1st-level spell: Commune with S**t

This really isn't the sort of post that I'm super-happy to use to punctuate my blogging flow (or lack thereof), but I am inspired to take part in Barking Alien's RPG Campaign Tour Challenge, starting tomorrow (well...I'll try to catch up at least every other day or so...!), and wanted to get this little bit of trivial content out of my head first.

So...this came up while my group was playing Dungeons & Kittens, which has been amazing so far (thanks Rachel!), and which probably doesn't give much additional meaning to this post other than the fact that I find the contrast between this spell and the theme of that game pretty entertaining.  (Y'know, I should probably just devote a post to D&K sometime soon...it is a blast...)

Anyhow...Father Josh's kitten Bobbin got a magic item that allows him to talk to the mycelia of mushrooms (and maybe other fungi...?), and that somehow led to the idea of conversing with excrement, to which Josh said something like, "How is that not a Mörk Borg scroll already?"  And maybe it is...but here we go anyway...

Photo by Caleb Oquendo

Commune with S**t

1st-level Spell

(Nature spell and/or Sacred scroll)

Casting time: 1 action

Range: Immediate vicinity

Duration: 10 minutes

Save: None

This spell allows the caster to communicate with nearby excrement that has come from any animal, including sapient animals such as humans.  This includes feces expelled in liquid form and substances such as bird droppings that combine solid and liquid elements.  The excrement has knowledge of all actions taken by its host while being processed through the body, although it is usually not capable of explaining anything regarding the broader context of the actions.

In the case of a mixture of excrement from multiple individuals, as with a latrine or septic tank, the magic-user will not be able to separate the targets' voices unless the caster is in physical contact with the stool.

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And yeah, I'm kind of all over the place when it comes to whether or not 'swear words' get censored on here.  Something about having it in the name of the post and the spell felt...I dunno...unnecessarily 'edgy,' I guess.  So fucking sue me, eh?

This trailer for MTG's Lorwyn Eclipsed is freaking fantastic...

The lore for Magic: The Gathering (which I will still stand behind as my favorite game ever) has entered a strange place over the past several years.  For a while there - and as I think I may have noted on here a time or two - the MTG story team at WotC was absolutely killin' it from my perspective.  (In a good way, in case that isn't clear.)  They repeatedly addressed the question, "What would ____ look like as an MTG world?" with creativity and genuine affection for both the mother IP and the genres that were tackled.  Along the way, there were some real high points for fans of innovative, game-able worlds (especially, as MTG lore fans are called, Vorthoses): the fantasy cyberpunk of Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, for example, and the friendly anthro-animal antics of Bloomburrow were both pretty well-received.

That's not to say that every decision was 100% spot-on.  Folks got tired of what came to be known as hat sets, the expansions that overlaid a theme on the MTG multiverse partly by putting characters in hats that you don't expect in a traditional fantasy setting...for example, cowboy hats for a Western set and detective hats (or...sort of fedoras, I guess...) for a murder mystery set.  (It really is interesting that the sets that have been praised over this time - like those mentioned above - basically followed the same gameplan as the oft-dismissed hat sets, they just didn't put characters in funny hats.  So, while I suspect that the set design and gameplay also had an impact on the sets' reception...well, maybe there really is something to this hat thing...)

Of course, that approach is arguably negligible when you consider the biggest change to the MTG creative approach over the last several years: the release of Universes Beyond sets (which feature IPs outside of MTG's regular lore) and their eventual incorporation into the regular cadence of yearly set releases.  Right now, in Magic's Standard format - which is treated as the "default" format for competitive MTG enough to be called "Standard" - folks are playing with cards representing the lore of Final Fantasy, Avatar (the Airbender type), and (perhaps most surprisingly) freaking Spider-Man.

I will admit that I am so far undecided on how I feel about this "invasion" of other IPs into the MTG battles played out on tabletops around the world.  (I don't play enough currently, especially out in public with strangers, to really have an opinion yet.)  BUT...I can definitely understand why this grinds the gears of many MTG lore devotees.  It has not gone unnoticed that when the Ninja Turtles set (yep) drops in about a month and a half, there will be more currently available Magic expansions set in New York City than in most of the (maybe any...?) original MTG worlds.  And I'm kind of okay with that (I like NYC!), but it is...weird.

Anyway...all of that is to say that when this promotion for the new set Lorwyn Eclipsed was released a couple of weeks ago, it was such a breath of fresh air that I don't think some MTG lore fanatics knew what to do with themselves.  The bright plane of Lorwyn and its dark counterpart Shadowmoor are built upon the folklore of the British Isles, and the new set (which just had prerelease tourneys this past weekend) really examines the interaction between the contrasts of the related planes.  And that includes this amazing music video, featuring some beautiful puppet renditions of the settings' goblins (AKA boggarts), produced by The Jim Henson Company.

I'll quit rambling now so you can just enjoy this video...

Musical Monday: Shots Fired (Negro Terror)

So, I have a much happier song that I've been meaning to post, and hopefully I'll get to that one within the next day or so (maybe even today?), but man is the state of my country distracting right now.  So for now, I guess I'll just post this song that may or may not be relevant to the American status quo.

Galaxy Laser Team comic #1 (Ekatón) - English translation

If you know your GLT, you'll probably notice that I'm missing the turtle-crab...

Happy Holidays all!  I hope your season has been amazing so far and that you ring in the new year exactly as you most enjoy.

Tomorrow will mark 10 years since I published my first post on this blog.  I kind of can't believe that...while I've had my lapses...it's something that's still a part of what I do and think about.  It probably helps that many of the people I've met through blogging (even my meager and sporadic output) are some of the folks I'm happiest to know in this world of ours.

I've been giving a fair amount of thought recently to directions I might try steering things in 2026 in an effort to streamline my blogging focus....and maybe stumble into more completed projects along the way.  So...we'll see how that goes, I guess...but in the meantime, I wanted to go ahead and share something else I've put a little time into lately.  (I'd like to think of this as my "Christmas gift to the world"...or the first part of it, at least...but I do realize that its weight doesn't really merit that kind of lofty description...!)

To cut to the chase, these links will take you to an English translation of the first issue of Ekatón: El Pueblo Perdido del Espacio, a comic series included in the Argentine children's magazine Anteojito beginning (I believe) in 1980.

Ekatón #1 in English (A5)

Ekatón #1 in English (A5, in an order to print and fold into a booklet)

The longer explanation goes something like this:

The picture at the top of this post shows a selection of characters from a reasonably well-known set of cheap plastic space figures initially released in the late 1970s.  While I'm not even sure if all of the names under which they were sold have ever been gathered together, they are now most often called the Galaxy Laser Team, or occasionally the Star Patrol.  At this point, there's been quite a bit written (and filmed) about these toys, so I'm not going to dive into their history right now.  If you're interested, you can find some great blog posts about them here and here, and plugging "Galaxy Laser Team" into your favorite search engine or video site search bar is sure to give you a number of informative results.

Another look at not-Chewbacca and one of the astronauts (to show a bit more detail than what can be seen above due to their color)

Now, they may not look like much, but something about the sculpts and the coloration (some of my actual childhood figures are pictured here) made these toys pretty freaking memorable for those of us who played with them way back when.  They're even being manufactured again (in loads of new colors) by Tim Mee Toy!  The thing was, while they were obviously made to cash in on a specific cultural phenomenon of the late 1970s (one that still earns new fans today), there was never a background story to accompany the figures.  Well...so I thought...until a few(?) years back when I found out that a children's magazine in Argentina, Anteojito, included a five-issue comic insert in the early '80s that featured characters based on the figures.  (Or...maybe the figures were based on the characters...?  I'm not sure if anyone knows for certain the order that everything took effect, but my guess is that the figures came first...)

While this comic series, Ekatón: El Pueblo Perdido del Espacio, has been widely available on the web for a while now and has even been reprinted fairly recently, I had never seen it translated into English.  So, I've tried to correct that.

The "cover" of the English translation

Some caveats(!!)

1)  I do not speak Spanish very well, so this translation is mostly from ChatGPT.  I did make some edits for syntax and flow, but nothing substantial was changed.  This seemed to me like a reasonable use of AI, since the creative nature of the task is minimal, BUT I recognize that others may take issue with that choice.  I hope you won't hold it against me too much.

2)  It is, admittedly, kind of sloppy...especially the "starburst" word balloons.  I made it in PowerPoint, and my efforts only roughened the already rough edges of the files I started with.  It is meant to be more utilitarian than ornamental, though.  And fwiw, I think the PDFs I have located of later issues are in better shape than the one I used for this installment, so as I continue this project, future editions may be a bit prettier.

3)  On that note:  I do not own any of this material.  I got this PDF from Scribd, and scans of all the original comics can be found pretty easily with a web search.  However, as noted above, this story has recently been reprinted in a deadtree form, and so it is possible there will be concerns about my posting it here.  I hope that adding the English translation will give others reason to believe this is a worthwhile thing to make available, BUT...well, please let me know if you believe it's a problem!

Some figures near the characters they presumably inspired

One final thing...not really a caveat, but a note...if you get some value out of this, please let me know!  I will eventually make my way through all five issues simply because I want to know the whole story and be able to page through it like I would any other comic.  However, if I know there are others who have enjoyed or are enjoying the project, it will certainly encourage me to work on those sooner rather than later.  (And perhaps it goes without saying that I would welcome anyone else who wants to join the effort...or even take it over, since I'm sure there are others much more qualified than I to tackle the translation and layout challenges...!)

I'm hoping the Cosmic Spark will play more of a role in future episodes.

With all of that said, I hope you enjoy!  Those links again (and please let me know if they're broken...):

Ekatón #1 in English (A5)

Ekatón #1 in English (A5, in an order to print and fold into a booklet)

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Happy New Year, everyone!

Closely Related Species(?), Holiday Edition

Source...showing I'm clearly not the first to make this connection...!

Source

Source

Source

(Yep, that last one is a DC Comics toy...a 2025 Superman tie-in.  I almost used a photo that actually showed Supes and Krypto...but obviously the childlike surprise that results from ripping the arm off a yeti is always worth reliving.  Also, that feature...which may work on all the limbs, but hopefully not the head...has to be a nod to the fate of Empire's wampa, eh...?)

Source

The holiday season with the Specials...

On this date 45 years ago, 2tone greats The Specials appeared on the British music program Top of the Pops, wearing holiday sweaters and turning in this great performance!  (Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's mimed; I still won't call it anything but great...!)

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LATE EDIT:  It isn't sitting well with me that I didn't tie this into gaming and the slowly growing list of material meant for the Monstrous Heartbreaker and its related games.

SO...here's a link- and callback when I turned to these fellows from Coventry for help in shaping a sound to be cast by classes capable of wielding rude magic...

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Blank Expression

1st-level Sound

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 30 feet

Duration: 8 hours

Attack/Save: WIS save

You choose one target creature within range.  If that creature is familiar with you, they forget who you are and their history with you for the duration of the sound.  The creature may still be aware that someone of your name and description exists, but they are unable to make that connection to you.  A successful save negates the effect.

[Biome] Goblins for 5e-ish games

I've been thinking a lot about forest goblins lately.  You know how that is.

So...I guess I should start by just making it clear that I like goblins.  Quite a bit, actually.  This is at least partially a direct result of my loyalty to the lovable little troublemakers in Magic: The Gathering.  I really enjoy playing so-called 'typal' decks, and Goblins are probably the creature type that I've built around the most (with Merfolk as the only other group that could maybe mount a challenge for that 'honor').  Goblins have a great history in the game and a lot of solid cards that still manage to feel like underdogs due to their often tiny stats and goofy themes...even if we all know they're actually quite good within the rules and goals of the game...

For the most part, MTG's goblins fit a fairly standard fantasy model.  There have been lots of little green guys.  Over 30+ years of history, though, they have managed to mix it up pretty well...with a few quick examples being the turtle-like Akki from the plane of Kamigawa and the bipedal rodents who serve as snacks for dragons on the plane of Jund.

Which (sort of) brings me to forest goblins.  Creatures in MTG usually represent at least one of the colors of the game, and goblins are the iconic small creature type for the color Red (with the accompanying iconic large creature type being dragons).  Red is the color of chaos, emotion, fire, and lightning, and...perhaps most informatively with regard to goblins...its mana is found naturally in mountains.  This fits nicely, I think, with our regular association of goblins with mountains, hills, and caves.

There are MTG goblins that touch each of the five colors, and some of my previous blog posts probably reveal my affinity for the little guys all across the spectrum, including those that (perhaps unexpectedly) deal in Blue or White mana.  After Red, though, MTG's goblins are most common in the colors that serve as Red's 'allies'...Black (death from the swamps) and Green (growth from the forests).  And as with many aspects of fantasy fiction, I have often found myself drawn to the elements that reflect a connection to nature...which in the case of goblins, usually means they tend toward the feral and shamanic.  Here are a few of the cool gobbos that touch green:

Naturally (heh), I'd like to work some goblins into the gaming projects that are currently solidifying around my hopes and daydreams.  They've shown up in the Monstrous Matters campaign as part of a pretty key plot point, and there's no reason they shouldn't be able to menace the elite soldiers in UNLTD or the time-traveling Agents of SKA (time goblins?).  And there's one other very specific reason that I want to make some solid rules for forest goblins...which I'll get to soon...hopefully in my next post...hopefully.  As with many fantasy species, though, I think goblins lend themselves to categorization based upon their biome of choice...so it should be easy to have a simple setup for creating Forest Goblins, Swamp Goblins, Desert Goblins, and so on...

I have the Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica and checked out the Goblin species there for some inspiration.  Also drawing from the Goblin's stats as a 5e monster and as an OGL species from Arcanist Press's More Ancestries & Cultures, I think a ____ Goblin that covers the necessary bases while allowing for some environmental flavor should be pretty straightforward.  Let's try this...

[Biome] Goblin

Forest goblin art by Paul Bonner, found via the Scent of a Gamer blog

_____ Goblin Traits

Speed: 30 feet

Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.

Darkvision: Goblins typically have darkvision at a range of 60 feet; for some biomes, evolution may have led to this being lost or even replaced by a visual ability more useful in that environment.

Size: Adult goblins are generally between 3 and 4.5 feet tall; their weight can vary greatly due to a large range in how thickly they are framed.  Overall, they are usually classified as small.

Age: Goblins usually mature faster than humans, reaching adulthood and old age at earlier points in their lifetimes.  A 50-year-old goblin is a rarity.  Some groups of goblins may age at about the same rate as humans, but you will never find goblins that are as long-lived as elves or dwarves.

Languages: Goblins are fluent in the common language of the game world, as well their own particular dialect of the Goblin language. They are often literate in settings where this is feasible for a goblin.

Nimble Escape: You can take the Disengage or Hide action as a bonus action on each of your turns.

At HOME in the BiOME: You aren't just a Goblin.  You're a Mountain Goblin.  Or a Swamp Goblin.  Or maybe a Forest Goblin.  You may treat whichever biome you are from as favored terrain, with the corresponding bonuses granted to a Ranger with the Natural Explorer ability.

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