Moe Lane's Blog

Had to help a buddy with something. Nothing onerous, but it ate a few hours. It happens.

Now in a more formal form. I need this for something else, so I decided to just bite the bullet and write it up. It’s an outline, not a presentation, but it should give you an idea about what I talk about when I do a talk.

Burn, The Cure

#commissionearned

This is one of the first ones I did for my books (FROZEN DREAMS, naturally). Feedback welcome.

#commissionearned

This would be the adventure, some extra worldbuilding stuff I want to create, things like that. Anyway, I’ve been fiddling tonight with something adapted from the layout files for The Fermi Resolution Worldbook. It’s not bad, or at least it’s serviceable – but it’s not great, either. Page layout is a specialized skill that I do not in fact have. I’m also not sure if I need to have a similar look for the supplements.

I don’t know what the answer to all of this is, besides of course ‘spend money.’

Somebody from the cast was talking about it, and I guess I was assuming it’d be coming out in October. I was looking for a spooky movie tonight, and maybe tomorrow.

…Suggestions? Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and/or HBO Max suggestions preferred. Also Shudder, but my kid’s probably on that one right now.

Back to this!

…

…And there was Melissa, with a bloody forehead and a dazed expression, rolling down an alarmingly tilted roof. Getting hit in the head is bad luck for a mage, even when it’s something blunt. Particularly when you’re rolling in the direction of a very pissed-off monster.

I dove for Melissa, grabbed her, grabbed with my other hand because one wasn’t enough of a gripped, then realized I was out of hands and the slope was just a little too steep to keep me from sliding, too. I think I knew that subconsciously, too, because I was already doing the body switch thing, and damn the pain.

Oh, yeah, switching between my human skin and my real form can hurt like blazes, if you do it too quickly. It’s like the difference between pushing at a bowling ball with your foot, and kicking it. As in, it hurts exactly that much, so I don’t recommend it.

But it can be done.

Sweet Jesus but do I hate the Universal Dominion. I actively enjoy making their lives worse.

…

“I know my reputation precedes me,” Morrigan did her best not to grind out, “but there are limits. Thanks to the previous buffoon that our glorious Supreme Archmage heroically deposed” — a quick nod to Wildfire there; she was also amused that the sentiment was no more than half a lie, for once” — “We’d been using up units on the Wabash campaign faster than the huddles could breed more. It’s going to take at least twenty more years to fix that problem.”

“Surely we can shave that down?” asked Wildfire. “How old do you need to be to soak up a sword blow?”

“The archives say some armies in the ancient past recruited as young as twelve,” shrugged Morrigan. “But they could use guns.” She bit down a grin at the appalled silence from the curse word. “Huddle-brats are also too small to use the equipment we churn out. It’s wasteful to use them up too fast.”

I almost jumped out of my seat when I heard this for the first time.

Leaving Earth, Mass Effect 3

#commissionearned

Doxacon will be October 31st and November 1st. It should be fun: honestly, I’d go even if I wasn’t vending. The intersection of faith and speculative fiction is something that is of interest to me.

But I’ll be vending! And hopefully I’ll have just enough copies of The Fermi Resolution Worldbook TTRPG to sell, too. Stop on by!