The perils of Twitter relations

Start at the bottom, and work your way up.

Incoming Astropathic Transmission

+++Incoming Astropathic Transmission+++
+++Authentication Alpha-26 Yellow+++
+++Origin::The Magnificence::High Orbit+++

–Begin Message–

5,000 Thrones to the first group or individual that brings the man named Bradin Argyle to landing pad Omega-V.v. He must be unharmed and whole upon arrival and aboard the attending vessel for depature.

–End Message–

The Argyles boast that they can trace their lineage back to Lord Asher himself, though that was a long time ago. This Pariah House has fallen from the greatest heights of the Spire to become pauper princes in the mid-hive. Due to the sheer incompetence of their forebears they have lost all their holdings save one manufactorum where the family now resides with what amenities they could carry with them. The family now plots and schemes to one day return to the vaunted heights of the spire.

Bradin, the seventh son of the house of Argyle, was raised as much by the factory staff as by house nannies and tutors. If it wasn’t for his birth order his shrewdness and direct nature may have well saved the family name. Unfortunately he was always overlooked by his parents and siblings, left to his own devices much of the time. Thanks to his sister’s marriage to a naval officer he was granted the opportunity to join the Imperial Navy. Attending primer schools as well as being assigned to ride alongs on some of the hive’s shipping craft Bradin began to resign himself to a life of orders and procedure.

That life would never come to fruition, as Bradin’s fate is entwined with that of The Magnificence. With a single astropathic message his life was hijacked by friends, family, and strangers, all vying for the promise of reward at the price of a man’s freedom. Soon Bradin found himself whisked to the void and into the belly of The Magnificence where his life would be forever changed. Now he must unravel the mystery of the grand cruiser’s last voyage or be lost in its hull forever.

Rogue Trader

I am beginning a new campaign for the Rogue Trader RPG and am thinking of blogging it. Perhaps I will start a separate blog or just kick the dust off this one… Here is the background I sent my players:

The Flight of The Magnificence

The Magnificence is a titan of a foregone age; a relic of the power and drive of Holy Terra.  A super cruiser that rivals any Battleship of the Line the Imperial Navy can offer up. One hundred and twenty thousand bodies (at least) call her hull home. Some of these denizens are the product of so many ship born generations that terrestrial life is a fairytale to them.

The history of the vessel is shrouded in the obscurity of time, lost like so many of the wonders of The Dark Age of Technology. Rumors abound, the most prevalent spread by the upper echelons of The Magnificence is thus: During the crusades, even before many of the Primarchs had been found, the Emperor was beckoned to a lost human system with open arms. Those arms quickly turned on the Emperor’s fleet with the full force of the system’s forge-world space dock. The trap cost The Emperor his flagship and escorts and he barely made planetfall himself. Cornered on a hostile planet he  sent out an open call for aid. That request reached a young, independent, Lord Captain named Strai Davion, at the helm of The Magnificence. Punching through the recidivist fleet, Lord Captain Davion rescued the Emperor and regrouped with his Armada. So impressed was the Emperor with the vessel that he named it his de facto Flagship for the conquest of the traitorous system. During the course of the engagement Davion and the Emperor became fast comrades, so the rumor goes. Though offered a position as admiral, Davion refused, citing that his adventurous spirit, and that of his vessel, would not do well in uniform and formation. To this, the Emperor could not argue, so instead he drafted a Rogue Trader warrant for Davion, and signed it himself. Other versions of the rumor say the Emperor just met the Lord Captain once, or that his vessel had once accompanied the Emperor’s own flotilla. Whatever the truth, none can argue that The Magnificence’s charter is as old and vaunted as the ship itself.

The Magnificence has been at the edge of the Imperium ever since, pushing the boundaries of man to the furthest depths of the void. Currently, she is rumored to be exploring the cryptic frontier know as the Koronus Expanse. And though she may vanish for decades at a time she always comes home with holds full of wonders and mouths full of tales. That is, until now…

The Magnificence silently and unobtrusively floated into the Greymere system of the Segmentum Pacificus, a full segmentum away from her last known location. Her bridge is silent and cold as a tomb; her hull still shows the telltale signs of battle, hastily repaired; and within, dark rumors circulate amongst the crew. Halting in orbit around the hive world Asher a single message was delivered to the planet’s surface… and thus begins the mystery of The Magnificence.

Text me right now

If you haven’t seen Texts from Last Night then you are missing out on hours of the most awesome time-wasting ever.

Yarrr vs. Waaaa

Ninjas vs. Pirates isn’t really about who would win in a fight but who you think is cooler. And we all know cool is measured in parties.

I know most people would jump on the Pirate ship right away. Those guys sure know how to party, right? But wait. Those  guys are your chums, right? Your mates? You’ve sailed the seven seas with them so it’s all good… until you pass out first. Joe forbid you pass out at a pirate party because Pirates are total dicks. They’re gonna do something to you, something bad, something that will be on the internet before you regain consciousness.

The great thing about Ninja parties is they are always surprise parties. You settle in for a long night of studying when you get a phone call. Next thing you know you are waking up 3 days later, shoeless, in superman underoos on some guy’s lawn that you’ve never met in a state you’ve never been to. And, you will never find out who got you there… that, is a Ninja party.

Politicians should wear g-strings.

Don’t you love a free economy political system? In a society where even the base necessities must be paid for does it really come as a surprise that our politicians are tagged and on the shelf? The biggest loophole in our ‘separation of church and state’ is that any fundy nutjob can still turn a politician’s head faster than a day shift stripper by waving enough money at him. How about separation of business and state? That would be a novel concept, now wouldn’t it? Make our politicians like our teachers; underpaid, overworked and only there because they mean it.

Coming Soon, to a zombie apocalypse near you.

Here are my Zombie Apocalypse Tour stops:

• Used Car Lot (We are gonna need a bigger bus)
• The Gun Store (Zombies ain’t gonna kill themselves)
• Walgreens (Self medication for the win!)
• Borders (Apocalypse for Dummies)
• Home Depot (Yourself, Doeet!)

Vehicles and guns are pretty self explanitory. You are gonna need meds eventually so stock up at the pharmacy. What will be on my reading list? Lots of DIY and ‘for Dummies’ books; Farming, Mechanics, Solar energy, first aid… all things on the need to know. Home Depot for all your fortifiation needs. After that, it is out of the city. Lots of people means lots of zombies, and you seriously don’t want a pack of 200 brain dead morons wandering into your yard at 2am. (Just ask people who live near Grateful Dead venues.) Oh, and don’t forget your helmet, snoogins.

Don’t trust talking boxes of candy

“Hey there. Look at me, I am just some delicous minty goodness being held together by rich and tasty dark chocolate. What? Oh no, don’t you worry one little bit that we are tucked inside a square container jammed into a corkscrew. That’s it, push the button…”

I miss my buck fifty.

I would like some Ice Ice, Baby, for my drink.

Getting to the register at Quiznos (I had a craving for the new Torpedo, I am a consumer whore) I immediately went into a choking convulsion. My companions didn’t realize that this wasn’t from any misdirected fluid intake but from suppressing a laughing fit. I paid as quickly as I could and sat down to compose myself. A few minutes into the meal one companion says, “Who does the cashier remind me of?” “Really?”, I said, “Would it help if he just busted out into Ice Ice Baby?” That’s right, we got served by Vanilla Ice. On the way out the door I threw him a “Werd to yur Motha!” to show him that I was down.

It is also my delight to find that Cool as Ice is playing at the Loft on April 6th. Guess that is why he is in town.

The unwashed masses

America, like most countries, is still based on a pre-information (even a pre-industrialization) age mentality. That is, the bulk of the population needs to work as unskilled labor to ensure the integrity of the entire population. Thus, our education and social system is designed to make unskilled labor. Schools churn out undereducated, unmotivated bodies ripe for harvest into our industrial machine. Those that can afford it, opt for a higher level education that teaches them to lead the sheep.

In post-information age a country’s worth rests solely on the quality and consistency of information it can output, unlike previously were it was the quantity that mattered. The most stark test of this is war. Wars are rarely won through attrition anymore, but with electronic warfare and funding.

If the US can shuck it’s pre-info age mindset, focus on education and embrace automation of the nation, imagine what we could be capable of.