Bastard's Notebook

Well, the_tall_man went and did it- The Cog Wars: Zero Edition is now available for paid download.

What can I say about it? Here's some basic facts:

It is 102 pages of pure distilled genius in a can PDF form.

It can cure your warts, re-grow your hair, and make you feel downright pretty.

It's got a great inventive system- this isn't your typical "D&D plus one new stat homebrew" as far as rules go.

The setting is sheer fucking genius, and the author is deserving of an Ennie, a Pulitzer, and possibly a Nobel for his work. (No guessing which part I was writing for, all right?)

It's a Zero edition. Which means act now, and get the basics while the games dirt cheap. If you love it, you can then get the later editions and help keep supporting me in my old age. (If not, hell, you're out five bucks. I know most of you have spent a LOT more than that on a single 100-page splatbook before this, and this is a full-on corebook, not a supplement.)

The lot of you should go pick up a copy- or at least check out the 11-pages of preview directly viewable on Lulu.com


and synabetic? Go bug Levi about a press kit- this one definitely should get covered.

Y'know, seeing a challenge like this one from Warren Ellis is almost enough to make me want to try my hand at writing for comics... 
I say again- almost. For one, I don't know enough artists who do comic format that'd have time for a project like this. I also don't have the necessary connections, etc for getting something published. That said, it'd still be cool. It just needs... something. Something interesting. Like a bitter tale of love and friendship lost between two gigantic kaiju battlers amidst the screaming remains of Tokyo.

I can feel your flesh, cool beneath my fingers as I stroke your side. A moment of resistance, then a small *pop* as the blade penetrates your skin. I breathe in, smelling the pungent scent of your true self, the self inside your outer shell, and I begin to cut. Small, slices, at first, but as your scent fills the air further, I cannot restrain myself, I hack and cut into you until my hand aches from where I hold the knife. Where solid flesh stood, a hole now gapes, inviting me in.

I discard the knife, reaching in with my hand to caress inside of you. So many textures meet my fingertips- wet-slick, ropy, yet sticky, clinging to my hand in a lover's embrace. I cling back, tightening my hand into a fist, as I slowly pull your entrails from your body. I reach in again, and again, pulling forth more of you with each grasp. your juices stain my hands and face as they fly. Minutes later, the work is done- all of you lies in a wet heap in a bowl at my feet. I sort through the bowl, separating the small, hard bits of you- the hidden jewels- from the rest. I then take up the knife again, and with extreme delicacy, part your flesh once more. smoothing your inner walls, opening you again, and again, and again.

At last, the work is done. Tomorrow night, I'll light a candle in you, enjoy the scent of you baking under the flame's small heat. As for your hidden jewels, I'll wash them, and roast them in butter and spices.

Welcome to the first installment of the "5 phases, 5 days," promo that I'll be posting for the upcoming release of the game The Cog Wars. I've been doing a lot of writing for this game in general, and I'm glad to have the chance to show off some of it before the game gets released in October. So, for the next five weeks, I'll be releasing apiece of fiction from the game on every Wednesday. These pieces were intended to be color fiction for each of the five main phases that a single campaign of The Cog Wars goes through: Discovery, Disruption, Revenge, Vignettes, and Confrontation.

Now for a bit of background on the game world itself. The Cog Wars is set in the independent city-state of Tiran, a Steampunk capital filled with mad science, alchemy, and adventure. Players can take on the role of Kids, Geezers, or Cogs (living clockwork automata) in a depsperate fight to free the city from the grip of the masterminds that have taken control behind the scenes. In the first phase of the game,Discovery, the player characters are usually put to the task of finding information about a particular mastermind's plot.

OK, enough intro and background from me- time for some good fiction,and keep your eyes peeled for next week with Phase 2: Disruption.

( Phase 1: Discovery )

Right. It's past time that I said some stuff about the project I'm currently freelancing on, especially since there's a bunch of freebies now available for grabs. Anyways, I'm doing some setting work for an RPG called The Cog Wars. The basics of the game are that it's a steampunk setting, with a good rules-light set of mechanics. But the work's been damned fun so far. The action of the game takes place in the independent city-state of Tiran, A huge city on the main continent of the world. As for the game itself, well, check out the demo stuff- all located behind the cut here.

( cut for images and a stack o' links )

Ok, I'm getting sick of this.

With the new cafe job (both new as in a new job for me and a new cafe-it's only been open for 12 days now.) I've been schedule for about 20 hours so far this week. Want to know how many of those I've actually been allowed to work?

Four.

The wonderful owner keeps turning my scheduled shifts into "on-call" shifts, which loses me both money and time, since I keep (why am I bothering?) leaving those hours open to actually work. And of course, the loss of income and time raises the whole stress factor, which means my artistic work is suffering. I've had a map drawn up and mostly completed for the Tiran project for days now, but I've been under enough stress that I just can't get the damn penciling on the thing done and get it inked. Same goes for the writing.

ARGH!

So, fuck it. bastard owner decides to stick me on-call today, and I'm just going to be working my ass off on my own shit. I am sick and tired of dealing with business owners who lack the stones to actually allow their employees to work.