Apologies for my absence. I have been very busy, for a while simply because I was prepping to run games, right now due to school and a mystery project. Because of my scheduling (school and posts and projects) , things stack up fast if I slow down, and I intend to make spells and rooms equivalent to the length of absence, but for now, I am too busy. It is my final semester of school, hopefully, and I have a senior exhibition to make things for - along with a horribly taxing all-encompassing hard and scary and beautiful and intense mystery project that will affect all platforms and interactions I have once it is revealed - for now - I will be doing the second haunted house blogpost on my day off, and hopefully continuing to chip away at my play report and reflections about the con games I ran recently. As for bigger projects than the daily posts, my book Glass Eyes of God is still being considered and worked on, two of the five games I ran at the con were adventures that will fi...

  Black Tambourine by Beck!  The VaM-style spell today is Black Tambourine- the title coming from this song by Beck! I have listened to Guero so many times. It is one of the most listened things between me and my immediate family - it got played so many car rides. I love it to death. I love all the tracks, even the one we skipped because it sounded like our cats asthma. Many of them would be excellent spells. E-Pro, Missing, Earthquake Weather, Broken Drum, Scarecrow, Go It Alone, Emergency Exit.... There are other albums full of great songs and great potential spells by Beck, all his music is fantastic.   Guero is incredibly important also due to the music video for E-Pro - which nearly ended Beck's career due to a debilitating injury, which would have been a monumental tragedy - we would have never gotten to hear Modern Guilt, Morning Phase, or Colors.       Here are definitions of Black and Tambourine!   of the very darkest color owing to the absen...

  220- An Echoey room   This room’s door to the south is ash. The doorknob is silver plated – and locked. This room’s door to the lower east is ash. The doorknob is silver plated – and locked. This room’s door to the upper east is ash. The doorknob is silver plated – and locked. This room’s door to the west is ash. The doorknob is silver plated – and unlocked. This room echoes – each time a person speaks or makes noise, there is a 2/6 chance of a random encounter. This is partially due to the pink tile floors, which click and clack when walked on, and amplify sound – the vaulted roof in this room is also a factor. The room is roughly 15X25 feet, each hallways/passage in and out is around 5 feet wide.  

  219- Shades Haunt This Chamber This room’s door to the north is ash. The doorknob is silver plated – and locked. This room’s door to the south is ash. The doorknob is silver plated – and locked. The two doorframes above this room have sigils of Shades – the spell is cast as if by a 7 th level Magic-User. They trigger on a person entering or exiting the room. The room is roughly 15X25 feet, each hallways/passage in and out is around 5 feet wide.  

  Honey by Moby!  The VaM-style spell today is Honey  - the title coming from this song by Moby! I have loved this song since early childhood - it got put on a mix-cd my godfather gave us, and this CD got heavy rotation. I especially love it because of the vocals - It is a sample of Bessie Jones, Sometime - and I absolutely love the music in this style, and it is often well applied or interpolated, like Ram Jam - There is a lot of excellent American folk blues and soul samples - Later there will be a spell based on a Led Belly song! Moby really makes this sample shine, and I am just a sucker for good sampling.       Here are definitions of Honey!   a sweet, sticky yellowish-brown fluid made by bees and other insects from nectar collected from flowers. a yellowish-brown or golden color. any sweet substance similar to bees' honey. an excellent example of something. darling; sweetheart (usually as a form of address) Here are the Lyrics!   Get m...

  218- Trapped Slug This room’s door to the east is ash. The doorknob is silver plated – and locked. Inside the room is a giant slug – it is in stasis – and will reawaken when it detects moisture – either from people breathing in the room for more than 5 minutes – or from any exposure to direct water. Giant Slug Big as an oxen, slimy and surprisingly fast HD 9 HP 68 Speed 160’ Armor 11 Morale 9 Attack : +10/N, where N is number of party members – attack “slimes” them, dealing 1+N at the start of each of their turns, where N was the last amount dealt by the slime – this lasts until washed off. Special : Leaves trails of slime, which test footing if stepped on ( A dd the PCs Str and Dex, Divide by two rounding down – This is their footing. Have them test it as if it is a save, if they fail they fall over. ) The room is roughly 15X20 feet, each hallways/passage in and out is around 5 feet wide.

  217- Folded Silent Triangles of Space This room’s door to the wesr is ash. The doorknob is silver plated – and locked. This room’s door to the north is ash. The doorknob is silver plated – and locked. This room’s door to the left south is ash. The doorknob is silver plated – and locked. This room’s door to the right south is ash. The doorknob is silver plated – and locked. This room feels still as a crypt – tell that to players. If they search for secrets – have them automatically succeed, but don’t tell them that have a roll in secret then look up and talk to them slowly tell them “ you turn around any no-one is there, when you walk forward you feel the sensation of turning around abruptly and they appear” The Room has something wrong with it – some malfunctioning enchantment – in effect moving in the chamber has a series of “dead spaces” in the shape of triangles, walking in or out of them folds reality into a separate dimension where...

  216- Death This room’s door to the east is ash. The doorknob is silver plated – and locked. This room’s door to the south is ash. The doorknob is silver plated – and locked. The room has a hidden capacity – if there are ever more than ten people in it – there is a sigil on the ceiling that will trigger a Symbol of Death in the chamber. The form that death will take is Lightning. The symbol is intricate circuits all over the floor, inscribed on the tiles in blue and brown glaze. The room is roughly 15X25 feet, each hallways/passage in and out is around 5 feet wide.  

  Ascending Hands by Lauren Bousfield!  The VaM-style spell today is Ascending Hands  - the title coming from this song by Lauren Bousfield! I am totally loving all of Lauren Bousfield's music - you can purchase it all HERE I recommend everything, but would concentrate on Palimpsest, Avalon Vales, Fire Songs, Locked Into Phantasy, From Rotting Fantasylands, Colonists,  and Grievances and Dead Malls - all of which are spectacular. Also that is pretty much everything. Lauren's music has a lot of range, there are sounds like a helicopter + breakdancing, there are percussive electronic drums and buzzing and moving furniture and assemblage and wasps and synths and clicks and drums dropped down stairs. But then alongside this is piano, careful and delicate arrangement, and just an overall balance. It all sounds very clearly like Lauren is making the sounds she wants to make - and anytime an artist makes what they want to make, the art is good.  Also: The track ti...

  215 – Curio Chamber There is a doorway to the top east, the door is made of oak, with a brass doorknob – it is locked and closed. There is a doorway to the mid east, which is made of oak, with a brass doorknob – it is locked and closed. The room is filled to the brim with cabinets, all along the walls and in the center of room – with nary but a thin foot path. The cabinets are filled with hundreds and hundreds of curios. Some valuable some strange some old, This is up to you – I don’t have time or energy right now, so um, make something good ok? Make it all seem like a trap, like there are cursed objects or traps or the whole thing is just not to be messed with – but simultaneously describe everything as deliciously valuable and interesting. Make them play with their own assumptions. The room is roughly 25X15 feet, each hallways/passage in and out is around 5 feet wide.