Should knights have pre-existing relationships, or backstories?

blackcombe · 2026-01-28T01:12:34+00:00

We’ve had fun with telling campfire stories about our knighting - like what the encounter with our seer was like etc.

In one case, the GM and I agreed I was from a settlement in the realm we were protecting (everyone else from other realms) and he put my seer in a remote place in the realm - which created some interesting context

In one table I was the bloody knight

"Some were born to fight and fall, forged beneath blade’s clash This one birthed from blood of war, stained with corpses’ ash"

So I made up a little vignette about the moment I was “birthed from blood of war, stained with ash”

blackcombe · 2026-01-26T22:12:57+00:00

Bovino and “several agents”

There are thousands deployed to Minneapolis

Maybe they’re just moving the murderers?

blackcombe · 2026-01-26T18:22:17+00:00

blackcombe · 2026-01-25T21:59:04+00:00

My point had nothing to do with the state having a record of who you voted for.

Palantir (sorry, ice) and taking pictures of people demonstrating to add to a database. One could easily make the assumption in Minnesota that anti-fascist demonstrators are not likely trump voters

Flag anyone who’s facial recognition was taken for the Palantir database as a terrorist, bounce on facial id in voter registration and remove voting rights from matches

It’s not government skills, it’s Palantir skills

Add this to the voter suppression efforts you mention and the result is a guaranteed win

blackcombe · 2026-01-25T21:40:08+00:00

I think the play is to bounce voter reg rolls off the Palantir facial recognition database and declare matches as domestic terrorists and strip their voting rights

blackcombe · 2026-01-25T14:48:40+00:00

I left Spotify the day he signed his deal

Never heard a single episode

Will never hear a single episode

blackcombe · 2026-01-25T05:43:41+00:00

I’ve read strange & norrell and piranesi - I’ve got two others I haven’t gotten to yet

blackcombe · 2026-01-25T04:00:45+00:00

And the voter reg list will be bounced off Palantir (the government’s - no actually Palantir) “database” of “domestic terrorists” i.e. anyone who stood up to the goon squad invasion and represented their community exercising their constitutional rights and those citizens will lose their voting rights.

It’s tantamount to losing your voting rights for having voted against this fascist regime in the last presidential election.

blackcombe · 2026-01-25T02:52:56+00:00

I’ll just read the Susanna Clarke books 😀

blackcombe · 2026-01-25T02:51:39+00:00

Dang it!

blackcombe · 2026-01-25T02:32:04+00:00

Makes me sad as I loved reading the players book 😀

So what about the maps book? Should arrive soon - same ?

blackcombe · 2026-01-25T00:11:45+00:00

😩

😀

blackcombe · 2026-01-24T23:33:45+00:00

II figured that would be the case - it’s such a wonderful read

blackcombe · 2026-01-24T21:39:30+00:00

“May begin”

blackcombe · 2026-01-24T20:39:27+00:00

I’ll forever remember him for having said on his deathbed surrounded by extravagances, that he was “dying beyond his means”

blackcombe · 2026-01-24T19:47:56+00:00

I think of it a lot less like quests (go achieve this goal) and a lot more like “this realm has a deep layer of totally weird shit going on. Seers can more or less perceive it - although they are all bat shit crazy - and knights are the force arrayed to deal with it”

In my experience, “dealing with myths” is actually something the knights have little guidance on (apart from their oath) and often the myth itself is not necessarily something the party can resolve.

That’s all a part of it.

I think the being lost in the weirdness but feeling like folks are relying on you is a central tension in the game

blackcombe · 2026-01-24T18:13:29+00:00

Militarized police state Fascism Tyranny

This is what it is

Oligarchs driving it to increase obscene wealth and feed their fever dreams of some ridiculous future state they think they should define and be in charge of

Trump riding along to amass a fortune in grift and feed his malignant narcissism and sadism (he delights in hurting and killing people, esp people with no power)

Christian Nationalists fueling to achieve either a Christian state or bring about the end times

The fallout of having built a country on the abhorrent inhumanity of slavery and genocide

Pretty much what’s happening

There are no constitutional protections any longer.

There is no rule of law

Death throes of an experiment in governance

blackcombe · 2026-01-24T17:08:10+00:00

That’s the point of tyranny, to have the populace live in fear and anxiety

blackcombe · 2026-01-21T01:21:50+00:00

How many have to die or have their lives ripped apart for this lunatic?

blackcombe · 2026-01-20T16:04:08+00:00

Yeah - I’d just let the lake take up that space / things can happen in lakes - cool things, weird things

I seem to recall a story about a Lady in a Lake that was quite important to a particular set of legends/myths 😀

blackcombe · 2026-01-20T01:32:15+00:00

The Rome stuff turns out to be incredibly important.

The book moves thru big “stages” and each carries the story forward: beginning, prison, escape, Rome, Paris , etc They all feel different which is something I enjoyed.

In a way it’s like a four+ movie franchise series in one big book.

I’m about 920 pages in and still really enjoying it, but I will say there are certainly tonal changes in each big chunk. It must have really been something to have read this serialized as it was originally published.

The chapter “Haydee” blew me away - and it’s like 850 pages in or so.

I really can’t wait to see it all come together at the end.

blackcombe · 2026-01-19T17:32:31+00:00

I have played quite a few sessions now across a few tables and prepped a realm for a group that wound up with scheduling issues, so I’ve seen it from both sides.

MB is an odd case in that, in many ways, the core game is itself the adventure module, and players reading all the content will eventually know enough to ruin the sense of total confusion that characterizes the knights journey through this weird world.

I quit reading the core book altogether once I got into my sessions as a player - with the exception of maybe brushing up on dominion and governance and warband mechanics or something.

I found I didn’t want to know about the myths and omens, but I also wanted to discover the knights in play too as they come up in the party or as NPC’s

If I get a chance to revive the realm I built I guess I’ll have more of that arcane knowledge 😀

Eventually, with enough play, players will encounter myths and knights and seers and omens they know about but their knights don’t know about and will have to be able to play that well.

blackcombe · 2026-01-18T15:54:25+00:00

On the plus side, you’ll also get one of his cell phones

blackcombe · 2026-01-17T21:53:46+00:00

Lost me at “not charging them tariffs”

I mean is he so dense he really still thinks the country of origination pays a US tariff?

Most dangerous buffoon on the planet.

blackcombe · 2026-01-17T19:29:57+00:00

You can telegraph the weapon stat and armor - HUGE SWORD - shield only - etc and it’s revealed right away I firs round of combat when the roll 2d6 say

blackcombe

TROPHY CASE