"The ropes creaking, ship's leaking, sails are on fire,
and this whole bloody ship could go up like a pyre.
We've got smiles on our faces, but we've seen this before
No telling just now what we have in store."
-- Abney Park, "Aether Shanties"

So, I've never reviewed an RPG before. Which is amusing considering how many I've played - and even more amusing considering how many I've read (I'll drop you a hint: way too many).

So, I'm starting with the recent release by Cubicle 7, written by Peter Cakebread and Ken Walton, and based upon the works by that infamous time-traveling, steam-punk mad-man, Captain Robert Brown: Abney Park's Airship Pirates.

Appearance: The first thing you can't help but notice is that the book is beautiful. Well-bound, with a nice parchment-look for the pages, crisp layout, and loads of inspiring artwork, Airship Pirates is among one of the nicest looking non-collector RPG books in my collection. If you've seen the beautiful Warhammer 40K RPG tomes (Rogue Trader, Dark Heresy, and Deathwatch), Airship Pirates comes fairly close to those extremely high-production-value examples.

Setting: Those that are familiar with Abney Park's music and the tales of Captain Robert may already know what to expect. But for the rest of you benighted souls, it is basically (at the risk of under-selling it) post-apocalyptic steampunk.

An evil empire rules the large Change Cage Cities full of Neo-Victorians, Automatons, and Mutants, while the remainder of the world is overgrown and inhabited by prehistoric megafauna. Living in the wilds are the nomadic Neobedouin, wandering caravans that travel from place to place on mammoths and indricotheres (imagine if the inhabitants of your local Maker's Faire were also gypsies, rangers, and gatherers - that's the Neobedouin). And in floating cities, tied to mountain-tops or wandering the tradewinds, dwell the Skyfolk. Gadgeteers and adventurers, the Skyfolk cities are bound in a loose alliance that ties them together against the Neo-Victorian empire - but otherwise has little influence on their habits of piratical raiding.

Ultimately, your PCs are drawn from all of these cultures (aye, even Neo-Victorian outcasts), to form the core officers of a crew of cunning pirates out for adventure, booty, and maybe even a bit of revolution. But the crew are mutinous cretins hungry for plunder... so you best watch your back.

Sections: Airship Pirates is broken down into three "books": 1) Rules and Systems; 2) Encyclopaedia; and 3) Game Master.

1) Rules and Systems - explains character creation, skills, combat, dramatic systems, vehicles (including Airships) and beasts, and equipment. This is where you create your Neobedouin Beast-Dancer or Automaton Love-doll or Skyfolk Air Captain. It's also where you decide your crew's "schtick" - their professional cover to hide their piratical activities in other venues (whether they're a band - like Abney Park themselves - or an acting troupe, a circus, or a number of other options).

2) Encyclopaedia - contains almost all the straight "setting fluff", laying out the setting's history, the geography of North America, and a section on each of the cultures of the North American portion of the setting (supposedly, further cultures will be covered in future supplements). Some of the setting seems a little goofy if you think about it too hard; but, recognizing that it's intended to be fueled mostly by "awesome" in order to hang further "awesome" from it, I think it works well enough.

3) Game Master - this final section contains chapters on running the game, playing around with time travel (which, if you're familiar with Abney Park, you'll understand how central this aspect is to the game), a bestiary, and a sample adventure.

While later supplements may come forth with interesting additions in the way of character options, toys, monsters, and, most importantly, more ships, the core book does an excellent job of being self-contained - covering all the core conceits of the setting with rules and stats.

Systems: The core system of Airship Pirates is something known as the Heresy Engine, which also powers games like Victoriana, 2nd Edition, and Dark Harvest.

The basics are as follows -

A) When you need to roll to resolve some action, you add a relevant attribute to the relevant skill and roll that many 6-sided dice. Each 1 and 6 that come up are successes, and 6's can be rolled again to try for further extra successes.

B) If the Game Master thinks that the task is difficult, he inflicts "Black Dice" (they can be any color, really, so long as you can tell the difference) on you. Every 1 or 6 rolled on a Black Die subtracts one from the total successes from your other dice. Unlike regular dice, Black Dice don't get a re-roll on a 6. If you end up with more successes on your Black Dice than on your regular dice? Then you end up with a critical failure/botch.

C) If you end up with even a single net success, you succeed... though maybe only barely. More net successes mean better, more complete, faster, or just plain more stylish-looking success on the action.

There's a stunt mechanic called Awesome Dice that add more dice to your roll and wounds will subtract dice from your dice pool (instead of adding Black Dice).

Other than that, that's pretty much it. Every other aspect of the game pretty much runs off of this base system - whether you're trying to out-drink your friends, command an airship-to-airship battle, or cross swords and fists with a rival captain.

Simple. Elegant. And, it seems from my reading (I haven't managed to play it quite yet), that it is very conducive to creating the action and the fast pace necessary to keep the game flowing.

As far as I'm concerned, Abney Park's Airship Pirates scores high on both style and substance. So if steampunk, post-apocalyptic derring-do, airships, pirates, or Abney Park (or any combination of them) inspire you with excitement - this is likely to be a perfect choice.

-- Mr. M.

"But don't trust this skin,
because I'm not a person.
I'm a fucking disease."
-- Dismantled, "Disease"

Having made the scene such a central part of my life of late, I seem to have a rapidly growing set of albums that I'm picking up at live shows or from the internet or even, very occasionally, from a local retailer.

And thanks to the life issues that have been keeping me from clubs and shows over the lat few weeks, I've had a paucity of grist for the blog-mill. Then my friend Draeden (webmaster of Songs of the Goddess and a blogger on That Devil Music) suggested, in his infinite Zen-like wisdom, that I start writing reviews of some of this music that has started to come into my hands.

I feel kind of foolish for not having thought of that myself.

So here's the first of my album reviews -

Artist(s): Dismantled (a.k.a. Gary Zon)

Album: The War Inside Me

My Thoughts: I was first introduced to Dismantled via Digital Gunfire Radio (an excellent, and free, online station for industrial, EBM, and futurepop music). Once I heard that Gary and his tour-band were doing a pair of shows in San Francisco earlier this year, I took advantage of the opportunity to see both performances (one at the Red Devil Lounge opening for Front Line Assembly and the other at DNA Lounge as the headlining band promoting their new album). I was seriously impressed in both cases and on the second occasion was able to pick up Dismantled's newest album: The War Inside Me.

The War Inside Me is a solid piece of work, with most of the early tracks exhibiting a heavy industrial and aggro-tech sound and more than a little noise, while the later tracks sort of mellow a bit while still maintaining the mood. And speaking of mood: the entire album seems to carry an overarching theme of visceral self-loathing, sensual hedonism, and the urge to do gruesome violence. In many ways, the tone feels very reminiscent of NIN's masterpiece The Downward Spiral, while still treading new, distinct, and oft-times darker ground.

Highlights: While I am quickly finding myself a fan of this entire album, some pieces do manage to rise out from the rest as even more excellent.

"Insecthead" moves with a frantic, frenetic, and buzzing beat, with the lyrics sounding like Kafka's Metamorphosis but gone all wrong - instead of submitting to and accepting his devolution, the insect-headed narrator is going to "fuck my way out of this mess" and wants "your blood on my teeth".

"Disease" sticks with a solid industrial pace and is, perhaps, the piece most suggestive of Trent Reznor's early work - but where Reznor seemed apologetic, Zon comes across much more exalting and, at best, advising caution (as noted in the quote at the top of this post). He winds it up screaming an epithet, throwing any blame for his state on the unknown target of his vitriol.

A few songs later, we get "Excess", which is about exactly what it sounds like: an epicurean gluttony of sensations taken to the point of self-destruction and oblivion - while the speaker's partner is forced to watch and deal with the fallout of these episodes to experience the singer's "love". The fairly direct beat and repetition just reinforces the never-ending cycle of binging and co-dependent nihilism to which the speaker and partner subject themselves.

At the end of the album we get "Black Heart", a soft-spoken piano piece which strikes me as Gary Zon's loving homage to Nick Cave's darkly dreamlike Murder Ballads.

Final Thoughts: I'm not sure how I want to rate albums, given that tastes range so far and wide. A rating seems almost silly. Would I give something 5 Skulls? I guess I'll figure it out eventually.

Anyway - The War Inside Me is a top-notch album. If you like your music dark, aggressive, and very intense, Dismantled has served up a steaming plate of it. Definitely a part of my regular listening right now as it fits my mood almost perfectly.

-- Mr. M.

"I'd give up all tomorrows, to have one yesterday.
And I'd live within that moment, as long as you could stay.
Beyond goodbye. Beyond the pain.
I will never let go. You will always remain."
-- Imperative Reaction, You Remain

2011 has, for me, been one of great, repeated, and unrelenting loss. I expect that I will look back at this time in my life as the darkest I have ever lived through, when I even choose to look back on it at all.

I am returned from the latest of these losses and, as has been the case in all the previous, I feel diminished in so many ways for my troubles. I feel less human. I feel less alive. I feel less driven. I definitely feel a lot less happy. And I feel even less like the person I once was (and not in a good "self-improvement" sort of way).

I give homage to the glorious dead. For they no longer find themselves troubled by the vagaries of human life, human interaction, human failings, and all-too-human betrayals. Rest well.

Now that I have returned, I wish to apologize to those whom I had promised to come see over the last few weeks (especially the performances - Molly foremost, as I seem to keep missing your shows over and over again).

I also apologize to those to whom I haven't responded via the various communication channels available. Thank you for your thoughts and concerns. I am, in fact, still alive.

And I am back now, and SFGothic.net can now return, hopefully, to something resembling its previous operating parameters (which only included about one post a week, I admit, but at least I was keeping up on the Event pages and Calendar).

Welcome back to the shadows, my darklings. I'm glad to be home.

-- Mr. M.