Will You Be My Valentine?

Est. Read Time: 30min

Happy Valentine's Day, friends!

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It's been a touch longer since my last post than I had intended. It's still very much February though, so I'm still sticking with my goal of at least one blog post per month. Can't be mad about that. It is Valentine's Day though, and how could I miss the opportunity to make my February post also a love letter to my fine readers.

So, may I ask for each and every one of you to collectively be my platonic valentines today? Because I want to share with you all of the love you've shown me over the years.

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You are all such amazing people, and I am always so pleasantly overwhelmed by the love my writing gets. I know I whine a lot about how my readership isn't as vast or active as the fanfic authors I idolize, or I lament my stories not getting spin-off fanfics or fanart or fan theories like big-name fanfics get. I do tend to be ungrateful as I fall into my self-doubt spirals. I am so sorry for that and for guilt-tripping any of you about how you love my stories. How you do so shouldn't matter. What should matter is that you DO love them and read them and support me. So, thank you. I love you. You make my writing worthwhile. Your likes and kudos and faves and bookmarks and comments and reblogs all bring huge smiles to my face. I recognize the repeat readers, and you remind me that my writing is good enough for someone to want to read more from me. I see the new names, and you remind me that my writing isn't as invisible as I believe. You are all beautiful people, and I wouldn't be as far along in my skill if it weren't for you.

I know that the adage (and the healthier option for participating in a hobby) is to do it for me; no one else. However, I used to write for me. I used to tell myself stories. I was content keeping them in my head (maybe take some physical notes to keep the details straight). It was rare that I would actually follow through with writing anything down for years and years and years. If no one else was reading it, why bother putting in the effort to write it when I could just create the stories in my head?

Then I got into fanfiction writing. I still wrote for myself; just to get the ideas out of my head. I never edited, though. First draft was final draft. Throw it up online. If people see it they see it, if not... well... I wrote it for me. Not the greatest mindset for trying to hone or improve one's skills though. And, without trying to improve and sharpen my skills, my desire to become a published author was little more than a pipe dream and wishful thinking living off the scraps of being told most of my life that I was a gifted writer.

Then I started writing for my readers. No, I wasn't writing stories simply because I thought it's what you want to read. In that regards I still write for me. I still tell stories I want to tell and stories I wish I could read myself; so I create them. The part about writing for you, my readers, is more about my motivation. See, my desire and drive to improve my writing stems from my want to put out better stories for my readers. I started editing, revising, and - gasp - PRE-PLANNING my stories so the end results are better for my readers. I feel guilty about not being as prolific a writer as others I follow within the fandom because I want to have more things for my readers to enjoy. I have this blog so I can connect with you and give you a heads up on how I am and where I am with my writing; so you're not wondering where I vanished to. I get excited about parts of my stories because I imagine how my readers will react once they reach those scenes. I refuse to delete anything (I instead cut it and paste it into a "scraps" file) because I imagine some of my readers being fellow authors, and being able to show them where the polished story started and how much I had to revise might be encouraging for them. I started posting those cut bits to Tumblr because I thought my readers would get a kick out of them. I want to tell you all about my Scum and Villainy campaign (which is coming later) because my stories don't feel alive unless others know about them; unless my readers can experience them as well. My stories have all become extroverted divas that need that spotlight to feel real and complete, and you fine folks are all that spotlight.

So, thank you, yet again, for considering what I write worth your (most likely) precious little time available. It means the world to me. You are all such beautiful people. I'm going to explode with love.

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Speaking of my writing, you probably noticed that I didn't update this blog to promote my latest Plagg Appreciation Day story. I also haven't promoted it yet within this post. You may have also noticed - if you follow me on Twitter, Tumblr, AO3, FFN, or DA - that you didn't get a notification alerting you about the latest Plagg Appreciation story.

Yep. You guessed it. That's because there wasn't one. I tried. I spent three days plotting and pondering and playing with ideas. The closest I got to a fleshed-out idea was something akin to The Adventures of Brainy where Plagg daydreams that, instead of absorbing into the Miraculous jewels in order to power up a human superhero, he and Tikki transform into human superheroes themselves. I couldn't quite get the concept ironed out in time for Friday, January 13 though. Maybe I'll get it sorted by the next Friday 13th in October. Maybe I'll think of something completely different.

If you have any plot bunny ideas for a Plagg-centric story, feel free to pitch them my way.

Anyway, as it crept closer and closer to January 13th, I, of course, got more and more anxious about my story. I was doing what I always do and beat myself up over the fact that I didn't have this story done. This was MY holiday that I created. How could *I* not meet my own deadline and participate in my own created fandom holiday????

Then the 13th hit, and I realized how much pressure I was piling onto myself. It was FANFICTION. It was something people would read FOR FREE. It was a MADE UP holiday. I was seemingly the only one who even celebrated it, seeing as how I have never seen anyone else post anything Plagg-centric specifically on a Friday 13th or tag anything Plagg Appreciation Day or tag me on any Plagg Appreciation Day posts (exception being LivreVer once or twice). It DIDN'T MATTER if I posted a story or not.

Ah, the dark side of "I write for my readers": I pressure myself to hit arbitrary deadlines and feel guilty when I don't hit them. As if I'm disappointing you guys. I know I'm not disappointing you all. I KNOW! I have to retrain myself to let that feeling go. I have to remind myself that my readers are all lovely and patient and are excited to read my writing, regardless of when or how frequently I publish.

So, on January 13th, when I still had no idea what even to write, I battled with myself for a bit, and then let it go. I waved the white flag and marked a second missed Plagg Appreciation Day.

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Most of January was spent dealing with headaches at work anyway. Headaches I'm STILL dealing with, actually, but I won't get into that. Point being the few times I wasn't dealing with work stuff I was recovering from said work stuff. My brain was fairly fried, and I didn't even think about fanfiction. The fact that I hadn't seen a new Miraculous Ladybug episode since November probably didn't help motivate me to write anything. Not having the energy to go on Tumblr and interact with the fandom didn't help much either.

Instead, I focused on Scum and Villainy. We were racing towards our grand return to the campaign on the 30th. I needed to be prepared for that.

And I was not prepared for that....

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I didn't have time to break away and listen back to the recorded sessions while I was home, and I had slacked off; waiting until January to even start listening back to them and taking down GM notes. I tried to listen to the sessions like podcasts, but I had to stop too many times to take notes, so it wasn't good background noise for doing house work or getting ready for work. I tried listening while at work, and I got the farthest in doing that, but... work headache stuff... I didn't have the down time I needed to go through everything.

Soooooo.... the last time I ran a RIP race that all of the players could participate in was August! Seemed like a good way to ease everyone (including myself) back into the campaign, as well as introduce new characters! Plus, no real plot-line needed since the plot-line would be introducing the new NPCs. Hubby was off that day, so he created the new RIP race machines and rolled up the NPC start positions for me. Then, when we played, everyone else rolled their start positions. I finished the last-minute set-up. We did some soft roleplay - which is the limited improv I can handle - and the race itself is mostly just me keeping track of where everyone is. I didn't even bother coming up with a cool track design. It wasn't needed. The track wasn't the point of the race that session. The new rivalries were.

The session was fun. It felt like a nice way to ease all of us back in. The following Monday - being the 1st Monday of the month - we had another session. This time I had most of a job sorted out for the group. Not as much as I would have liked (I like preparing for the weird off-beat things they tend to do so I'm less likely to have to think of things on the fly), but enough to fake my way through it.

Aaaaaand then Hubby came up with something during soft roleplay that ended up becoming a job all on its own. The whole session was basically unplanned, soft roleplay... and all improv on my part.

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It was all good. We finished up the impromptu side mission around 10:15pm. We try to finish by 11pm. Definitely not enough time to actually get to the job I had planned. I began to panic a little on what we'd do for the next 45min. Do we just call it early? Am I going to have to scramble to come up with another "short" mission for the crew to go on?

And then the characters Demarcus and Quinton had a long debate about power struggles and setting up allies and what is the best strategy for the group. I didn't really need to do much of anything for the better part of an hour. I just got to enjoy them debate each other. Eventually I interjected to let everyone know how late it was and we should sort out experience for the game. So... aside from the adlibbing I had to do for about two hours during that side mission - which was mostly character driven; I can do that easily enough - it was a fairly lowkey session for me.

I'm going to be spoiled by the time we do our next session on the 20th and I ACTUALLY run that job I had planned out.

Speaking of, let's do some "mini" recaps of what's been going on with the Stardancer crew to catch everyone up!

Credit to the Scum and Villainy art team:
Brett Barkley, Tomasso Renieri, Juan Ocha, Michaela DeSacco, and Tazio Bettin
(Color by LycoRogue)

Tada! Yeah, I realized that I never actually shared my edit of the Stardancer artwork to showcase how the crew had their ship painted! I was going to show the playgroup first and then you guys... except I never came back to update this blog. Whoops. Anyway, I'm back now. This is the chrome-black with neon-green accent lights paint job they picked out for the Stardancer. How does it look? I wish I could have added a bit more dimension to the black paint job to give it more of a chrome look as opposed to just a matte black, but I wasn't as happy with my other two attempts.

As far as the campaign "plot" for the Stardancer crew (who still hasn't come up with a crew name outside of that), they have started up some trouble while also somehow going under the Hegemony's radar. They've added crewmates and collected quite a few pets. They've made enemies and powerful allies. It feels like we just started our campaign, but, at the same time, they've already outgrown their ship! It's been a bit crazy.

When I last caught you folks up, it was the third session. They had a mandatory mission from the Borniko Syndicate to air an advertisement for the Echo Wave Riders as a way to patch up the rift the crew caused between the two factions. In the process of airing said message for the EWR, the crew caught the attention of infamous wizard-class hacker Vorex. Their ship was spotted by a patrolling 51st Legion spaceship, and that lead to the crew picking the above paint job for their ship to try to disguise it. They finished up with a RIP race on one of Warren's sister moons. Since then, the main "plot beats" have been:

• Session 4 - Unfortunately, this was the first game where all three players couldn't attend. So I just sort of piloted tI'kæl so she was still there as the crew FINALLY delivered Ishi to The Cove. There they met Ishi's good friend Hunter Black, 4th in command of the Maelstrom Pirates. Hunter instantly took a liking to Demarcus, and I started the running gag of Hunter enthusiastically asking Demarcus and the Stardancer crew to join his crew/fleet. Demarcus always turns him down and counters that Hunter could join the Stardancers instead.
      Itching to fight someone, Demarcus signed up for a big open-call cage match on The Cove against famed Cove MMA fighter "The Prodigy". None of the 14 fighters that went before Demarcus lasted one round, and barely even winded the Prodigy, who was amped up with a bunch of mechanic limbs (a la the anime Megalobox, except they're actual artificial limbs as opposed to exoskeletons). Quinton was able to hack into the Prodigy's limbs (after Demarcus got pretty roughed up - including a sword through the left shoulder), and locked him into place so Demarcus could knock him out. Despite Quinton purposefully only freezing up the limbs for a few seconds at a time, people still suspected foul play. Thankfully, Quinton had called Hunter down to see if he wanted to place any bets on the fight, so he was fairly untouchable as Hunter escorted him over to the betting booth to collect their winnings.... which promptly broke the game economy since I wanted to showcase how intimidatingly tough The Prodigy was by making it something like 50 to 1 odds against Demarcus. Even with the players allowing me to retcon that down to about 10-1 odds, they walked away with an INSANE amount of money. Whoops!
• Session 5 - Hunter's last pet Razor passed away 3 years ago and he's ready for a new one. He sends the crew to fetch him a leaguin; a leopard-penguin hybrid with four wings that lives on the beaches along the equator of the jungle planet Amerath.
      I was kind of thinking of the Otter-Penguins from Avatar: the Last Airbender, except leopard-spotted, with a leopard's head and fangs, and with leopard-claws at the end of their webbed feet.
  
  
      The crew rounded up about half of a leaguin colony, kept one each for themselves as pets, and sold the rest to Hunter, who kept two as his own pets (they are social animals, after all). Hunter has been breeding and selling the rest on the black market. The crew then started up a campaign to legalize domesticating leaguins and keeping them as pets, even without an exotic pet license.
      Leaguins are docile unless provoked, and then they become EXTREMELY aggressive. While trying to fend off the attacking leaguins and corral the rest to take to Hunter, Demarcus broke out his flame thrower. Only one leaguin - who was particularly aggressive - got burned. Demarcus was like, "I like this guy. He's as reckless as me," and decided to nurse and adopt that one. For obvious reasons, it was still aggressive towards him; biting him frequently. So that leaguin's name is now Nippy. Seeing as how Memish are basically "seafood" as far as leaguins are concerned, tI'kæl's pet also kept trying to bite her (as did most of the others, to be fair), so she named hers PIMA. Quinton named his pet Languin, in honor of his mentor. I never came up with names for Hunter's pair; I should do that....
• Session 6 - Chaos Theory had another RIP race. This time through the gas planet of Vet. This is one of the first races I felt comfortable really letting the sport live up to its name. I had described the track as being windy, having a loop-the-loop, and having a gap the machines had to jump over. One of the racers ended up getting bumped off the track at that jump, and was lost in the debris making up the rings of the planet.
      Because the track seemed more suited for speed than brute force, Demarcus sat out. One of the team's rivals - Ice Heart from the Gravity Blades - had also stayed in the team bay because Demarcus had blown up his Machine - the Gremlin - the last race they did (the one after airing the EWR message; I forgot to come back to write about that last time). Quinton (as Poet) and tI'kæl (as Sanic) dominated the field, and was even humiliating Ice Heart's teammates AirJack and Bolt. Ice Heart was pissed and screaming at the screen projecting the race. Demarcus decided it would be a fun time to try to antagonize Ice Heart, and when that escalated into a scuffle, he slammed Ice Heart head-first into that screen, bending it around the guy's head and busting up his face pretty badly. As the race continued, AirJack's Machine The Victory blew up, and his escape pod was brought to the team bay. He got out of the pod right after Demarcus took out Ice Heart. AirJack tried to retaliate, managed to stab Demarcus in the side with a piece of busted plasma screen, and then Demarcus promptly shoved him head-first into his own escape pod; breaking his nose and taking out some teeth. With both main rivals now unconscious and bleeding in their team bay, Demarcus casually walked back to Chaos Theory's bay to finish watching the race. The third member of Gravity Blades made it to 3rd place, behind Sanic and Poet. The crew was impressed with Bolt's driving, her overall better (re: less cocky) attitude, and her attempts to keep the peace between her teammates and Chaos Theory. They offered her a spot on their team, but, after seeing her bloodied teammates and Demarcus proudly stating that it was his handiwork, she growled for Chaos Theory to walk away before things got ugly.
      Quinton made sure to save the plasma screen shard Demarcus took out of his side. Never know when they'll need something with AirJack's fingerprints on it.
• Session 7 - Another session that Rozsavaria had to miss. Which meant, canonically, tI'kæl had something else to attend to, so she left the guys alone. This was also right around Christmas 2021, so I decided to go with something holiday themed: A Christmas Carol. (Technically, I also had a job that was very How The Grinch Stole Christmas, but the guys decided to save that for a session all players could attend). The money lender Benser Cee Grooze (of Grooze and Jybac Moneylending) is also a bail bondsman and bookie on Quinton's home "planet" (it's a colonized moon) of Warren, and Grooze decided it's "harvest time". He placed bounties on all who have defaulted on his loans (bounty was 5% of debt owed), and had forced his workers into mandatory overtime without additional pay. The workers - rallied behind their boss Bob Kranket - had gone on strike. Grooze had put bounties on his striking workers and Bob as well. The crew was asked by a third party to help stop Grooze any way they could. Quinton and Demarcus needed to take down one of the major bounty hunters going after Bob before getting more info on what was going on. They opted to create a massive bounty for Demarcus in order to get the hunter's attention. Interrogation went array, resulting in the hunter and something like 32 civilians dying in a fire??? They promptly took the bounty off of Demarcus, and then went to Grooze with an offer to sell his business to Quinton's friend and mentor Lucian Lang. Negotiations took a bit longer (and a bit more narcotics) than expected, but they got Grooze loopy enough to sign away his company under the guise of becoming a partner in a retirement cruise spaceship. Fearing that Grooze will fight the legality of the acquisition as soon as he's sober, Demarcus sniped him from his own building and planted the rifle and ammo on one of the scabs working during the strike. Bob was then made CEO of the company (with Lang as the silent owner), and he removed all of the bounties Grooze put out.
• Session 8 - Back from her religious retreat, tI'kæl was mildly appalled by what the guys got up to without her, but at least it was for the greater-good in the long run (no more bounties on defaulted loans or striking employees; or a need to strike, for that matter). Having started up a strong acquaintanceship with Vorex since their meeting in session 3, Quinton received a job from her; a favor. She had discovered that the Counters Guild keeps extremely detailed records of all of their assets, but keeps a separate - but just as detailed - ledger of all their LIVING assets (such as Vorex's kidnapped sister). The ledger is closely guarded and constantly on the move to prevent people from getting to it. Vorex was able to figure out that the Guild was trying to move the ledger two star systems over (to Brekk) to a planet called Nightfall (so named because its 13 moons cause constant solar eclipses, casting the planet in "night" more frequently than "day"). The crew offered their services as "discreet couriers" to the shell company the Counters Guild used to move the ledger without people suspecting what the product actually was. They were given a caged Way Beast that resembled a blue, semi-translucent, ethereal tiger with twin tails wearing a collar. They were also informed that they had a strict timeframe to get the beast to Nightfall, and that they will be hunted down as thieves if they didn't reach their checkpoints in time for other members of this shell company to scan the beast's collar at the designated point. The crew quickly deduced that the collar contained the ledger, and - through Vorex's help - managed to create a way to clone the file from the collar so they could get that to her without stopping the ship (largely thanks to tI'kæl managing to Attune with the beast well enough that Demarcus could get the cloning device against its collar without being mauled). TI'kæl actually got so attached to the creature during her attunement that she wanted to keep it. Quinton had to remind her that the Counters Guild couldn't suspect any foul play, or all of the assets would be instantly moved, and the ledger would be scrubbed; failing their mission for Vorex. Despite some in-fighting among the crew, the actual smuggling job - both of the Way Beast to Nightfall and of the Ledger to Vorex - went off without a hitch. In fact, due to Hubby constantly rolling critical successes while piloting the Stardancer, they hit each checkpoint early.
      TI'kæl is now determined to track down where on Nightfall that Way tiger is so she could kidnap it and keep it as her pet.
• Session 9 - Another RIP race session, this time on one of the 13 moons that orbit Nightfall. Demarcus got a wrist slap over his attack against the Gravity Blades. His punishment wasn't more severe mostly because the cameras did show that - while excessively aggressive - Demarcus WAS only defending himself. He's allowed to still participate in League races, but he is no longer allowed to remain in the team bays unsupervised; indefinitely. Alternatively, the entirety of the Gravity Blades was banned from that race as punishment (ignore that both AirJack and Ice Heart were still recovering and Bolt didn't do anything against Demarcus or Chaos Theory), and are also not allowed in the team bay AT ALL while a race is going on. If they wish to watch instead of participate, they must do so from the stands or via video off-site.
      Despite the reprimand over the fighting in the bay, Demarcus was also offered a new League opportunity. The RIP League has a club for pilots called The Basher Bonus Club. Invited members to the club are given a "punch card"; their membership card on which black dots, or "punches" shows up for successful slams, forced retirements, or caused explosions. Forced retirements/caused explosions count as two punches vs the one punch for a successful slam. When five punches accumulate on the card, a Volt (a race-specific form of currency used to repair or upgrade the RIP Machines) is added to the pilot's race earnings and the punches reset. Members must at least ATTEMPT a slam in each race, or they are removed from the club until they are invited back.
      Other than that, the race went off without much of a hitch. Some more explosions. Poet and Sanic again podiumed, but this time they were joined by Demarcus (as Doc).
• Session 10 - This session I attempted to do something similar to the Fable games, and offer the same job, but on opposing sides. The mission centered around the Turner Society (the drug traffickers and drug den providers the Stardancers smuggled Vosian Crystals for in the first session) trying to take down their biggest competitor: high-end drug dealer Yon Lirak. He's actually a named NPC in the rulebook. His entry reads: "Runs a factory in Rost [on the planet Amerath] that never shuts down, producing synthetic narcotics for several major species. [He is] experienced, ruthless, [and] unforgiving" [pg 309 in the rule book]. The crew was given the option to either help the Turner Society take down Lirak's factory (run by slave labor) or help Lirak protect his factory from the sabotage.
      They still had that Grinch-themed job that was also on Amerath. That one had a researcher up on a mountain of Amerath requesting that someone stop the Dance of the Fairies festival that happens annually and disrupts the researcher's work for a solid month as the festival goes on in the valley below him. When the crew decided they'd prefer to help the Turner Society (in part because they were already friendly with them, in part because of the slave labor, and in part because Hubby decided Lirak was also a rival to Lang's drug empire), Quinton plotted that they could somehow frame the residents of the hamlet Hovayle who host the Dance of the Fairies festival, and the ruthless and unforgiving Lirak would come after them; affectively ending the festival.
      Quinton hacked the servers of Lirak's massive 30-story building and sent out a memo that the workers were allowed a two-day leave to participate in the Dance of the Fairies festival. Sixty-percent of the work force were able to leave and get onto shuttles that the Stardancers had set up before the rest of the facility went into lockdown and bounty hunters were sent to bring back the workers.
      Having another brilliant idea, Quinton had himself and Demarcus disguise themselves as AirJack and Ice Heart as they broke into the facility. TI'kæl randomly threw a disguise together and lucked into looking exactly like a flower shop owner from down the street. The trio made their way into the factory, hacked the system to make their way through the levels until they could get to where the drugs were actually being made (most of the building was living space for the slave laborers and guards, an on-site hospital, a brig, and packing facility). When they got to the brig, they found three people locked up. One was a big, burly guy foaming at the mouth trying to get at the guard on duty. Another was a frail fifteen-year-old who looked like he was pushing 90. And a third that looked like a string-bean of a man with a shark head. That was when I passed the floor to our newest player who introduced his shark-headed character as Fin and swore he had no clue why he was locked up. The crew let the trio out, assuming they were all falsely imprisoned by Lirak, and the burly guy instantly started beating the already unconscious guard to death. Having Fin scoop up the frail guy (named Chuck), the crew continued on through the facility. They got to the factory floor, and Quinton hacked into the system to steal the drug recipe, force a self-destruct flushing of the drugs already made, and destroyed all of the materials needed to make more. Sabotage complete, the group broke back out of the facility. Quinton made sure to escape via crashing through a window. He then left behind the shard AirJack had shanked Demarcus with to further frame the rival duo.
      After being rescued by the Stardancers, Fin revealed that his real name is Jet Ryle. He's a human, but he's also a gambling addict who isn't particularly good at the gambling bit. He has massive debt all throughout the Procyon Sector, and that was probably why Lirak had him locked up; to cash in on the hefty bounties on Jet. The shark head was also a result of the massive gambling debt he had accrued. One of his bookies offered to forgive his debt if he agreed to some medical experimentation. He happily accepted, got knocked out for surgery, and awoke in a back alley with a shark head instead of his own. Jet's player was inspired by this Sharkman character on the cover of the Gravity RIP rulebook.
  

  

  Illustration by Colin Craker

      Meanwhile, here's Chuck... he's just the old prisoner from Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
  
  
      Since sabotaging the factory (and unintentionally rescuing Jet) only took about 90min, they had time to still see to the Grinch-themed job. They split the crew; half would meet up with the researcher Hirg Chent and the other half would go to Hovayle to try to convince the town to not host the festival (or at least keep it down to not disrupt Chent's research). The Dance of the Faeries festival celebrates the annual solar eclipse on Amerath, which initiates the pollination season in that valley. The bioluminescent flowers and mushrooms release glowing spores that are collected by glowing insects; the whole cycle resembles what The Ancients (aka Earthlings) would describe as faeries or Will o' the Wisps. Hence the name of the festival. Since this is a nature-based event, it cannot be rescheduled, and it is the biggest influx of funds to the small hamlet, so the mayor refused to alter the festival at all. Meanwhile, tI'kæl had a great time talking about The Way with Chent, but couldn't convince him to do research somewhere else on Amerath while the festival was going on. Not finding a peaceful solution, and really wanting to take part in the festival themselves, the crew decided they're just murder hobos. They'll trick the researcher into thinking they stopped the festival, get paid for it, and then kill the researcher and transfer the rest of Chent's money to Ice Heart and AirJack to further frame them. The murdering-the-researcher bit went wrong as Chent's pet attacked to defend him. The pet is a domesticated wakeena: a wolf-like creature the size of a pony, has six legs, hyena-like spots, a prehensile tail, and 4 eyes. Chent named it Limainamilx, but called him Milx for short. In the scuffle, Chent's research and tablet/computer that would have been Quinton's access to Chent's bank account were all destroyed. In the end, the hobble Chent was living in was still standing and now vacant, so the crew left a mostly-recovered Chuck there before heading down to Hovayle.

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H'okay... even "abridged" these session recaps are LONG! I mean, the game sessions themselves average about 4hrs so... I think I'm doing pretty good at recapping. Either way, I think I should probably tag out with the introduction of Jet. Maybe I'll find time this month to do another post recapping more of the sessions in my attempt to catch you up with our game. At the very least, you are now caught up on nearly the full first year we've played. Jet was introduced in May, 2022. Also, with that being session #10, you know about half of the Stardancer saga, seeing as how we're going into session #23 this upcoming Monday.

So, to finish up, I'd like to address the elephant in the room (in the blog???). You have probably noticed that I'm still using the Coming Soon font this post. That's because I haven't really had much feedback with regards to the font options I gave everyone last post. Actually, I was offered a few other options to try out, which kind of hinders my ability to narrow things down to just one winning font. So I'm going to try this again.

The first font voted 'yes' on was Indie Flower. So here is a refresher on what Indie Flower looks like. THIS IS THE FONT IN ALL CAPS. This is the font italicized. This is it in bold. My concern with Indie Flower is that it feels like a smaller font. More condensed. Might be harder to read. I'm not sure though, so how does everyone feel about Indie Flower? Is this the keeper?

The second 'yes' vote was for Josefin Sans. Here's a refresher for Josefin Sans. THIS IS THE FONT IN ALL CAPS. This is the font italicized. This is it in bold. My concern about Josefin Sans is that it feels like a more generic font? It is definitely more print-friendly. Which might be a bonus and might be exactly why I should stick with it perminantly. On the flipside, I think I'd miss that "handwritten" feel of my blog's font. What are all of your thoughts on the matter? Do I go more professional, print-friendly and stick with Josefin Sans? Or do I keep the more unique (but definitely less-professional) hand-written look of some of these other options?

The first alternative option given was for Kalam. This is what Kalam looks like. THIS IS THE FONT IN ALL CAPS. This is the font italicized. This is it in bold. I do like the handwritten look to it. My concern is that it's SUUUUUPER spaced out. I feel like my already long posts will look unbearably epic in length if I go with this one. Plus, the italics are hard to notice since the font defaults at slightly-slanted. I'm not sure. What's everyone else's thoughts on Kalam? Should this be my new font for this blog?

Another suggested font was Mali. So this is what Mali looks like. THIS IS THE FONT IN ALL CAPS. This is the font italicized. This is it in bold.I don't mind this one. It's not too small or spaced out too much. Has the curviness of Indie Flower. The letters all seem distinct enough from each other, but I could do a quick double check on that: the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Seems good. My only concerns are that, compared to my current font of Coming Soon, this font doesn't have as much of a hand-written look as I'd like, and it feels larger. I'll have to drop the default font size down for sure, and I don't know if I can lock in a default font point because I've never set one before. Will this font end up with the same pitfall of Kalam? Namely, make my blog look even longer than it already is? I dunno. How does everyone else feel about this possibly being my blog's official font?

Along with Kalam and Mali, I was also suggested Patrick Hand (which looks like this) and Comic Neue (which looks like this). To be frank, I wasn't the biggest fan of either option. Comic Neue just didn't seem unique enough of a font and might as well be Comic Sans. In fact, it's supposed to be a "mature and professional" version of Comic Sans. Comic Neue also isn't much different from Coming Soon. Which begs the question: why bother switching?

As for Patrick Hand, the font felt TEENY, and I just wasn't the biggest fan of its over-all look. I do appreciate the research done to suggest these fonts though.

So, again, what does everyone think of the font choices? Stick with Coming Soon? Switch to Indie Flower? Go with Josefin Sans instead? Try out Kalam? Use Mali? Let me know in the comments section.

And, with that, I will leave you all, my wonderful valentines, to enjoy the rest of your Valentine's Day. Know that you are loved and cherished. Best to all of you! Until next time.

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A Paint Job and an Interrogation

Looks like I'm unofficially falling into that "every other week" pattern after all, huh? This time it was a semi-strategic decision, but also an accident yet again.

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Last Tuesday was the only day that Hubby and I had the same day off. We had the whole day to just be with each other. So I decided I wasn't going to spend the first four hours of it alone working on my blog post. You guys have gone Tuesdays without an update before. It would be fine. I had Thursday off as well. I could work on my post then and just be a couple of days late.

Except I also bumped back my errands to Thursday so Hubby and I could just have a chill-at-home sort of "date day", as it were. And said errands added to stuff I normally do on Thursday. And the next thing I know, it's Friday, and no blog post.

Whoops.

I also spent that week working on the wrong thing, I think. We were supposed to have our latest session on the 20th... but Hubby ended up getting the closing shift... AGAIN. Rozsavaria had a closing shift this past Saturday, so we couldn't catch up on all of these missed sessions then, and Hubby closed out September with one last Monday closing shift. So we ended up going all of September without a Scum and Villainy game session. Whoops again.

I didn't realize this, though, so I spent the week between the 15th and 20th focused on entirely the wrong thing, looking back in retrospect. See, during our third session, the crew FINALLY painted the Stardancer to customize it a bit. I thought it would be cool for them if I actually did doctor the official artwork of the Stardancer provided by the game so it would reflect the customizations the crew makes to it. All of the add-ons that the group has added to the ship are internal, so, thankfully, I don't have to worry about designing guns or something to mount onto the outside, but they DID come up with a color scheme, and I COULD do something with that!

I figured it'd be a fairly easy edit. Well, semi-easy. The crew wanted a sort of chrome look to the Stardancer, and there is NO WAY I'm skilled enough to draw the shine of a chrome finish using just the matte colors provided in GIMP. Instead, I found some images of paint samples for what the crew wanted. I figured I could cut the shape of the Stardancer out of the image of the paint, then delete the panels of the ship that would be painted that color. The chrome image would show through the edited pieces. Voila! Chrome colored Stardancer!

Problem is, it wasn't nearly that easy. The image was too grainy, so, despite looking like certain sections were just one color, and easy enough to select and delete, I would have had to sit there with the eraser tool to meticulously delete what was supposed to be "colored in."

Maybe if I could just cut the lines off of the image and paste them onto the chrome cut-out? Nope. Lines were just as grainy to do that with and have it look halfway decent. Maybe if I use a vector tool to redraw over the lines on a different layer, then hide the original image? The lines would be there and, as vectors, not be grainy at all! I could then switch out the Stardancer's base color all I wanted!

Nope again. The details of the image the game provides are just too much for me to handle, let alone handle in a fairly decent timeframe. Maybe I just need an image someone ELSE did to recreate the Stardancer using vectors! Then it will be easy to separate the lines from the rest of the drawing!

I spent far too many hours trying to scour the internet for a clearer image of the Stardancer so that I COULD use for an easy edit. Never did find one. The image I've used in this blog is the highest resolution image I could get. Even if I took the official digital pages from the SaV game and try to grab the image of the Stardancer off of that... no dice.

Okay, so what if I tried to refine this original image first? I used the Decrease Noise and Sharpen and all the other such tools for HOURS trying to get the image to the point that it was usable. Still nope. I was getting to my wits end.

FINALLY, I don't know how the light bulb came on, but it did! I switched the image to negative so all of the black detail lines were white, and dropped the opacity down.  It worked!!!! You couldn't see the now-black panels of the ship, and instead saw the chrome base layer! AAAAND the white outlines were still visible, so all the detailing of the ship was still there! Whoot!

The group had also picked out an accent trim for the Stardancer's first paint job. That should be a lot easier to figure out. I've done edits like that before. I took a copy of the original image, colorized it to be the color of the trim, placed that image over my chrome image of the Stardancer, and then all I had to do was erase everything that wasn't the accent trim.

This process was a lot smoother, and looked amazing as I moved along. I just didn't realize how much detailing I would be doing. The actual process of erasing everything but the accent bits was far more tedious than expected and kept me DAYS to finish.

Tanuki Facebook sticker
by Yanare Ku

I hadn't finished listening to and recapping the second gaming session to relay over to you fine folks. I was running out of time to do that. I was spending far too much time working on this project of editing the Stardancer image. I needed to switch gears.

But I wanted to surprise my players with this new image. Get them excited about their decision to customize their ship. I HAD to have this image done by the 20th so I had it for our session!

And then Hubby got called into work, and we had to cancel the game.

I didn't realize we wouldn't have our session until late Sunday. I attempted to rush through my review of the 2nd session so I was ready for Tuesday, but it was too much to handle with such limited time. Plus, Roz was wondering if she could still come over - since she took off from work for the session - and just hang. We're now going to hang out on non-session Monday nights and play video games together. We started with Diablo III.

Point is, I had virtually nothing prepped for Tuesday's blog update, and I had the opportunity to just be with Hubby all day. Which meant: no blog post last Tuesday. I thought I'd be able to make up the pre-post prepping by Thursday, but that was very much another nope.

All because I wanted to get this image done by the 20th, and we won't actually need it until the 4th.

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It's done though, and the way I did it makes it easier for me to doctor again in the future, in case the crew wishes to re-paint the Stardancer. I have a layer that's just the base color. I have a layer that's just the colored trim. I have a layer that is the inverted Stardancer image at low opacity to use as the lines layer. As I said, it SHOULD be fairly easy to doctor the image further from now on.

I was so excited to show you guys the end result, but I think it's only fair that the players be the first ones to see it. But I have it on standby for when I get to that part of the third session recap.

Speaking of, I delayed this post so I had more time to recap the rest of the 2nd session. So, without further ado:

Credit to the Scum and Villainy art team:
Brett Barkley, Tomasso Renieri, Juan Ocha, Michaela DeSacco, and Tazio Bettin

When last we left the Stardancer crew, they had rescued Ishi from the dark side of the planet Sonhandra, dressed him up as Demarcus' "5 year old nephew Timmy", were ordered by the Borniko Syndicate to air a message the Echo Wave Riders would like broadcasted, picked up Mevakor and his bodyguards, and headed off for a moon gazing party on Mem.

Upon arriving at Mem – and quickly joined by ten ships carrying elitists that Mevakor had invited – the group saw that the moon Yuura was crescent; just a few days away from a new moon. Mevakor was disappointed. He was expecting a glorious full moon. TI'kæl quickly bullshitted that the CRESCENT moons were the best. The moon's “peak” was when the light hit the algae juuuuust right that everything glowed beautifully (the algae always glowed). Instantly, Mev got excited, and gleefully called over the elitists – made up of other nobles and high-end merchants/businessmen – to show off the moon and glowing algae as if he was the expert on the matter. Counting the ten elites, their “arm candy”, and their bodyguards, there's roughly 25 people unexpectedly there along with everyone who came via the Stardancer. There was also a whole “Emperor's New Clothes” sort of scam unintentionally going on with Mevakor at the helm. He's mentioning how fantastic the view of the moon and the shimmer of the algae is, because he didn't want to seem swindled. Meanwhile, no one wanted to seem off-trend, so they all agreed with him. Off to the side, however, the bodyguards were all muttering between themselves that they don't get it, and the whole trip was a waste of time.

As this display was going on, Quinton got Demarcus to help him bottle up some of Mem's surface water and algae, and try to sell it to the elites for a Cred each (about $10,000). They managed to sell 4 vials. Quinton pocketed 3 Cred, and pitched Demarcus a Cred for helping. This was the point – where parts of her home world were being sold off – that tI'kæl decided to peace out, and went for a swim. She purposefully had the crew dock far enough away from her home city that no one would know that she had returned to Mem. As far as her people knew, she's still on her pilgrimage to learn more about The Way.

As everyone was partying, Demarcus found some Memish seaweed. It's edible, but it's just simple vegetation. He still pawned it off as a narcotic and traded it to a noble for some of his actual drugs: a tiny frog-like creature that secreted a hallucinogenic when sucked on. The noble had already partaken in one of the frogs he had, so he just assumed the seaweed from Demarcus added to his high. Demarcus promptly indulged in his vice.

The next morning, Demarcus awoke to the familiar chorus of groans produced by a bunch of inexperienced people waking up hung-over. The crew then found Mevakor in a hung-over stupor along the beach. They tried to collect him to bring him back to Vos and move on to their next job, but he resisted. He had already told all of the other elitists that they were having a 3-day party on Mem to see the moon at its peak and then non-peak. That way they could fully appreciate the beauty of the moon at its peak since they now knew the comparative "non-peak". TI'kæl again jumped in to tell Mev that of COURSE the moon phases are so subtle that it would be hard to notice any difference from night to night (complete BS). What he needs to do is come back a week later to truly notice and appreciate the changes.

Again acting like it was his plan all along, Mevakor roused the rest of the guests and told them that the viewing party would continue in a week. He then told them to think of it as an extended “spa day” before their festivities officially continued. To finish with his hosting duties, Mev gathered everyone's contact information and set up alerts for all of them so he could coordinate the party's continuation.

Contented that he'd be remembered as the best party thrower and the first to start the trend of Yuura Appreciation Parties, Mev joined the crew back on the Stardancer. Going through the contact info he had just gathered, Mev realized he didn't get any contact information for the Stardancer crew. TI'kael gave him a fake number. Satisfied and nursing a bad headache, Mev went to his quarters to lie down, and spent the rest of the trip back to Vos in his cabin.

As Quinton flew the Stardancer to Vos (and tI'kæl spent the time reading a book), Demarcus tried yet again to get on Ishi's good side (especially now that he knew Ishi was a weapons specialist). He found Ishi in the ship's training room trying to build his latest creation. Although he had spent the past year or so basically blind on the night side of Sonhandra, Ishi mostly built large, clunky weapons and devices to get by. He had grown so accustomed to his glasses and using sight for more finely dexterous builds, and couldn't manage with touch alone anymore. Now he was even more out of practice, and he still didn't have replacement glasses, so he was effectively blind with the ability to see colors. Grumbling about his inability to properly build his latest weapon, Ishi reluctantly allowed Demarcus to be his eyes (and sometimes hands) and assist in building the gun. The two did manage to bond slightly. Ishi seems to hate Demarcus the least out of the whole crew.

As the Stardancer neared Vos, they noticed a much heavier concentration of 51st Legion ships patrolling the planet and docking space station. In order to near the planet without too much harassment, they turned on their cloaking. However, to officially dock, they needed to turn the cloaking back off and call down for a docking bay.

The second they are properly docked, the Stardancer was locked to the port by the Legionnaires, and all personnel are ordered off the ship unarmed. After a quick discussion, the Stardancer crew agreed to comply, and take “Timmy” with them, hoping his disguise would hold up. As the crew, “Timmy”, Mevakor, and Mev's two bodyguards exited the Stardancer, they were surrounded by Legionnaires, and escorted away from the dock. As other ships came in to dock, they were treated similarly: locked in place, and all personnel escorted away from the port via platoon of Legionnaires.

Once inside the station-proper, the group was separated into seven individual, cramped, interrogation rooms. Mevakor was, of course, whining and protesting the whole time: this isn't how you treat nobles, he cannot be separated from his “emotional support” bodyguards like this, he demands food and something to drink, his bodyguards better be returned to him unharmed, this is abuse of power and uncalled for, etc.

The crew tried to claim that “Timmy” is too young to be by himself so that he could stay with Demarcus. The Legionnaires didn't care, and still separated him from the others, but they did agree to not question him since he's “too small a child” to be questioned unattended. Instead, they left Ishi with something to drink – a juice box he angrily punctured with the straw and aggressively drank from – and some snacks. He spent his time in isolation quietly grumbling about the whole situation: the “idiot smugglers,” and Maggie clearly not liking him anymore if she sent “those idiots,” and how she's paying double for weapons next time. However, because he was muttering under his breath, the Legionnaires assumed he was grumbling about getting concentrated juice and oatmeal raisin cookies instead of fresh-squeezed juice and double-fudge cookies (which, yeah, he's grumbling a bit about that too).

The Legionnaires then proceed to interrogate the Stardancer crew with basically the same set of evidence thrown at each them: the ship was registered to have been docked on Vos three days prior*, right around the time the Hegemony noted a discrepancy in their crystal inventory records, and the Customs officer noted that Quinton specifically had a cooler full of crystals that he declared (yes, the Customs officer is also in question for potentially letting smugglers through without fully checking all of the crystals declared).

*probably should have been 4 days prior: 1 day to travel to Sonhandra, 1 day on Sonhandra, 1 day to travel to Mem, 1 day to travel back to Vos. I didn't do the mental math properly, so the canon is 3 days. Whoops.

Quinton instantly responded that he still had all of his lovely crystals on display back on the ship. The Legionnaires were welcome to go check out his cabin and inspect them (they, of course do). Quinton also told the Legionnaire interrogating him that the Stardancer was done with its site-seeing the last time they were there. They only came back to drop off the noble that hired them as his escorts and tour guides. The Memish Quinton travels with (tI'kæl) was talking about how lovely her homeworld was, and the noble (Mev) wanted to see it. Mevakor had told the crew that he had “business to attend to” and needed to be back to his ship within the week. So the Stardancer was only back so soon after the previous visit in order to drop Mevakor back off.

In the next room, Demarcus yelled that it was stupid that they were thought to be potential culprits; there was no way they would be so dumb as to return to the scene of the crime. The Legionnaire countered that if the crew thought they got away with it, they might be emboldened enough to try to steal more, and that is why they came back so soon. Strike while the iron's hot. Pushing harder, the Legionnaire asked sarcastically, “So you know nothing about the Vosian crystals?” Demarcus answered with a shrug and commented on Quinton buying a bunch from one of the vendors because he thought they were pretty. Convinced he wasn't going to get anything out of Demarcus, the Legionnaire locked him in the interrogation room to check on his story. As the Legionnaire was leaving, Demarcus again shouted, “What kind of idiot would return after stealing from here? How stupid would someone have to be to do something like that?”

In the room on the other side of Quinton, tI'kæl purposefully spoke only in Memish and pretended she didn't understand Common at all. The racist human Legionnaire yelled for her to learn Common, complained that it's a wonder anyone can communicate with xenos at all within the Hegemony, and whined that he was “always stuck with the damn xenos” and how he wished he could just “get a single human!? Once! Just ONE time, I'd like a human!” before locking tI'kæl in the room and fetching an interpreter.

At the end of the hall, Mevakor was freaking out at the Legionnaire questioning him:

“What do you mean crystals were stolen from Vos the same day I was here? Isn't that what Customs is for? To prevent something like that from happening? How is the Hegemony going to fix this? HOW ARE YOU IDIOTS SO BAD AT YOUR JOB? THIS IS WHAT CUSTOMS IS FOR!”

(Quarthix loved that Mevakor was ruder than Demarcus. Elitist privilege, baby!)

As Mevakor got more and more worked up that the Hegemonic security measures clearly failed, he began hyperventilating. He then told the Legionnaire the same thing Quinton did: he bought crystals as souvenirs from seemingly reputable vendors. He even noted exactly what shops he bought the crystals from, stressed that he had receipts as proof, and even offered up an audit of his finances as further proof that he only purchased the crystals on the receipts. If it turned out he did indeed have the illicit crystals, it was because those vendors were pawning them off to unsuspecting tourists, and if that's the case then he demands the names of all involved in the offending store so he could buy them out and shut them down for embarrassing him like this. Now angered by the prospect of being framed, he screamed at the Legionnaire for “holding me hostage like this!”

The bodyguards independently confirmed that, yeah, Mev is “the biggest schmuck of the galaxy” and they were clearly just souvenir crystals he dropped full creds on (similar to spending thousands on red-dyed rock candy because they "looked like actual rubies").

Of course, since both Quinton and Mevakor gave the Legionnaires permission to check their cabins for the crystals (not that they needed it), the Legionnaires took it upon themselves to extend this permission to the whole ship. They spent the next hour basically upending everything to try to find the crystals or other contraband. Hubby joked that Quinton will sick his lawyer (who is apparently Lang) on them; neither Quinton nor Lang will stand for this disrespect and abuse of power.

When the Legionnaires returned to the interrogation rooms, they were carrying Mevakor's two bags of crystals. Since the Stardancer wasn't his ship, he never bothered unpacking his purchases. Which meant he never found the drugs that Quinton snuck into the bags when he first met Mev. The Legionnaires, on the other hand, did find said drugs. They poured out the bags of crystals all over the table in Mev's interrogation room, and the drugs spilled onto the table with the souvenirs.

Mev instantly went on the defensive, accusing the 51st Legion of conspiring against him and planting the drugs. That way the Legion had “evidence” they could then use to excuse keeping him captive. The Legionnaire interrogating him assured Mev that no such plant or conspiracy occurred. Mev switched gears and swore up and down that he'd fire his bodyguards if the drugs turned out to be theirs. He kept bouncing back and forth between “I'll have my bodyguards' heads if it's their drugs” and “The Legion is out to get me! Those drugs are plants!” Mev and his bodyguards continued to be detained for Mevakor's outbursts.

Meanwhile, back in Demarcus' room, a Legionnaire came in to finish the interrogation. She confirmed that Demarcus was the captain of the Stardancer and that he did indeed transport Mevakor Nagan and his two bodyguards throughout the star system the past week. She then asked if he knew that Mevakor had illicit drugs within his possession. To which, Demarcus, with the most unconvincing mock surprise, commented that he had no clue and that Mevakor seemed like such a nice and law-abiding guy. “Not that guy! He seemed so innocent! Who would have thought he'd do such a thing?”

The Legionnaire ended up giving Demarcus a “wrist slap” and a strong suggestion to better vet any other passengers the Stardancer picks up from now on, because Demarcus and his crew could have been charged as accomplices to Mevakor's drug smuggling. Demarcus apologized for his “major blunder” in judgment.

Over in tI'kæl's room, a Memish interpreter did come back to try to interrogate her, but tI'kæl spent the whole time excitedly telling the Legionnaire about the Way. The interpreter sighed, told her to shut up about the Way, and kept asking about the missing crystals. But that started tI'kæl on a spiral about how beautiful the crystals were because they resonated with the Way, and how lovely all of Vos was because of the great Way energy there was on the planet. Eventually the interpreter gave up and chalked tI'kæl up as yet another over-zealous religious nut who clearly had no clue what her crew was doing around her.

Eventually another Legionnaire interrupted to let the poor, exasperated interpreter know that they were cutting the Stardancer loose: “These guys don't know anything about the crystals.”

“No shit, they don't!” the interpreter shouted back, and then stormed off yelling that she was taking her vacation time. She didn't care what the higher-ups thought. After that headache of listening to yet another religious zealot, she earned her time off.

As the crew picked up Ishi from his isolation room, the Legionnaire in charge of escorting them back to their ship gave them one last speech about responsibility:

“You're allowed to leave. But, especially since you have a little one with you, make sure to pay closer attention to who you surround yourselves with. I would hate for this young gentleman to be corrupted by such scandalous activities as possible drug [trafficking and dealing] and crystal smuggling.”

Demarcus apologized once more. Beside him, Ishi, who conveniently still had a juice box in his hand, went to salute the Legionnaire, but only used his middle finger to do so. “Oh, his hands were full, and the middle finger was the only one free to salute with....”

With that, the four of them boarded the Stardancer, and headed for the jump gate to the next star system.

Thus ends the second session. Sadly, due to Mevakor still being detained by the 51st Legion, the Stardancer crew wasn't able to bill him for escort, travel, and tour guide services. Plus, if it weren't for dropping Mev back off at his ship, the crew could have avoided getting interrogated by the Legion. A rare instance where "Mistakes were made; we got paid" didn't actually occur for the crew. Still, Mevakor became the fall guy they initially tapped him for. Just a shame that he's no longer a Stardancer traveling companion.

Fear not, dear reader. For I assure you this is not the last we've seen of Mevakor Nagan. We all like him enough that I have *plans* for him. I have this whole storyline going in the background for him. I cannot wait for enough in-game time to pass for me to bring about his Grand Return! It will be fun. I just wish I was as skilled at voices as a lot of online DMs. Even before a description or a name is mentioned, just the voice that Johnny Chiodini uses signals to the players (and all the viewers) that a specific character has returned. Their ability to create so many distinctly unique voices is amazing. They clearly missed a calling for voice acting. Anyway, I'm not that skilled in the slightest, so the players may not get that Mev has returned until I have actually mentioned his name. But it will be fun when that reveal DOES happen. I'm so hyped for this!!!

As for the upcoming recap of session three, well that consists of the crew trying to figure out how to manage the Borniko's order to broadcast the Echo Wave Riders' message throughout the sector, and some shenanigans as the crew destresses and tries to get better gear. Also... the Stardancer itself gets a paint job! Yay!

Soooo... yeah! Until next time!

Scum and Villainy rule book cover designed by art team:
Brett Barkley, Tomasso Renieri, Juan Ocha,
Michaela DeSacco, and Tazio Bettin
(Cheesy Batman-series-joke edits by LycoRogue)

OH! Wait! Before you go! I nearly forgot! I DID actually do a biiiiiiiit of writing as well throughout this past week. I still couldn't quite get the third chapter of my newest WIP to work out for me, so I jumped to the end. I don't know how close to the actual conclusion of the story it will be, but fairly close to the end.

Chat Noir's love confession! EEEEEEEE!

I still have tweaks to do, and it's only about 2 pages long, so the chapter itself has to be bulked up. I also don't know if I want Marinette to respond before the conclusion of the chapter, or if I want the confession to be the conclusion and her reaction be the start of the next chapter. Or... both? The confession is from Chat Noir's POV, so do I finish the chapter with Marinette's reaction as seen through Chat Noir's POV, and then retell the confession and Marinette's reaction to it from her perspective as the start of the next chapter? So many possibilities!

Also, big announcement time! This Saturday, October 2nd, is Hubby's and my TEN YEAR wedding anniversary! TEN! How have we been married that long already!?

So, happy anniversary, Sweetness! I love you more than anything. You are my sanity (oddly enough) and my smile! Can't wait to see what the next 10 years will bring.

Walking on the Dark Side

Whew! Sorry, gang. I somehow didn't realize how long it would take to recap a 3.5hr gaming session.

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Cropped by LycoRogue

I ended up summing up the session, and then realizing that "summary" was still over 12-pages long. Far too large for a blog post. So I edited, and cut, and eventually decided I had to split the 2nd session like I did the first. Between finding time to relisten to the session, typing up the summary, and editing it down into something manageable in this blog... whelp.... I clearly ran out of time last week. So I spent all of this past week working on that.

I'll need to find a way of streamlining this process, or I'll have to resolve myself to only update every other week. I'd much prefer to streamline this process....

On the plus side, sorta, Hubby had to work again the past two Mondays, so we once more had to miss a session. Session 4 won't be until the 20th now. Gives me a little bit of time to catch up on my recaps before the group furthers the story.

Speaking of stories, I'm stumbling a bit with the 3rd chapter of that mystery project (that I totally ended up talking about on Tumblr anyway... if anyone is interested). In fact, while it's been the last thing I think about when I go to bed, in hopes of maybe dreaming up something I could use or have an epiphany when I wake up or something, I haven't been thinking about it during the day at all. My focus has been solely on getting my SaV recaps done, on Adulting Things, and a little bit on getting back into Super Mario Odyssey. Honestly, a large portion of my focus this week has been on... not... focusing... and just drifting through social media because my brain is fried.

This is why I didn't want to really promote this new project until I had more of the story sorted out. Who knows when I'll have any significant advancement in this story again? I'll keep plugging along, though.

I tried putting a playlist together in hopes of finding the perfect Muse for this project; get me in the mood. We'll see if that side project will help. Same with tracking down some fanfics that might help inspire me. Some episode rewatches as well. I'm trying to not let go of this Muse that visited me in the heat of August.

However, as I mentioned, this story has slipped from priority as I instead focus on my game recaps, and this upcoming week will probably be spent on prepping for the next session.

So, without further ado, how about we talk about the shenanigans of the Stardancer crew? Since that's where my "storytelling" focus is now?

Credit to the Scum and Villainy art team:
Brett Barkley, Tomasso Renieri, Juan Ocha, Michaela DeSacco, and Tazio Bettin

First and foremost, I forgot to mention before that the crew, while still undecided on a name for themselves, have managed to come up with a crew motto: "Mistakes were made; we got paid."

And boy, have they stuck to that motto.

Generated by Bitmoji
Edited by LycoRogue

They... do not do things the most... shall we say, refined way? But, as the motto suggests, they manage to get the job done cleanly enough to still get paid the agreed upon amount. So, that's got to count for something, right?

As for the second session, we started off recapping the first session, and trying to figure out if Demarcus does use some sort of racing gear or costume to protect his identity. That way any authorities looking for "The Captain" (Demarcus' "oh so creative and original" criminal alias) won't know that they can just camp at a RIP race to pick him up. Also, that way no one can put two-and-two together that if Demarcus is on a 3-person RIP team with one male and one female teammate, AND he's on a smuggling crew with one male and one female crewmate, MAAAAAYBE the other members of Chaos Theory are ALSO the other members of the Stardancer crew?

Hubby suggested that Demarcus goes by "Doctor" or "Doc" or "Doc Pain" while driving the Slambulance, and that his racing gear is just his old scrubs from when he assisted the Borniko Syndicate. Blood still caked on the scrubs and everything.

"He should look like one of those horror movie asylum doctors. The ones where you're not sure if he's a doctor or a patient there."

Quarthix instantly loved the idea and ran with it, but was still kind of waffling on whether or not that description should be canon. I'm running with it in the meantime, though.

Anyway, as the crew left the RIP Machine hangar - now out of their RIP costumes - they spotted the minor noble they had picked up as a potential patsy: Mevakor Nagan, and his bodyguards. They let him know that they still had one more errand to run, and that they'll meet up with him once they were done. He told them he'd spend his time at the Phoenix Casino, and the two trios parted ways.

The errand was, of course, to collect their info broker Maggie's friend Ishi from the Night side of the tidal-locked planet. There's a strange phenomenon that happens on Sonhandra. No one is sure if there's a natural reason via magnetic waves or whatnot, or if it's a product of the mystical Way (basically The Force from Star Wars), but any and all forms of light extinguish once someone steps beyond a kilometer onto the Night side of Sonhandra. Ishi purposefully made his hideout past that complete-black breaking point.

So the crew needed to figure out a way of finding him without being able to see at all. I had come up with a few ways. I spent a great deal of time talking about a little hole-in-a-wall pawn shop in Sonhandra's capital of Ugar that Maggie sent them to as a starting point. The pawn shop was by one of the town gates leading to the Night side, and Ishi was straight out from that point. Maggie told the crew to start there, head straight into the Night, and he would be nearby once they pass the kilometer mark. I had hoped the crew would go inside the pawn shop, where they would find another of Ishi's allies. If the crew could sweet-talk the shopkeep, he would take them to Ishi in a similar way to how he brought Ishi food and other supplies. If they failed to do that, they could at least buy thermal goggles from him. Assuming they would get their hands on some sort of thermal goggles (Demarcus has a thermal scanner, but wouldn't be able to read the output because of the magic darkness), Ishi had thermal plates buried around his hut that he would turn on so they could see where to go.

Alternatively, although tI'kæl's dark vision wouldn't work in the magic darkness since there is absolutely no light sources to grab at least a little bit of vision from, I had contingents set up so she could find the correct path via Attunement. Namely, the thermal plates Ishi buried were made out of Ur artifacts, which emits Way waves that she would be able to pick up. Like a bloodhound following a scent.

They could also find an AI and have it lead the way by using thermal scanning.

The crew did none of these options.

They assumed they could figure it out when they got there, told me my description of the pawn shop made it sound like it was shut down (despite me specifically saying, "You have no clue how this guy keeps his doors open since it doesn't look like any street traffic comes here" and "The only functional place of business on this street is this guy's pawn shop."), so they didn't bother going inside to scavenge or anything, and just headed out into the darkness.

TI'kæl took the lead, assuming she could see in the dark by using the glow from her tattoos. Then she passed a bunch of signs warning that they were a kilometer out and all light dies beyond that point. Ignoring the warnings, since they already knew that much, she stepped past the kilometer marker, and the tattoos on that leg instantly went out. ALL light sources extinguish on that side of the planet.

Completely blinded and with no other plan, Quinton just starts screaming Ishi's name in hopes of him finding them. Honestly, I think the group is still very much in a D&D player mindset. So they have yet to use the Flashback mechanic used in the Forged in the Dark games. Especially when they realized that Demarcus' thermal scanner wouldn't work and they probably needed thermal goggles instead. With this mechanic, they could have used a Flashback to state how they already had a pair on them, or that all three had their own pair for this trip. Alternatively, Rozsavaria keeps forgetting the main thing about her character: she's a mystic who gets in touch with the mystical Way forces. She leans into the almost Paladin-like joke of her character basically being a missionary asking if everyone she meets has heard about the glory that is The Way (as if it's a divine thing to worship), but she never remembers to actually tap INTO the Way.

So, now the trio is stranded on the dark side of this planet, completely blinded and with no real plan aside from shouting and hoping for the best. Also, fun added complication: due to this side of the planet never getting any heat from the sun, it's frosted and frozen over, making traction difficult as well. TI'kæl nervously dropped her speed because she wasn't expecting to completely lose her sight, and wasn't sure about her footing. Clueless as to why tI'kæl eased up her advancement, Demarcus took the lead.

As Quinton screamed for Ishi, the only response was a bunch of animals clicking around them (like the sound of someone quickly clicking their tongue against the roof of their mouth). The echoed clicks were similar to how crickets would call and answer each other. Since this was the only sign of life they'd encountered, they kept going straight, towards the majority of the clicks, although the sound was surrounding them slightly.

A few more minutes in, the clicks grew closer and in a tighter circle around them. Spooked, tI'kæl completely halted, but also neglected to let the guys know, so the two of them kept walking, completely leaving her behind. Meanwhile, Demarcus slipped slightly as he and Quinton walked out onto ice. Quinton quickly latched the two of them together to make sure they didn't loose each other, and only noticed how far behind tI'kæl fell when they heard her trying to click back to the creatures around them. Didn't work. It sounded more like the Memish equivalent of a dolphin.

Still not sure what other options they had (again, because they probably forgot about all of the mechanics SaV has vs D&D), the duo kept walking forward with Quinton still calling out for Ishi. In response, Quinton had something that felt like a bean bag hurled at his left shoulder. Grabbing a hold of Demarcus, Quinton directed him to the left and pushed him towards the direction the projectile came from. It wasn't long before Quinton tripped Demarcus over Ishi.

Ishi snarled for the two to shut up, and started dragging them back to his hut. As they're dragged along, Quinton tried to let tI'kæl know they found Ishi by way of communicator. Ishi promptly smacked the communicator out of his hand, and dragged the duo away faster.

Poor tI'kæl was still abandoned out in the black of the Night side of Sonhandra, with the knowledge that her crewmates found Ishi, but with (presumably) no way to find them (or they her).

As Ishi herded the guys towards his hut, Demarcus asked why Ishi was so anxious about any of them talking, and asked if Ishi could see since he was moving unhindered in the pitch black. Ishi simply hissed for them to shut up, and whisper-yelled that nothing could possibly see in that blackness. He then corralled them inside his hut. Demarcus again questioned Ishi's ability to move unhindered as if he knew exactly where he's going in the blackness. Meanwhile, all around them, the clicking changed to a more shrill shriek, and closed in.

TI'kæl nervously called out, "Hello?" into her communicator as she heard the clicks switch over to shrieks. Demarcus radioed back that they had Ishi, and that they needed to find a way to get back to Ugar, but tI'kæl should just head back to the ship. Ishi again barked at Demarcus for using his communicator, and asked if they had someone else past the kilometer point on the Night side. Demarcus kind of casually was like "yup" and Ishi cursed to himself. He then scrambled around his hut for a shotgun, cocked it, and scurried back out of the hut, leaving the guys behind.

TI'kæl tried to inch her way back towards the kilometer marker. She heard the shrieking in the not-so-far distance (about 300 yards / 274 meters). If she had actually followed the shrieking, she would have stumbled upon Ishi's house, instead, she continued back towards the twilight of the planet. About 50ft (15m) away from her, she heard the original clicking and the circling clicks close in. Suddenly, directly in front of her, something roared. It was deep, booming, and the pure vibrations from the roar rattled her bones. Immediately, tI'kæl stopped her slow retreat, and whimpered into the communicator, "Guys.... I'm scared."

She was soon shaken again by two more roars: one from her right and one from behind her as the creatures closed in. As the poor thing stood there whimpering and pleading for help, tI'kæl felt something akin to a water balloon bounce off her left shoulder. When the balloon hit the ground, it burst open and splattered blood everywhere. The creatures roared again, and despite the paralyzing effect the roars typically have, tI'kæl had enough adrenaline pumping that she sprinted towards the direction the balloon came from. As she did, she bumped hard into something that felt like a solid body of cartilage. She bounced off, but then felt the painful nip of "what feels like a single piranha bite into your left arm." She still had her arm (thanks largely to the hardened scales Memish have), and she could use it if she put in the effort, but it hurt like hell and she was bleeding out pretty badly. Still, she kept running until Ishi grabbed her arm, and yanked her in the direction of his hut. Unfortunately, he grabbed and yanked on her left arm, so she hissed in pain, and he promptly growled for her to shut up.

Pushing tI'kæl ahead of him, Ishi swung around and unloaded his shotgun. There was a loud boom, a high-pitched squeal of an animal in pain, the thump of a body hitting the frozen ground, and then flesh being rendered as the other creatures cannibalized their fallen comrade in a mini feeding frenzy. Not wasting a moment, Ishi grabbed tI'kæl and rushed her back to his hut.

Once everyone was safe inside the hut, Ishi quickly bandaged up tI'kæl's arm (we determined that Memish blood is puce). He then let the group know about the creatures that had attacked them: I had named them Krelqaks. They're basically the monsters from the movie Pitch Black. They had heightened smell and hearing to make up for their blindness. They focused on the smell of blood, and swarmed like piranha, with equally intimidating rows of teeth. Roz was all sorts of “Nope” when I showed her the pictures of the Bioraptor post-game.

Official images from the movie

Concept art by Richard Dolan

I had come up with some customizations to make these creatures a bit more unique for my game, but this was more-or-less what I was picturing.

Ishi also quickly found out how ill-prepared the crew was: no thermal goggles to see the thermal path he prepared for them, no land transport to safely ferry them back to Ugar, no research on the Krelqaks to properly prepare for them, no research on how extreme “total blackness” truly was on the Night side, not even a tether to keep the full crew together as they wandered the darkness.

As Demarcus put it: “You don't get this far in life by thinking.”

To which Ishi lamented to the sky, “I thought we were friends, Maggie! Why are you doing this to me?”

Ishi tossed a duffel bag of his “blood bombs” (blood-filled water balloons, basically) at Demarcus as the crew discussed getting back to Ugar safely. Demarcus and Quinton agreed on “Plan D,” AKA – using detonation. Ishi put earplugs in to protect his own enhanced hearing from the detonations, then scurried to a trap door in his hut's roof. Cursing out the Krelqaks, he tossed a few blood bombs behind his hut to lure the beasts away from the front door. Then he slid back to the floor of the hut, and shoved a blueprint tube into Quinton's hands. Ishi told Quinton those were his weapons blueprints and Quinton was to protect them with his life. This, of course, piqued Demarcus' interest. The crew had no prior knowledge that Ishi was a weapons designer and dealer on the lam from the Hegemony (he's basically pre-Iron-Man Tony Stark). After passing medical supplies and vegan food rations to tI'kæl (to make sure their food rations wouldn't attract the carnivorous Krelqaks), Ishi lashed her to Quinton to make sure she didn't get lost again, and then he tied himself to Demarcus in order to lead the group. Everything set and all valuable items packed to go, Ishi rushed everyone out of the hut.

Demarcus promptly blew up Ishi's hut. Since ALL forms of light are instantly extinguished, there was no pretty explosion, but there's still the concussive force from the explosion. That brought the hut down and created a deafening boom to attract the Krelqaks, killing some of them in the explosion. The remaining Krelqaks responded by roaring back. It was almost as loud as the explosion itself, and the force of the pack's chorus of roaring caused the crew's bones to vibrate.

As Ishi led the group through the dark, Demarcus tossed a few blood bombs and launched a few detonators to either side of the group. He managed to distract some of the beasts and killed others, and eventually the pack in pursuit of the crew had been taken care of. They still heard more of the Krelqaks' distinct clicking in the distance, but they passed the kilometer markers soon enough for that to not matter.

Now that they could actually see him, the crew discovered that Ishi is a Deilku, an impish-looking xeno (non-human race). He has large, bat-like ears that stick 6” (~15cm) straight up from the top of his head, a scrunched-up button nose, teeny-little beady eyes, and long 4-fingered hands. Deilku have exceptional hearing and sense of smell, but their eyes were developed as more of a secondary sensory, like most humans and their sense of smell. Normally, since most of the Hegemony is designed with humans in mind - and therefore, largely dependent on sight - Deilku wear almost comically thick glasses to better their eyesight. Since he was in the pitch black for months on end anyway, Ishi forwent his glasses. He also has leathery, hairless bluish-gray skin, and was bundled under a massive parka to try to keep warm. The tips of his ears are only about 4' off the ground, making the top of his head only about 3'6” (~ 1m) high.

Basically, he's an amalgamation of Maz Kanata from Star Wars and Gune from Titan A.E. with a little extra flavor from my own imagination.

Left: screenshot of Gune from Titan A.E.
Right: official model of Maz from Star Wars

Quinton managed to disguise Ishi as a small child: voice modulator to make him sound like a human child, hat to hide his ears flattened against his head (Ishi hates this because it hinders his hearing and is terribly uncomfortable), make-up to hide his skin tone, and gloves to hide his missing pinkies. They then came up with the ruse that Ishi is Demarcus' nephew Timmy. (Hubby originally said “cousin” but then Roz accidentally said Demarcus was his “uncle” and we ran with it.) Ishi was NOT a fan at first, but realized family members don't necessarily like each other. Knowing he didn't have to act like he liked Demarcus, he easily ran with the cover.

As tI'kael went to the Phoenix Casino to collect Mevakor and his bodyguards, Quinton and Demarcus escorted Ishi to the ship. A burly, bald dude named Rocco, whom Demarcus recognized as a money launderer for the Borniko Syndicate that is stationed on Sonhandra, was waiting at the Stardancer for the crew to return. Upon seeing Demarcus, Rocco greeted him with a bit of condescension.

The Echo Wave Riders are actually trusted allies of the Bornikos, and the Riders have been breathing down the Syndicate's collective necks about the Stardancer crew. First, the crew pissed off the Riders by sniping some experimental land transports they were excited to get their hands on, and then made it worse by seemingly targeting their RIP racing drivers. To try to smooth things over, one of the Borniko's higher-ups MaxiMillions (canon name; I didn't make that up) got in contact with Rocco to pass on a message to the Stardancer crew. Rocco then handed Demarcus a micro-SD card containing a message from the Echo Wave Riders. The crew was tasked to find a way of broadcasting the Riders' call-to-action about a system-wide race they're planning. The Riders don't care if it's broadcast through the galaxy-wide communication system - the ansible network – or if it's broadcast through the Hegemony News Network. All they care about is that the word gets out within 2 weeks (all time measured by Earth standards still). This is the mandatory Borniko Syndicate job the crew got as an entanglement in the first session.

Rocco and Demarcus had some back-and-forth, but Demarcus still accepted the job in the end (seeing he had no choice in the matter). Rocco then departed, washing his hands of the job. Demarcus and Quinton were left behind basically going, “Whoops. Didn't realize the factions were friends. Guess we should TRY to get along with the Riders.”

Upon boarding the ship, Ishi instantly grabbed for his weapons blueprints. However, Quinton convinced Ishi to let him make digital copies, “as backups.” Ishi agreed as long as he was instantly given the sole copies of his work to also keep safe. Quinton, through hacking shenanigans, managed to sneak a digital copy of the blueprints for himself while also convincing Ishi that, yes, he does have the sole digitized version of his blueprints.

Meanwhile, over at the Phoenix Casino, tI'kæl looked for Mevakor. (BTW, the image of a phoenix has been morphed throughout the centuries, and now everyone in the sector agrees that a phoenix looks more like a flame-red emu on fire.)

BEHOLD ITS MAJESTY!
(creative commons emu clipart
doctored in GIMP by LycoRogue)

I knew I didn't want a phoenix to still resemble what we think of. It didn't seem realistic that Earthen depictions of a mythical creature wouldn't change even when Earth itself is basically forgotten (or, if SaV is like Star Wars, wasn't where these humans ever originated from). I also knew that I wanted the phoenix to now resemble a dopey bird. I almost went with a dodo or kiwi bird, but I've been seeing a LOOOOT of Liberty Mutual LiMu-Emu commercials lately. So... emu. The fact that I found this even derpier clipart of an emu to use as a base is just icing on the cake.

Generated by Bitmoji

In tI'kæl's attempt to track down Mevakor, she figured it would be easier to look for his bodyguards among the sea of elites gambling. Except, she mistook at least 3 other pairs of “big, burly, human males” as Mev's bodyguards, and now tI'kæl is dealing with the realization that perhaps she's a bit racist....

Eventually she did find Mev and his bodyguards at a card table. He was lackadaisically playing some evolution of Black Jack while mostly using the poker table as a means to socialize with fellow elites. When tI'kæl walked up, she overheard Mev talking about his trip to Mem in “hushed” tones (as far as he thinks, they were), and inviting all of the other gamblers to meet up with him there. He planned out a viewing party for them all to observe the moon at its “peak.” Mev also planned for the elites to actually stay on Mem for a few days, turning the viewing party into a full festival. That way they could see the moon not at its “peak” as well, and compare the two; truly appreciate the glory that is Yuura at its greatest by observing it when it's not as well.

Dealing with the fact that Mevakor basically turned her home planet into a tourist trap for human nobility, tI'kæl collected him and his bodyguards to head back to the Stardancer. She gave him a heads up that the captain picked up his “nephew.” Mev then noticed tI'kæl's wrapped arm and asked what happened. She quickly responded with, “[Timmy's] a biter.” Mevakor already found children boring and exhausting, and wanted nothing to do with them, but to find out “Timmy” was “a biter” solidified Mev's resolve to avoid “the kid” at all costs. Perfect. Ishi's disguise and cover as Timmy was better solidified that way. Mev was also overjoyed that “Timmy” was being a brat and locked himself away in his quarters (Ishi was still cranky over the “incompetent” crew that was in charge of escorting him to the Cove, as well as the unexpected detours to bring Mevakor to Mem and then back to Vos before the crew actually took Ishi out of the star system).

And with that, the crew, plus 4 passengers, flew off to Mem. And I'll save the rest for next post.

I do appreciate how quickly the players are latching onto my NPCs of Mevakor, the other RIP racers, and Ishi. I was also shocked at how nervous Roz sounded as tI'kæl was left stranded in the darkness, and especially when she was bit by one of the creatures. I was nervous I wasn't getting the tension up enough, but that reassured me that at least she was getting worried for her character. Quarthix is also really getting into the roleplaying, usually taking the narrative lead when interacting with NPCs or deciding what to do while the crew is on a job. It's probably him evolving as a roleplayer in general, and not necessarily the way I'm running the game, but when I think back to when I first started playing RPGs with him - or even how he is just socially - seeing him take the lead is just so awesome.

Hubby also getting a bit stumped on how to get past the obstacles I come up with is equally rewarding for me. I know he's letting the other two take more of a lead since he's usually the frontman in most campaigns, but he also does swoop in and help them come up with solutions. He doesn't leave them hanging, and he typically thinks outside of the box. So I've been careful to not go over much of the story elements I'm plotting for the upcoming game with him. I figure, that way he can also have the "fun" of figuring it out cold like the other two. Then for him to not think of or stumble upon any of the solutions I came up with? For me to have to "rescue" the players by having Ishi venture out into the wild to find THEM?

It's definitely challenging, but it's such a relief to see that it all seems to be paying off. I hope the story is just as entertaining for you fine folks. I haven't had any comments on these posts yet, so, again, if you'd like me to move on to something else, or start up a separate blog to post this stuff on and just leave this blog dormant until I have writing updates again, please let me know.

Until next time!

Scum and Villainy rule book cover designed by art team:
Brett Barkley, Tomasso Renieri, Juan Ocha,
Michaela DeSacco, and Tazio Bettin
(Cheesy Batman-series-joke edits by LycoRogue)