At the Gates

I'm screaming, crying, throwing up right now. The Backerkit goes live on May 7th. It's real. It's really really real.

If you purchased the Ashcan and enjoyed it. If you didn't purchase the Ashcan because you were waiting for the actual campaign. If you are just now hearing about this game. If you hate me and want to spite me by pledging for a PDF and leaving fart jokes in the comment section.

Please go and sign up to get notified when the Backerkit goes live.

Aaaaaaaaand, the Tian Xia World Guide is out! Also, the authors' NDAs expired about a week ago, so you may have seen us posting about the cool things we did. Here's what I did: I wrote the Kwanlai section of the Tian Xia World Guide. If you're excited about the history of a colonized bird people rising to their feet as a finally independent nation, you'll find a lot to like here. I had fun providing an in-world explanation as to why Kwanlai is principally populated by tengu (a Japanese creature) but has a Chinese name. The answer, in short, is colonialism. In real life, Japan colonized Uchinaa and foisted the exonym “Okinawa” upon my people. So, it was natural for me to depict the Lung Wa conquering the nation of Ootoya and foisting the exonym “Kwanlai” on the Ootoyans. Another fun tidbit in the writeup is takoyaki (battered and fried octopus) becoming a popular snack due to Wanshou (a nation ruled by a kraken) attacking Kwanlai.

Earlier today, Paizo announced long awaited books for their Asian inspired continent Tian Xia. Unlike many other companies attempting projects that large, Paizo went out of their way to hire damn near every Asian TTRPG writer in the business.

 I’ve worked on ~100 books & games. I’m often the only Asian on a project. It’s rare to have more than 1 other Asian on a book with me.

The Tian Xia books?

There were like 40 of us! 😲

I’m really glad that Paizo took the time to do this right. 💚

Players are going to see what a difference that level of representation makes when they get their hands on Tian Xia & see the massive diversity of Asian cultures & experiences reflected in the books.

I’m not just talking about countries or ethnicities; there’s also different stories of identity — diasporic groups, immigrant experiences, people reconnecting with their heritage, refugees, people finding & making places of belonging, … The sheer breadth of Asian experiences and identities represented in Pathfinder’s Tian Xia team and in our books is astounding. 

This is why representation matters.

Good to see this post. Hope more people get hyped about Scion.

Have you played SCION ?

By White Wolf (1st edition) / Onyx Path Publishing (2nd edition)

Playing humans blessed by or born from the Gods who can eventually ascend to join their ranks. Urban fantasy, but 2e noticeably lacks a masquerade - the fantasy elements are known to the World’s population.

In a world much like ours but not, Priests of a temple of Ra go out for coffee, as followers of Dionysius post pictures of their wine offerings on social media as kids take turns pretending to be Baron Samedi and Quetzalcoatl during recess. The gods of the old world still preside and watch over their people, seeking their worship and answering their prayers but an ancient foe has escaped from their prison. The Titans, the primordial beings of destruction and chaos have returned. The Gods cannot come down to The World and fight back against the evil Titans that plague their followers, less they be victims of fate, changing their legends and fates forever, instead they call out to their descendants. You, a Scion of the gods. You may of been born between your divine parent and a mortal, maybe you were chosen by that god, maybe the god created and bestowed life to you, or perhaps you are the human reincarnation of a forgotten god. As a Scion, you take your divine parent’s place and restore order to The World while also building your own legend, developing divine powers, gaining followers and earning a place in your pantheon. You grow and learn from your humble Origin, to becoming a Hero to mortals, then being recognized as a Demigod and finally achieving the godhead and becoming a God. Can you fight back against the Titans and fate?

Why does "you're a class traitor to want to make money from your art" apply only to artists? it's fascinating. Are you a class traitor to not want your labor stolen in other ways also. Who are you people

My sister’s husky has a fantastic costume this year

I look forward to them getting signed by Cleopatra Records.

bosohurricane

Deeply important. When purity-consciousness overwhelms a movement, it often ends up doing its enemies work for it. Direct link to thread below, above images screenshotted for posterity:

constantly devastated by the world we lost due to aids

We should be more pro-active or we’ll see more of such sad fates of honest people.

I’m stoked body ink is becoming more socially acceptable but at the same time there is so little social responsibility by both artists and consumers…

Even using the term “tattoo” (bastardized version of the Samoan word tatau) is directly related to the cultural appropriation and commercialization of the art by/for colonizers.

My pieces are more than aesthetic, as hajichi were banned by Japan since the late 1800s as a form of cultural genocide (specifically targeting women). I’m the first to wear them in my family in at least five generations.

It’s not that I think people can’t get body ink for aesthetic purposes (or create characters with ink), but I think it IS important to ask where the designs are coming from and what they really represent. It goes back further than you think.

And, as always, who is really profiting?

A Cut Above

tl;dr In an alternate universe, #NightVale is a “peacast,” and Apple’s music player is the “iPea.”

But to explain that, I’ll need to point out that Apple’s audio player took its name from a pre -Internet meme: “open the pod bay doors, Hal .”

See, in 1968, Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke created a film in which the protagonist asks an artificial intelligence for entrance to the bay of EVA pods, short-range vehicles designed for space flight.

But that’s not where “pod” comes from originally. Before the film 2001 (the book came after the film), astronauts would colloquially refer to their own emergency exit craft as “escape pods.”

But, those pods were named after gunners pods and other compartments that were bolted onto the fuselages of planes.

And those pods were named after legumes, as they resembled peas, which come in pods. In a stroke of good branding, the pilots went with “pod” instead of “pea,” Thus preventing the “iPea” and “peacasting.”

Ever hear something so dumb that to motivates you to escape samsara?

And if the wizard is fluent in a signed language, it’s a multilingual counterspell to your bootleg counterspell.

req'd by @libraryknight

i mean can you preempt a counterspell?

text: Throat punching a wizard to keep them from saying incantations is basically a bootleg counterspell.

in hysterics