A Charming Young Man and His Bicycle

Young Mr. Zappa, on the Steve Allen Show, playing a bicycle. That's entertainment! Forgive the advertisement. I couldn't find a version without it.

It doesn't matter what you play. Just play.

Tales from the Hollow Earth

So... remember that game, Illuminati? Guess who else does? Tila Tequila, that's who!

I grieve for her mental health, but there is such a wealth of potential gaming material in this rant. A sample:

SHALL I TELL THE PEOPLE ABOUT THE ENTIRE CITY INSIDE THE HOLLOW EARTH??? SHALL I TELL THE PEOPLE THAT YOU CAME HERE AND LEFT YOUR OWN PLANET TO INFILTRATE OURS AND NOW SOME OF YOU STILL CURRENTLY RESIDE ON THE MOON!

Now that's some Grade A cray cray, right there (Please don't hit me for saying "cray cray." I'm role playing, here, okay?).

As I recall, most of our games of Illuminati ended in all of us pretty much hating each other, and TOTALLY hating the winner. I really need to pick up a copy of it. Holidays are coming, after all. It wouldn't be the same if can't alienate at least one family member.

In game terms, I kind of like where she's going with this. Hollow Earth, alien hybrids, conspiracies that go all the way to the top, bases on the moon, experiments on people, missing children, super powers... It's got everything.

Now, what system should one use to run something like that? DCC RPG is a good candidate, but you'd definitely have to house-rule the hell out of the classes to achieve the right flavor. Fate would provide a great deal of flexibility, of course, but I'm still not comfortable with that system. I think I need to sit in on one of +Christopher Helton's games before I try that. I'm thinking that one of +Joshua Macy's SFX! games would be a good candidate.

Any other suggestions?

FZ, Live at Hammersmith Odeon, 1978

Live at the Hammersmith Odeon, 1978.

Audio only, but great setlist.

P.S. It's finals week, but I should be done grading in a couple days. After that, people, I promise additional gaming-related posts. Until then, I will continue these religious posts.

Magenta Jumpsuit

A full concert, live at the Palladium in New York (1981). Oh, and FZ really is wearing a jumpsuit. It's really, really ugly.

You know you want one.

St. Alphonso's Pancake Breakfast

Actually, I'm going to be having on an omelette and some other things, but this is appropriate breakfast music.

Let's start with the marvelous Ruth Underwood's explanation of some of the underlying musical principles (and see just how badass a percussionist she is!).

You can't do this.

And here's the track from the Apostrophe album, as performed on SNL in 1978. Note that Frank Zappa took a level in barbarian (hence the ability to conduct a large band bare-chested). 

Saturday Night Live TV Performance

Morgath'ak-Lugash: The Iron Fist

As I mentioned in a previous post about the elves of planet Ore (the setting for the Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad campaign), iron is a very serious danger to the health and well-being of elves (as per the DCC RPG rules, but maybe with bigger, sharper teeth). As is the case with most societies, there are some elves who are "more equal than others." The elven nobility are largely unconcerned about their more pedestrian kinsmen, and are more than happy to let the lot of them (and their sickly, mutated children) go hang. Basically, the thinking of most elven nobles is that, if they can't afford the specialized clothing, filter masks, and treatments needed to avoid the worst effects of iron poisoning, then they shouldn't come to Ore. Ore is for their betters, and they should come, do their menial work, and then get themselves back through the portal to Elfland. Any talk about unequal treatment, or of the callousness of the nobility, is simply whining. After all, if they deserved better, then they should have been born properly.

Unfortunately, many of the lower-born elves left Elfland because they have no prospects there, either. There are no options for them but to toil in their menial trades, to serve the Court, and to go abroad to fight whomever the King sees fit for them to fight. They simply do not matter, and their suffering does not concern the elven nobility ever a little bit. Clearly, this gives rise to some resentment on the part of the lower-born (called lordak-mugh by the nobility, meaning "rust children"--and, yes, that sounds just as bad to a lower-born elf as the most virulently racist epithet one could utter). This resentment, in turn, has sparked a movement among the lower-born elves. This movement is called (in the old language of the Dominionist elves) Morgath'ak-Lugash, or "The Iron Fist."

Morgath'ak-Lugash has been simmering for a long while now. Mainly, it manifested itself in graffiti and acts of vandalism. Younger, lower-class elves have adopted symbols and slogans associated with it to appear consequential to their peers. However, the Iron Fist is no joke. It is led by a secret cabal of leaders, and has a hidden network of members, organized into cells to maintain their anonymity. Some of the leaders are powerful in their own right, but not from the nobility. Some exercise influence through criminal enterprises. Some are high-ranking members of artisans' guilds. Quietly, and so very carefully, the members of this cabal are conspiring against the elven nobility. Soon will come a time when their silence is no more. They will rise, and they will extract a bitter retribution for their suffering. The broad masses of lower-born elves may even support them, if they can provide a solution to the Iron Issue. Here's the thing though. There are rumors of a permanent cure for iron sensitivity. 

Should such a cure become broadly available, it would rock the very foundations of elven society on Ore (and perhaps even in Elfland), and upset the existing power structures. The nobility will not stand for that. They have their own league of troubleshooters to deal with Morgath'ak-Lugash, and they are on the hunt for those who would oppose them. There already have been... incidents. A young elf, known to be a member of criminal syndicate, was found recently, his limbs nailed to a tree in a public park. Iron nails, of course. He was gagged tightly to keep his screams from being heard, and his flesh carved with the slogan, "Thus, for all traitors to the King." From the state of his body, it seems as death must have been a very long time coming, and excruciatingly painful. This other organization has no name, at least not one that anyone knows, but it is known; and it is feared.

For those in the know, it has become quite obvious that there will be a confrontation in due time, and it will be bloody. The tinder is laid upon the hearth, and the kindling well-oiled. All it needs is a proper spark, and the fires of revolution will burn hot and spare none. Among the other races, only a few even have an inkling of what is happening among the elves. Even those who know (the Grand Vizier's spymaster is one such) have very little information, and are dismissive of its importance to the security of the realm. Morgath'ak-Lugash is no more than a collection of petty rabble, elvish trash who will get properly sorted out should they have the temerity to do more than gripe their wine shops and paint a few, pathetic slogans in the public squares. They are no real threat, of course, though they may cause some trouble for the elven nobility. Even so, reason the Grand Vizier's advisors, anything that keeps those high-born pricks busy and out of the affairs of men can only be a good thing. Right? So, they do not worry.

There are unfortunate facts about fire, though, that they should remember. Fire doesn't reason. Fire doesn't respect boundaries. Fire has no conscience. Fire simply burns. Left to its own devices, a well-laid fire that escapes its containment will burn everything in its path.

Sometimes YouTube is your friend

A complete concert: Zappa at the Palais du Sport in Paris, 1980.

See? YouTube isn't just a shitty comment section.

Adventurers are Filthy

You know where adventurers never go? The bath houses. Never at any point in a campaign has anyone said, "You know, we haven't bathed in like 40 sessions. Maybe we should go get cleaned up at bit. It might attract monsters, or maybe cause a penalty on reaction rolls." They're filthy buggers, and probably smell like old (but freshly used) hockey pads and ass.

Frank understands that. He sympathizes. But, damn, that stank could peel the slime off the dungeon walls!

My python boot is too tight.

I couldn't get it off last night.

A week went by, 

And that was July.

I finally got it off, 

And my girlfriend cried.

You got Stinkfoot...

Your Stinkfoot put puts a hurt on my nose.

Can you rinse it off,

Do you suppose?

Thematically appropriate bonus content: Don't You Ever Wash That Thing?

Shut Up, Wizard, and Play Your Guitar

Sometimes I like to think about translating the guitar greats into an RPG class. Forget bards. They'd have to be wizards. The guitar is just another kind of staff, after all. An electric guitar is a prison for a Power of some kind (demon, ghost, whatever). Spell level/power, of course, is dependent on how complicated (mathematically dense!) a particular song spell is (which is very Vancian).

It took me a while to wrap my head around some of Zappa's more challenging pieces, but I'm pretty committed now. Music shouldn't always just rub your ear-holes and brain in ways that make you feel comfortable. That's just self-gratification, and there's only so much of that you can do without it turning into something else entirely (if ya know what I mean, and I think you do...).

So, something a little guitar-centric for you this Second Day of Zappadan, off of Shut Up and Play Your Guitar.

Hey, orc babies! His guitar wants to kill yer momma!

*Update: Here is the wizard, casting some very high-level improvised spells. Holy crap.*

Trance Fusion

Happy Zappadan!

Yes, it's December 4th again, and I will be marking my participation in my favorite winter festival: Zappadan. Conceived by the fellows over at a blog called The Aristocrats, this festival is a celebration of the life and works of Frank Zappa. It runs from December 4th (the date of FZ's death) and ends on December 21st (the date of his birth). The conceit is thus: During the December 4-21 period, we live in  A World Without Frank. He is dead, and has not yet been reborn. Thus, true believers preserve the world from mediocrity by keeping FZ's spirit alive. I am one of those true believers.

That said, I will not bore you (or kill myself) by attempting, as I did last year, to make a Zappa/gaming-themed post on each day of Zappadan. I will, however, post a video on each day, for your consideration. It's about the only way I ever "get religion," so I hope you'll bear with me. And, yes, there will be other (gaming-related) posts during Zappadan.

So, for our first video, I give you "Toads of the Short Forest," from the Weasels Ripped My Flesh album:

Now that's a close shave!