[AFHOTWTTGS] The Terror of Llanberis

For those not in the know, I've recently spent ten days on holiday, in the mist-wreathed mountainous wilderland of North Wales (and it made a lovely change from the sun-baked nightmare-scape that London becomes in the summertime, too). Leaving aside the part where I got engaged to the lovely and infinitely patient Hark (although that happened, and it was terribly cute, even the part where she headbutted me in the chest four times before she could say yes), I've also spent a good week of that time living in a Doctor Who serial - probably a Pertwee-era one, all location filming and quarries and stock footage of gorgeous Welsh scenery.

Don't believe me? Have a dekko at this lot.

At the foot of Mt. Snowdon lies an ominous-looking artificial lake at the bottom of a foreboding slate valley. At the far end, if you squint, you can just about make out a small village; I'd check the name, but Google Maps is being an arse today and I didn't write it down. I know it's not Llanberis, because that's at the end where this photo was taken.

On one side of the reservoir, for such it be, we have the First Hydro power station. Lovely place to work, surrounded by glorious scenery and with the National Slate Museum just up the road. (Tell me you can't hear any companion of the last ever uttering the words "the National Slate Museum? Sounds fascinating" in tones of low dudgeon and great sarcasm. Except Barbara or Evelyn, who would pop inside quite cheerfully for a potter around and a nice cup of tea and doubtless discover a Clue there. If I were a cruel bastard, I might put a plot hook in there just to see if any Who RPG players would take the bullet. Your Call of Cthulhu group would be on that.)

The beaches around the reservoir are honeycombed with these little outflow tunnels, some of which look like nobody's gone near them since they were dug. I wonder what might have burrowed its way into that network, or been inadvertently disturbed? Obviously, I default to Silurians, although Silurians in Wales has been done to frustrating effect by our Mr. Chibnall of contemporary Who fame. I welcome the nerd fight over which Silurians are best, given that either three-eyed heat-rayed weirdos or scaly Neve McIntosh are fine by me.

Overlooking the whole ensemble, you have Castell Dolbadarn, built by Llewelyn the Great in 1220, and final seat of the kingdom of Gwynedd before its conquest by the English (hawk, spit, up the Celtic Nations etc. etc.) Here's where you get your time travel on. Somehow, Dafydd ap Gruffydd, in the last years of Welsh independence, could well be swept up in one of those change-the-course-of-history plots; imagine if the English army had been broken by scaly wossnames from the deep, and the Welsh resistance aligned with its 'demonic' allies...

'liberated' from Dominic Self

Incidentally, the Monk is pulling my GM face. That said, I don't think this is a Monk story. It's more of a Faction Paradox plot... and if it is, I have just the agent for it. Stay tuned.

Ramdamalla, Petty God of Drama and Miscommunication

Special thanks to Jeff Rients, Faoladh, and Kapitan Von for help with this Pettiest of Petty Gods.

Name: Ramdamalla

Symbol: An inverted pyramid balanced on its tip,
looking simultaneously like an eruption (such a geyser or a volcano) and also like a great weight about to fall.

Alignment: Chaotic Evil



Summary

Ramdamalla is the third leg of an unofficial triumvirate of petty gods that contains Manidono and Dickanus and might, in modern times, be called "Deities of the Postmodern." Alongside the Slacker God and the Asshole God, Ramdamalla is the Drama God -- no, not the drama of theater, but the petty dramas and stupid arguments and useless conflicts that afflict everyone's lives. However, while Dickanus is sophomorically self-centered and Manido doesn't care much about anything, Ramdamalla takes a perverse glee in ruining the everyday lives of people just for laughs. 

Ramdamalla is sometimes referred to as "That Motherfucking God," as speaking its name tends to invoke its attention. It has no one preferred form; rather, it is a mass of chortling chaos that shifts forms as whim and circumstance dictate. Known avatars in the past have been a rockslide, a seething mob, a torrent of vomit, a mountain of excrement, a herd of alpaca, and a grotesque troll. 

Worshippers

"That Motherfucking God is invoked by accident and served by fools."  -- old proverb

No sane individual worships Ramdamalla; like many deities of ill-fortune, it is propitiated in the hopes that it will stay away from those who make the proper offerings. Those who do worship it (mostly its clergy, although there are always a few "champions" of Ramdamalla who terrorize cities, towns and countrysides) are unstable or disturbed in some manner; usually one of the various forms of sociopathy, although masochism is also common.

It is worth noting that Ramdamalla does not specifically endorse violence (but neither does it disapprove); it is not a god of murder or warfare. Neither is it a parallel to Eris, whose portfolio of Strife also encompasses the concepts of Chaos and "breaking down the established order." No, the only concepts important to Ramdamalla are arguments, hurt feelings, and wasted energy; feuding cliques between schoolchildren over clothing or popular culture are just as important to it as as fighting between politicians in the halls of government. To Ramdamalla, we are all just ants scurrying about after our anthill was kicked away, and it finds our frantic attempts to repair our lives to be humorous antics.

There are no grand temples to Ramdamalla; even among its clergy, there is too much discontent and misunderstanding to accomplish such a thing. (Centuries ago, there was a major schism over whether to call themselves "Ramdamallans" or "Ramdamallites.") Instead, shrines to the Drama God are found in caves, or basements, or other "hole in the wall" locations, usually maintained by a single priest. There may occasionally be an apprentice being trained by the priest, but inevitably there will be a falling-out between the two and one of them will leave.

There are no feast days or festivals; priests worship their deity through starting fights and enabling drama, all while declaring that they wish to be left alone. Ironically, Ramdamalla doesn't even need worship, or even followers; it gains its strength from factionalization and petty fights, with which humans provide it aplenty.

"Why would anyone be a priest of this god that ruins lives?" Look in a mirror, you fool". -- another proverb, this one attributed to Ramdamallan scripture.


Invocation and Abilities

Don't try to invoke Ramdamalla; you'll succeed, and then you'll be sorry.

There's no table to roll, no percentage chance to see if it reacts well to you. If you speak its name, it will bestow its attention on you, and it will never be a good thing. The DM is encouraged to inflict the pettiest, most soap-operatic thing that can happen to the invoker -- and his friends and/or compatriots, if possible.

Instead, Ramdamalla can be made to go away (un-invoked, if you will) by one of two methods: ignoring it, or giving it attention.  There is a 50% chance that the method chosen is the correct one; the other will only make the situation worse.

Attention: This is best accomplished through ritual sacrifice, whereby the petitioner seeks to symbolically substitute objects of value for time that would be spent dealing with the problem. Every 100 gold pieces' worth of sacrificial items (money, jewels, livestock, magical items) equals a 10% chance that Ramdamalla will be satisfied and go away. A blood sacrifice can also be performed; sacrificing a hit point (the petitioner's own, not that of other beings) also equals 10% chance of propitiation -- but this damage must heal on its own, not via magic or potions, or else the sacrifice will not be considered favorable and the trouble will come back to the petitioner, doubled in intensity. Blood and goods may be combined in a single sacrifice, if desired.

Ignoring it: There is a commonly-known gesture that is believed to shield the performer from Ramdamalla's attention. By clapping one's hands together in front of one's chest, and then pushing palms-outward in the shape of a V, the drama is believed to be redirected back to its source.  However, this gesture (known as the Niemo Jemałpy in an obscure dialect) usually exacerbates the problem as the conflict is redirected onto itself.



The Author wishes to point out that this entry is not aimed at any one individual -- claps hands, "Niemo Jemałpy", etc -- but rather came to fruition because it seems like the world is going to hell and the internet, blogosphere, Facebook etc are turning on themselves and becoming whirlpools of strife and stupid arguments.

A Thank-You to my Patrons

As a result of Saturday's Experiment, I now have two more patrons and proof that people will support me if I make promises of evil ideas.

Also as a result of these new patrons, I have hit two milestones in my Patreon campaign:  the removal of ads from my blog and a promise of an audio blogcast once a month.

Now, regarding the ads:  You will notice that the big Amazon ad up top and the flashy Luckygunner ad to the side have disappeared.  However, I have kept links to them, because I know for a fact that there are people who will want to do some shopping through one of my links and if I take them down completely these people won't be able to use them.  I've made those links as small as possible, and they're under my PayPal link off to the side. Hopefully this will not bother people; in my mind these are links, not advertisements, as they don't take up much space and don't blink or otherwise distract.

Regarding the Evyl Robot ad:  That links to a friend's business and it's there because I want to support him. I'm not getting paid to put it there.

Regarding the blogcast:  Yeah, I have no idea what to do for that. Suggestions?

Bleach for Water Purification

I don't normally link to Blue Collar Prepping more than once a week, but today we have an article that is timely and relevant to the water contamination in Toledo, OH.  I urge all of my readers to go to BCP and read today's article so that you will know how to purify your water should something similar happen.

I'll just leave this here, k?

Made by me.  Enjoy your weekend, and go see the movie; you won't be sorry.

An Experiment in Patronage

Last night I had a really nifty and really evil idea for a weapons system in Traveller that I could potentially loose upon my players.  So I investigated it, statted it up, and then realized it might be too evil, even for me.

Of course, this left me with a distressing dilemma that I think all Game Masters will understand: If I don't use it, then no one will appreciate my evil brilliance and tell me what a creative and disturbed individual I am. And if no one appreciates it and I don't use it, then it's a wasted idea. And since I still might tell my players about it, I don't want to just give the idea away because then the element of surprise is lost.

That's when it occurred to me:  Patreon is all about rewarding my Patrons.

I had initially resisted the idea of Patreon because 1) I wasn't sure how I could create patron-only content when my time was already limited, and 2) the idea of holding my ideas for ransom, after doing it for free for so long, seemed distasteful.

But I think that this is a solution I can be happy with. I've already done the work, and I can let people see it without just giving it away to my players -- and if they truly want to know what it is, they can become a patron as well. It is visible to any level patron of mine, and hopefully this will attract more patronage.

And so if you are a patron of mine (and if you're not, I encourage you to become one!), you can head over to Patreon and look at the weapon system for Traveller (Mongoose Edition) that was too evil for even my own use.

Probably.

SHTFriday: Hurricane Preparedness part 3

Today's SHTFriday concludes my three-part series on hurricanes, this time talking about what is necessary (i.e. the bare minimum) needed to dig in and ride out a hurricane so that you end up looking like this guy...

... and not this guy:

Because that would be BAD.


(Yes I know those are pictures from the 2011 Mississippi flood, just work with me here)