I've got a feeling this year's for me and you

Just one week to go before the big day!  Seven more sleeps till Christmas!

I'm gonna make this a bit of a holiday season catch-all post.  I actually have quite a bit I want to blurt out before the year is done.  Maybe.  If I have the mental endurance to get it all down.  Here goes...

Okay...first...you may recognize the source of the words in this post's title...the Pogues' classic holiday tune "Fairytale of New York."  I can't let the year pass without acknowledging the loss of a great soul just a few weeks back, the inimitable Shane MacGowan.

Image snagged from the Belfast Telegraph

Shane (I don't really think he'd mind my calling him Shane) was a poet extraordinaire, a brilliant observer of the human condition, and a man who owned his voice like no one else.

"Fairytale of New York" is one of the most beautiful of all Christmas songs and honestly maybe of ALL songs.  You don't hear it as much these days due to its inclusion of a homophobic slur.  And I really do get that; it's kind of grating to my lib ears every time I hear it.  And...well, I'm not even going to put a video of the song here because I'm afraid it'll offend someone.

I do recall reading a response from MacGowan about the controversy brought on by the line where he said something along the lines of "she's not a good person" (referring to the female character in the song who says the word).  (Note also that I haven't paused to find that source again, so I think I'm paraphrasing pretty accurately but may also be doing so incompletely.)

EDIT: Kelvin's comments (and link) below encouraged me to do a little digging to see if there is a "MacGowan-approved" edited version of the tune.  I haven't found that to be the case, BUT I did find the more complete quote (or a similar one) that I paraphrased above and though it was worth sharing (from HERE for one):

“The word was used by the character because it fitted with the way she would speak and with her character. She is not supposed to be a nice person, or even a wholesome person. She is a woman of a certain generation at a certain time in history, and she is down on her luck and desperate. Her dialogue is as accurate as I could make it, but she is not intended to offend! She is just supposed to be an authentic character and not all characters in songs and stories are angels or even decent and respectable. Sometimes characters in songs and stories have to be evil or nasty in order to tell the story effectively.”

I've come to think that this approach actually gets to the heart of the song's beauty, and indeed, the heart of what is so poetic about a lot of MacGowan's music.  He saw the flaws of humans and still told their stories with love and a recognition that we all have souls and dreams.  That's a perspective we could use more of.

He will be missed.

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So what else is going on for Christmas?  Well, I just want to remind anyone reading this that they can go HERE to pick up a free holiday adventure about Santa's Elves fighting holiday abominations and trying to save Baby New Year.  So that's cool.  It was also written by me, so there's the caveat.

Reflecting on the various gaming items I've put out into the world, I think "In Bleakest Midwinter" has probably held up as one of the most useful and generally accessible.  In 2024, I hope to revisit it, "updating" as necessary and potentially altering the rules used/implied to fit in more with the system I'd like to adopt as a sort of "house system" for Monstrous Matters, a variation on the approach I started with my own fantasy heartbreaker way back when, and which will be connected to both 5E and OSR gaming.  Right now, I'm pretty drawn to the idea of a house system for the blog as one way of connecting the various threads I inevitably follow on here, no matter how much I try to focus on one thing.  So...we'll see how long it takes before this intention goes the same way as all the others...!

Pic from HERE, which also has a brief discussion of this little guy's Public Domain status

When I do make those changes, I also hope to spend a little bit of time exploring my own canon of holiday stories.  Justin's post over at Halls of the Nephilim on holiday adventures has a list I need to check (twice...har har har) to see if there are others I can fit into the same universe as the Elves of "In Bleakest Midwinter," and I'd love to build out a more complete mix of fiction to include.  This would obviously(!) start with the Rankin/Bass classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and stack up from there, with the first continuity explanation necessary probably being why everyone at the North Pole is such an a-hole in that story.  And then...how does Krampus fit in?  A Christmas Carol?  The Ghostbusters' encounter with Ebenezer Scrooge?  The Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special?  If I'm actually able to stick to a focus on the Monstrous Heartbreaker as a unifying system, it may be a lot of fun to explore this as a segment of...the Monstrousverse...?

At any rate...I hope you enjoy your holiday season, everyone!!

On Santa's Elves

Christmas is almost upon us!  My buddy Josh was kind enough to indulge me in running through this deadly little adventure that I wrote a few years back:

We started him out with a six-elf team on the mission to save the kidnapped Baby New Year, but the initial leprechaun encounter (oh, uh...spoiler alert!) made it clear that he should go ahead and call in some reinforcements.  Six of the twelve total made it through to the end...which is pretty much on par with the level of deadliness I'm going for with the adventure.

I think that by next year's holiday season, I'd like to put together a revised/expanded/improved edition of In Bleakest Midwinter.  It was written pretty loosely as a funnel-type activity that can be played with whatever system and approach to character creation you can make work, although it does have a very basic system in place, with the assumptions of that system outlined.  At any rate, I'm wondering if it might benefit from a little more rules density, even if it's just a bit of silly holiday "rules dressing" that's interesting to read.

I guess I figure there are probably three main categories of folks who are going to get something valuable out of a small work like In Bleakest Midwinter.  There are those who will just want to read over it for fun and/or inspiration, most of whom would probably benefit from additional rules text, as long as it's evocative and not just a grind to read through (or skip over!).  There are some who will want to run it in their system of choice, most of whom will be just as likely to do so having to convert a little bit of crunch as they would be having to add on their own bit of crunch.  And then there are those who will want to run the game exactly as written, and I could probably have added a lot more to make the adventure interesting for those folks.

All of this has me thinking about Santa's Elves, and about the idea I threw out there recently of using D&D 5E races in White Box-style games.  I like the idea of approaching the elves in the game like a 5E race...there are enough specifics in 5E rules to give some nice flavor, and they can almost certainly be crafted to not be overpowered in the context of the adventure.

What?  Oh, yes, I am essentially thinking out loud.  I appreciate your reading.

I also hope you have the absolute happiest of holidays, by the way!

Now, off to look over 5E gnomes.  After all, that's what Santa's Elves are, aren't they?

Happy Turkraken Day!

I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday today (even if it's not actually a holiday for you).

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Note 1:  The beast above can be encountered in the holiday adventure In Bleakest Midwinter that I wrote a few years back.  Check it out if you like...it's free!  The Turkraken is also statted out HERE.)

Note 2:  My good friend J.R. Mounts, who generously provided art for that adventure (including the Turkraken itself), recently had a couple pieces of his work featured in the Godzilla fanzine G-FAN.  I think that's pretty freaking awesome.  You can find the latest issue HERE if that sounds like something you'd be into...!  (J.R.'s work is in #129, Fall 2020.)

More free stuff for you while you're in your bunker...

I've posted a few times about stuff related to my friend and...seriously, if I haven't stressed it enough...one of the nicest human beings you could ever hope to meet, J.R. Mounts.  I mentioned him when he was nominated for a Dragon Award, when I posted my OSR Card-caster class, when I've shown off some fun beasts that he created for me...

...also when he illustrated my little Christmas adventure...

...and when I posted about the Lego war game I worked on a long time ago that he was also kind enough to do art for...

...and, well, probably a number of other times.  He has a tag here on Monstrous Matters, and when I list things like this, it makes me wonder if I've asked him to do too much free work for me...!

Several years ago, J.R. took the plunge and started working full time as an indie cartoonist, which...while I know it hasn't been easy for him...I would argue has made the world a better place thanks to the rest of us getting to see more of the unique perspectives of J.R.  He has some TMNT-level ideas in his work that we'd all hear about if they were given exposure at the right time and place.  I even got to design a couple of card games for his properties and help him show them at Gen Con, which was a dream come true in itself.  (More on these games to come on here as I continue to talk about all of the half-worthwhile things I've ever managed to accomplish...!)

J.R. has recently put out a couple of highly regarded graphic novels and has a really fun comic strip called Scairy Tales, but I would say that the thing he is probably best known for is being "the pickle guy."  Here's the hard-boiled protagonist of his Fried Pickle Noir series, Q. Cumbersome.

J.R. describes FPN as "Sin City Meets Veggie Tales," and it is not to be ignored.  Especially if you like puns.  And the great thing is, during the COVID-19 quarantine, J.R. has made a bunch of his work free for all in .pdf!

If you're looking for something a bit off the beaten path...whatever your beaten path is, honestly...you can simply find J.R. Mounts (by that full name) on Facebook and shoot him a message for access to a folder filled with wacky stuff he's worked on (full disclosure...and even some stuff that I've worked on).

Also, if you'd just like to see more of what J.R. is all about, you can check out his DeviantArt page here.

Seasonal Monstrous Monday: the Turkraken!

Statted up in a festive yet generic OSR fashion (with art by JR Mounts)...

Twenty feet tall, with tentacle-like feathers, and hungry for blood and corn...

Turkraken

5 HD, AC 12, Attacks: Beak +5 (1d6 damage, save or get tossed for an additional 1d6 damage) and 3 feathers +3 (1d6-1 damage), Treasure: In its stomach are a golden crabapple and a copy of A Christmas Carol.

(I lifted that pretty directly from the holiday adventure I put out last year, by the way...if you still have some time for seasonal gaming, why not check out In Bleakest Midwinter and see if it suits your style...?)

And now it's up on RPGNow...

Just a quick note:  "In Bleakest Midwinter" is now up on RPGNow/DriveThruRPG (link).  I can't get the full-size preview to load properly, for some reason.  That's part of what this process is about, though...learning how this self-publishing thing works...

"In Bleakest Midwinter" now up on Lulu

This is just to note that I've put my silly little holiday funnel-type adventure thing, "In Bleakest Midwinter," up on Lulu (link).  I also have it in review for placement on RPGNow/DriveThruRPG.  Free on both, of course, and still available straight from Google Drive here.

While it's a very (and did I mention, very?) amateur product, I figure it can't hurt visibility to put it places where people actually go looking for stuff like that.  It's cool to finally learn a bit about the self-publishing process, too.

In Bleakest Midwinter (a holiday adventure)

All right, I think I've got this to a point where it can be viewed by others!  Here's my meager gift to the OSR community this holiday season...a little adventure called In Bleakest Midwinter.

This is a venture into funnel-type adventuring, inspired by David over at The OSR Library.  It features artwork by my talented buddy (and the nicest guy you'll ever meet) J.R. Mounts (and you should check out his newest project, Stuck In My Head!) and a map taken from the freely usable stock of the incomparable Dyson Logos (probably also a really nice guy).

The PDF is A5-sized and will probably print decently doubled up on standard paper.  There are even front and back "covers" if you choose to go about it that way.

Any and all fixes and feedback are welcome.  Happy Holidays, all!

In Bleakest Midwinter from Google Drive (newest version)