Originally published in Aoife’s Kiss.
The faeries couldn’t agree on how to eat the child, and that became their downfall.
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Fiction: First Base
Published in The Avalon Literary Review and The Binnacle.
“You never slide into first base,” said Jim. My boss had been kind enough to drive me to the emergency room, missing the rest of our game so I could get my stitches.
“Isaac’s a big guy,” I muttered, staring at my mummified hand. The nurse had done a solid job wrapping the bandages, but I could still see the dark red of my blood slowly seeping through the gauze. I figured at the time that Isaac had me beat in the weight department by at least 100 pounds. Looking back now, it was probably more like ten or fifteen.
“That doesn’t matter,” reiterated Jim as he looked up from the three-month old Sports Illustrated that had been left in the waiting room. “You still never slide into first base.”
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Fiction: Family Reunion
Originally published in Suspense Magazine.
He walked into the prison wearing someone else’s face. The person people thought they saw actually lay bound and unconscious on his living room floor, unaware of what the impostor had planned.
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Mario is Evil
Mario is an evil, evil man.
The most popular character in video game history, Mario rose from humble origins as a carpenter out to defeat a psychotic ape to become a plumber, a doctor, a superhero, an athlete, and countless other celebrity roles. However, underneath the exterior of the fun-loving, fearless video game hero is a racist, a coward, and a womanizer. As can be deduced through his video games, Mario is a horrible person.
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The SS Stupid Rides Again
The destruction of the SS Stupid brought an end to one of the more bizarre chapters of my GMing experience. But great stories often get sequels, and it wasn’t long before the SS Stupid returned in a new, grander form.
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Comics & Quests: The Gathering
I have many criticisms about the various editions of Dungeons & Dragons, but one thing has remained consistent for at least 35 years: tehe comics based off the games are tons of fun. Since I love trips down memory lane, I’m going to spend some time waxing nostalgic about some comics which readers of this blog may have forgotten, never heard of, or been born well after. First up: the simply-titled Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.
Back in the late 1980s, DC Comics got a license to produce various D&D comics. The first was based on the Dragonlance series, and I have sadly not read that one. The second was set in the Forgotten Realms and introduced a mishmash of hapless adventurers who struggled through adventures that ranged from epic to ludicrous. The first four issues served as their origin story, in a tale dubbed “The Gathering.”
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A History of Superheroes
In creating a setting for a superhero RPG, one of the first steps is to think about how super-powered beings affect the world. Some comic continuities choose to alter history greatly. For example, Watchmen provides a world where Richard Nixon has successfully run for five terms as president after the presence of superheroes allowed America to win the Viet Nam War. Other settings assume that history happened as recorded, but with superheroes somewhere in the background. Most mainstream comics are representative of this philosophy.
Below is a sample history I created for a game of Mutants & Masterminds I ran some years back. This history takes something of a mix of the two philosophies described above. On the one hand, history hasn’t deviated greatly from the real world. On the other hand, many historical events happened because of superheroes – they helped captured Al Capone, inadvertently led to the Kennedy assassination, and so on. This is obviously just one example of a fictional continuity, and can easily be changed to fit many settings. Superheroes and villains are described in the history, but the details on their background and personality are vague, allowing GMs to tweak them to fit their campaign preferences.
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Fiction: Fallen Hero
Originally published in The Lyndon Review.
He walks across the baseball field where we like to hang out. His left hand swings casually at his side, but his right fist lies hidden in the deep pockets of his navy blue corduroys. The crisp autumn air has left the field abandoned for weeks now, and the pitcher’s mound lies covered in the dead Technicolor of Vermont leaves. He brushes the old foliage away with his foot, never removing the secret from his pocket. Climbing onto the mound, he stands as close to heaven as either of us will ever get. He points his head toward the setting sun. His hand shoots out to follow his line of vision, finally revealing the secret on his right index finger. The small plastic band still glows green from its hiding place in darkness. He smiles as I let out a gasp of awe.
It’s his power ring. It cost him two proofs of purchases and half of his allowance for shipping and handling, but it has finally arrived.
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Fiction: But a Dream
Originally published in Garbled Transmissions.
I woke up screaming in the middle of the night. My mother rushed to my side to see what was wrong, but the dream had always faded away by then. Whatever monster had chased me through my sleeping mind had disappeared, becoming formless black shadow once again.
“Odakota, you don’t have to have these dreams,” she told me once. “You might be asleep, but you’re still in control. Just tell yourself you’re dreaming, and you’ll be able to decide what comes next.”
I nodded and lay back down, but I didn’t go back to sleep. I squeezed my eyes shut and held my breath until my mother’s soft snores floated across our small home. Then I stood up and tiptoed outside, wondering where I could hide from the monsters in my head.
We had been moving farther west each year as the white men continued to take the land for their own. Our tribe had started in the grasslands to the east. Now the prairies of our new home had grown dry. Looking out to the mountains further west, it seemed that we were pushing closer and closer to a wall.
I can’t remember how long I stood outside. When I finally turned to go back to bed, I found my father standing behind me. He stood tall, with well-carved muscles and hardened dark skin that seemed like leather. I craned my neck upwards and looked into his face. His dark eyes seemed like the deep black pools of my dreams.
“We’re a proud tribe,” he said, his deep voice scaring away the rushing wind. “Hiding from nightmares doesn’t become us.”
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Fiction: A Slice of Death
Originally published in Garbled Transmissions.
Sleep, those little slices of death. How I loathe them.” -Edgar Allen Poe
The world: all shadows and smoke. A body lies nearby, oozing life in all directions. Concentric circles of blood and color mix with the blackness of the surrounding world. He squints without eyes, trying to make out details. The corpse is far away and getting farther, a view from another existence. He does not see the vehicle responsible for the scene, nor does he notice the EMT trying to resuscitate the dead man. The body is the focus of his world, a lone piece of debris in a world painted black. He thinks that maybe the body used to be him. Or maybe it used to be a complete stranger. He imagines himself as a spectral rubbernecker.
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Babbling Brooks 