of these threads should start getting tied up, but we'll see!

Weird Senses

Shoutout to Semiurge, Bugbear Slug, and Harris for suggestions! Several of these are my interpretations of some of their suggestions, we had a lot of intersecting ideas, there's way more one could do with this concept than is fully explored here for sure. They had several more suggestions that I didn't think fit with what I was doing here, but were still really cool in their own right, so hopefully they will do their own versions of this too. Here I focus more on the senses per se than the sense organs, but they had great suggestions that had more to do with form and in a few cases I couldn't resist, but another table could lean more so into that.

As with Weird & Non-Violent Superpowers, I had intended to write 50, but coincidentally ran out of steam again at 21, so maybe I'll just start making that a thing.

1. Broadband Electromagnetic Vision: Micro, radio, infrared, ultraviolet, etc.
2. Anti-Pattern Awareness: Acute awareness of irregular processes.
3. Subjective Time Differential: Intuit the difference in the relative experience of time between two or more individuals such as due to traumatic stress, fun, boredom, etc.
4. Inflammasome: High-resolution conscious awareness of inflammasomes, microbiomes, pathogens, and DAMPs.
5. Infra/Ultra-Sonic Hearing: Hear low- or high-frequency soundwaves.
6. Empathy: Advanced awareness of emotional states.
7. Hyperspatiality: Perceive higher dimensions.
8. Multiversity: Awareness of other selves across the multiverse.
9. Simulation: Maintain full conscious awareness of one or potentially more imagined spaces, or simulations, and mentally move through and perceive them as if real.
10. Mutagenic Digestion: A gooey pouch-like organ. When a sufficient mass of sensory organ of another species is placed inside and digested, it temporarily takes on that organ's form and function.
11. Will: Awareness of the will to live of those in the vicinity.
12. Reflection Tracing: Perceive the source of a reflected signal like light or sound, or anything along its path.
13. Smooth Time: Experience the flow of time not as single moments, but as the rolling average of ~6s of normal time, like lotion moisturizing consciousness indulgently.
14. Infomatica: Perception of the coalescence or collapse of information i.e. enthalpy and entropy, in all its forms.
15. Beyond the Cave Awareness: Awareness of the Platonic Form, Prototype, or most Exemplar of any thing.
16. Genopathic Chemoception: Chemocept the genetic or evolutionary history of organisms via something like taste.
17. Cherubic Pressure: Sense love density as a kind of pressure. Passion and lust acute like pain, attachment and contentment firm yet dull, like a squeeze on the shoulder.
18. Econometric Temperature: Sense the exchange of money and goods or services like wispy phosphenes in the periphery and broad market trends like storms and bolts of lightning.
19. Super-self Awareness: Recognition of the self as part of one or more super organisms, the ability to mentally graph the network like a map, and sense one's place in the map, like if a cell in your body could in part commune with you.
20. Morpho-Lucidity: Perceive nearby dreams as if they were real (be careful not to lose track of what's real and what's a dream...).
21. Anthropocene: Awareness of social constructs, legalism, taboos, and other epiphenomena of human civilization; like seeing the source code of the matrix or the fine print of a contract or the view from a CEO's corner office on the top floor of a skyscraper.

Weird and Non-Violent Superpowers

I was really happy with my previous Superpowers 2.0 Weird & Wonderful Table (and from there I link some older tables), but I'm also really interested in Non-Violent Encounter Design which is a emphasized in my game Maximum Recursion Depth, so I wanted to try conceiving of superpowers that are dynamic and interesting, but not strictly violent in utility or nature. So, rather than generic "telepathy" or "mind control", it might be "knows when a lie is told". It's ok if the powers could theoretically be used violently, but they should be interesting in non-violent ways. Redlight from the Superpowers 2.0 table would also be good for this table but I'll do new ones. It wouldn't surprise me if I accidentally recreate some powers I've written before but will try to avoid doing that.

Was gonna do 50 but then lost my momentum, so here are 21.

1. Babylon: Understand all languages, and also understand the nature of semantics, syntax, and pragmatics.
   
2. Martian Tonic: Secretes a vapor that evokes a panic response in anyone who tries to lie in their presence.
3. Pre-Tort: Immediate and flawless knowledge of all laws and legal precedents in a location; supernatural ability to identify, defend against, and exploit legal loopholes and fine-print.
4. Psy-cartography: Real-Time high-resolution mental map (not "live-footage", still symbolic) of any city-sized area that reveals itself as an area is explored for the first time, and can be accessed at any time.
5. Lockpick: Pick any mechanical, electronic, chemical, etc. lock and encrypt any code, without conscious knowledge of the key, lock mechanism, decryption key, algorithm, etc.
6. Atomic Schedule: So long as an event was feasible at the time of adding it to the schedule, can never be late for any scheduled event, nor be required to leave early, nor be the cause of rescheduling. The universe itself will conform to make the schedule work.
7. Raw Power: Fully power any object car-sized or smaller effortlessly (including themself), whether the object requires food and water, gasoline, electricity, etc. Can power larger objects to varying degrees with effort.
8. Finders Keepers: Lost items softly glow in their presence, and if taken, gently compel them towards the original owner.
9. Tag: Any person or object tagged can be tracked via a tag sense for up to 24 hours. Only one thing may be tagged at a time and tagging something new replaces the previous tag.
10. Rhetoric: Supernaturally persuasive at argumentation, so long as the argument had any realistic chance of convincing in the first place. The power is in the argument, not a kind of mind manipulation per se.
11. Vuvuzela: Produce the sound of a vuvuzela that cannot be dampened even in a vacuum, nor magnified. Exceedingly annoying.
12. Matryoshka: Dismantling any object (without breaking it) yields a smaller but otherwise perfect replica of the original thing. Replicas can be further deconstructed, but a deconstructed object reconstructed cannot again be replicated.
13. Blame: If anyone else could conceivably have committed an act for which they would otherwise be the most likely perpetrator, any of those others will be suspected before them, especially if they point towards one other person or group specifically.
14. Forget-Me-***: Immediately forgotten when not in the presence of others, and immediately remembered when back in their presence.
15. Super-Synesthesia: Sense-responses mapped to other sense responses (like colors having a smell, or concepts having a tune, etc.) as with regular synesthesia, except the stimulus evokes the response even when it can't be perceived; e.g. even if blindfolded, someone wearing a yellow shirt would still smell yellow.
16. Hypno-Boar: Supernaturally boring. Not literally hypnotic nor sleep inducing, but one might be surprised with what they can get away with saying or doing in plain sight, or just behind the scene...
17. Treefall: Silent, so long as nobody is listening.
18. Hierarchy: Fill any power vacuum unquestioned. Maintaining the power structure is another matter...
19. Sponsor: Any one person at a time besides themself cannot be impeded from trying to better themself, so long as it is not intentionally at anyone else's expense.
20. Naptime: Any consenting individuals in the vicinity may immediately enter a restful, healthy, and otherwise natural sleep.
21. Becko-neko: Summons a needy golden cat randomly at inopportune moments. Heeding the beckoning cat provides a magic gold coin redeemable for any experience which the spender would otherwise deem too luxurious.

Tunnels & Trolls: Maximum Hack Pt. 2, Character Types and Talents

As I explained in the first post, this is an old draft I finally decided to publish. Apparently I never completed it, but it is what it is.

This is a continuation of TNT: Max, my heavily-modified hack of TNT (that may or may not get re-branded if I think it's sufficiently different from TNT proper). In the first post I talk about character creation and abilities, which I think maintain the spirit of TNT, while being more streamlined. Here I'll talk about Character Types and Talents.

Character Types

Warrior

The Warrior is virtually identical to TNT Deluxe.

• +1d6 combat dice per level (unarmed or melee weapon).
• Can double the damage reduction of armor but increase chance of it breaking (Roll SR LK for Wear & Tear).
• SR starts at 1, on each fail, increase subsequent Wear & Tear SR level by 1 and decrease damage reduction of armor by 1, until it no longer provides any more protection.
• No Magic

Rogue

I am not a fan of the TNT Deluxe Rogue. It seems to suffer from the "generalist" problem; it can do everything mildly well, but nothing exceptionally well, which is just not satisfying. I attempt to ameliorate that with this version of the Rogue. This version doubles-down on being a "skill monkey". Since I intend to heavily emphasize talents in this system as compared to TNT Deluxe, this will hopefully make Rogues much more useful.

• Start with one Level 1 spell and one extra Talent.
• Gain a number of spells each level with a total spell level up to their Rogue Level.
• E.g. A level three Rogue can learn three level 1 spells, or one level 2 spell and one level 1 spell.
• Once per day, can roll a LK SR in place of another SR at one level higher than the SR it's replacing.

Wizard

Other than gaining spells per level in addition to being able to learn spells by other means, wizards in TNT Max are basically the same as TNT Deluxe.

• Start with all first-level spells.
• Spells cost Wizard Level – Spell Level less PRE to cast (e.g. for a level 2 wizard casting a level 1 spell, the spell costs 2-1=1 less PRE).
• When casting with a focus (staff, wand, amulet, etc.) subtract Wizard Level from PRE cost (e.g. a level 2 wizard with a focus spends 2 fewer PRE to cast a spell).
• Only apply Combat Adds to Light Weapons.

Special Types

This includes Multi-Typing, Subtypes, Specialists, and other unique cases.

Multi-Typing

A character may choose to take the benefits of a different type. In other words, at Level 2, a Warrior may choose to take a level as a Rogue, meaning they would be considered a Level 1 Warrior and a Level 1 Rogue. It would not be practical to multi-type with Warrior and Wizard since they have certain mutually exclusive abilities (as a Warrior, you can't cast magic; as a Wizard, you can only apply Combat Adds to Light Weapons). In such a case, it may be better to make a subtype.

Subtypes

While it's fun to come up with new Character Types, sometimes it's more practical just to tweak a pre-existing Character Type. It's a good template to easily hack in your own Character Types without too much worry about balance or playtesting. I posted a few TNT Character Sybtypes that could be tweaked for this system pretty easily. In particular, if you want a completely non-magical Rogue, you can use the Ace; give them an additional talent instead of a spell at level 1, and they can add their Ace level to SRs when applying a talent in addition to the normal talent bonus.

Specialists

I have somewhat mixed feelings about including this feature from TNT Deluxe, but you certainly don't have to use it. If you rolled triplets on an attribute during character creation (put one or more asterisks by the attribute), they are considered "Specialists". You may want to tweak it depending on your setting, but I would say this should grant them something like a talent, or level 1 spell-like ability, as the result of a mutation or some other non-mundane means. It should be something that feels cool, but doesn't make them uber-powerful compared to the rest of the party.

Talents

Unfinished 🙃

Tunnels & Trolls: Maximum Hack Pt. 1, Character Creation and Attributes

This is a super old draft from like 2019. I kinda stopped with TNT after I had an off-putting interaction with one of the TNT devs (won't say which one, and will say explicitly it was nothing terrible, more just a difference of opinion?) and also because my Aquarian Dawn TNT Campaign got killed by covid (or maybe it had gotten disrupted by work, I don't remember anymore).

Anyway, I haven't been up for writing lately but wanted to post something, so I'm digging this out, make what you will of it. There's a part 2, I forget if that's sufficient or if I had left it in an incomplete state, but I'll post part 2 eventually as well.

design notes in this color

Tunnels & Trolls: Maximum

Or, 

The GLOG of TNT

I've been playing TNT for a little while now and really love the system. Here were my initial thoughts when I first started getting into it. This is my attempt to create a new version of the game, one that streamlines things and makes some heavy modifications, but is still true to what TNT is; in the spirit of DIY efforts towards old-school D&D from the OSR movement, and in particular GLOG. Even though I actually have very little experience playing GLOG, one thing that I like about it, is its emphasis on streamlining DIY and customization, and I hope this hack for TNT ends up working in a similar regard. While this hack does change the core game, it should be mostly backwards compatible with other versions of TNT, with a little bit of adjustment. It is probably presumptuous of me to assume this hack could have the same impact for TNT as GLOG has had for OSR, but that's the goal. I should also say that at this stage this hack is mostly untested, except for the pieces of retroactively integrated into my current campaign, but TNT is a simple enough system that I feel reasonably comfortable with the changes I've made to the system.

One additional note: I may decide to "rebrand" this entirely, removing TNT-specific terminology and making it effectively its own game, since TNT doesn't have a proper OGL or equivalent. My understanding is that the TNT people are pretty reasonable, but if I take this far enough, I'd like to actually have ownership of it, and I think the end product will likely be distinct enough to justify it. But at least for now I will continue to refer to it as a TNT hack.

I've been appreciating following Jones Smith's Fiction First system unfold at wasitlikely, so I've decided to break this hack up into several posts as well, and then I'll collate it all at the end. This makes it more manageable, and it also allows for me to adjust things based on any feedback.

Another note, I will likely continue to make new Character Types and Hacks for TNT Deluxe as I've been doing, but when possible, I will try to include versions for TNT Max as well, and also to make TNT Max versions of other Character Types I've already posted.

Character Creation

Roll 3d6 six times, drop the lowest two, and assign the values to the attributes Physique (PHY), Finesse (FIN), Presence (PRE), and Luck (LCK). You can be less generous at your table if you'd prefer, but I like to be nice.

If you roll triple values on any one of those 3d6 rolls, roll 3d6 again and take the total as a single value, and put a * next to that attribute for every triplet.

Either before or after attribute rolls, choose or roll randomly for a Character Type and apply any starting abilities.

Take an equipment package or some starting amount of gold (250 for instance).

Take three talents.

I've reduced the attributes for simplicity and out of personal preference. I'll explain my reasoning for these attributes next. Otherwise, this is mostly similar to standard TNT. I increased the number of talents because I think talents are a nice, light, flexible way to give characters special abilities, and talents will also effectively replace kindreds. I realize kindreds (race in D&D) is something many people like about the game, but I don't think it works as well with the decreased number of attributes since it's based on mulitplicative modifiers and how they affect combat adds. Even with D&D I prefer a race-as-flavor or race-as-class approach. However, if you want special kindred abilities, talents can be used in that regard (as discussed in a later post).

Attributes

Physique (PHY): This attribute reflects physical abilities, such as the ability to inflict physical harm, fighting skill, weight-lifting / encumbrance (if you're so inclined), physical durability, fortitude, etc.

• Use for PHY SRs.
• Add each point above 12 to damage total as Combat Adds.
• PHY also reflects the maximum amount of damage you can take before being incapacitated.

Finesse (FIN): This attribute reflects dexterity, flexibility, acrobatics, speed, agility, defensive maneuvers, hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, etc. 

• Use for FIN SRs.
• Add each point above 12 to damage total as Combat Adds.
• Use for missile attacks and finesse attack SRs.

Presence (PRE): This attribute reflects certain ephemeral aspects of a person; their force of will, magical abilities, ability to draw an audience, etc.

• Use for PRE SRs.
• Certain spells have a PRE minimum in order to be cast.
• PRE also reflects maximum mana for spellcasting.

Luck (LK): This attribute reflects luck as an actual force of nature in the universe, but also gets used as a catch-all for things that might not fit neatly into the other attributes, such as item durability (Wear & Tear). In certain cases it is also used to defend against the effects of magic; primarily curses or magic which affects fates and destinies.

• Use for LK SRs.
• Add each point above 12 to damage total as Combat Adds.
• Use for Wear & Tear SRs.

Attributes are where this hack most differ from core TNT. I prefer to have a few, very broad, very archetypal attributes. TNT Deluxe attributes aren't bad, and I can understand why somebody might want to keep Strength and Consitution or Intelligence and Wizardry separate, but that's not what I'm doing here. I've said before on this blog that I'm a big fan of Cypher System, so this is somewhat modeled after that. I've always liked the idea of "Presence"; in part because I don't like Intelligence as a quantitative attribute, but also because Presence allows you to condense magical ability, charisma, and some of these other ephemeral qualities in a useful and interesting way, so you can avoid dump stats while still codifying these qualities. I don't plan on making the curse / fates aspect of LCK a major sub-system, if I make it at all it would be bolt-on, but I do think that with four attributes, it doesn't make sense to have magic condensed solely into a single attribute. 

In subsequent posts I will talk about the different character types, talents, character advancement, and other basic mechanics of the game. It is mostly pretty similar to TNT Deluxe except where it is accounting for these attributes, but I do try to somewhat standardize characters and NPCs with a uniform Character Rating metric, but I'm getting ahead of myself!