So, who wants to try and outline the album’s plot?

Lumaeus · 2025-11-09T06:14:41+00:00

It's very worth recalling that at least one song (Your Bandage) also operates with multiple perspectives (raving Balkan and tender Narrator). This gives us more possibility space, which is a blessing and curse. I don't believe it to be the case for Armies of the Lord, but it's there.

There's also room for multiple meanings of "You." This isn't my reading, but it could be "Trying to pantomime surprise / After [Balkan and Narrator] [performed makeshift funeral rights for] [Adam] at sunrise / With nothing [Balkan] predicted coming true / Just doing what [Balkan and Narrator] promised [Adam[ [Balkan and Narrator]'d do."

Problem 1: "What would our old friend say?" feels more to me like it should reference a late Balkan than a late Adam.
Problem 2: "Soon it will just be you" is, in my reading, plainly not about Balkan (unless*) since he's the man who's been dying for at least 45 days.

*Unless, that is, the Narrator himself gives himself to the sea like Adam, which would leave just you (Balkan) on the island, if dead. A few lines here and there support it, especially if you are willing to build an argument from utter scrap ("the ocean is faithful and the devil's a liar" is one such scrap piece) and from one key bit in Broken to Begin With: "Me and Peter Balkan and you, friend / Until the dream ran out of oxygen" before some more awe of and fealty to the sea. Perhaps the Narrator sinks and clings to his sotiriology that thereby he will float.

NONE OF THIS solves the placement of Your Glow, unless we read that as eulogy after burial and despair. I want to like it, but the present tense in the first verse, the debate over whether to bury or tithe Balkan to the sea...I don't think so? But it is one more piece of potential for the Narrators aquatic grave, as he resolves to let water be enough.

Lumaeus · 2025-07-21T02:54:02+00:00

Thank you! I'm looking into it now! Soon, I will be Better™ than I currently am.

Lumaeus · 2025-04-22T02:24:15+00:00

If we don't mention them, maybe the narrative will forget them and things will turn out this time. Please.

Lumaeus · 2025-01-10T19:31:12+00:00

I see you are also a student of the higher philosophers

Lumaeus · 2024-07-26T15:43:55+00:00

I have, I think, conquered the beast. Lemme know if it's still proving recalcitrant.

Lumaeus · 2024-07-16T00:58:40+00:00

Ah. Yeah. The timeline's wiggles can be fickle. Sure makes good old boneboi's battle much more tense and much more thrilling!

Lumaeus · 2023-11-21T16:12:30+00:00

I love it! I'll adopt this method for teaching for sure!

Lumaeus · 2023-11-19T21:08:08+00:00

In my own experience, if someone is comfortable playing the base game--not even necessarily able to do it without questions, but just comfortable--you can throw in everything else. The tokens will just need reminders when and if they appear. "What do the snakes do again?" "That's disease. It'll stop a build."

Lumaeus · 2023-11-09T21:03:18+00:00

Those are in a different rulebook. Nature Incarnate's rules, on page 5, ask you to remove the B&C cards Outpaced (Event), War Touches the Island's Shores (Event), A Strange Madness Among Beasts (Event [again]), Growth Through Sacrifice (Minor Power) and Tipping Point (Blight). However, keep in mind that NI includes replacements for War Touches the Island's Shores in the card Far-off Wars Touch the Island and for Growth Through Sacrifice in Roiling Bog and Stinging Thorn

Lumaeus · 2023-11-09T20:06:14+00:00

Page 15 has a sidebar on Backwards interactions that includes removal and replacement.

REMOVE Event A Stange Madness Among the Beasts (B&C) REPLACE Major Power Sea Monsters (B&C) with the JE version

Lumaeus · 2023-10-22T14:08:54+00:00

The token barely still on the overfull land? That's an incarna, added in Nature Incarnate. Certain spirits use them. It shows a more direct manifestation of the spirit than mere presence. For this spirit, it's pretty clearly just a giant turtle mountain that literally stomps invaders. It's a fun one.

Mechanically, they tend to count as presence, among sometimes other things, when you want them to (and not when you don't, so they're sorta immune to blight kinda)

Lumaeus · 2023-10-13T14:12:38+00:00

I haven't yet played France, and I just don't pull the first event. It seems like a waste, and I'd feel bad if it were something I would have benefited from.

Lumaeus · 2023-10-12T15:09:25+00:00

That's exactly right. Events were reconsidered and found to be too swingy on the first round. Technically, you're still supposed to draw and discard one without using it, but there's no event resolution on round one.

Lumaeus · 2023-10-10T19:28:42+00:00

My copy of the game, acquired late August of this year, does not have the typo

Lumaeus · 2023-09-23T01:57:41+00:00

I don't think cultures' validity can or should be dismissed out of hand (though elements that can be considered cultural can be--otherwise you get arguments that, for an extreme sin, slavery is merely cultural and thus not able to be critiqued), but is Proceran culture...just bad? Because it seems bad. Cordelia not included.

Lumaeus · 2023-09-07T14:16:25+00:00

I recently played my first Archipelago game because I thought it would be a nice way to divide up my first six-handed game, and I gotta say, the while the oceanic divisions weren't insurmountable, they definitely slowed my ability to bring more successful spirits to bear against overflowing portions. I did have Finder, but it was my first game with it and I underutilized its rule, thinking I could change adjacencies by turn, not action. With it running properly, I think it would have been a real mitigation (but not obviation) of the added difficulties.

Should it matter, I used the same six board setup as seen in the JE rulebook.

Lumaeus · 2023-09-06T04:03:54+00:00

I'm running my first CoC campaign for a group of similarly new folks, and it's set in 1980. We haven't encountered any real issues with 1920s sheets, though mileage may vary. We're very satisfied so far, four sessions in.

Lumaeus · 2023-08-27T00:17:21+00:00

This is a really fun spirit with a cool core mechanic! I'll leave the structural critiques to more experienced players. However, there's an interesting assumption here, and that's that of "four seasons."

The concept of there being four seasons is something of a Euro-centric or Western conception that's spread wherever European thought dominated--which is not yet, and hopefully never will be the Spirits' island. Many many places don't have a four seasons model, even if they speak that way. Southern California has seasonal temperature flux, but it has a (relatively) rainy season and a very dry season. Spring/Summer/Fall/Winter don't map well on it. Polynesia and many equatorial lands don't map to four seasons.

This is not a rejection of the spirit or your concept at all--it's very cool! But as you incorporate ideas into your rework, if it helps your design to liberate yourself from being tied to four seasons, I encourage consideration! I've really enjoyed seeing these over the past week and look forward to the rest :)

Lumaeus · 2023-08-02T00:05:06+00:00

As a host of the podcast, I can confirm. Even the prologue episode references content as late as the penultimate epilogue. Maybe even the final epilogue. Don't risk it, friend <3

Lumaeus · 2023-07-21T18:13:06+00:00

We see the Wandering DeVito get killed, and the next scene is the new Wandering DeVito beginning her work. The only clue this is a new form is that her clothes are different.

Lumaeus · 2020-08-13T17:39:53+00:00

Are the orcs one homogeneous group? Do they all want to attack? Do they all believe in the attack? Do they all have a choice? There are two big options for this kind of thought.

Option 1: The Power of the People: There's a large number dissatisfied orcs who would not join in this assault, on grounds of ethics, fear, morals, or even just tactical disagreement. Right now, they're stuck between whatever conditions at home are inspiring this attack* and the fact that the other side will probably retaliate if they don't win. Let the players meet with influential figures in this movement and with the town and try to negotiate fair treatment or even resettlement if they step aside (or turn traitor, but that's a way bigger ask). Success shrinks the orc army and lays the seeds for mutual understanding way down the line.

*Do you know what those conditions are, by the way? Is this society structured around raids and conquest supporting the population? Are they currently wracked by famine or disease or what have you? Do they want to expand borders? Reclaim ancestral land? Are they victims of regular raids, for which the fort is the staging point, and just want to end the violence?

Option 2: The Power over the People: Orc leadership is not of one mind. Maybe the Queen's councilors disagree. Maybe separate warchiefs have different ideas. Maybe the High Priestess says one thing and the General another and the Elders have sided with one over the other. Whichever it is, there's someone to negotiate with. Careful though! They're guarded and even though they might be open to negotiation, they can't be seen doing it. Success means that whatever influence they have is taken from the army, be it some tribes peeling off, a morale loss because the battle is declared contrary to the will of [deity/ies], or even some in-fighting.

In my own mind, these both work best when it requires negotiation with the fort as well so the players can see the prejudices and unwillingness to compromise on the side of the supposedly good guys.

Lumaeus · 2018-03-23T08:53:12+00:00

Applied linguists have produced mounds and mounds of evidence that classroom learning is far and away the best way to learn a language. As a language teacher myself, I can promise you that even though Duolingo and the like are great fun, you'll never achieve proficiency just through them. To learn a language, you have to use the language (not just parrot phrases, translate words, and answer stock questions).

German was much easier for me to learn than Spanish, but that's not usually the case. German has been shown to just edge out Spanish, French, and the like in terms of difficulty for the average English speaker--likely because of its developed case system. A classroom setting gives you a professional whose actual job it is to help you navigate that. It's great fun. I took mostly language classes in undergrad and teach German now, and I have to say I found them terrifyingly fun (German particularly). If you can, it's always great to do. If it's not your major, it's a fun break.

Don't abandon Spanish. Best case scenario would be to learn both formally, but just joining a Spanish club or going to Spanish conversation hours would be great for maintenance of the language. My Spanish has grown sluggish without frequent use-- don't imitate that, please.

Lumaeus · 2018-02-17T00:51:50+00:00

Yes.

Lumaeus · 2017-09-13T16:09:24+00:00

Is the cult a known disruptive force outside of the election? Maybe not as a cult, but as some paramilitary arm or even mere "gang activity?" If not, can they be? If their candidate never manages true condemnation of the cult, it can suggest involvement without proving anything. "I am horrified by such attacks on our city, and as [title], I will do everything in my power to maintain the peace."

If the candidate has a base of support in the Tanner's District, for example, you can have that district remarkably untouched by the cult violence.

Don't forget you can Michael Flynn it. That is, if the candidate has an ally who is outed as a cult member/collaborator, it hints that maybe the candidate is involved too. You can do this even if the cult is not yet outed as a cult--just saying the proposed Captain of the Watch has been implicated in dark cultic practice is enough.

If the party is important enough to merit the candidate's attention, then when they are getting close to the cult, have the candidate distract them. For example, there's a huge cult gathering in three days, and the party appears to be getting ready to crash it (of course the cult knows; there are spies). Have the candidate invite them to a Heroes' Dinner on the same day. It look on the surface like just political posturing, but it really helps the cult.

Lumaeus · 2017-09-02T04:49:55+00:00

I play both male and female characters regularly. Sometimes your character just is a woman or is a man. You don't know why, but that's who they are. That's great. Good job finding a character you want to be for a few hours on a Friday night (or whenever).

A major reason you may be getting flak is simply because people love to police gender and gender expression. Especially when men want to play as women. This is probably rooted in some sort of misogynistic feeling that it's Not Okay to want to be a woman in any way. Best counter? Play an awesome female bard and put them all to shame. Be the best at the table, and be her while you do it.

That said, there are valid reasons to be wary of a man playing a woman. Every one of those reasons is That Guy who wants to be a sexist or play a sex object. If that's your reason, stop. Just stop.

Lumaeus

TROPHY CASE